PSB Imagine Series

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!

When Canada’s Lenbrook Industries purchased select assets of MQA Limited in September 2023, audiophiles had lots of questions. One question was, Why? What interest could the owner of three major audio brands—Bluesound, NAD, and PSB—have in an audio format that had been embroiled in controversy for the whole of its existence? Critics of MQA (of which there were many) had even more pointed questions, such as, How is this thing not dead yet?

Read more: MQA’s Second Chapter

I consider it fortuitous that my semi-retirement coincided with the emergence of streaming as the dominant mode of music distribution. As I wrote in my kick-off feature for Simplifi, my missus and I downsized in early 2018 in preparation for our retirements. Our previous home had a dedicated listening room in a third-floor loft. In our new home, the hi-fi has to live in the living room. That multipurpose space can’t accommodate a conventional component system—hence my use of active speakers, where the amplifiers and other electronics are built into the speaker enclosures.

Read more: Mixed Media

Spotify began service in 2009, which means we’re 15 years into the streaming era. I’m generally a late adopter of new technology, so it took me a while to join the party. I got into file-based playback in a big way starting around 2011, but only began streaming in 2015. Now I’m all in. I’d guess that streaming (mainly from Qobuz) accounts for 90% of my listening.

Read more: Getting Physical

There are many things I like about my gig on the SoundStage! Network, but what I enjoy most are my colleagues. They all share my passion for music and audio, and they’re all very knowledgeable. And they have strong opinions that often diverge in interesting ways.

Read more: Getting Spaced: What’s the Future for Atmos-Encoded Music?

“Push that button,” Doug Schneider suggested after Jason fired up Roon and began streaming some music. Jason Thorpe, senior editor of SoundStage! Ultra, had recently built a Roon server using spare computer parts. He connected the server to an ancient Squeezebox Touch streamer, and that, in turn, to the USB port on the Hegel Music Systems H120 integrated amplifier–DAC of his main-floor music system.

Read more: Little Colored Lights: Drilling Down in Roon

As readers of my articles on Simplifi will likely know, my primary music-management application is Roon and has been for almost as long as I’ve been writing for SoundStage! But before that I used Audirvana as my main music-player app, and I liked it a lot. Audirvana has been through many changes since I switched to Roon. I thought it would be interesting to revisit it.

Read more: The French Connection—Is Audirvana a Worthy Alternative to Roon?

Somewhere in the middle of 2015, the whole Apple ecosystem—at least with regard to ripping music and plonking it onto my iPhone—stopped working for me. In fact, I can pin it down to sometime between May 1 and August 1 of that year. I know this because, until very recently, the newest Grateful Dead CD rip to make its way onto my iPhone was Dave’s Picks, Volume 14 (Academy of Music, New York, NY 3/26/72). Thereafter, every time I tried to sync my ripped music to my iPhone (be it my 6s Plus, 8 Plus, or 12 Pro Max), I was met with a dreaded “Waiting for sync to start” error that never resolved itself, even when I left my phone plugged into my PC overnight.

Read more: Apple’s War on Windows

During the first few months of 2024, I’ve seen some killer deals on the kind of hi-fi gear I most like. Seeing these deals has led me to ask some questions about the nature of Simplifi’d hi-fi, and to wonder how widely my preferences are shared.

Read more: Fire Sales

Lately, I’ve noticed that a growing number of products reviewed on Simplifi and other sites on the SoundStage! Network are only available for purchase online. Here are some examples: Denmark’s Buchardt Audio, whose Anniversary 10 active loudspeaker I reviewed on February 1, sells exclusively over the internet. So does Norway’s Arendal Sound, whose 1723 Tower S loudspeaker Philip Beaudette recently reviewed on SoundStage! Hi-Fi. Fluance and Axiom Audio, both based in Canada, sell exclusively online. Thom Moon has enthusiastically reviewed several Fluance products on SoundStage! Access, most recently the RT81+ turntable and Reference XL8F loudspeaker.

Read more: Direct versus Retail

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

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