NAD C3050

Seven years ago, when Gordon Brockhouse asked “Are downloads dead?” on this site, the question felt relevant but premature. Downloads were in obvious decline, streaming was ascendant, and the writing seemed to be on the wall. Today, with streaming accounting for 69% of global music revenues and downloads representing just 2.8% of the market, you’d think the answer would be obvious. Yet download stores are still operating here in 2025, serving a dedicated, passionate audience that has no intention of giving up ownership.

Read more: The Persistence of Downloads

Not only is the television screen the focal point of many living rooms, but it has increasingly become the central control hub for those spaces. That has shifted how people think about audio in these rooms.

Read more: Cord-Cutting: Wireless Surround Sound in 2025

It wasn’t exactly a coming-out party, at least not the one I expected. In a January 1 feature on Simplifi, Mike Jbara, vice-president and general manager of Lenbrook Media Group (LMG), said High End 2025 would mark “the coming-out party” for a new streaming service specializing in MQA-encoded music.

Read more: MQA Update, October 2025

After years of broken promises, Spotify has finally done it. The streaming giant is now rolling out lossless audio to its Premium subscribers, ending one of the most prolonged feature droughts in tech history. Four years after first teasing “Spotify HiFi,” the company that dominates global music streaming is finally delivering serious audio quality to those who demand it.

Read more: Spotify Lossless Is Here at Last! Was it Worth the Wait?

I’ve been a strong proponent of active loudspeaker systems since early in my audio journey. As I described in my recent introductory feature, I bought my first set of active studio monitors back in the late 1990s. Before that, I had assembled an audio system piecemeal that incorporated active crossovers—and in the process, I heard the benefits of this approach firsthand.

Read more: Why Don’t People Get Active?

Like most music lovers these days, I use some kind of computing device for the bulk of my listening. When I’m listening through the KEF LS60 Wireless active speaker system in my living room, I cue up music, control playback, and adjust system settings using a ninth-generation iPad. Upstairs in my home office, I use my MacBook Pro (late 2023, M3) to control playback through the PSB Alpha iQ active speaker system on the top shelf of my secretary desk.

Read more: Shape-Shifters—Using Music Apps on Foldable Smartphones

Ever since I got into file-based playback in the late 2000s, I’ve used some kind of app to play music. At first it was iTunes, the music app bundled with Mac computers. When I started purchasing high-rez albums from download stores like HDtracks, I added BitPerfect, an inexpensive utility that runs on top of iTunes and enables bit-perfect playback of files with different sampling rates and bit depths.

Read more: Direct Connections—Do You Really Need a Music App?

As this is my first feature article for SoundStage! Simplifi, and my first contribution as senior site editor, I’m going to kick things off with a synopsis of my hi-fi journey to date. This will hopefully break the ice and provide some context about my philosophy when it comes to our audio hobby.

Read more: The Long Way Round: My Journey to Simplifi

It’s been said so often, it’s almost an audiophile cliché: the most important component in any sound system is the room in which it’s used. Like all clichés, this one contains a large measure of truth.

Read more: Reading the Room: An Interview with Nilo Casimiro Ericsson of Dirac Research

Back in 2012, when Canada’s Lenbrook Industries was getting set to launch its Bluesound line of multiroom streaming products, they made a critical hire. Who was that person? A software engineer who could oversee development of the operating system and apps that would underpin the new components? A hardware engineer who could design those components? A marketing director who could create a campaign to drive awareness of the new brand?

Read more: Help! I Need Somebody!

Am I kidding myself in thinking that I’ve put together an endgame music system? Make that two systems—one in my main-floor living room and another in my second-floor office. Recently, I’ve made some changes to both setups, and I’m delighted with the results. I fully expect both systems to keep thrilling me until I shuffle off this mortal coil or get carted off to a home.

Read more: Game Over!

  1. MQA’s Second Chapter
  2. Mixed Media
  3. Getting Physical
  4. Getting Spaced: What’s the Future for Atmos-Encoded Music?
  5. Little Colored Lights: Drilling Down in Roon
  6. The French Connection—Is Audirvana a Worthy Alternative to Roon?
  7. Apple’s War on Windows
  8. Fire Sales
  9. Direct versus Retail
  10. Harman International Has Bought Roon Labs—What Comes Next?
  11. Getting Physical—Do LPs and CDs Have a Place in Simplifi’d Hi-Fi?
  12. Active Voices: Livio Cucuzza of Sonus Faber
  13. Is Roon Worth It?
  14. Out and About—Using Roon Away from Home
  15. Lakeside Streaming—Network Entertainment at a Vacation Home
  16. Streaming Update—Spring 2023
  17. Active Voices: An Interview with Paul Barton and Rob Nicholls of PSB Speakers
  18. The State of Streaming—2023
  19. Gordon's System, Re-Simplifi'd
  20. Mix Master: PMC's Heff Moraes on Making Music in Atmos
  21. Toronto Audiofest 2022, Simplifi’d
  22. The Great Debate: Is Component Hi-Fi Dead?
  23. Evolving Hi-Fi: My Journey with a Fleet of Devialet Silver Phantoms
  24. Simplifi'd Hi-Fi at Munich High End–and Elsewhere
  25. How We Listen
  26. Wayback Playback
  27. Listen While You Work
  28. The State of Streaming—2022
  29. Why "Simplifi"—Five Years Later
  30. The Evolution of BluOS: An Interview with Lenbrook's Andrew Haines
  31. Dolby Atmos Music in Your Home
  32. The Big Switch
  33. I'm Only in It for the Money
  34. Encore! Encore! An Interview with Patricia Barber, Jim Anderson, and Ulrike Schwarz
  35. The New Apple Music
  36. Moving Forward with Formation: An Interview with Andy Kerr of Bowers & Wilkins
  37. Glory Days
  38. Spotify Goes Lossless
  39. In Defense of Streaming
  40. Tinkering Simplifi'd
  41. Simplifi Defined
  42. Going Deep with Artison
  43. A Simplifi Yearbook
  44. A Perfect Pair
  45. The Critical Component
  46. Has the Time Come for Surround Music?
  47. My Top Ten Products of the Last Two Years
  48. Turning Pro
  49. All About That Bass
  50. Gently Down the Stream
  51. Big Events
  52. Rules of the Game
  53. The Name Game
  54. January 1, 2020: The State of Streaming
  55. Warsaw’s Audio Video Show 2019, Simplifi’d
  56. Toronto Audiofest 2019, Simplifi'd
  57. Hi-Rez à-Go-Go
  58. Streaming the Classics
  59. Play Nice Together -- An Interview with Rob Darling of Roon Labs
  60. Active Voices, Part Three: KEF's Jack Oclee-Brown
  61. High End 2019, Simplifi'd
  62. Active Voices, Part Two: Axiom Audio's Andrew Welker
  63. Montréal Audio Fest Simplifi'd
  64. Active Voices, Part One: Elac's Andrew Jones
  65. Let's Keep it Simple
  66. A Roon of One's Own
  67. How I Simplifi'd My Wi-Fi
  68. Are Downloads Dead?
  69. Hi-Rez Streaming: Tidal vs. Qobuz
  70. Toronto Audiofest 2018 Simplifi'd
  71. How I Simplifi'd My Hi-Fi
  72. Time to Celebrate: Five Years of Google Chromecast
  73. How Good Can Voice Recognition Get?
  74. Are Smart Speakers Any Good for Audiophiles?
  75. High End 2018, Simplifi'd
  76. Is the Smart Speaker a Dumb Idea?
  77. What's Up with Apple AirPlay 2?
  78. The Spotify Dilemma
  79. CES 2018, Simplifi’d
  80. Farewell, CES
  81. Room Tunes
  82. Social Streaming
  83. CEDIA 2017, Simplifi’d
  84. Classical Prime Time
  85. The Röst Reconsidered
  86. High End 2017, Simplifi'd
  87. Vinyl: There's an App for That
  88. Metadata: Life with Roon
  89. The Internet and Audio: The Good, the Bad, and the Impossible
  90. The State of Streaming
  91. CES 2017, Simplifi'd
  92. Why "Simplifi"

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