NAD C3050

In the last decade, recorded music has undergone a sea change -- it has become disembodied. From the late 19th to the early 21st century, music was distributed on physical media. In the early 21st century, digital downloads held sway, then quickly gave way to on-demand streaming.

Read more: The Critical Component

A year ago this week, Amazon shook up the audio world with its announcement of Amazon Music HD, a streaming service that today offers 60 million tracks in lossless 16-bit/44.1kHz CD resolution, plus “millions” of hi-rez tracks in resolutions up to 24/192. While lossless and hi-rez files were already available from Qobuz and Tidal, the leading streaming services all used lossy codecs, so Amazon’s embrace of hi-rez audio was big news.

Read more: Has the Time Come for Surround Music?

On a Friday morning, two years ago this month, an unexpected e-mail from SoundStage! publisher Doug Schneider appeared in my inbox. I say “unexpected” because, at the time, I barely knew Doug. We’d met a few times at such audio events as CEDIA and the Consumer Electronics Show, and I knew Doug by reputation, having been a regular reader of SoundStage! publications since the Network’s launch, in 1995. We arranged to chat by phone.

Read more: My Top Ten Products of the Last Two Years

In the two years I’ve been writing for SoundStage! Simplifi I’ve reviewed 15 stereo loudspeakers, all of them active or powered models. There’s a practical reason for this. I don’t have a dedicated music room, and our living room isn’t big enough to accommodate a conventional audio system of separate components: sources, amplifiers, and passive speakers. So the music systems in our current home have been built around active speakers -- first, Dynaudio’s Focus 200 XD, which, following a firmware update, is sonically and functionally identical to the newer Focus 20 XD ($5999/pair, all prices USD); and, later, Elac’s Navis ARF-51 ($4599.98/pair).

Read more: Turning Pro

When I reviewed Elac’s Navis ARF-51 active floorstanding speakers ($4599.96/pair, all prices USD) in September 2019, I rediscovered something I’d been missing for the previous six years: kick-ass bass.

Read more: All About That Bass

Many of the products I’ve recently reviewed for Simplifi have been DACs with built-in streamers -- most recently, Bryston’s BDA-3.14 ($4195, all prices USD) and iFi Audio’s Pro iDSD ($2749); and, before that, NAD’s Classic C 658 ($1649), Lumin’s T2 ($4500), and Naim Audio’s ND5 XS 2 ($3495).

Read more: Gently Down the Stream

In my last three columns, I wrote about how streaming is changing the ways people discover and experience music. In my January feature, “The State of Streaming,” I looked at streaming services that deliver lossless CD-resolution and high-resolution music. In “The Name Game,” published February 1, I wrote about how streaming has given rise to whole new classes of audio components, and set out to establish some definitions. And in my March feature, “Rules of the Game,” I discussed the software protocols that enable these new components to talk to one another, and compared their benefits and drawbacks.

Read more: Big Events

In last month’s feature, I looked at the various kinds of components that can make up a Simplifi’d music system. As I noted then, networked music systems include three broad classes of components that traditional hi-fi systems don’t: servers, which send audio data (and metadata) over a home network; streamers, which receive and render that data; and controllers, with which users select music and control its playback.

Read more: Rules of the Game

I sometimes wonder if the name of this site, Simplifi, contradicts its stated mission to cover “convenient, lifestyle-oriented hi-fi,” per the blurb on the SoundStage! Network portal.

Read more: The Name Game

It’s the start of a new year -- and, depending on your math, the beginning of the 2020s or the end of the 2010s. Do the 2020s officially begin on January 1, 2020, or on January 1, 2021? Whichever, it’s time to look at the top audio trends of the past year and the past decade.

Read more: January 1, 2020: The State of Streaming

Judging by the crowds at Audio Video Show 2019, held Friday-Sunday, November 8-10, in Eastern Europe hi-fi is a family affair. The 23rd edition of the show was held in three venues in central Warsaw, in Poland: the Radisson Blu Sobieski and Golden Tulip hotels, and the PGE Narodowy, or National Stadium.

Read more: Warsaw’s Audio Video Show 2019, Simplifi’d

  1. Toronto Audiofest 2019, Simplifi'd
  2. Hi-Rez à-Go-Go
  3. Streaming the Classics
  4. Play Nice Together -- An Interview with Rob Darling of Roon Labs
  5. Active Voices, Part Three: KEF's Jack Oclee-Brown
  6. High End 2019, Simplifi'd
  7. Active Voices, Part Two: Axiom Audio's Andrew Welker
  8. Montréal Audio Fest Simplifi'd
  9. Active Voices, Part One: Elac's Andrew Jones
  10. Let's Keep it Simple
  11. A Roon of One's Own
  12. How I Simplifi'd My Wi-Fi
  13. Are Downloads Dead?
  14. Hi-Rez Streaming: Tidal vs. Qobuz
  15. Toronto Audiofest 2018 Simplifi'd
  16. How I Simplifi'd My Hi-Fi
  17. Time to Celebrate: Five Years of Google Chromecast
  18. How Good Can Voice Recognition Get?
  19. Are Smart Speakers Any Good for Audiophiles?
  20. High End 2018, Simplifi'd
  21. Is the Smart Speaker a Dumb Idea?
  22. What's Up with Apple AirPlay 2?
  23. The Spotify Dilemma
  24. CES 2018, Simplifi’d
  25. Farewell, CES
  26. Room Tunes
  27. Social Streaming
  28. CEDIA 2017, Simplifi’d
  29. Classical Prime Time
  30. The Röst Reconsidered
  31. High End 2017, Simplifi'd
  32. Vinyl: There's an App for That
  33. Metadata: Life with Roon
  34. The Internet and Audio: The Good, the Bad, and the Impossible
  35. The State of Streaming
  36. CES 2017, Simplifi'd
  37. Why "Simplifi"

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