Fred Manteghian

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Tower Speaker Reviews
Aperion Intimus 6T-DB Hybrid XD Speaker System
Fred Manteghian  |  Mar 02, 2009  |  0 comments
Price: $3,769 At A Glance: Three-way center for superior dialogue intelligibility • Awesome room-filling surrounds • Classy good looks

Life’s Too Short for Bad Shoes

Buy a pair of shoes online that don’t fit quite right, and it’s easy enough to box them back up for the round-trip refund. You wouldn’t think you could say the same about a 70-pound speaker like the Aperion Intimus 6T, but mailorder company Aperion Audio makes it almost as easy. The Portland, Oregon–based company manufactures in China and purports to pass the savings on to you. Aperion wants you to be 100-percent satisfied, so it gives you 30 days to try the speakers at home. The company will even pick up shipping costs both ways if you decide not to keep the speakers. So even if you can’t go to a store to listen to them, Aperion speakers are a no-risk purchase. Still, six boxes full of speakers worth almost $4,000 is hardly an impulse buy like a $39 pair of Converse All Star Sailor Jerry high tops on eBay, so listen up.

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Power Amplifier Reviews
Aragon Stage One & 3005 preamplifier processor & 5 channel amplifier
Fred Manteghian  |  May 16, 2004  |  0 comments

The Stage One is Aragon's second-generation surround processor, replacing and retiring the original Stage. The Stage One combines a strikingly machined front panel with the latest thinking in surround processing, including no processing at all for us vinyl buffs. And in a concession to those who think there might still be something on the public airwaves worth listening to in this ClearChannel world, the Stage One also throws in an AM/FM tuner. Visually, the robust 5-channel Aragon 3005 and 2-channel 3002 amps share the Mondial-inspired "M" design with the Stage One.

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Fred Manteghian Blog
Are You Seeing Red?
Fred Manteghian  |  Oct 09, 2006  |  0 comments

Toshiba can offer you an HD-DVD player with a full terabyte of data, the ability to burn HD-DVDs, Japanese hi-def and NTSC tuners, oh yeah, and the user manual that will have you scratching your head until your credit card bill comes. $3,100.

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Are You With Me Dr. Hsu?
Fred Manteghian  |  Jun 02, 2006  |  0 comments

I get asked for speaker suggestions all the time. I make them. They get ignored. It all comes down to money.

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Ayre DX-7 DVD-V/CD player
Fred Manteghian  |  Oct 15, 2004  |  0 comments

From the high hills of Boulder, Colorado, comes a $6000 DVD player that doesn't also play SACD or DVD-Audio discs—or, as is increasingly demanded, both. In fact, there are no analog audio outputs at all, only digital. Still, the Ayre DX-7 offers something that can't be ignored: a beautiful picture that, in some cases, compares with the best I've seen in my system. Welcome to the mile-high high end.

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Power Amplifier Reviews
Ayre V-6 multichannel power amplifier
Fred Manteghian  |  Oct 24, 2002  |  0 comments

At first sight, the corporate-designed, picture-perfect streets of Boulder, Colorado, silhouetted against the breathtakingly beautiful but dry purple-brown Rockies, reminded me of a mall with its lid ripped off. Then again, maybe it was the lack of oxygen. Ski? Me and my politically incorrect, gas-guzzling Lincoln Town Car rental (unlike the perfectly acceptable gas-guzzling SUVs everyone in Boulder drives) were in town for only a short visit, mainly on business unrelated to <I>SGHT</I>. But I had a day free for a little sightseeing and an interesting visit with Charlie Hansen, president and owner of Ayre Acoustics. I was scheduled to review Ayre's newest multichannel amplifier, and this gave me the chance to learn more about the product and the company.

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Fred Manteghian Blog
B for Bandana
Fred Manteghian  |  Mar 16, 2006  |  1 comments

<i>The following is the 2nd installment in our ongoing </i>Tales from the Front Lines <i> war coverage series by investigative reporter Fred Manteghian, currently embedded with the 1080th Progressives (not really) division, somewhere near the front lines.</i>

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B&W Updates to CM Series – the new CM9 Tower
Fred Manteghian  |  Sep 06, 2008  |  0 comments

These will set you back $3,000 a pair, but these three way speakers, with dual 6.5" Kelvar woofers, 5" midrange, Nautilus tube-loaded tweeter looks to be meant for serious theater duty. Available in gloss black, rosenut or wenge.

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B&W Updates to CM Series – the new CMC-2 Center
Fred Manteghian  |  Sep 06, 2008  |  0 comments

A true three-way, $1,250.

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Back in the Day
Fred Manteghian  |  May 11, 2007  |  0 comments

I remember my first audio / video trade show. Chicago, June 1995, the last official summer CES. I arrived at O'Hare mid-afternoon and made my way to the Palmer House, a grand old hotel where the show would take place. The lobby was huge, enormous and, as I would come to find, the place where journalists, manufacturers and their PR firms would come together each evening to conspire over cigars and cognac, with the manufacturers or their agents, naturally, picking up the tab.

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