SoundStage! Solo | SoundStageSolo.com

Details: Written by: Geoffrey Morrison; Created: 01 January 2023

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I love inexpensive tech. Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy expensive things too, of course, but if you can get something good for cheap, that’s a fantastic find. Not everyone’s budget can support $300 headphones. Or maybe your budget can, but you want an inexpensive backup to have in your car or backpack. There’s a sea of sub-$20 earbuds on Amazon, which is its own problem. The curse of choice, coupled with a lack of info.

Read more: Moondrop Quarks Earphones

Details: Written by: Geoffrey Morrison; Created: 01 December 2022

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There’s something quite refreshing, appealing even, about no-nonsense wired earphones. It often seems like the earbud category has been completely inundated by true wireless. This is largely because it absolutely has. But a handful of companies are still coming out with new models, either out of love for the design or desire for a larger piece of a shrinking pie.

Details: Written by: Geoffrey Morrison; Created: 01 November 2022

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Reviewers' Choice There’s a belief, common among TV watchers, movie watchers, and apparently people in general, that headphones are magic. That wearing literally any pair of headphones makes you completely oblivious to the world around you. That headphones are able to create a fantastical cone of silence where no reverberations penetrate. If only, am I right? Even the best noise-canceling headphones still let in some sound. Now sure, if you combine high music volume, solid noise canceling, and decent passive reduction, you can get pretty close to this magical ideal. But it’s still fantasy to think slapping on a pair of headphones can really isolate you from the real world. Or at least it was.

Details: Written by: Brent Butterworth; Created: 20 October 2022

Sound: 1/2
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Reviewers' Choice If I made high-end earphones, I’d find the cheapest balanced armatures available and shove as many as I could into each earpiece. So 64 Audio can do 18 drivers per ear? Big deal. For the Butterphones, I’d do at least 24 per ear; watch with barely concealed glee as CanJam showgoers flock to my booth and ignore Jerry Harvey Audio; and then hand out handsomely packaged review samples at a lavish dinner in Irvine, California’s finest high-end chain restaurant, packed in a gift bag including a Buttersound water bottle and 180-gram vinyls from Patricia Barber and Hellhammer.

Details: Written by: Geoffrey Morrison; Created: 10 October 2022

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You could say that when it comes to headphones, I’m hard to please. Or maybe you could say that I find it easy to disavow any positive feelings toward ear-based hardware. I don’t know why you’d say that, but you could, I guess. What it comes down to is, since I’ve got a steady supply of headphones passing my earholes, it becomes rather easy to dismiss the lesser among them. After all, with so many options, why waste time on something lesser?

Details: Written by: Geoffrey Morrison; Created: 20 September 2022

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A million years ago, in the before times, I worked at Circuit City. It was the golden age of Dolby Pro Logic and the dawn of the Dolby Digital era. Receiver manufacturers far and wide had decided, as if in exquisite concord, that what consumers really wanted was sound modes. Hall, Stadium, Big Room, Small Room, Bucket—the list was endless and somehow also growing. Every new model had yet more of these modes; nearly all just added reverb and ridiculous EQ. And yet, customers asked about them. Asked if they should get the genuine Panaphonics with 18 sound modes, or the Sorny with 20. Surely the uber-expensive and “overpriced” Harman Kardons and Onkyos were inferior with their minuscule sound-mode offerings.