Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2017 i Hi-Fi Choice

DETAILS PRODUCT B&O Beolit 15 ORIGIN Denmark/China TYPE Portable Bluetooth speaker WEIGHT 2.7kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 230 x 189 x 135mm FEATURES • 3x 38mm tweeters • 1x 140mm mid/ bass driver • 2x 100mm passive bass radiators DISTRIBUTOR Beoplay TELEPHONE 01425 284000 WEBSITE beoplay.com It’s not going to win any awards for eye-catching design, but the Beolit 15 is the middle model in the Danish brand’s straightforward and practical portable music system range that is equally at home in a small bedroom as it is outside at a party. The unassuming rectangular box looks more like a small picnic cooler than a piece of high-tech audio equipment, but the wrap-around aluminium grille looks quite smart, and is available in a variety of colours, from a muted grey to an almost…

DETAILS PRODUCT JBL Control X Wireless ORIGIN US/China TYPE Portable Bluetooth speakers WEIGHT 2.95kg (each) DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 418 x 212 x 182mm FEATURES • 1x 25mm tweeter • 1x 133mm bass driver • 1x bass reflex port DISTRIBUTOR Harman Consumer UK TELEPHONE 0207 0845392 WEBSITE uk.jbl.com Like Cambridge’s Yoyo (M), JBL opts for the 2.0 approach with its new Control X Wireless system, which consists of two portable Bluetooth speakers that are paired together to provide a traditional left/ right two-channel setup. The Control X Wireless speakers are bigger and more expensive, though, being sold together as a pair for £500. The initial setup proves a little confusing, as there are some fiddly little switches on the back of both speakers that allow you to specify whether the speaker plays…

DETAILS PRODUCT Novafidelity X50 ORIGIN South Korea TYPE Music server, ripper and streamer WEIGHT 12kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 441 x 100 x 330mm FEATURES • 1TB SSD storage capacity (as tested, models available up to 12TB HDD) • Ethernet networking (wireless via optional dongle) • Digital inputs: 3x USB-A ports • Digital outputs: 2x coaxial; 1x Toslink; 1x AES; 1x USB-A; 1x HDMI; 1x RJ45 DISTRIBUTOR NuNu Distribution TELEPHONE 0203 5442338 WEBSITE novafidelity.co.uk Digital audio is full of fast changing trends that are tricky to pin down. This is doubly challenging when serious hi-fimanufacturers want to balance audio quality with lifestyle convenience in products that will stand the test of time. With the new X50, the Novafidelity X range seeks to cover every conceivable base. The X30 (HFC 383) with CD…

DETAILS PRODUCT Yamaha WXAD-10 ORIGIN China TYPE Music streamer WEIGHT 226g DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 130 x 45 x 106mm FEATURES • Wi-fiand Ethernet streaming up to 24/192 • Outputs: 1x RCA; 1x 3.5mm socket • Streaming services supported: Spotify; Tidal; Qobuz; Deezer; Napster; internet radio • AirPlay; aptX Bluetooth DISTRIBUTOR Yamaha UK TELEPHONE 01908 366700 WEBSITE uk.yamaha.com  Yamaha’s MusicCast networking system remains extremely ambitious in scope, and by including software in a variety of products it is possible to integrate with entertainment setups around the home. But like most setups of this type, MusicCast will struggle to talk to an older system with no direct need for a whole new MusicCast component. It’s into this gap that the WXAD-10 neatly slots. Described as a MusicCast adapter, it can be attached to…

Even for the casual Beatles fan, there’s a wealth of Pepper-era goodness to soak up H ard to believe, but on 1 June, the most iconic album from the world’s most iconic pop group celebrates its golden anniversary: The Beatles’ incalculably influential Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band turns 50. And a splendid time is guaranteed for all Fab Four fans, as to celebrate the occasion The Beatles release a suite of lavishly presented Anniversary Edition packages on 26 May. Newly mixed by Giles Martin – son of legendary producer George – and audio engineer Sam Okell in stereo and 5.1 surround audio and expanded with early takes from the studio sessions, including 34 previously unreleased recordings, the latest incarnations of Pepper are shaping up to be the near-definitive documents…

We have reached a tipping point where audiophiles couldn’t be more sedentary Growing up in the seventies, music was good for your health. A significant 7in single or LP release would see my knees become a positive blur on my Raleigh Jeep (Choppers were for those far cooler than I). This sprint to the record shop would burn calories, summon a sweat and enforce some serious prioritization between a Curly Wurly or The Clash, Sherbet Fountain or Supertramp and flying saucers or Fleetwood Mac. Add in the exercise of wading through deep shag pile to the stereogram, placing and turning over your precious vinyl, not to mention regular squats to blow flufffrom the needle, and I was as toned as Popeye. But times changed and pricey releases of CDs with…

The nineties were arguably just as important for digital audio as the eighties – because they saw the introduction of hi-res recording and playback for the first time. While CD offered a ceiling of 16-bit/44.1kHz operation, the new wave of DVD players available at the end of the decade were able to deliver 24-bit/ 96kHz. Although this was important symbolically – laying the ground for the hi-res craze of today – there were practically no commercially available digital-to-analogue converters to play it. Suddenly, a new name appeared apparently out of nowhere, launching the first hi-res-capable domestic DAC. The dCS Elgar was at first able to handle 24/96 PCM; with its bespoke signal processing engine, compared with all of the other DACs on the market, it was unique. Founded in Castle…

Bob Dylan Triplicate CD Sony WHEN BOB DYLAN released 2015’s Shadows In The Night, a warm and ruminative collection of pre-rock and roll songs made famous by Frank Sinatra, it garnered such glowing reviews that he followed it last year with a second similar collection, Fallen Angels. Despite an insistence early in his career that repetition was anathema, such sequels are not unknown in Dylan’s oeuvre. In 1992 he released Good As I Been To You, a wonderful covers album in which he paid homage to his traditional folk and blues roots and was so pleased with the results that he repeated the dose with 1993’s World Gone Wrong. Then he went back to doing what he does best: writing songs. But not this time. It’s now five years since Tempest,…

PRICE: £200 for a 1m pair TELEPHONE: 01980 625700 WEB: chord.co.uk REVIEWED: HFC 412 Also utilising the Tuned ARAY cable conductor geometry as the Clearway (left), the Shawline is fitted with silver-plated Chord VEE 3 RCA terminations, but it can be made to other lengths at £80 per additional metre. It is also available with Chord Co.’s new lightweight DIN connections for an extra £25 or with Neutrik XLR plugs for £50. The conductors are silver-plated and the construction of the Tuned ARAY means they are hand assembled. The cables are directional and this is clearly indicated by an arrow that’s been printed on the heatshrink at one end of each interconnect. Sound quality Listening to David Bowie’s Love Is Lost, vocals are splendidly clear and expressive and the voice never becomes submerged…

A COMMON PROBLEM facing most vinyl enthusiasts is how to lift the stylus from the record when it reaches the end of the side should you happen to be out of the room when it ends. The solution is to fit an automatic tonearm lifter, and a modern alternative is now available in the form of the Q Up. It requires no tools for fitting and is fastened to the plinth of your deck with double-sided adhesive tape. It only interacts with the tonearm when the stylus is at the end of the lead-out part of the groove, and will not adversely affect the performance of your system in any way. The device fits inside a plastic bracket that allows for fine adjustment of the height of the lifter to…

PRICE: £14,208 AVAILABLE: NOW CONTACT: 01329 279119 WEB: GOLDNOTE.IT The three-way XT-7 is the company's first loudspeaker to use a ribbon tweeter ITALIANS HAVE OFTEN been thought of as the masters of design, and the term 'made in Italy' is synonymous with elegance, craftsmanship and style. These have always been very desirable factors in hi-fi, and Florence-based Gold Note is hoping that its sumptuous designs – where every product is built by hand from scratch with high-quality materials – are going to attract the eyes and ears of audio aficionados here. Distributed by Audio Pinnacle Ltd, the new-to-the-UK brand has existed in its native Italy in one form or another for more than 20 years, and has plenty of experience with OEM collaborations worldwide in engineering and designing a complete…

Hi-FiChoice employs the most rigorous test and measurement regime in the business. Here’s how we do it... PORTABLE BLUETOOTH SPEAKERS GROUP TEST MOST OF THESE speakers include a standard 3.5mm audio connector to allow them to be used with wired devices. In the case of Onkyo’s X9, a USB-Audio connector for hi-res file formats is also included, while the Quadral Breeze Two has a wi-fioption that facilitates multi-room integration as well. But, of course, the emphasis with these portable speaker systems is on using Bluetooth wireless streaming for maximum convenience and portability, and so we focus our testing on the sound quality of each speaker in Bluetooth streaming mode. Mobile technology now revolves around the smartphone, so our main testing device is an Apple iPhone SE. Our test tracks are…

DETAILS PRODUCT Cambridge Yoyo (M) ORIGIN UK/China TYPE Portable Bluetooth speakers WEIGHT 1.5kg (each) DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 120 x 205 x 120mm FEATURES • 1x 30mm fullrange driver • 1x 75mm subwoofer • Gesture control DISTRIBUTOR Cambridge Audio TELEPHONE 0207 9402200 WEBSITE cambridgeaudio.com  There is a number of Bluetooth speakers that you can buy as a single unit, but which also allow you to add a second speaker and then pair them together to provide a wireless stereo system. Cambridge takes a slightly different approach with its Yoyo (M), as unlike other speakers in the Yoyo range, these come bundled as a pair. They’re paired together for stereo output while still at the factory, so all you have to do is turn them on and connect via the standard Bluetooth menu…

DETAILS PRODUCT Onkyo X9 ORIGIN Japan/China TYPE Portable Bluetooth speaker WEIGHT 1.47kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 300 x 144 x 63mm FEATURES • 2x 25mm tweeters • 4x 50mm bass drivers • 2x 89mm passive bass radiators • NFC connectivity DISTRIBUTOR Onkyo TELEPHONE 0203 7692604 WEBSITE onkyo-speakers.com/uk Onkyo’s X9 is one of the smallest and lightest speakers in the group, with a smart, slimline design. The sleek dimensions mean that you can easily sit it on a desk or shelf at home, while its lack of weight means that you can grab it with one hand and carry it around with you for longer periods of time no trouble at all. It’s perhaps a little large for a backpack, but unlike many of its rivals, you can simply slip it into a…

Congested material is handled in a way that makes it logical and easy to follow DETAILS PRODUCT Gold Note Valore 425 Plus ORIGIN Italy TYPE Belt-drive turntable WEIGHT 10kg 10kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 425 x 170 x 360mm FEATURES • 45 & 33rpm • B5 9in tonearm • Fixed Perspex lid • Fitted with Vasari Gold movingmagnet cartridge DISTRIBUTOR Audio Pinnacle Ltd TELEPHONE 01329 279119 WEBSITE goldnote.it  The choice of turntables available to vinyl fans new and old continues to grow at a bewildering pace and the number of models available is greater now than when the format was in its first heyday back in the eighties. Some believe that saturation point will soon be reached, but new to the UK brand Gold Note has to hope that this point is…

DETAILS PRODUCT Exposure XM5 ORIGIN UK TYPE Integrated amplifier WEIGHT 5kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 218 x 89 x 363mm FEATURES • Quoted power output: 2x 60W RMS (8ohm) • Analogue inputs: RCA line; AV bypass; MM phono • Digital inputs: USB-B; 2x Toslink; 2x BNC coaxial • Preamplifier out DISTRIBUTOR Exposure Electronics Ltd. TELEPHONE 01273 423877 WEBSITE exposurehifi.com How times change! I can vividly remember the launch of the Exposure X, way back in the late eighties. It was something of a big deal back in those days among those of us that followed British hi-ficlosely. Exposure, lest we forget, had made something of a name for itself during that decade for extremely large, powerful and punchy solid-state pre and power amplification. Many people bought them to drive Linn Isobariks, for…

DETAILS PRODUCT Arcam rPlay ORIGIN UK/China TYPE Music streamer WEIGHT 1.12kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 194 x 44 x 124mm FEATURES • Wi-fiand Ethernet streaming up to 24/192 • DTS PlayFi; AirPlay; UPnP • Outputs: 1x coaxial; 2x RCA • Streaming services supported: Tidal; Qobuz; Spotify; Amazon Music; Napster; internet radio DISTRIBUTOR Arcam WEBSITE arcam.co.uk The different ways to access digital music around the home was rather complex up until a few years ago, but as setup processes get more straightforward, networked hardware has become easier to access. With the attraction of multi-room support for music-around-the-home and the balance of performance and features, streaming is fast becoming an attractive solution for music fans. Arcam has dabbled with streaming in recent years with its FMJ CD27 (HFC 401) and Solo systems (HFC 414),…

Hopes were high that the weirdest Beatles’ recording of all – the demented cousin of the Pepper sessions – would finally see the light of day in this anniversary collection, but the mystery track still remains locked in the attic There’s little in the way of The Beatles’ unreleased material that hasn’t been bootlegged, but one unheard track has Holy Grail status: Carnival Of Light. Recorded the same day as sessions for pre-Pepper 45 Penny Lane, seen below in a Danish picture sleeve, this McCartney composition couldn’t be further from the sophisticated family friendly fare that formed the companion piece to Lennon’s masterpiece Strawberry Fields Forever. A product of McCartney’s immersion in London’s avant-garde, influenced by composers Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage, Carnival Of Light was recorded by the Fabs for very sixties-sounding The Million Volt Light and…

The BBC’s lossless Radio 3 trial looks set to return to cover the Proms Last month I alluded to my recent second-hand Pono purchase and the possibility of a streaming follow up to the Pono music store, which disappeared so ignominiously last year. Prior to that point all had gone relatively quiet in Pono-land, the only sign of life being the poorly received in-house Beta successor to the JRiver-based Pono Music World application. However, the recent pronouncements reminded me that just before Christmas there were rumours of where Neil Young’s leaning towards streaming was taking him and the guess that it was Singaporean company Orastream (badged as XStream) proved correct. It’s an interesting development – to ring the MQA bell again, it is now almost five years ago that it…

Understandably, people are sceptical about claims of any real sonic benefits Once upon a time a philosopher, a physicist and a mathematician were travelling through Scotland in a train when they saw a black sheep through the window. “That’s interesting,” said the philosopher, “I see that Scottish sheep are black.” “Hmm,” said the physicist, “you mean that some Scottish sheep are black.” “You are both incorrect,” said the mathematician. “All we know is that there is at least one sheep in Scotland and that it is black on at least one side!” Different people certainly have a different perspective of a particular issue. This perspective will be as a result of things like experience, training or just personal bias. Take the subject of mains conditioners and mains cables for hi-fi.…

Apeculiar phenomenon in many industries is something best described as the ‘Lamborghini effect’. Ferruccio Lamborghini was principally an industrialist and manufacturer of tractors but dissatisfied by the poor perceived quality of the Ferraris he purchased, he set out to do better – and gave the world a series of dizzying supercars as a result. Across many businesses you will find people ‘doing a Lamborghini’ and seeking to do better than the established order. James Dean of DB HiFicould be seen to be a prime example of this. He founded the company in 2014 in response to the challenges he had buying an amplifier from dealers in his area that wasn’t made by a very select group of manufacturers. One dealer suggested he go it alone and he went and did…

It was at the Cavern Club one night that The Beatles caught the ear of a certain Brian Epstein It was – more or less – 50 years ago today that Sgt Pepper taught the band to play. Yet, unlike the Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles have never gone in or out of style: they have simply transcended the fickle cycles of fad and fashion to dominate popular music like nobody before or since. In truth, The Beatles probably should have been the first subject in our Music Legends series. Few would question their status as the most significant group in musical history and some 60 years on from the first fateful meeting between John Lennon and Paul McCartney at a gig at a church fete in Liverpool, their…

Atlas Element Integra interconnect PRICE: £45 for a 1m pair TELEPHONE: 01563 572666 WEB: atlascables.com REVIEWED: HFC 412 The Element Integra uses Ohno Continuous Casting copper (OCC) for its central conductor, insulated with a low-loss porous polyethylene dielectric (PEF). The outer conductor employs a braided copper and aluminium foil to screen out radio frequency interference and the cable is terminated with Atlas’ Integra non-magnetic RCA plugs. These use solder-free, cold-weld interfaces between the OFC stranded conductors and the plug connectors for a high-integrity connection. The plug cover is a non-magnetic polycarbonate sleeve and incorporates brackets that grip the cable without compressing it. The outer coaxial connection is made by means of four asymmetrical sleeves that are sprung and so spread out on insertion into the socket. This assists in cleaning the plug-to-socket…

D igital cables only have to convey ones and zeros so don’t need to be anything special – right? Well, as with most things to do with hi-fi, it’s never quite as simple as that. Plenty of audiophiles now appreciate that the quality of the sound from their system is influenced by many factors – not only within the analogue domain, but also within the digital one. Although the factors affecting analogue and digital signals are different, their impact on the sound quality is just as significant. It is, therefore, important not to neglect the quality of the digital interconnect cables that you use to connect up the digital parts of your hi-fi. However, before considering the cables, we’ll first take a look at the signals that they have to transmit.…

PRICE: £7,500 AVAILABLE: NOW CONTACT: 01202 911886 WEB: MCINTOSHLABS.COM DESIGNED FOR THOSE that are short on space but don’t want to compromise when it comes to sound, McIntosh’s MXA80 is the ultimate in unashamedly luxurious home audio. The setup features a miniaturised 50W (into 8ohm) stereo amplifier, plus a pair of specially designed aluminium chassis two-way desktop loudspeakers. There is a choice of four digital inputs (optical, coaxial, DIN and USB) – with the former three capable of handling up to 24/192 resolution music files and the latter 32/384 – while the onboard DAC also supports DSD and DXD. Two additional analogue inputs cater for existing equipment. A headphone amplifier is built-in, making use of McIntosh’s Power Guard technology in order to reduce unwanted clipping, while the similarly sized MP100…

DETAILS PRODUCT Melco N1A/2 ORIGIN Japan TYPE NAS drive WEIGHT 7kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 436 x 70 x 352mm FEATURES ? 6TB internal storage ? Inputs: 2x Ethernet; 4x USB 3.0; 1x USB 2.0 DISTRIBUTOR Kog Audio TELEPHONE 024 77220650 WEBSITE melco-audio.com Hard drive storage systems have been something that an increasing number of hi-fiusers require, thanks to rapidly expanding digital music libraries hosting a multitude of different formats. One of the leading companies in this field is Melco. The audiophile division of Buffalo Technology, it was early out of the blocks with a pair of network-enabled storage devices with the flagship N1Z and more affordable N1A models. I was sufficiently enamoured with its virtues when I reviewed the original H N1A in HFC 397 and am suitably keen to be among…

PORTABLE BLUETOOTH SPEAKERS £250-£500 LET’S FACE IT, most of us enjoy hearing music in other parts of the home or even outdoors, and wireless connectivity has enabled us to listen to our own tunes anywhere we like, thanks to the ubiquitous short-range wireless data exchange system called Bluetooth. Bluetooth devices like headphones and speakers often get the cold shoulder from audiophiles, as the wireless streaming technology uses data compression techniques that can affect the quality of even lossless file formats and music streaming services such as Tidal. And, if you’re listening to music in the comfort of your living room at home, there’s really no need to compromise on audio quality simply in order to get rid of a few cables. But modern technology is all about mobility, and with…

DETAILS PRODUCT Harman Kardon Go + Play ORIGIN US/China TYPE Portable Bluetooth speaker WEIGHT 3.4kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 418 x 212 x 182mm FEATURES • 2x 20mm tweeters • 2x 90mm mid/ bass drivers • 2x 100mm passive bass radiators DISTRIBUTOR Harman Consumer UK TELEPHONE 0207 0845392 WEBSITE harmankardon.co.uk Harman Kardon’s Go + Play has been around in various forms for quite a few years now, and even though the current model is the most affordable in our roundup, as we go to press it has just received a price cut. Even at its full price as reviewed here it’s an attractively designed portable speaker, and while it perhaps isn’t the most subtle or discerning speaker in our group, it’ll certainly be able to lift the mood in a holiday apartment…

DETAILS PRODUCT Quadral Breeze Two ORIGIN Germany/China TYPE Portable Bluetooth speaker WEIGHT 4.8kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 440 x 155 x 170mm FEATURES • 2x 19mm tweeters • 2x 115mm bass drivers • 2x bass reflex ports • AirPlay and wi-ficonnectivity DISTRIBUTOR NuNu Distribution TELEPHONE 0203 5442338 WEBSITE quadral.com/en You certainly can’t accuse Quadral of over-hyping its Breeze Two wireless speaker. In fact, the company’s website gives little away about arguably the most hi-fi-friendly offering here, and seems to consider technical specifications unnecessary. That’s a shame, as the Breeze Two has a lot going for it. At £450, it’s the most expensive single speaker design in this group – costing almost as much as the beefy stereo duo from JBL. However, that price includes both Bluetooth and wi-ficonnectivity, which means that you…

DETAILS PRODUCT Sennheiser Flex 5000 ORIGIN Germany TYPE Wireless adapter for headphone WEIGHT Receiver: 33g Transmitter: 232g FEATURES • Inputs: optical digital; 3.5mm jack socket • 30m wireless range • 3 dialogue profiles DISTRIBUTOR Sennheiser UK TELEPHONE 0333 2408185 WEBSITE en-uk.sennheiser.com This isn’t the usual type of audio accessory we look at, but with many of us struggling to decipher dialogue through tiny radio and TV speakers, this wireless headphone adapter might help. The Flex 5000 works with a wired dynamic headphone, enabling it to work wirelessly with your audio system. It connects to any 3.5mm headphone jack and offers three different hearing profiles for television, movies and music. Additionally, there’s a speech intelligibility mode for reducing background noise for added clarity. The Flex 5000 has a range of up…

Just as the format starts to resurface, it is ruined by all the terrible hardware  Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity is an uncomfortably accurate portrayal of finde siècle record collectors. The way it gets into the groove of vinyl junkie culture is almost painfully precise – with beautifully wry observations about the characters that vinylistas tend to be along with their curious compulsive behaviour patterns. And I suspect that when he penned his magnum opus he had the likes of us in mind. We know who we are and what we like. Audiophiles tend to be a little bit OCD, slightly obsessive and hopelessly devoted to the prime pursuit of acquiring not just a copy of this or that recording – but the copy. We search high and low for first…

You may disagree with the reviewer, but does that make them obsolete? At the risk of putting myself out of a job, has the role of the record reviewer had its day? There was a time when music lovers relied on the critics. Of course, you might hear a track on the radio that would persuade you to buy an album, but mostly we relied on the reviews in NME, Melody Maker, Rolling Stone etc. and learnt to identify and trust those reviewers that shared similar taste to our own. Yet today, the release of a new album is invariably preceded by several, if not all, of its tracks being made available for free on Youtube and other streaming platforms. Why do you need to read what the critics think…

The shockwave from the detonation of Buzzcocks’ Spiral Scratch EP, the UK’s first genuinely independent punk single, now 40 years young, is incalculable. In its immediate wake indie labels aplenty sprang up, many of them self-financed vehicles for guitar bands to document their one-shots at three-chord fame. Significantly, by the time such garage bands were being inspired to do-it-themselves and commit their back-to-basics rock and roll to wax, the lineup of Spiral Scratch was fragmenting, one of its architects ready to explore more remarkable terrain, as frontman Howard Devoto made a clean break from the punk pack with cerebral, prog-tinged outfit Magazine. Signing with Virgin, Magazine’s debut 45, Shot By Both Sides, hit turntables in early 1978 and is retrospectively hailed – alongside same-year major label releases from Siouxsie and…

At the historical distance of half a century, we can now see 1967 as The Beatles’ annus mirabilis. Over the course of the year, the group released Strawberry Fields Forever, the epoch-changing Sgt. Pepper, the life-affirming, chart-topping flower power anthem All You Need Is Love and the surreal musical-film Magical Mystery Tour. The latter aired on BBC1 in prime time on Boxing Day and featured The Beatles performing I Am The Walrus to the consternation of Middle England, which expected Christmas TV entertainment to consist of The Black And White Minstrels and The Billy Cotton Band Show and concluded that hallucinogenic drugs had turned the once lovable Fab Four into dangerous hippie lunatics. A hard day’s night It was certainly a long way from the Quarrymen, the skiffle group John…

CONSTRUCTED TO OFFER a superior performance over the standard cables typically supplied with entry-level turntables, the Element Integra comes with the choice of either a right-angle or straight-entry 5-pin SME-type mini-DIN tonearm connector on one end and Integra non-magnetic RCA plugs on the other. There is a separate black earth lead running from the tonearm connector fitted with a spade-terminated earth tag. The low-mass Integra RCA plug features a solder-free, cold-weld connection optimised to create a coherent, continuous signal path. The 5-pin tonearm plug is precisionturned and hard gold-plated with PTFE insulation. There are two separate cables leading from the 5-pin tonearm plug – one for each channel. Each employs a signal conductor made from OCC copper, which is fully shielded with a braid of oxygen-free copper to provide maximum…