Ed Comment
The SoundStage! Australia Products of the Year Awards 2024
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- Written by Edgar Kramer Edgar Kramer
- Category: Ed Comment Ed Comment
- Published: 15 December 2024 15 December 2024
I feel fortunate to live in Katoomba, more fondly referred to by locals as K-Town, a history-rich town an hour-and-a-bit from Sydney central. K-Town teethers on the edge of ragged, rocky escarpments which put on a daily show of breathtaking beauty and drama… each scene enriched by an ever-changing palette of natural magnificence. It’s where coarse, high sandstone cliffs are often veiled by rising, ghostly mists which are there… and then not. Where dense gum-bush lines the rocky edges of shimmering waterfalls. Where the unique wildlife can be cute, or savage, or… deafening. Cicadas. This spring, after a seven year hiatus, the hordes are back in ridiculous numbers. The orange-tinged ‘Eastern Double Drummer’ is as boisterous as Danny Carey on steroids. Yep, near-120dB! Shouty, aroused males, throating a piercing chorus underlying the soundtrack to the SoundStage! in-room Insta reels. Heck, I’ve even had post comments pointing to that communal, ringing mayhem. Yet, here I am, presenting to you the antithesis of all that racket. I’m talking the best audio of 2024. How’s that for a segue?
The SoundStage! Australia Products of the Year Awards 2023
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- Written by Edgar Kramer Edgar Kramer
- Category: Ed Comment Ed Comment
- Published: 06 December 2023 06 December 2023
Here we go folks. I’m sitting at my desk looking out at the Narrowneck escarpment – and yes, it’s blue – thinking about what this time of year means for this publication. To me, it literally feels like it was just last week I was compiling last year’s SoundStage! Australia Awards, and now I’m doing the exact same thing again for 2023’s selections. Amazing. Going back and surveying the extraordinary products we reviewed throughout the year, I am pleased with the breadth of categories we, as a dedicated SoundStage! Australia team of authors, smashed through in 2023.
The SoundStage! Australia Products of the Year Awards 2022
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- Written by Edgar Kramer Edgar Kramer
- Category: Ed Comment Ed Comment
- Published: 05 December 2022 05 December 2022
I’m in a state of exuberant rejoicing. Almost globally united, we are pulling ourselves up from the miasmic chemistry of virus-and-vaccine to a reinvented, measured form of normality. And yes! We are beginning to travel again… Hallelujah! It would be fair to say that the SoundStage! Network’s been accumulating a legit bounty of frequent flyer miles. We at SoundStage! Australia have been clocking our own fair share of flying time too. In fact, in the few weeks preceding these Awards, we’ve flown twice to the USA to visit three major high-end companies: Magico, Wilson Audio and Dan D’Agostino Master Audio Systems. Prior to that, we of course flew to Mecca-Munich.
The SoundStage! Australia Products Of The Year Awards 2021
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- Written by Edgar Kramer Edgar Kramer
- Category: Ed Comment Ed Comment
- Published: 01 December 2021 01 December 2021
I love where I hang my hat. It’s a part of Australia where the beauty and drama of the landscape lures countless visitors from around Australia and the world. It’s a soul-invigorating locale where the land’s palettes and panoramas are ever-changing. The tall, coarse sandstone cliffs often veiled with ghostly mists which are there and then… not. The dense, ragged bush skirting shimmering waterfalls, the unique wildlife… yes, I’m smitten. I also appreciate the importance and inherent meaning of the location where I rest my head. Respect. It’s Ngurra (country) to the Gundungurra and Darug people who continue their traditional custodianship of the land. Kedumba. Place of the shiny, falling waters. Or, lost-in-translation, Katoomba.
The SoundStage! Australia Products of the Year 2020 Awards
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- Written by Edgar Kramer Edgar Kramer
- Category: Ed Comment Ed Comment
- Published: 15 December 2020 15 December 2020
Sixteen days left of 2020. Please. We all want it gone. Surreal, right? Bring back civility and the social conventions the crisis violently demolished. Let’s morph the so-called “normality” of the past into a better status quo. A purge, an evolution, an improvement. Here ‘Down Under’ we may have eradication even prior to any vaccine. A triumph… and like the virus, hopefully contagious too. So we now have an opportunity to progress and a reason to celebrate. With purpose… Here’s our own global fireworks festivity as we bring to you the SoundStage! Australia Products of the Year Awards 2020.
A Tribute to Josef Riediger
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- Written by Edgar Kramer Edgar Kramer
- Category: Ed Comment Ed Comment
- Published: 23 September 2020 23 September 2020
I write this with great difficulty and sadness. Josef Riediger, friend, mentor and one of the pioneers of high-end audio retail and distribution in Australia, passed away peacefully yesterday. Josef had been courageously in battle with a particularly aggressive cancer.
Very Human Games – An Introduction to Stephen Dawson
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- Written by Edgar Kramer Edgar Kramer
- Category: Ed Comment Ed Comment
- Published: 01 May 2020 01 May 2020
SoundStage! Australia has had the good fortune of attracting a team of audio writers with enormous experience. Each is a passionate music lover and a true audiophile. Yes, they love the gear too… the industrial designs, the luxurious materials, the engineering, the often heroic construction and the passionate people behind the products. SoundStage! Australia’s writers have also dedicated a collective lifetime, or two, assembling audio systems which are not only reference points, in varying degrees, but also intimately reflect the biases and personalities of their music-loving architects.
Racks Not Ruin – SGR Audio’s Revamped Hi-Fi Rack & Manufacturing in Australia
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- Written by Edgar Kramer Edgar Kramer
- Category: Ed Comment Ed Comment
- Published: 01 April 2020 01 April 2020
For three years now, the extraordinary audio support systems from Australia’s own SGR Audio have been my reference racks-du-jour for component isolation and general vibration control at the highest level. My two three-tier Model V Statement racks not only perform as advertised – the Model V Statement features no less than six combined isolation strategies – but are also superbly built, beautifully finished and rather attractively designed.
The SoundStage! Australia Products of the Year 2019 Awards
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- Written by Edgar Kramer Edgar Kramer
- Category: Ed Comment Ed Comment
- Published: 30 December 2019 30 December 2019
We’re counting down the hours and heralding the New Year with SoundStage! Australia’s Products of the Year 2019. This time, we’ve pushed the Awards virtual ceremony a little forward. Throughout 2019, our skilled Aussie writers carefully auditioned a wide variety of high-end audio. The gear reviewed reflects a microcosm of the ample gamut of product categories available in, what is effectively, a relatively small to medium-sized consumer market. Albeit a buoyant one, to be sure.
File Under: Category
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- Written by Edgar Kramer Edgar Kramer
- Category: Ed Comment Ed Comment
- Published: 01 August 2019 01 August 2019
As part of the global audio industry at large, my ‘inbox’ is a diverse email stew mottled with all sorts of news items, product information and company newsletters. Spam notwithstanding, some communiques feature ingredients that may be informative, even educational, while other items, after a little interpretation, may even be somewhat entertaining. Many emails are little more than background noise with morsels of data which, if retrieved from my ever-murkier memory banks, may provide some trivial value.
SoundStage! Australia at High End Munich 2019 - At the Gates of Hi-Fi
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- Written by Edgar Kramer Edgar Kramer
- Category: Ed Comment Ed Comment
- Published: 09 May 2019 09 May 2019
I’ve been knock, knock, knockin’ on so many gates. Several at the various airports of course and, finally, at the exhibition palace, the MOC’s frantic ushering gateway to the biggest event on the audio calendar, Munich High End 2019.
