Just a curiosity about the speaker company Soundstage. I was auditioning them at a Visions Electronics store in Edmonton about a month ago and wasn't able to find a decent review or forum about them on the net(which is how I came to find Axiom while looking for reviews). I am sold anyway for buying and trying out the Axiom m60's, Qs*'s and VP 150, but I'm curious why this is the only store to carry the brand. They sounded pretty good, but that was in a dealer room, and they look really sharp. The salesman recommended them over the Polk Monitor series. The speakers I listened to were the Stage 400, 500 and 800. Soundstage appears to be a division of Jam Industries, but on the JAM website, they do not say anything of soundstage. Are they a sleasy company like Nuance(and what really is the story about Nuance?)Please help clarify this for me as it is a curiosity itchin me. Thanks Chris
(if i broke any forum rules, i did not intend to in any fashion)

Why do you say that Nuance is sleasy?

Although I've never heard then, from everything I have read about the Nuance line is they could be compared to Bose in their marketing attempts to sell speakers that are ridiculously overpriced and underwhelming in performance. I'll also bet it would be difficult to find any type of professional review of them.

Our very own Mojo is about as close as we're going to get with a "professional" review.

Lol Sean you must have a memory like a sponge

Their website is terrible and there are no specs available anywhere. I had a chance to hear a pair of Nuance bookshelves however and they sounded very good. They were a grand which is too much relative to the 80s IMO. But besides the 22s, M3s, Bose 301s and Sonys, I haven't listened to any other bookshelves. The Nuances that I heard definitely blew these other bookshelves away though.

In my case, the only similarity is the abundance of holes. . .

Thanks, Sean. Enjoy your burled walnut .

Tex, I'll take your word for it since I've never heard them and can only comment on what I've read. But I don't think I would ever spend a grand on bookshelfs that I can't find specs on.

Nuance was only sold through a retail outlet much like Visions' own Soundstage brand. I can not for the life of me remember the name of that company, anyway, Nuance had a bad rap from poor sales practices more than poor performance. I can remembr a set of Nuance speakers that were the size of a wall, 6-7' tall and 2-3' wide, they played really loud but that is about all I can remember. I used to work with someone that had purchased a 5.1 set from that nameless company just before they went out of business. He seemed to really like his setup.

I say Nuance is sleasy in the way they allowed their retailers sell their products; high pressure sales, lack of knowledge of the product or knowledge of home audio in general,outrageous prices(20 grand for the big 7 ft tall speakers, which was cut in half after i said "ya right", then cut in half again and once more down to 2500 for a set of tower speakers when all it is, is just a nice cabinet with paper cones covered with a coating to make it look otherwise), forbidding anyone to review their products.... the list goes on. They have big sound, with big boxes that appeals cosmetically to people who think size matters. I know I have friends who wn them and were ripped 40 grand, no lie, and honestly I think they look sharp being big, but I wasn't nearly impressed even before I found how much they really cost. I see all over the place people trying to sell them for 4 grand or more on Kijiji and other sites like Buysell.com etc. So yeah, thats my two bits on that and thanks to everyone else on commenting about soundstage.

I whole-heartedly agree. For a few bucks more, you can get M80s which sound a heck of a lot better.

If you want an amusing couple of minutes enter "nuance fluance" into Google and clock on some links.

Interesting... made in Toronto, same contract mfg as Dahlquist :

Link

$400 for 5 speakers made of MDF? It may be a great deal for those that want home theatre on the cheap and aren't fussy about sound quality!

Hi Wiggins,

I suspect the reason you can't find any reviews on Soundstage or other stores that carry them is because there aren't any, the reason being that I'm sure Soundstage is a "house brand".

This means that an individual store or chain of stores will contract with some OEM manufacturer to build a line of speakers at various prices. No one know who designs them, where the parts are sourced, or where they're built. They're designed for maximum profit to the retailer and often are lousy sounding or barely acceptable.

Typically house brands will have names like "Soundstage" that are similar to other high-quality brands. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, there were house brands in Canada like Audio Research, which traded on the name of once fine old American manufacturer, Acoustic Research. Customers would get confused, which was the intention of the retailed and house brand line.

Sometimes the odd house brand speaker would evolve into a decent loudspeaker company. For example, the Ohm loudspeaker line started out as a house brand speaker for a chain of New England hi-fi stores called Tweeter, if memory serves.

I'll tell you the Nuance story in my next chapter--a uniquely Canadian and highly annoying tale of marketing gimmickry.

Regards,

Might it have been Tech HiFi? I remember they really used to be big on Ohm....

Man, I miss places like that. They used to come out with these great printed catalogs that featured everything from the big Kenwood, Sansui, Marantz and pioneer receivers with their 270 or 300 watt ratings, through Infinity Reference Standard speakers. That catalog was hifi porn to me.... !

Hi Mark,

Yes, you're right--Tech Hi-Fi.

And electronics catalogs were absolutely hi-fi porn. Going back even farther, I still cherish two thick catalogs, one from New York-based Lafayette Radio Electronics (1967) and one from Allied Radio, which was based in Chicago. They were given to me by an old friend, Larry Klein, the former Technical Editor of Stereo Review, who retired long ago.

Regards,

Thank you everyone for clearing that up, my suspicions seem to be correct about my curiosity. It just bugs me how some salesman try and prove their product is superior to others with no proof to back up their claim. I went to the Nuance site and they had comments from satisfied customers, but one thing I found amusing was over 3/4 of the comments were from Alberta alone. I find that interesting as to how their marketing strategies work, sell to young people(males) who are young, foolish and spend all the money they make in the oil fields, decieve the buyer by the size of the speaker and how loud it can go. These are just average joes falling prey to a devious plan. Needless to say, the retail outlet for Nuance here in Edmonton is finished and facing numerous lawsuits of unfair business practices among other charges.

Alan,

When are you unveiling the next chapter?