SoundStage! Ultra | SoundStageUltra.com
Network Hub Buying Guides Newsletter Signup Advertisers' Index
Shunyata Research
Shunyata Research
Monday, May 12, 2025
  • Equipment
  • Features
      • Back
      • Opinion
      • For the Record
      • In Good Company
      • Recording of the Month
      • General Interest & Interviews
      • Off the Cuff
      • Richard Freed's Keepers
          • Back
          • UltraAudio.com Articles (Archived)
          • SoundStageHiFi.com (Current)
  • TWBAS
  • Videos
  • Our Sites
      • Back
      • SoundStage! Network (portal)
      • SoundStage! Access
      • SoundStage! Australia
      • SoundStage! Global
      • SoundStage! Hi-Fi
      • SoundStage! Life (podcast)
      • SoundStage! Simplifi
      • SoundStage! Solo
      • SoundStage! TV
      • SoundStage! Ultra (here)
      • SoundStage! Xperience

Newest Updates

  • Many Boxes of Luxury: Siltech’s Royal Single Crown Cables
  • Siltech Royal Single Crown Speaker Cable
  • Harkness: “Ciao to the Beauty”
  • EMM Labs DV2i Streaming DAC-Preamplifier
  • The Best (and Worst) of Florida International Audio Expo 2025
  • IsoAcoustics Delos 2216W1 Turntable Isolation Platform
  • Nice Guy Jason and the Bowers & Wilkins DB2D Subwoofers
  • Balanced Audio Technology REX 300 Stereo Amplifier

Most Popular Last 120 Days

  • Linn Klimax LP12 Turntable
  • DALI Epikore 9 Loudspeaker
  • Børresen X6 Loudspeaker
  • EMM Labs DV2i Streaming DAC-Preamplifier
  • Balanced Audio Technology REX 300 Stereo Amplifier
  • Magnificence on a Budget
  • Nice Guy Jason and the Bowers & Wilkins DB2D Subwoofers
  • The Best (and Worst) of Florida International Audio Expo 2025
Vitus Audio
IsoAcoustics Reveal Every Detail
Bryston BP-19
Hegel

Legacy link:
legacy_200w
This new site was launched in July 2010. Visit the older site to access previous articles by clicking above.

Bryston
Gryphon Audio Essence
Wilson
Gryphon Audio StandArt
Wilson

Angela-Gilbert Yeung C312 Preamplifier

Written by: Jason Thorpe
Category: Full-Length Reviews
Created: 15 November 2023

Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click here.

Marcia likes to wake up earlier than I do. On weekdays she gets up around 5:30 a.m. and writes in her journal for about 45 minutes. She sits in our darkened living room, and she lights about a half-dozen candles, including one thick beeswax job that ends up with a giant wick.

Read more …

Jason Does Digital

Written by: Jason Thorpe
Category: Opinion
Created: 01 November 2023

I’ve become dangerously comfortable in my reviewing life. My main system is fed by one source—my VPI Prime Signature turntable. Occasionally new ’tables come and go, and the phono stage changes too. Cartridges flow through here also. But no matter how I take it apart, no matter how I break it down, that single analog source is a consistent feature.

Read more …

Chord Electronics Ultima 6 Power Amplifier

Written by: Jonathan Gorse
Category: Full-Length Reviews
Created: 01 November 2023

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of reviewing Chord Electronics’ new Ultima Pre 3 preamplifier. Along with the Ultima preamp, Chord shipped me the subject of this review: the matching Ultima 6 power amplifier ($9925, all prices in USD). My first encounter with these components was in February this year at the Bristol Hi-Fi Show. I was impressed enough with what I heard to request review samples.

Read more …

Shelly Manne & His Friends: “Modern Jazz Performances of Songs from ‘My Fair Lady’”

Written by: Joseph Taylor
Category: Recording of the Month
Created: 01 November 2023

Craft Recordings / Contemporary Records / Stereo Records CR00391
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ***½
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****

In the 1950s, Contemporary Records released a number of Broadway-themed LPs by trios led by pianist André Previn or drummer Shelly Manne. The sessions fronted by Previn featured Manne on drums and Red Mitchell on bass; Manne’s featured Previn and bassist Leroy Vinnegar. In my June 2023 review of the Craft Recordings / Contemporary Records reissue of West Side Story, the 1959 album by André Previn and His Pals, I wrote: “I’m already anticipating the Craft Recordings reissue of Manne’s My Fair Lady this fall.” Modern Jazz Performances of Songs from My Fair Lady was a 1956 mono release by Shelly Manne & His Friends, and its popularity led Contemporary to ask Previn and Manne to record more albums in the same vein.

Read more …

Vivid Audio Giya G3 Series 2 Loudspeaker

Written by: Hans Wetzel
Category: Full-Length Reviews
Created: 15 October 2023

Reviewers' ChoiceYou’d be forgiven for looking at Vivid Audio’s Giya G3 Series 2 loudspeaker ($43,000 per pair, $45,500 per pair as reviewed; all prices USD) and thinking it seems more like an exercise straight out of a design student’s sketchbook than a serious attempt at creating a state-of-the-art loudspeaker. But lead designer Laurence Dickie—the brains behind former employer Bowers & Wilkins’s Matrix cabinet-bracing system and the English firm’s iconic Nautilus loudspeaker—wouldn’t have it any other way. “It’s always easy to draw parallels between the automotive and audio sectors, and if that’s fair, I like to compare Vivid Audio with Citroën of the 1950s and 1960s,” Dickie told me. “The Citroën DS was a very curvaceous, aerodynamic design with an awful lot of engineering innovation, and its shape really did divide people. There are those who dismissed it as a frog on wheels, but I like to think we’re [like Citroën]. We’re not afraid of sticking our necks out.”

Read more …

Emcee Sick Comes A-Knocking

Written by: Jason Thorpe
Category: For the Record
Created: 15 October 2023

Just recently, one of my wife’s family friends stopped by to drop off a book. It was a hot day and JB had been roaming the city by public transit, so Marcia and I invited him in for a coffee and a glass of water. JB was carrying a cloth bag containing some LP-shaped objects. I’m a dog person, so I metaphorically sniffed his butt and asked him what was in the bag.

Read more …

Go East, Old Man

Written by: Jason Thorpe
Category: Opinion
Created: 01 October 2023

As this editorial goes live, it’s October 1, and that means in a little over three weeks I’ll be on a plane to Warsaw to cover Audio Video Show 2023, to be held October 27 to 29. This will be my fourth visit to this show and I’m stoked.

Read more …

Fezz Audio Lybra 300B Integrated Amplifier

Written by: Jason Thorpe
Category: Full-Length Reviews
Created: 01 October 2023

Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click here.

In this strange time of instant gratification, instant retrieval of information, same-day delivery of purchased goods, and honest-to-god artificial intelligences, it’s good to slow down and return to a simpler age. I’m not suggesting that you start to churn your own butter, but sometimes it’s good to turn off all that stuff and subtract a century from your lifestyle, if only for a few hours.

Read more …

Ornette Coleman: “Something Else!!!!”

Written by: Joseph Taylor
Category: Recording of the Month
Created: 01 October 2023

Craft Recordings / Contemporary Records / Acoustic Sounds CR00595
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ***½
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****

Jazz composer and saxophonist Ornette Coleman was so revolutionary that even now, 65 years after he recorded his first album, his music remains challenging. His recording debut, Something Else!!!! (1958), and its follow-up, Tomorrow Is the Question! (1959), both appeared on Contemporary Records, whose owner, Lester Koenig, signed Coleman after bassist Red Mitchell brought his work to Koenig’s attention.

Read more …

Crystal Cable Art Series Monet Speaker Cables

Written by: Jason Thorpe
Category: Full-Length Reviews
Created: 15 September 2023

My friend Rich visits often. He’s got a smoking system at home, loves music and gear, and is always looking for ways to improve the sound in his listening room. Just recently he came over for a listen with his brother-in-law, who’s far more grounded, down to earth, and money conscious than Rich, me, or likely anyone else who’s reading this review.

Read more …

  1. It’s Come to This—How Many Systems Do I Actually Need?
  2. Chord Electronics Ultima Pre 3 Preamplifier
  3. Pete Townshend: “Empty Glass”
  4. Perlisten Audio S5t Loudspeaker
  5. Take Off the Blinkers!
  6. Luxman L-507Z Integrated Amplifier
  7. “Animals”—Pink Floyd’s Classic Album Deconstructed
  8. Tony Allen / Adrian Younge: “Jazz Is Dead 18”
  9. Rega Research Planar 10 Turntable and Aphelion 2 Cartridge
  10. The Italian Job

Page 7 of 48

  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
210x600 T+A R Criterion S (20240601)
Dynaudio Contour 20BE
Simaudio
Gryphon Audio StandArt

Vitus Audio
Vitus Audio

SoundStage! Ultra is part of
SoundStage!

All contents available on this website are copyrighted by SoundStage!® and Schneider Publishing Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

This site was designed by Rocket Theme, Karen Fanas, and The SoundStage! Network.
To contact us, please e-mail info@soundstagenetwork.com

To Top