Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2015 i Hi-Fi Choice

PRICE: £338-£1,338 AVAILABLE: NOW CONTACT: 0208 9713909 WEB: ABSOLUTESOUNDS.COM Sonus faber’s Chameleon collection embodies all of the iconic design elements for which the Vicenza-based company is famous. It also features, says the maker, a level of customisation previously unattainable at this price point. Each cabinet is covered in leather, driver flanges are embellished with aluminium trims and the sidewalls house exchangeable coloured panels. Thanks to this design, owners of the Chameleon will have the freedom to select the style and colour best suited to either their environment or personal taste, claims Sonus faber, while the new cabinet shapes and proportions promise exceptional control of internal resonance, perfect acoustics and simply excellent driver stability. The three speakers that make up the collection include the Chameleon B, a two-way bookshelf model, Chameleon…

PRICE: £150-£1,250 AVAILABLE: NOW CONTACT: 03308 080489 WEB: RAUMFELD.COM If multi-room audio sounds appealing but you’re unsure if it’s worth the investment, German company Raumfeld might just have the answer. Available online, the multi-room range is available with an eight-week trial period, which should be more than enough to decide if it’s a keeper. The range consists of the £150 Connector2 (below), a wi-finetwork player that can be hooked up to your system for streaming music around your home wirelessly to the Stereo L or Stereo M loudspeakers. The Stereo L is a floorstanding model with three-way design and an integrated 400W amplifier. Also featured under the hood is a Cirrus Logic DAC for streaming at what the company claims is the highest possible quality. The Stereo M (left) also…

DETAILS PRODUCT Exposure 3010S2-D ORIGIN UK/China TYPE Integrated amplifier WEIGHT 12kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 440 x 115 x 300mm FEATURES ● Quoted power output: 2x 110W (8ohms) ● 6x RCA line inputs inc AV bypass ● Optional DAC module ● Optional MM or MC phono stage module ● Preamplifier output DISTRIBUTOR Exposure Electronics Ltd TELEPHONE 01273 423877 WEBSITE exposurehifi.com Times change and fashions with it. The integrated amplifier is just as susceptible to these as any, and so we have seen a number of new designs in the past year or two that feature a far wider range of facilities than their predecessors. It seems that people buying integrated amplifiers in 2015 no longer expect or indeed want the stripped-down minimalism that first came into vogue in the eighties. Nowadays, the…

WITH THE CONTINUOUS evolution of drive unit technology, the development of cabinet manufacturing processes and increasingly sophisticated measurement devices you’d think that we would have reached the pinnacle of loudspeaker design, manufacturing and performance and that loudpeakers would pretty much all sound the same. Anyone that has visited a dealers’ dem room will know that this isn’t the case. Loudspeaker design has followed the same principles for decades, but there are still big differences to be heard between similar-looking boxes and drive unit materials – even models costing the same still manage to sound profoundly different from one another. OK, this isn’t very likely to come as much of a surprise to any loudspeaker design engineers out there, but given that electronic components can be made to uniformly high standards…

DETAILS PRODUCT KEF R300 ORIGIN UK/China TYPE 3-way standmount loudspeaker WEIGHT 12kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 210 x 385 x 345mm FEATURES ● Uni-Q driver: 1x 25mm tweeter; 1x 125mm mid ● 1x 165mm bass ● Quoted sensitivity: 88dB/1W/1m DISTRIBUTOR GP Acoustics (UK) Ltd TELEPHONE 01622 672261 WEBSITE kef.com/gb One of the latest in a long line of sub-£1,000 KEF standmounts, the R300 is pretty and technically interesting, being the only three-way loudspeaker here. It is one of the larger designs in the group and looks the part with clean uncluttered lines that give it an air of sophistication, helped in no small degree by the excellent finish (which comes in a choice of classic piano black, rosewood or walnut wood veneer). It sports the latest version of KEF’s Uni-Q driver array…

DETAILS PRODUCT SVS Ultra Bookshelf ORIGIN US/China TYPE 2-way standmount loudspeaker WEIGHT 8.6kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 212 x 380 x 254mm FEATURES ● 25mm dome tweeter ● 165mm glass fibre mid/bass unit ● Quoted sensitivity: 87dB/1W/1m DISTRIBUTOR Karma AV TELEPHONE 01423 358846 WEBSITE karma-av.co.uk Another American-designed speaker, SVS is relatively unknown in Britain but has made a name for itself in the US with its subwoofers. Typical of what’s on offer at this price, it looks elegant in – yes, you’ve guessed it – a choice of lacquered gloss black or white finishes. I have no complaints on the quality of its build either – it’s a solid little loudspeaker. One might say this is an archetypal modern mini-monitor, being a two-way bass reflex design with a 25mm aluminium tweeter and…

DETAILS PRODUCT Pro-Ject 2 Xperience SB DC ORIGIN Austria TYPE Belt-drive turntable WEIGHT 7.7kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 460 x 160 x 360mm FEATURES ● 9CC Evolution carbon-fibre tonearm ● New DC-powered synchronous turntable motor with electronic speed control ● Ortofon 2M Silver moving magnet cartridge DISTRIBUTOR Henley Designs TELEPHONE 01235 511166 WEBSITE henleydesigns.co.uk Right from the outset, I find myself impressed with the look and feel of the top-of-the-range model from Pro-Ject’s Xperience turntables. It has an air of classic elegance and refinement. In particular, the lovely matt finish of the walnut wood veneer is a perfect complement to the black of the platter and the Pro-Ject 9CC Evolution carbon-fibre tonearm. This arm is fitted with an Ortofon 2M Silver moving magnet cartridge, which has already been fully aligned at the…

DETAILS PRODUCT Melco N1A ORIGIN Japan TYPE 4TB NAS drive WEIGHT 7kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 436 x 70 x 352mm FEATURES ● Storage 4TB internally ● 2x LAN; 3x USB 3.0; 1x USB 2.0 DISTRIBUTOR Kog Audio TELEPHONE 024 77220650 WEBSITE melco-audio.com There is a certain irony to the timing of me reviewing this product. Over the last few issues of HFC, I have made my position abundantly clear that I don’t believe that going to town on networking accessories is a particularly fruitful approach to upgrading an existing system. No sooner than I have committed those words to print, I find myself in possession of a NAS drive that the manufacturer claims is specifically optimised for audio playback. Me and my big mouth. The Melco N1A before you here is…

The UK is blessed with a veritable Utopia of hi-fishops – places where kit is still referred to as ‘hi-fi’ and the people who work there have strong opinions and preferences and know useful stuff. They share our passion for music and the desire to extract maximum sonic satisfaction for any given outlay of cash. In short, it’s where we go to find an informed means to a rewarding end. How rare is that? But I can guarantee this. Our non-hi-fisavvy but nevertheless music-loving friends are no more likely to visit a hi-fishop than sign up for a one-way trip to Mars. It isn’t because Rowan Atkinson and Griff Rhys-Jones are lurking, poised to re-enact their “don’t think we’ve got any gram-o-phones here, granddad” sketch to any hi-fiinnocent foolish enough…

It’s no exaggeration to say that the Leak Stereo 30 integrated amplifier deserves a place in any comprehensive timeline of audio history, as constituting the very first commercially available hi-fitransistor amplifier that did not use any transformers in its signal path. Introduced in 1963, the Stereo 30 and its replacement, the Stereo 30 Plus (1967–71), were two of the most popular amplifiers of the swinging sixties. However, estimates of their worth are a source of conflict, with some critics regarding them as having established a precedent for what would become a low point in amplifier design. To some valve enthusiasts, they are almost an embarrassment coming in the aftermath of Harold Leak’s notable successes with tube technology. It’d be a bit of a stretch to argue that the Stereo 30s…

The minimalist composer collaborated with Peter Greenaway on numerous projects – including The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover – and is perhaps most famous for his soundtrack to Jane Campion’s The Piano. The first vinyl entry in Nyman’s considerable discography was Decay Music (1976). Produced by Eno, who like Nyman was a member of Gavin Bryars’ Portsmouth Sinfonia, it consists of two avant-garde pieces that will surprise any listener more familiar with his soundtrack and opera work. Side A is filled by 1-100, a low-volume piece for multi-tracked, repeated chords, making fantastic use of silence as Nyman moves from the high to low end of the piano. Written for Greenaway’s film of the same name and played at half-speed, it was only unused because it was too…

PRICE: £80 TELEPHONE: 0208 9002866 WEBSITE: musicalfidelity.com DETAILS PRODUCT Musical Fidelity EB-33 ORIGIN China WEIGHT 24g FEATURES 1.2m cable; mic/remote control; 105dB quoted sensitivity DISTRIBUTOR Musical Fidelity TASTE IS VERY much a personal thing but the EB-33 is more likely to split opinion than any of the other earphones in this roundup. You see, in order to fit in the not inconsiderable 13.5mm dynamic drivers that the Musical Fidelity offering boasts into each earpiece, these are about as bulky a set of earphones as you’re likely to find – wearing them is kind of like having two small metal cotton reels hanging off the side of your head. Happily, the EB-33 is not as uncomfortable as initial appearances would suggest, but after wearing the altogether more sleek Heaven II, I…

HAVING BEEN IN the hi-fibusiness for around 20 years, Talk Electronics knows a thing or two about making audio components. Within the broader scope of Talk Electronics, Edwards Audio is targeted towards entry-level components like this single input Apprentice headphone amp. The op-amp based design with a fully discrete output stage has standard RCA phono input sockets, and the output is a professional-quality 6.3mm Neutrik headphone socket. The unit is 115 x 47.5 x 160mm (wxhxd) and weighs 270g. The Apprentice has been designed to have a very low output impedance and will drive all known types of dynamic headphone with its 1W maximum output into a 32ohm load. The pre-amp section is a totally active design with improved RF rejection over the previous model. It is supplied with a…

PRICE: £400-£900 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: ACOUSTIC-RESEARCH.COM 2015 IS SHAPING up to be the year of the veteran hi-fibrand reboot. At the beginning of the year we saw Technics make an eagerly anticipated comeback after some considerable time in the wilderness, with the introduction of its scary-money Reference system alongside the more wallet-friendly Premium Class separates hi-ficomponents (reviewed in issue 394). And now we see the welcome return of Acoustic Research as it embraces hi-res computer audio and portable music. The announcement of the relaunch of the Acoustic Research brand was made at the Bristol Show back in February with news of two models triggering the rebirth of the 60-year old hi-finame that is better remembered for its innovative speaker designs and suspended sub-chassis belt-drive turntables. The first model to grab…

DETAILS PRODUCT Bowers & Wilkins CM5 S2 ORIGIN UK/China TYPE 2-way standmount loudspeaker WEIGHT 8.9kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 200 x 340 x 285mm FEATURES ● 25mm metal dome tweeter ● 165mm Kevlar coned bass unit ● Quoted sensitivity: 88dB/1W/1m DISTRIBUTOR B&W Group Ltd TELEPHONE 0800 2321513 WEBSITE bowers-wilkins. co.uk Meet another new loudspeaker from a world-famous company whose reputation leaves nothing to be desired. The CM5 S2 sits towards bottom of the range, and doesn’t get the top-mounted tweeter, which is becoming something of a B&W tradition. The box is attractive, crisp and modern looking. Like most products in this test it is very well put together. Finishes include lacquered gloss black, satin white and rosenut. This two-way loudspeaker sports a 25mm aluminium dome tweeter, which is double-decoupled from the cabinet…

DETAILS PRODUCT Quadral Platinum M25 ORIGIN Germany/China TYPE 2-way standmount loudspeaker WEIGHT 7.7kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 195 x 360 x 300mm FEATURES ● RiCom-V tweeter ● 170mm aluminium bass unit ● Quoted sensitivity: 86dB/1W/1m DISTRIBUTOR NuNu Distribution TELEPHONE 0203 5442338 WEBSITE quadral.com Hanover-based Quadral offers a vast range of speakers of various shapes, sizes and types – although like many foreign brands has struggled to gain traction in the United Kingdom’s overcrowded loudspeaker market. The M25 is the smallest in the Platinum M series, and said to be suitable for both hi-fiand home cinema applications. It sports the company’s latest RiCom-V tweeter and aluminium coned mid/bass unit – the latter proving a recurring theme in this roundup. The other point of commonality is the piano lacquered cabinet (available in white or…

DETAILS PRODUCT Denon PMA-50 ORIGIN China TYPE Integrated amplifier/USB DAC WEIGHT 2.5kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 200 x 86 x 258mm FEATURES ● Quoted power: 2x 25W into 8ohms ● Asynchronous USB input; 3x digital inputs; analogue input; aptX Bluetooth ● Headphone amp DISTRIBUTOR Denon UK TELEPHONE 02890 279830 WEBSITE denon.co.uk Desktop appears to be the buzzword of late for the D&M Group: starting with the little Denon DA-300USB USB DAC and headphone amp (HFC 393), it’s gone on to launch the classy-looking Marantz HD-DAC1 DAC/headphone amp/preamp, and most recently the battery-powered Denon DA-10, its only-slightly-toobulky portable headphone amplifier. All of these were launched at the company’s European conference last year, where it was clear from the layout of the display that it is taking personal audio very seriously: while the AV…

Phil Macy, vinyl enthusiast and proprietor of bespoke lathe cutting service 3.45RPM, is a rare breed: he loves his day job. “Recently, I was cutting a track by Jimi Hendrix and Simeon [Silver Apples] in my back bedroom,” he recalls. “I mean, Hendrix and Simeon. Come on, this is living the dream! I’ve run DIY record labels and been in all manner of bands, but what I now realise is that all I’ve wanted to do is cut vinyl. It’s my dream job. The records I cut will outlive my grandchildren…” With a shortage of pressing plants and demand for vinyl at its highest for years, it’s little surprise that dedicated operations such as 3.45RPM are springing up to cater to demand. Based in Phil’s East Sussex house, it specialises…

In 1919 Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, DW Griffith and Douglas Fairbanks decided they’d had enough of being pushed around and took matters into their own hands forming United Artists. The idea being that those with the talent and creativity should be able to have a larger say in how their movies were handled and presented to the world at large. Jump forward nearly 100 years and history appears to be repeating itself, but in the world of music. Regular readers will have noticed how last month we took a departure from our normal habit of reviewing hardware on our Group Test pages and instead turned our attention to music streaming services. Though we as audiophiles tend to prefer the superior sonic qualities of physical media, there’s little doubt that streaming…

It has to start somewhere. For me it was my maternal grandparents’ huge HMV stereogram, a 1.5m-long 0.5m-high teak cabinet with built-in speakers hidden behind front-facing grilles, a stunningly cool soft-dampened lid, which needed to soft-close given its weight, a built-in turntable, operational controls and what seems – looking back – a disproportionately large area given up to the ‘wireless’. This was my first experience of hi-fi, and I marvelled at how the sound magically emanated from the speakers via those heavy black discs. Sure, I’d witnessed vinyl in action before. Around the same time there was the thrill of the child-friendly Octopus’ Garden and Maxwell’s Silver Hammer on Uncle Rod’s ‘system’ (a Dansette mono one-box unit that was handed down to me). It was only years later, when hearing…

Gavin Bryars appears on numerous releases on the label as composer, collaborator or guest musician. He started his musical career as a bassist playing jazz in the Joseph Holbrooke Trio with fellow free improvisers guitarist Derek Bailey and drummer Tony Oxley. Studying briefly under John Cage and influenced by minimalism, one of Bryars’ earliest works as a composer is the one that continues to both fascinate and evolve: The Sinking Of The Titanic. Composed in 1969, it was the debut release on Obscure in 1975, produced by Brian Eno. Inspiration came from the story that the band on the deck of the stricken RMS Titanic continued to play on as it went down. Bryars’ piece imagines how the sound would have continued to reverberate as the ship sank, using an…

Composer and poet Harold Budd describes his piano style as “soft pedal” – slow and sustained. He collaborated with Eno on classic ambient recordings The Plateaux Of Mirror (1980) and The Pearl (1984), featuring his hallmark keyboard style. Again produced by Obscure’s head, The Pavilion of Dreams is an extended cycle of works begun by Budd in 1972. Released in 1978, the album’s opening track Bismillahi ’Rrahman ’Rrahim (Arabic for: In The Name of God, The Beneficent, The Merciful) features the alto saxophone of Marion Brown as well as appearances from Michael Nyman (marimba) and Gavin Bryars (glockenspiel). Two Songs follow this beautiful piece of music: Let Us Go Into The House Of The Lord is a setting of a traditional hymn after a version by Pharoah Sanders, while Butterfly…

DISTRIBUTED THROUGHOUT THE UK via the Richer Sounds network of retailers, Cambridge Audio’s 651P is the big brother of the Azur 551P, which only supports moving magnet cartridges and lacks the subsonic filter of its sibling. It measures 215 x 46 x 133mm (wxhxd) and feels solidly constructed weighing in at 0.9kg, and features an acoustically damped metal chassis with a thick brushed aluminium front panel. The 651P is available in a choice of brushed black and silver finishes. The understandably minimalist front panel houses the on/off switch and power LED, while around the back are three pairs of RCA sockets: two for the moving magnet and moving coil inputs and one for the output. A slide switch is used to select the input, which allows for permanent connection of…

THERE IS MORE to a turntable belt than meets the eye. Firstly, its job is to transfer the rotational kinetic energy from the drive pulley to the turntable and it has to do this without imparting any noise of its own, so a chain drive would certainly be out. It also needs to maintain the precise rotational speed imparted by the drive pulley. It should be noted that, during operation, part of the belt is always at a higher tension on one side of the pulley compared with the other as it pulls the turntable platter around. This is as a result of the friction of the turntable bearing and the drag of the stylus on the record. The belt must, therefore, have a uniform elasticity throughout – any imbalance…

After years in the wilderness it looks as though vinyl is finally coming in from the cold. Record sales are higher than they’ve been since 1997 when Britpop ruled the world and many people are universally shunning poor quality downloads and streams in favour of the black stuff. You see, there’s nothing quite like the routine of removing an LP from its sleeve, placing it onto a turntable and then putting the needle into the groove and sitting back to enjoy your music as it really should be heard. But what’s that, you don’t own a decent record player? We might just be able to help you out with that... Our good friends at Musical Fidelity have very kindly provided us with the very special £1,300 Merlin 1 system to…

PRICE: £1,350 AVAILABLE: NOW CONTACT: 01353 721089 WEB: DYNAUDIO.COM DANISH HI-FI SPECIALIST Dynaudio says its new Excite X14A is the ideal loudspeaker for smart, modern audio systems. This active standmounting speaker system is a rear-ported, two-way design with built-in amplification claimed at 50W employed to drive the bass/midrange driver, while a second similarly rated amplifier powers the tweeter driver. Rated at 2x 100W stereo power output, the X14A offers superb soundstaging and imaging between the two speakers, says the company. The bass, midrange and treble can all be individually adjusted for room tuning and a high-pass filter (60Hz or 80Hz) allows the Excite X14A to be combined with a subwoofer. The rear panel features RCA and XLR inputs and the facility to switch-on from standby after sensing the presence of…

PRICE: £1,500 AVAILABLE: NOW CONTACT: 0208 9792155 WEB: TOWNSHENDAUDIO.COM THANKS TO RESEARCH by the BGS (British Geological Survey), Townshend audio has arrived at the scientific conclusion that, due to seismic disturbances deep beneath the surface of the earth, the ground beneath our living rooms is constantly vibrating (see David Vivian’s Opinion page in last month’s issue). With a measurement of 1-2 on the Richter Scale, the result is severe contamination of your audio signal up to 10 microns. Townshend’s Seismic Podium is designed, to break the acoustic connection between the floor and the speaker, and prevent the passage of deleterious vibrations both to and from the speaker cabinets. Now, says the company, you can listen to your favourite music at home and at a more realistic volume level without annoying…

PRICE: £2,950 AVAILABLE: NOW CONTACT: 0870 4441044 WEB: PMC-SPEAKERS.COM BRITISH SPEAKER MANUFACTURER PMC has unveiled the latest addition to its twenty range, which will be music to the ears of fans of bass as it’s a subwoofer. Like all PMC speaker designs, the twenty.sub utilises Advanced Transmission Line (ATL) technology to work its magic. With an effective length of 3m, the transmission line delivers a smooth flat response that is claimed to go as low as 22Hz. This is combined with a brace of long-throw 7in custom-designed bass drivers constructed from ultra-light, ultra-stiff doped paper cones mounted in a cast magnesium chassis, which the manufacturer claims delivers an unparalleled transient response. There’s a quoted 400W of ultra-low distortion Class D amplification, inside the chassis, while a series of DSP circuits…

Hi-Fi Choice employs the most rigorous test and measurement regime in the business. Here’s how we do it... STANDMOUNT LOUDSPEAKERS GROUP TEST A LOUDSPEAKER WILL never sound at its very best when factory fresh from the box, and will need time to free up properly to reach optimum performance. All six standmounters here are given a minimum of 72 hours with the IsoTek Full System Enhancer CD on repeat, plus an additional two days of music before any listening commences. Auditioning is done in the main listening room over a period of seven days, during which time optimal placement is experimented with. Each speaker is placed on a sand-filled, spiked stand so that its tweeter is at ear height when listening, and initially positioned close to the rear wall then…

DETAILS PRODUCT MartinLogan Motion 15 ORIGIN US/China TYPE 2-way floorstander WEIGHT 5.4kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 173 x 290 x 242mm FEATURES ● 26 x 36mm ribbon tweeter ● 133mm aluminium bass unit ● Quoted sensitivity: 92dB/1W/1m DISTRIBUTOR Absolute Sounds TELEPHONE 020 89713909 WEBSITE absolutesounds.com An American company best known for its high end electrostatic and hybrid panels, a conventional box loudspeaker like this isn’t really a core MartinLogan product – yet it still remains arguably the most interesting design here. In the States, the 15 is sold as both a two-channel and a home theatre speaker. It feels a quality product, with a solid cabinet and a choice of piano black, piano white or black cherrywood finishes. Most notable, though, is the use of a ribbon high-frequency unit, which is unusual…

DETAILS PRODUCT Tannoy Precision 6.1 ORIGIN UK/China TYPE 2-way standmount loudspeaker WEIGHT 7.3kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 224 x 330 x 257mm FEATURES ● 25mm Titanium dome tweeter ● 150mm treated paper mid/bass driver ● Quoted sensitivity: 88dB/1W/1m DISTRIBUTOR Tannoy UK TELEPHONE 01236 420199 WEBSITE tannoy.com From one of hi-fi’s most venerable brands comes this compact monitor whose headline feature is the Dual Concentric driver, similar in some respects to the Uni-Q design in the KEF. This is set into a curvy cabinet which is angled on the inside, the idea being to break up internal standing waves. The Dual Concentric unit is actually two discrete drivers in one, with the tweeter mounted behind, and concentrically, with the low-frequency unit. High frequencies radiate from the centre of the low-frequency unit through Tannoy’s…

DETAILS PRODUCT ATC CA2 Mk 2 ORIGIN UK TYPE Preamplifier WEIGHT 7kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 445 x 90 x 330mm FEATURES ● 4x line inputs ● 1x MM/MC phono input ● 1x balanced XLR input ● Tape monitor loop DISTRIBUTOR ATC Loudspeaker Technology Ltd. TELEPHONE 01285 760561 WEBSITE atcloudspeakers. co.uk There’s an old adage in specialist hi-fi– there are electronics manufacturers, and there are loudspeaker manufacturers, and never the twain shall meet. Many competent amplifier makers have tried their hands at speakers and come away with more than one finger burned. The reason is that it needs a completely different set of core competencies; speaker design is largely a mechanical engineering challenge, amplifier design is not. Even fewer companies attempt to do it the other way round, and those that have,…

DETAILS PRODUCT Acoustic Research AR-M2 ORIGIN China TYPE 24-bit/192kHzcapable digital audio portable WEIGHT 245g DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 71 x 136 x 15mm FEATURES ● Burr-Brown PCM1794A DAC ● 64GB internal memory ● MicroSD XC slot (128GB max) ● 5in HD screen DISTRIBUTOR ATC EnergyTech Corporation Limited TELEPHONE 07734 064360 WEBSITE acoustic-research.com Proving that hi-fibrands never die, Acoustic Research has reemerged after years of apparent hibernation. Owned by the Vox corporation in the US, the oncerenowned speaker maker has been rebooted as an electronics brand. A whole raft of products is slated for release, the first of which is the AR-M2 hi-res audio player here. In terms of spec, price and looks it goes up against Sony’s imminently expected NW-ZX2 hi-res Walkman, with both models featuring Androidbased displays and playback of all…

Design,” as Swiss architect Le Corbusier famously said, “is intelligence made visible”. This simple yet clever point shows how all the ideas, concepts and theories in our head take on a physical, material form when something is designed. It follows that when we look at anything – whether it’s a building or an object as simple as a toaster, it embodies the common thinking and received wisdom of its day. You can apply this idea to fashion, consumer electronics, aeroplanes or anything else. Take cars for example; stowed away in a dusty Wiltshire barn is my prized 1977 Rover 3500. Nowadays it looks positively vintage, but 40 years ago was considered the height of sophistication. Indeed, as I like to tell anyone who will listen, it even won the European…

Suddenly the taboo ‘c’ word has reared its ugly head again. And class isn’t only back on the agenda because there’s a general election looming and we have to decide between the Tory boys from Eton or take our chances with Labour’s lad from Haverstock comprehensive. The ‘c’ word is being bandied about in artistic circles, with the accusation that upper-crust kids not only rule on the government benches but are swamping our popular culture. It began when Labour’s shadow culture minister, Chris Bryant, named James Blunt – Harrow and Sandhurst – as one of the performers from a “privileged background” who are increasingly dominating UK entertainment. He went on to call on the arts world to address its lack of social diversity. It seemed a routine complaint of the…

Like a famous brand of wood preservative, Beautiful Systems strives to do what it says on the tin. This means that we feature systems that are attractive to look at or otherwise innovative, bold or at least a little different from the norm. We then also seek to have a complete functioning system – something you could buy in its entirety if you fancied. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but I think we feature some great looking kit, as well. This second part sounds easy enough, but in reality there are some caveats. Some systems feature more than one brand that divide the roles and responsibilities of two very different disciplines – electronics and acoustics. Even when we do have systems supplied by a single…

Eno’s contribution to the series is Obscure’s most well-known release. Discreet Music (1975), his fourth studio album, is the first to be credited to his full name, perhaps as an indication that this is a record to be taken more seriously than his leftfield pop releases. The first side of the LP is a direct precursor to the musician’s next major project, and indeed the genre for which he is most readily associated: ambient music. “I was trying to make a piece that could be listened to and yet could be ignored… perhaps in the spirit of Erik Satie, who wanted to make music that could ‘mingle with the sound of the knives and forks at dinner’” explains Eno in the liner notes. He had explored this ambient direction with…

IF THE LOVELY clean lines of acrylic hi-fifurniture appeals to you and you are in the market for some stands for your compact loudspeakers, then the latest addition to the rapidly growing range of audio equipment supports from Audio Suspension will be of great interest. As with the other items in the range, the Audio Suspension Brunel Speaker Stands are made from high-grade 20mm low-resonance acrylic sheeting and have been designed to combine design flair with good functionality. The stands are handmade in Audio Suspension’s Sussex factory and are the result of research undertaken by a long-serving professional DJ/audio engineer, working with graduates of Imperial University and the Royal College of Art. The stands are made entirely from thick clear acrylic, which partly accounts for the high cost of the…

IT’S OFTEN THE case that manufacturers save costs by providing inexpensive switchedmode power supplies with audio equipment. These are often referred to as wall-wart supplies because the entire power supply is housed in an enlarged mains plug. They are more efficient and cost less to produce than a linear regulated power supply, but they do have problems. A linear power supply has three key elements. Firstly, it has a transformer to reduce the mains voltage to that required by the equipment. Then it has rectifying and smoothing components to convert the voltage to dc: Finally, it has a regulator to provide an accurate and stable voltage for the equipment. All this generates heat and, as it operates at mains frequency, the mains transformer is large. However, in terms of noise,…

As people go, it’s probably fair to say hi-fienthusiasts are generally not all that good at maintenance jobs. Increasingly, we expect machines to go on and on with no input from us beyond a source of energy and the replacement of obviously worn-out parts. It wasn’t always thus – speak to anyone who owns kit from the sixties, seventies and even eighties, and they’ll tell you all about maintenance and repair jobs. Indeed, until quite recently most professional audio facilities found in recording studios made a big deal of scheduled maintenance. An analogue mixing desk has hundreds of level and tone controls and just as many switches, and once in a while they would all get checked and/or cleaned – ditto the several dozen connectors round at the back. When…