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Wednesday, December 03, 2025

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Opinion

: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: Opinion; Created: 01 December 2025

As I write this editorial, I’m just back from Warsaw, where the SoundStage! team covered Audio Video Show 2025. And as I often do when I’m finished running the halls, I ask myself what we could have done better. When I’m wandering through an audio show, looking for interesting gear to write about, I find it hard to disentangle my roles. The enthusiastic audiophile in me leads me along with a finger up each nostril, looking for what I think is cool. But wait! I’m here as a journalist, looking for an angle, something to set our coverage on SoundStage! Global apart from what all the other punters are doing.

: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: Opinion; Created: 01 November 2025

It’s been just over two years that I’ve been headlining this publication. It feels longer, but I suppose two years is enough time to build routines and create patterns.

: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: Opinion; Created: 01 October 2025

So this is where the rubber hits the road. It’s decision time. It all started back in December of last year, when I reviewed the Bowers & Wilkins 801 D4 Signature loudspeaker. As you can tell by that review, I was blown away by the experience. I said it before, and I’ll say it one more time: These were the best speakers I’ve yet had in my room. Huge bass, outstanding imaging. A unique sonic signature with a rising top end, yes. But so clean, and so pure-sounding that I just couldn’t get enough.

: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: Opinion; Created: 01 September 2025

It’s early August, and I’ve just returned from Europe. In Vienna, I stopped in at Pro‑Ject Audio Systems and European Audio Team, which are sister brands, then traveled to the Netherlands, where I visited International Audio Holding (IAH), parent company of Siltech, Crystal Cable, HMS Elektronik, and Sphinx Audio Engineering. My writeups of both visits will be going live on SoundStage! Global right soon, but I’ve got a few pressing deadlines that I have to attend to first. Karen Fanas, our miracle-working art director (she’s made a thriving career out of removing dust from my photos), is going on holiday next week, so I need to submit my photos right now. And since I’m doing photography, I have to write up this editorial before I do anything else.

: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: Opinion; Created: 01 August 2025

As I write this, I’m panicking a little. It’s Friday, July 11, and I’m starting to make little piles around the house as I pack for my flight to Europe this coming Monday. I’ll be in Europe for nearly two weeks as I visit the Pro‑Ject Audio Systems / European Audio Team and Siltech / Crystal Cable headquarters. Then I’ll be writing up factory tours of those facilities, and you’ll get to read about them on SoundStage! Global in the next few weeks.

: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: Opinion; Created: 01 July 2025

Two months ago, I related my experience as I dug into a carton filled with sufficient Siltech Royal Single Crown cables to wire up the core of my system. Although I was tempted—more than you can imagine—to simply rip open each box and stuff the full set into my system, I took a measured approach. With the review going live on the same day as that column, it made more sense to check out the speaker cables first, so into the system they went. After I’d finished the review, I found myself eyeing those unopened boxes of screamingly high-end cables.

: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: Opinion; Created: 01 June 2025

When I worked full-time in an office, I regularly noticed how insanely stressed some people seemed to be. I recall walking past a coworker and offering an insincere salutation: “How you doing?”

: Written by: Jonathan Gorse; Category: Opinion; Created: 15 May 2025

Do you remember the first vinyl record you ever purchased? Did it start an obsession that persists to this day? I’ve been collecting vinyl since 1980, when I bought my very first album. I can still remember the thrill of bringing home my copy of Grease and playing it on my father’s Technics system. The first single I ever bought was a gloriously avant-garde and moody slice of electronica from January 1981: Ultravox’s “Vienna.” Back then, it felt like a totally new world was opening up—and it was!

: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: Opinion; Created: 01 May 2025

If you’re sitting in front of your system right now, I’d like you to consider how you choose your components. Is it sound quality alone? Is a component’s appearance important? How well one component matches with another? Of course, sound quality is of vital importance—a system that doesn’t sound good is an abject failure, no matter how good it looks. But how do you weight appearance, performance, and opulence on your personal balance sheet?

: Written by: Jason Thorpe; Category: Opinion; Created: 01 April 2025

I guess it’s a yearly thing now. This is the second time I’ve accompanied Doug Schneider to the Florida International Audio Expo, which takes place in late February in Tampa, Florida. Ottawa and Toronto, where Doug and I live, were clobbered in February with huge back-to-back snowstorms, so digging out and heading to sunny Florida had massive appeal. It’s the land of the cartoonishly large fruity drink, after all.