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Bluetooth version 6.0 is here. Well, kinda here. It’s not actually here, but pieces of it are arriving slowly. Let’s just say that it’s rolling out. Announced a few months ago and available in a handful of products right now, Bluetooth 6.0 is the next iteration of everyone’s favorite (by default) low-power, short-distance wireless tech. Unlike new iterations of some other ubiquitous technologies (looking at you, HDMI), this update actually has a lot of useful features.

Read more: Bluetooth 6.0 Is Here, Sort Of

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I’m writing this from a restaurant in Paris. That’s not boasting. I’m at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel & Casino, and the restaurant is actually part of the food court. Also, I hate Las Vegas. This is my 20-somethingth Consumer Electronics Show, and this place never gets any more pleasant to visit. Oh well. There are worse places to be. Here’s my curated and collated list of news from the CES 2026 trade show that you, dear SoundStage! Solo reader, might be curious about.

Read more: Portable Attractions: Personal Audio at CES 2026

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The SoundStage! Network has just announced the winners of our Product of the Year awards, along with three new recipients of our Outstanding Achievement awards. Cruise on over to SoundStage! Hi-Fi for a full list of winners, or check out the video presentation on our YouTube channel. Among the award winners are two headphones and two earphones, one each in the Outstanding Performance and Exceptional Value categories, and all reviewed during 2025 on SoundStage! Solo. Suffice it to say they’re all great.

Read more: Best of the Rest 2025

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In an announcement that would have been shocking if it hadn’t been rumored for years, Spotify finally has lossless audio. As long as you pay for the Premium tier, you can select Lossless Audio Quality even on mobile in most regions. It’s the last of the big-name music-streaming services to offer lossless.

Read more: Spotify Freezes Over

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I’m writing this on my last flight of a two-month trip around the world. It started in Japan in July—which I’ve already written about. It’s ending now after I spent some time in New Hampshire and Maine with my dad. As I’ve done for the last several years, I brought with me the Sony WF‑1000XM4 earbuds. I love their sound, and their noise canceling is very good. They’re fantastic, or should I say, they were fantastic. Sadly, the XM4s are not long for this world.

Read more: A Eulogy for Great Headphones

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Deep in the heart of Tokyo is a legendary neighborhood. Well, to be fair, there are a lot of legendary neighborhoods in Tokyo, but this one has special interest for tech nerds like us. Its actual name is Akihabara, but it’s better known by its nickname: Electric Town. It has long been a hot spot for gadgets of all kinds, big and small. During the Japanese electronics boom of the 1980s, it was said you’d be able to find rare, often Japanese-market-only devices. You also might be able to nab gear that wouldn’t be available elsewhere in the world for months or maybe years.

Read more: The Rise and Fall and Maybe Rise Again of Akihabara Electric Town

  1. Behold the Greatest Store on Earth
  2. Do You Really Need Hi-Rez Audio?
  3. Is There Space for Another Music-Streaming Service?
  4. Bluetooth in the Sky
  5. The Power of Nostalgia
  6. Fire and Music
  7. MEMS!
  8. Headphones 2025 and Beyond
  9. Don’t Call It a Gift Guide
  10. Do You Care About Features?
  11. The Constancy of Change (Goodbye, Sound & Vision)
  12. Is Accuracy the Only Option?
  13. The Opposite of Headphones
  14. The Death and Immediate Rise of MQA (Again)
  15. How Terrible Is Temu?
  16. The Delightful Weirdness of Open Earbuds
  17. The Formats Time Forgot
  18. The Return of the Cassette
  19. Do You Need a Headphone Amp?
  20. The Highs and Lows of the Consumer Electronics Show
  21. 2023: A Year in Headphones (and Other Stuff)
  22. Perfect Noise Canceling?
  23. The Rise and Fall and Maybe Rise Again of MQA
  24. Have Your Music Tastes Changed?
  25. Beware AI “Reviews”
  26. Six Months In
  27. Why Do People Think Headphones Are Magic?
  28. Recalibrating the Ears
  29. Is There Such a Thing as a Perfect Pair of Headphones?
  30. Everyone Should Own These Headphones
  31. What is the Soundtrack to Your Life?
  32. The Endless Hassle of Connecting to In-Flight Entertainment
  33. In-Ear vs. Over-Ear for Travel
  34. Traveling as an Audiophile
  35. Greetings!
  36. A Fond Farewell
  37. When Is the Amp Important?
  38. Evaluating the Knowles Preferred Response Curve
  39. Do We Really Need All These Target Curves?
  40. The Problem with Hearing Correction in Headphones
  41. RF: A Phantom Menace?
  42. Understanding Current
  43. The Big Mistake Many Headphone Makers Keep on Making
  44. How Consistent Is the Quality of Headphones and Earphones?
  45. David Chesky’s New New Revolution in Headphone Sound
  46. Why You Shouldn’t Always Rely on Measurements
  47. The Shocking Truth About Truck-Stop Earphones
  48. Are There Valid Objections to the Harman Curve?
  49. Is It Possible for Headphones to Sound Fast? (Or Slow?)
  50. The Four Things that Recording an Album Taught Me About Audio
  51. What Playing Music Taught Me About Audio
  52. Voicing Headphones, Part 3: Campfire Audio's Ken Ball and 64 Audio’s Vitaliy Belonozhko
  53. The #1 Red Flag in Audio Articles, Ads . . . and Everything Else
  54. How Not to Go Deaf from Headphone Listening
  55. What’s the Future of High-End Headphones?
  56. How Audio Writers Are Killing the Audio Industry
  57. Why Buying High-Quality Headphones Is a More Responsible Purchase
  58. Does It Make Sense to Demo Audio Over the Internet?
  59. The New Standard That Killed the Loudness War
  60. Headphones 2020: The Year in Review
  61. Three Cases Where Measurements Didn’t Work
  62. How Much Can We Really Tell From Listening?
  63. Balanced Armatures: Why You Might (or Might Not) Want Them
  64. The Coming Revolution in Headphone Sound Quality
  65. Can Accuracy in Music Reproduction Exist?
  66. The Biggest Lie in Audio
  67. Voicing Headphones, Part 2: HiFiMan’s Fang Bian and Focal’s Mégane Montabonel
  68. What Will the Next Generation of Headphones Be Like?
  69. How Far Have Headphones Come?
  70. Voicing Headphones, Part 1: PSB/NAD's Paul Barton and Dan Clark Audio's Dan Clark
  71. How Will Headphone Testing and Reviewing Change in the 2020s?
  72. What the AKG K371 Headphones Tell Us About "Slow Listening"
  73. Where Are We At With The Harman Curve?
  74. Why Headphone Amps Are More Interesting Than Speaker Amps
  75. 2019’s Most Important Headphone Presentation
  76. Noise Canceling Is Much More Complicated Than We Thought
  77. How Does Aging Affect Audio Perception?
  78. Noise-Canceling Headphones for 17 Cents?
  79. Is Chesky Dumping Binaural?
  80. Why My Fi Ain't Hi-Fi
  81. Latency: A New Concern for Audiophiles?
  82. How to Read Our Headphone Measurements
  83. Eardrum Suck: The Mystery Solved!
  84. Should Audio Gear be Considered Luxury Goods?
  85. Headphone Equalization Using Measurements
  86. Why Is It So Hard to Rate Headphones?
  87. Five Things Headphone Enthusiasts Get Right (and That the Two-Channel Guys Get Wrong)
  88. The Best Possible Way to Test Audio Products (and Why Most People Don't Do It)
  89. Will aptX Adaptive Improve Headphone Sound?
  90. Is the miniDSP EARS the Death of Headphone Measurement? Or its Savior?
  91. What Are Measurements Good For?
  92. How Much Noise Do Your Headphones Really Block?
  93. Why We're Launching "SoundStage! Solo"

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