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I first encountered Starke Sound at CES a couple of years ago.

Starke Sound Halo

I’d never heard of the independent, California-based company before, but that’s part of the fun of going to audio shows; discovering new things! They were demonstrating a Dolby ATMOS home theater setup based on their Halo series of speakers. The loudspeakers definitely stood out, initially, because of the bold blue automotive paint finish, “Sapphire Blue” they call it. But they also caught my attention due to the impressive sound quality that they projected from a music concert Blu-Ray disc that was playing. It was one of the more memorable surround demos from that show.

Starke Sound Halo Elite Home Theater System First Look
Starke A7 MkII Multichannel Amplifier

Fast forward to now and Starke has sent a slightly more modest, but no less impressive looking, Halo based home theater system in for review. The system is comprised of: a pair of IC-H5 Elite tower speakers, an IC-H5C Elite center channel speaker, two IW-H5 Elite on wall speakers (for surrounds) and a single SUB35 subwoofer for bass duties. Funny enough, all are painted that same “Sapphire Blue” color, except for the subwoofer which is a screaming shade of “Candy Apple Red”. And just to ensure that the review speakers received adequate amounts of power, Starke kindly sent along one of their A7 MKII seven channel power amplifiers to sweeten the pot…gild the lily…insert clever phrase here! The A7 MKII is a behemoth of an amplifier that puts out 240 watts into 8 ohms and 480 watts into 4 ohms, times seven. It looks like it could successfully heat my basement over the winter months as well….I’ll let you know!

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These are probably the largest (or is that most intimidating) speakers that I have had in my home theater, ever! Look for a detailed review to appear on the website in the near future.

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See LatestSonus faber Lumina II Amator Bookshelf Speaker Review

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A native of Toronto Canada, Carlo's interest in audio began at a young age when, unbeknownst to his mother, he started taking apart her numerous transistor radios to see how they worked. This desire for “knowledge through deconstruction” continued through to the family’s 8-track tape player, turntable, headphones, and speakers. Carlo subsequently spent a lot of time in his room. Toronto was a fertile ground for Hi-Fi in the 1970s and 80s and Carlo spent much of his wayward youth hanging out in downtown Toronto stereo shops, listening to all manner of gear and picking the brains of the various store owners. Through that formative experience, Carlo developed an appreciation for good music and good sound reproduction. Also, as a budding graphic artist, the aesthetic aspects of a given piece of gear became increasingly of interest to his eyes. It was at about that time as well that Carlo began purchasing “Audio Magazine” on a regular basis and came to appreciate, in particular, the writing and reviewing of the late Leonard Feldman. Later on, he was also influenced by the writing and observations of the staff at Sound and Vision Canada, helmed at the time by Alan Loft. Carlo graduated from Sheridan College with a degree in Classical Animation and was subsequently employed by Walt Disney Consumer Products for 10 years as a Character Artist and Art Director. Having become disenchanted with Los Angeles, he then decided to strike out on his own. Carlo started his own company and has been freelancing artwork, from his home studio, primarily for the toy and publishing industries since 2001. In 2013, on a bit of a lark, Carlo answered a “Call for Writers” ad from an AV website that he had been regularly reading for about 5 years called Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity. He had come to appreciate the website’s combination of subjective impressions along with the objective bench-testing available in several of the reviews. The “B-Team” must have been working that day because by some miracle he was hired as a writer and his first review for the site was published early in 2014. Carlo has been continually writing, editing, traveling, listening, and learning on the company’s behalf ever since. Carlo currently lives in Granville, Ohio with his wife, two sons, and a very old, but chill dachshund.

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