Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
As I’m typing these words, I’m listening to Bruce Cockburn’s latest album, O Sun O Moon, through a pair of Focal Vestia N°3 floorstanding loudspeakers, the subject of this review. But when I initially set this review up, I’d planned to listen to the album, and some of my reference recordings, through Focal’s Vestia N°4 floorstanders.
Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
Back in December 2018, I launched a new regular feature on SoundStage! Hi-Fi. As I outlined in that inaugural column, the name “System One” could refer to “someone’s first system, or someone’s only system—or something else, depending on what’s covered that month. What won’t change is the theme . . . cost-effective, high-performing equipment that many people can afford.”
This is the article that almost never happened. The idea for it first came up when I was picking up the JBL L75ms Integrated Music System ($1500, all prices in USD) from Gordon Brockhouse’s place. Gordon had just finished reviewing it for SoundStage! Simplifi, and his endorsement of this all-in-one system in that review was so glowing that our team basically had to give it our Reviewers’ Choice award. His praise also piqued my interest. So as I was bundling it into my SUV with the plan of returning it in a few weeks’ time to JBL’s Canadian distributor, Erikson Consumer, I told him that I was tempted to listen to it myself. But that’s when he said, “I have to warn you, it’s really hard to get in and out of the box.”
When I started this column about three-and-a-half years ago, I envisioned it would be for products priced in the hundreds, not thousands, of dollars. But occasionally I’ve felt the need to stretch the budget, like the time I wrote about the Sonus Faber Lumina III loudspeaker and Rotel RA-1572MKII integrated amplifier-DAC, which are priced at $2100 per pair and $2099.99 respectively (all prices in USD). Granted, they’re not cheap, but they’re good value for money and I felt that thrifty audiophiles should know about them.
Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
Diego Estan reviewed a pair of Monitor Audio Bronze 100 loudspeakers on SoundStage! Access in August 2020. About three months after that, Jay Lee produced a follow-up Take 2 video review on the Bronze 100 for our YouTube channel. Last month, James Hale wrote about the 100 yet again for his “Art+Tech” column on SoundStage! Xperience. Does anything more really need to be said?
I’m often the last stop for products that are sent to the SoundStage! Network for review. Normally, a review product is shipped direct to the assigned reviewer, who listens to it and writes it up, and then it gets shipped to me for photography and/or measurements. Typically, I also listen to a product before it goes back to the manufacturer or distributor, so I can get a feel for how it sounds.
Note: measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
In my previous “System One” installment, in May, I wrote about Rotel’s RA-1572MKII integrated amplifier and Sonus Faber’s Lumina III loudspeaker. The Rotel sells for $2099.99 (all prices in USD), while the Sonus Fabers are $2199 for the pair. Their prices are a little more than twice what I thought to be an upper limit—around $1000—for each component when I launched this column.
In December 2018, I wrote the first article to appear under the “System One” column name. In that article I explained: “The title means someone’s first system, or someone’s only system—or something else, depending on what’s covered that month. What won’t change is the theme around which I wrote the first two pieces: cost-effective, high-performing equipment that many people can afford.”
Originally, I had no intention of writing about Music Hall’s a15.3 integrated amplifier for this column, even though its price (only $549, all prices in USD) makes it ideally suited. In December 2020, the a15.3 was sent to us by Music Hall’s Canadian distributor, Motet Distribution, for James Hale to review, which he did in February 2021 in his SoundStage! Xperience “Art+Tech” column—and that should’ve been that.
In August 2020, I reviewed the Hegel Music Systems H95 integrated amplifier-DAC for this site. If you read that review, you’ll know that the H95, which is priced at $2000 (all prices in USD), is a good performer and good value, but you’ll also see it’s not as feature-rich as some other integrated amps on the market. For example, like all of Hegel’s integrated amplifiers, it has a built-in DAC but lacks a phono stage. Vinyl playback is a pretty big thing for hi-fi buyers across all price ranges, and many lower-priced integrated amps answer that demand, so I intended to criticize this omission in the review.
