Audiophile Malls Asia: Yongsan ETLand, Seoul, S. Korea

 

I don't know about you guys, but I'm like one of those husbands/boyfriends/partners who sit outside surfing the web at women's clothing stores. So while "the girls" were out shopping and getting pedicures in Seoul, I decided to take a couple hours' detour to the Yongsan ETLand which is about a 10 minute walk away from the massive Yongsan subway station.

I suspect in the Western world (North America and Europe), it's quite rare to find a good concentration of stores selling hi-fi hardware any more. Unless one is fortunate enough to have a large dealer in town, audio shows seem to be the only place left to see a large number of brands under one roof. However, as you might remember for past articles (like this, this), in Asia, the concept of an "audiophile mall", or "hifi-mall" still exists, so let's document some of these places in 2026... this time, we take a peek in Seoul.

Small Room Acoustics: Example of impact with (ultra) high-end speakers in Stereophile. (On AI audio writers, and Asia vacation pictures. 😊)

Last time, we discussed small room acoustics and audiophile listening rooms. In that article, I used an idealized loudspeaker with flat frequency response from 40Hz up. As I'm still traveling, away from my gear, I figured for this article, let's look around published data in audio articles to examine room effects and consider what this means.

One widely available and consistent source of objective data over the decades comes from Stereophile. While there are clear examples in the magazine where they perpetuate the "woo" in audiophilia, I appreciate that they do provide measurements for audiophiles who can read graphs and consider the technical performance of devices beyond subjective claims of how "great" something sounds, at some point in time, to someone, in some nebulous-quality sound room.

So let's take a look at a very recent Stereophile article - this one reviewing the Marten Mingus Septet Statement Edition loudspeakers - and consider the effects from room acoustics. Clearly, at an asking price of US$200k/pair, we're in the zone of "ultra high-end" luxury audio hardware. These speakers would be way above and beyond what the vast majority of audiophiles (never mind "music lovers" at large!) would ever spend.

Audiophile small room acoustics: complex and essential.

In the post "What are the most important audio components?" a few years ago, I said that we need to understand the various audiophile "domains": audio hardware, room acoustics, quality of your music, and of course personal mental engagement. Each of these have a part to play in the achievement of and personal judgment around sound quality.

Of those domains, it's hard to speak about personal mental engagement as this is a highly individual exercise (and related to one's auditory acuity). The quality of the music we listen to again is related to not just personal preferences (like genre) but also what mastering quality and variants like hi-res, multichannel, and on what format (SACD, vinyl, etc.) the record label makes available of our favorite albums.

It's always tempting of course to get excited about audio hardware - the latest toys. For example, recently, I heard that Andrew Jones has another ported box speaker design with paper/fabric drivers, this time with a coaxial tweeter+midrange that's based on field coils / electromagnets, paired to the permanent magnet woofer at something like USD$34k. While I'm sure this could be a compelling design for many, I think we can also recognize that these days, as equipment fidelity has improved significantly to the point where a simplistic "high price = high quality sound" equation no longer works, it's maybe wiser to direct our attention to the other domains.

This then leaves the very important issue of sound room acoustics, an area that we can all to some degree optimize (see also previous discussion on the sound room). I have heard it said that the sound room is the "foundation" from which we build our hi-fi sound system. As with any project, without an adequate foundation, no matter how great the rest of the system may be, you can only achieve a ceiling of performance dictated by the limits of that foundation.

In this post, let's dive a bit deeper into the importance of typical domestic small room acoustics and general principles around achieving good sound quality.

MUSINGS: On high-end audio component prices, inflation, April Fools and peak "greedflation"?

 

Let's consider how over the last while even audiophile magazines have wondered about the High-End Audio Industry's escalation in suggested retail prices for their products.

A year ago, Stereophile attempted to answer "Why Hi-Fi Prices Have Risen". To be fair, I think Jim Austin in the article made some good points about inflation, tariffs, etc. I'm glad that the article also acknowledged the fact that for years now, each generation of "high-end" audio products seemingly have also been just getting more expensive, untethered from inflationary expectations.

Grab a nice beverage, have a seat. Let's talk about prices in audiophilia. Is it true that the "high end" has become much more expensive?

[Some of these thoughts will trickle into the psychology of other luxury products beyond audio. Also, we'll be talking about dollars and cents in this post. Since most audiophile goods are priced in US dollars, let's use that through this post, with early April 2026 currency conversion as needed.]

Crosstalk Cancellation/Ambiophonics: Updated CTXMatrix Lite with standalone processor & 60° speaker angle support.

Significant changes in the UI from the previous CTXMatrixBeta release.

I want to remind 2-channel "immersive sound" lovers about the potential for using stereo crosstalk cancellation (XTC) / ambiophonics playback to enhance the 3D soundstage. You might have already heard of uBACCH in the audio magazines and on forums - why not try a similar effect for free (or through a small coffee donation)?!

You might recall, last year STC contributed a post on CTXMatrixBeta DSP for Windows. Well, it's great to see that he has continued to develop the software with updated user interface and abilities, this latest edition renamed CTXMatrix Lite, currently at version 1.3. It now includes a standalone processor which I'll spend some time discussing in this post, along with the 64-bit VST3 plugin as shown above that can be used in JRiver, Audirvāna and DAW software like Reaper.

Furthermore, there is now a VST3 plugin for Linux. Since I primarily use Windows for my music listening and processing, I'll stick with the Windows variant here with the hopes that some of this will be applicable. In my discussions with STC, he's aware of interest from Mac OSX users.

Perhaps the most important update in the last few months is that there is now improved support for standard ~60° stereo speaker angle (typically, the recommendation is 20-30° in ambiophonics). As a result, one should have a much better experience with the effect on most set-ups. In particular, hopefully more desktop computer music lovers will give this a listen without needed to move the speaker position and explore what you might be missing in your existing music library.

[If you run a miniPC streamer in the sound room like I do, CTXMatrix can easily be used like with HAF X-talk Shaper DSP discussed a couple years ago.]

Do HDMI cables make a difference for IIS/I2S/I²S-HDMI audiophile DACs?

It's taking a bit longer for my testing of the inexpensive I²S/IIS/I2S-HDMI DDC boxes due to some unexpected results which I'm chasing down currently; hopefully that gets resolved or understood soon.

In the meantime, let me address something that folks might be curious about related to this topic of the I2S-HDMI interface... Does the HDMI cable make a difference to the sound quality?

As with much of audiophilia wherein some members of the culture have the belief that "everything makes a difference", obviously this is not the case and I do not recommend this kind of mindset. There are many things that don't make much, if any difference (as discussed here and here) based on experience and understanding principles of the technology.

Since I have not seen measurements examining the effect of HDMI cables on I²S performance from a DAC, let's do some testing here.

Visit to a "more subjective" leaning friend. And something like Synergistic Research "Transducers" (HFT, GCT, ECT...) to try.

Hey everyone. I'm still waiting to finish the measurements and write-up of the USB DDC boxes discussed last time (a few things I need to double check on!). In the meantime, I thought I'd share some thoughts and pictures with you of a visit I made to a friend, Paul's, place. You'll see that he is much more of a "subjectivist" than I am.

Above, we see his listening room which is capable of multichannel playback as well for music and movies. He's a multichannel enthusiast who values the immersive experience and has a large library of surround content in PCM and DSD - great to see!

Clearly, Paul is a Linn fan with almost an all-Linn system. He has front Linn Akubarik Exakt (Katalyst) active speakers, an Akurate 225 center channel, and a pair of Akudoriks as rear/side channels. Over the years, he has been experimenting with Linn Space Optimisation and wrote an article about his experiences (he contacted me after he saw my tests with Linn SO last year).

Inexpensive USB2.0 Digital-to-Digital Converters (DDC) Pt.1: Douk Audio U2 PRO (Upgrade Version) and SMSL PO100 PRO - initial look, about I²S-HDMI. In praise of unofficial Atmos mixes!

This SMSL unit also does MQA decoding for those who want the feature. Unlike the Douk, this box only has an LED to indicate MQA decoding status but does not tell us the PCM or DSD samplerate.

While I've tested some inexpensive devices (like the Topping D10s DAC) which have the ability to convert USB 2.0 input into S/PDIF output, I have not specifically looked into these Digital-to-Digital Converter boxes which some audiophile reviewers (like this fellow, and this) seem to rave about.

For me, there just hasn't been any reason to be particularly interested since other than conversion from one interface type to another, the other promise of such devices - the reclocking capability - just hasn't been of great interest to me. As far as I can tell from listening, it's not like jitter has ever really been much of an issue unless severely bad for any decent modern device I've ever come across even at low price points (nor was jitter really an issue even with old CD players)!

However, since I have not tested I²S/I2S/IIS, I figure I'd buy both the Douk Audio U2 PRO 2025 upgrade version (US$63; Amazon Canada) and SMSL PO100 PRO (US$74; Amazon Canada) boxes to try out; have a listen and run some measurements. Unfortunately due to time limits, I'm not quite ready to show the measurements yet, so keep an eye out for those results, perhaps next week! For now let's just introduce you to these devices and talk about the I²S-HDMI connection.

As typical of the majority of my reviews/critiques, I bought these through retail channels.

Images from San Francisco: Audio Vision SF, B&O Flagship Store, Amoeba Music. Question of greater importance: music or gear?

It's an interesting experience I think to pop into local "brick and mortar" audiophile stores when traveling (like this, this, this over the years). This past week, I've been in San Francisco visiting family. We happened to stay within walking distance from what I think is the most well-stocked audiophile gear store in the city - Audio Vision San Francisco - located in the Nob Hill neighborhood. They're opened on weekends, closed on Tuesday, and by appointment on Mondays.

Chatting with the salesperson, I was told the store opened about 26 years ago. I suspect most audiophiles will be impressed when you walk into the store and see their selection of gear sitting in the hallway!

More Audio Potpourri: What's the best sample rate converter? The other father of MP3 (James D. Johnston "JJ"). Are measurements important? And TAS' "objective" confusion.

For this post, let's discuss a few other audiophile items that have come my way in recent weeks.

First, let's talk about something I haven't brought up for awhile now: sample rate conversion (SRC).

A few weeks ago, Spoon (a.k.a. Steven Elkins of Illustrate) sent me an E-mail about his new src.hydrogenaudio.org page evaluating and ranking the qualities of various software sample rate converters. I believe the page has been online since late 2025. Check out the forum discussion about the project as well.

Audiophile Potpourri: December 2025 web traffic among audio sites, price of cables poll, and flashback 2014 while looking ahead.

Let's have some fun this week on miscellaneous topics.

Occasionally, I'll highlight items I've either written or found on audio discussion forums I think would be good to share. One reason I decided to start doing a blog beyond just contributing to forum discussions was precisely because while the public forums are great for interactions with community members, meaningful posts often become obscured behind pages and pages of chit chat, irrelevant responses, and sometimes unpleasant arguments.

[I've unfortunately witnessed situations where very meaningful threads are closed off prematurely based on the bias of moderators. Even worse, threads with useful discussions might be erased entirely from existence which I feel is an slap in the face of well-meaning participants who put their time and efforts into thoughtful reflections. This is nothing new in the audiophile world; for example last year Stereophile scrubbed their website of all public comments accumulated over decades!

While I acknowledge the right of a website's owner to do such things, that doesn't make it any more palatable. I certainly understand the need for moderation in removing nonsensical, trollish, unethical, or crude statements that add nothing to promote thoughtful discussions.]

Speaking of forums and websites, I thought here in early 2026 it would be fun to explore website traffic numbers of some of the most common audiophile/audio sites using a common metric. One can get monthly visit numbers from Similarweb for free, a well-known website traffic tracker.

miniDSP UMIK-2 USB Microphone: analog gain & optimizing self-noise. Plus audiophile gear pictures from "No Other Choice".

Last week, I discussed the miniDSP UMIK-2 USB measurement microphone and as I mentioned then, it's not often that we see much discussion about these devices among audiophiles even though they are important in helping us chase down sonic problems and of course to calibrate the sound system. To me, that calibration process is an essential part of achieving a truly "accurate" sound system once we sort out basic room set-up; assuming high-fidelity accuracy is what you're after of course!

So, before heading off to other topics, I thought I'd explore a little more about this device.

miniDSP UMIK-2 USB measurement microphone (also ambient noise floor, measurements of my system using Dirac Live with Paradigm + SVS subs)

Well, as mentioned previously, it was a great holiday season and here's another gift from Audio-Santa 🙂 - the miniDSP UMIK-2 measurement microphone. I bought this through Solen.ca here in Canada and they did a great job with the order and quick shipment. Amazon Canada often has limited stock of miniDSP products.

I'm sure the miniDSP company is well known to many audiophiles at this point. I bet many of you, like myself, already have one of their UMIK-1 microphones which I've used in a number of the acoustic measurements on this blog since 2019.

As you can imagine, the UMIK-2, initially released in late 2020, is an evolution of the UMIK-1 with upgrades which we'll talk about. First, let's have a peek at the physical device itself.

More Bass: The SVS SB-2000 Pro subwoofer (sealed, 12", 550W, DSP, Bluetooth)

Over the holidays, Santa brought me a new SVS SB-2000 Pro subwoofer (currently US$900 black ash, US$1000 piano black, Canada: black ash, piano black) for the system in the sound room. As you can see, I got the slightly more expensive shiny piano black version. As usual, I bought this from typical consumer channels.

On this blog, we've talked about full-range sound, including the importance of subwoofer(s) in order to experience "fully" all there is in our recordings. As a pop, rock, electronica, orchestral, movie-lover, the ability to experience down to 20Hz (even a little lower into "infrasound") with adequate power, and low distortion is all part of what it means to achieve "high-fidelity" audio that is transparent to the source recording. As usual, it doesn't mean I can't enjoy my music without these sub-bass frequencies! It's just nice to know that I'm not neglecting content present in those lower registers as provided by artists and audio engineers.

During the pandemic, in the spring of 2020, I bought myself an inexpensive 8" Polk PSW111 to use as an "accessory" subwoofer to help fill-in the bass response in concert with the mighty Paradigm SUB1 (1700Wrms, 6 x 8" drivers), my main subwoofer that achieves frequency response down below 20Hz. For these last 5+ years, the little Polk has done its job reasonably well but it clearly has limits. For example, when pushed up in level, I can hear the "chuffing" from the small ~4" diameter down-facing port. Also, a ported 8" sub like this can really only be expected to reproduce down to the mid-30Hz at best.

And so, moving ahead, let's spend some money to retire that little Polk sub to my main floor living room, making space for this SVS! 😁

Happy New Year! And a thank you to the Lyrion Music Server folks for renewing the life of my Squeezebox Radio. ☺️

Hope you're all having a wonderful Christmas-New Year Holiday season!

On Christmas morn 2025, as I relaxed in the sitting room waiting for the rest of the family to get ready for some holiday festivities, listening to holiday music, I could not help but marvel at the fact that my little Logitech Squeezebox Radio sitting over the fireplace, released back in 2009 continues to go strong all these years later. The Squeezebox products including the Radio were some of the first devices I posted about with measurements in the early days of this blog.

I think it's an obvious reminder that even though time flies, music preferences and artists change, hardware gets upgraded and new technologies show up at our homes, the ability to enjoy music need not be tied into the hardware obsessionality that can consume audiophiles. We can derive much joy out of even a simple mono "radio" device like this.

Although Logitech got out of Squeezebox hardware production way back in 2012, they continued the official MySqueezebox.com servers until March 2024. I actually didn't even notice this change as I've been using my own Logitech Music Server (LMS) home system since something like 2008.

While LMS development has stopped, it's great to see that the good folks have continued to work on this venerable music streaming system as Lyrion Music Server.