SoundStage! Solo | SoundStageSolo.com

Details: Written by: Geoffrey Morrison; Created: 15 March 2025

Sound: 1/2
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Reviewers' Choice It’s quite a challenge making something inexpensive seem high-end. At least, I assume that’s the case, because it’s pretty rare. There are cheap products, and there are expensive products, and it’s usually pretty easy to tell them apart. Of course, there are some notable exceptions, but it’s more likely that something expensive has been designed so poorly it seems cheap (ahem, Cybertruck) than the other way around. Without the luxury of material and build choices afforded by a higher price, inexpensive products tend to look and perform, well, like inexpensive products.

Read more: Meze Audio Alba Earphones

Details: Written by: Geoffrey Morrison; Created: 01 February 2025

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Reviewers' Choice I am always equally excited by, and skeptical of, new technology. I’ve been doing this job for quite a while, and the list of cool-but-failed tech grows longer every year. As interesting as some new development is, what matters most is how it’s implemented. If the actual product ends up being more expensive, lower performing, or just mediocre, maybe the new technology wasn’t actually that great to begin with. It just seemed, or was marketed, that way.

Details: Written by: Geoffrey Morrison; Created: 01 January 2025

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What do you picture when you read the words “planar magnetic”? If you’re a regular reader of this site, I would guess images of big, over-the-ear headphones like the Audeze LCD-5s and HiFiMan Sundaras come to mind. I’m going to assume what doesn’t come to mind is a pair of true wireless earbuds, and noise-canceling ones at that. And yet, that’s exactly what the Edifier Stax Spirit S10s are: planar magnetic, true wireless, noise-canceling earphones.

Details: Written by: Geoffrey Morrison; Created: 01 November 2024

Sound:
Value: 1/2
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There’s something delightfully angular about the Final A5000 earphones. They look like a sort of eight-bit version of a pair of earphones, something you’d find in your inventory in a PlayStation 2 game. I like this a lot. They’re the opposite of flashy, yet still look designed.