Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2017 i Hi-Fi Choice

HI-FI LOUDSPEAKERS ARE intriguing devices. Anything that converts one form of energy (ie electrical) to another (mechanical) has its work cut out. Factor in the physics such as internal cabinet volumes and material construction plus electronic elements like impedance, and the number of variables that can affect performance is quite considerable. Add to this a speaker’s interaction with the listening room and the care that is required to get it to give its best, and you begin to realise what a complex business speaker production really is. You might think that as more similar materials and design practises are in use within budget standmount models, performances would be similar but even models costing the same still sound profoundly different from one another with their own unique sonic signatures. The technology…

KEEP IT METAL The Bronze 1 is the only model in the test that uses metal speaker drivers. This isn’t surprising given Monitor Audio’s expertise in this area and long tradition of using the material as part of the makeup for many of its drivers. In this latest version of the Bronze Series, the material is referred to as ‘C-CAM’, which stands for Ceramic Coated Magnesium and Aluminium. The drivers use this as an alloy of the two metals, which then has a coating of pure ceramic alumina to a depth of 50 microns applied to the outer surface. The driver takes the form of a continuous cone with no dust cap. The resulting driver is light and extremely stiff , which helps to avoid cone deformation and breakup. The…

MERCURY RISING Sometime ago, this long-established British loudspeaker company launched a range of affordable, high-performance boxes called the Planet Series. This proved a big hit in the early eighties, especially the entry-level Tannoy Mercury, which offered an unexpectedly big sound from a medium-sized box. Despite its low cost and modest construction, it had an uncanny ability to get to the heart of the music, as many happy owners will testify. The original Mercury from 1982 had a distinctly crude vinyl wrap over its large, thin MDF cabinet, but the new ones are obviously better turned out and come in a choice of wood grain-effect finishes, with dark cloth grilles. Before the recent change of ownership, Tannoy had been busy with the Mercury 7 Series and it was touted as the…

There’s a glorious audacity about the UDP-205. A high-end stablemate for the more affordable UDP-203 (£649), it’s festooned with refinements designed to win over audiophiles. It is, without doubt, the most ambitious UHD Blu-ray player yet – and even that undersells it. You see, the UDP-205 is a veritable Swiss army knife for media. From legacy multi-channel discs to hi-res audio files, it’ll oblige most special interests. In addition to UHD and regular Blu-ray support, it’ll spin DVD-Audio and SACD, CD and DVD. When you’re not feeling physical, it can function as a high-quality network streamer, compatible with all key file formats. The UDP-205 also has a rather fine integrated DAC, offers both a balanced and unbalanced stereo output (unique for a Blu-ray deck) and there’s even a decent headphone…

Not that long ago, Rega cartridges were almost the industry equivalent of a ‘cosmological constant’, as models enjoyed long lives while rival cartridges were updated or replaced. Since the introduction of its first moving-coil cartridge around 10 years ago with the original Apheta, the Southend-on-Sea company has been making comparatively more regular product updates with the recent Apheta 2 (reviewed HFC 425), which in turn spawned the flagship £2,998 Aphelion moving-coil cartridge. The new Ania turns the company’s attention to entry-level moving-coil design and is around half the price of the £998 Apheta 2. Key to its design is the same principle of a suspension-free assembly that does without the rubber mounts that Rega says stretch and decay over time and alter the sonic properties of the cartridge. To do…

We’ve all heard of the sonic benefits that decoupling audio components from their surroundings can have on a system’s performance, but does it really make that big a difference? Townshend Audio thinks so, and has long been working on a range of isolation components that first started with an inflatable air chamber that was very much like a bicycle inner tube. Things have progressed considerably since those early days, and the Surrey company now has a line of elegant and well-made components that employ a range of cleverly damped springs in the form of its innovative Seismic Load Cell technology to isolate sensitive audio components and loudspeakers of all weights and sizes with the aim of neutralising any bad vibes that could affect their sonic capabilities. The Seismic Isolation Podium…

I got my hands on the latest Amarra 4 Luxe software update via the simple expedient of paying a heavily discounted upgrade fee. I’ve paid a few to get to this point, but I’m not sure that it all amounts to the £79.45 it currently costs to buy it outright. It’s important to remember that in the days when I first experienced the high-resolution music player some five years ago, this was the market-leading product and it cost hundreds of pounds. All the signs are that life has become hard for Amarra, but the simplified redesign with no more messy iTunes integration is a big step forward for the desktop music player and should be applauded for trying to meet the demands of the market by incorporating internet streaming support,…

inaural recording as a concept was formulated in 1881 when French inventor, Clément Ader, placed several pairs of telephone transmitters across the front of the stage at the Paris Opera House and connected them to listeners a mile away. A pair of microphones was required for each listener because, in the days before amplification a single pair could only power one pair of receivers. Whizzing forward to 1931, Alan Dower Blumlein invented stereo recording. His approach was to position a pair of bi-directional mics at 90° to each other (the so called coincident crossed pair). He found that you could use a pair of mics spaced apart by roughly the width of a human head for recording stereo. However, it was appreciated that the sound reaching each ear is modified…

Those of you with good memories will know that we visited Deco Audio back in February 2012 on our tour of the UK’s best hi-fi dealers. So what has prompted that rarest of phenomena, a revisit? When we first went to see Deco, the store was based in a high street location – very much a classical hi-fi dealership. Last year, owners Peter Empson and Mark Orr made the decision to relocate to new out-of-town premises. The motivation was simple enough. They wanted more space, control over parking for customers and in moving away from the town centre the intention was to become more of a destination location than before. It’s important to stress that the move to new digs hasn’t altered the key philosophy of a Deco Audio system…

In elevating the status of the guitarist from anonymous sideman to heroic superman, Eric Clapton was arguably the most important instrumentalist in the history of rock. It’s a huge claim and in later years he became a significant singer and a brilliant if irregular songwriter, too, of course. But he made his name as a pioneering guitar-slinger in an era when pretty boy lead singers stole the spotlight and the rest of the band were expected to lurk anonymously in the shadows. Clapton single-handedly changed all that. At a time when Jimmy Page was still a session man and Hendrix had not yet exploded onto the scene, Clapton’s supreme musicianship in the sixties created the template of rock guitar playing to which all who followed have since aspired across more…

PRICE: £430-£1,430 AVAILABLE: NOW CONTACT: 01622 672261 WEB: UK.KEF.COM ORIGINALLY INTRODUCED IN 1991, KEF has announced the eighth generation of its Q Series loudspeakers, which now forms the entry-level range from the Kent-based company. With this considerable pedigree in mind, the company hasn’t set out to reinvent the wheel with the latest revamp but instead to integrate some of the technologies and design experience developed for some of the maker's more sophisticated models and see them utilised at a new price point. The new technology is most apparent in the drivers. Like the rest of the KEF range, the Q Series uses a Uni-Q driver for upper and midrange frequency duties and mounts the tweeter in the throat of the mid/bass unit. The new series adds a Damped Tweeter Loading…

PRICE: £299 AVAILABLE: NOW CONTACT: 01480 447700 WEB: AUDIOLAB.CO.UK THE FOURTH ADDITION to the M-DAC family, the M-DAC Mini contains the same core technologies as its siblings – including the ES9018 SABRE32 Reference DAC – but, as the name suggests, in a smaller chassis that’s designed for use both at home and out and about. Connections include optical and coaxial digital inputs and outputs, asynchronous Type-A and Mini-B USB inputs, stereo RCA line-level outputs and a 6.35mm headphone output. Wireless connectivity is catered for, thanks to the inclusion of aptX Bluetooth and the M-DAC Mini can process audio files up to 32-bit/384kHz via USB as well as supporting DSD data up to DSD256. A Class A JFET output stage and dedicated headphone amplifier section ensures that the M-DAC Mini is…

UP AND AT ‘EM If you are considering expanding your speaker setup from stereo to multi-channel, the B5 is well worth considering as ELAC’s Debut range has an ace up its sleeve. While all the standmounts in this group can be partnered with a matching centre speaker in their respective ranges, the Debut also has an upwards-firing effects speaker called the A4 that allows you to assemble a surround sound speaker system that is able to reproduce the latest surround formats such as Dolby Atmos and DTS X. When connected to a suitably equipped AV receiver, the A4 sits on top of the stereo speaker and is able to bounce effects off the ceiling to add a convincing sense of height to the surround sound experience. There are also three…

PREMIUM RATE The 3020 standmount (and indeed the entire 3000 Series) is unique among the models in this test in that as well as being sold at £199 in the graphite finish (as seen in our review sample) and an additional walnut wood-effect wrap, you can alternatively order the series in three premium finishes. These are gloss white, gloss black and an unusual leather-clad finish. These luxury add-ons add a healthy £80 to the asking price, but the gloss option in particular results in a much smarter looking speaker than the bulkstandard model. The premium add-ons don’t end there, though. If you are minded to do so, the 3020 works extremely well on the Concept Series speaker stand that was originally developed for the Concept 20 standmount loudspeaker (HFC 372). It…

Few symbols of vinyl’s resurgence are quite as potent as last year’s timely introduction of Technics’ Grand Class SL-1200G (HFC 418) flagship and limited edition SL-1200GAE turntables. Based on the DJ-friendly decks that first appeared in the seventies, the original SL-1200 ceased production due to financial pressures back in 2010, and sparked protests from loyal fans around the world. It seems Panasonic was paying attention because the iconic SL-1200 returned in redesigned form last year and was widely recognised as a significant jump up from the original classic – but then with an asking price of £3,000 it really ought to be. Apart from the obvious cosmetic differences, the silver SL-1200GR and black SL-1210GR are essentially the same. The black model is arguably a more business-like device and conveys a…

We’ve come a long way since the mid-seventies when hi-fi racks were made from thin, laminated chipboard. These era-defining supports often came with castors fitted to the legs to enable the system to be moved round the room, with some designs having two modules to allow one to slide underneath the other, so that they could fit neatly into the available space. Back then, this type of furniture would have added considerable colouration to the sound and offered little isolation from external sources of vibrations. Nowadays, we take audio equipment support much more seriously and racks provide a sturdy support while also reducing the possibility of transmitting unwanted vibrations from one piece of equipment to another. Apart from the obvious benefits of a well-designed rack with sensitive turntables, CD players…

Meet the man who is teaching the hi-fi world to love Class D amplification. Belgian-born Bruno Putzeys is perhaps the greatest mover and shaker of the technology, having – arguably – single-handedly done much to make it acceptable to audiophiles. Put another way, the Chief of R&D at Hypex has designed Class D power modules that are considerably less flawed than existing off-the-shelf products, with dramatically better technical performance that translates directly to superior subjective sound quality. That’s why we’re beginning to see a number of stereo amplifiers – integrated and power amps – with his chips in, and in my own view at least, you can hear the difference. DP: Why do some many Class D power amps sound poor? BP: Most Class D designs are industrialised well before…

Amplifier design is one of those things that hi-fienthusiasts get awfully worked up about. Since the advent of the Quad 303 in the mid-sixties, it has been possible to make powerful, fine sounding and reliable Class AB solid-state designs on a large scale. It was a radical development compared with tube amplifiers, and paved the way for the world as it is today. Most modern amplifiers run this way, because it’s a smart compromise between power consumption and power output. The trouble is, both Class A and AB are still inefficient in the great scheme of things, and that has several downsides. First is the amount of power consumed, and secondly inefficient amps need expensive heatsinks, which then detracts from what a designer can spend on the rest of the…

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about globalisation. It wasn’t really the general election that set me off, because it’s not so much economic interdependence as cultural homogenisation that has been filling my thoughts. Two events sparked the train. The first was watching the recent PBS/BBC documentary series American Epic (see p99), which chronicles how American vernacular music was first recorded in the twenties. As director Bernard MacMahon was making the series, he became increasingly struck by how music had traditionally reflected the communities and the geographical location of those making it. “The more we travelled, the more we became convinced that sounds and musical styles arise from specific environments,” he noted. He even coined a new term “geographonics” to express the idea that music, from the blues of the…

Record label founder Günter Körber is undisputedly one of the major movers and shakers in Germany’s experimental music scene – a genre given the undignified moniker of Krautrock. He was originally an A&R man for Ohr records – home to Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel and Guru Guru – but disagreements with boss Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser led to him jumping ship to co-found his own record company – Brain – taking the latter free-rockers with him in 1972. A subsidiary of Metronome Musik, Brain’s first signing was Cluster – the duo of Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius, of whom we’ll get closely acquainted later – setting the bar high. Brain’s subsequent roster was a mixture of Krautrock and hard rock: Neu!, Klaus Schulze and Popol Vuh, among others, represented the former;…

It’s difficult to imagine there are that many people that haven’t purchased something offof the internet at one time or another. Unlike your local high street or shopping centre, shopping online offers a wealth of choice and is invariably considerably cheaper. In fact it’s actually possible to live comfortably without ever leaving your home, using just your credit card and laptop to provide you with all the food and amenities you could ever need. And hi-fiequipment similarly follows this trend, with every brand under the sun available at the click of a button and often at prices that are lower than you might find in physical bricks-and-mortar premises. But just because you can, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you should. While it might seem anachronistic to visit a real-life store…

PRICE: £2,400 AVAILABLE: NOW CONTACT: 0208 3585858 WEB: AUDEZE.COM Probably best known as a manufacturer of full-size headphones that utilise planar magnetic driver technology to create thin and lightweight units with the voice coil printed into them, Audeze recently became the first company to repeat the trick by including the driver technology on its range of in-ear headphones – most notably in the shape of the iSINE 10. Reviewed on these very pages back in issue 423, we were very impressed and consequently issued a Recommended badge. So expectations are suitably high for the newly released LCDi4. Described by the maker as: “The end game in-ear headphone for music lovers”, the LCD-4 uses the same 0.5 micron-thick diaphragm as the LCD-4, which is described as being the width of a…

Hi-Fi Choice employs the most rigorous test and measurement regime in the business. Here’s how we do it... STANDMOUNT LOUDSPEAKERS GROUP TEST ALL SIX MODELS in this month’s Group Test are rear-ported designs and this influences placement in our listening room. After some experimentation, a pair of Soundstyle ZT60 speaker stands is placed 400mm from a rear wall with a degree of toe-in on account of the stands being placed fairly widely apart. Each stand top has four pea-sized lumps of Blu Tac added, which serves to keep the speakers firmly in place. Prior to any critical listening, the speakers are connected in two groups of three in out-of-phase pairs and given a pink noise cycle to play on loop for four hours. The partnering equipment for the test is…

UNDERSLUNG HERO The LX-2 is the only speaker in the test to invert its driver arrangement. The tweeter is placed under the mid/ bass driver – something that has been present in many Mission loudspeaker designs over the decades. The theory is that this aids the time alignment of soundwaves from the tweeter and mid/bass drivers. If the midbass driver is placed at head height, the distance from the tweeter to your ear is fractionally longer, which means it should reach the ear at the same time allowing for the fractionally different speeds of the different frequencies involved. Interestingly, when placed on a 600mm-tall speaker stand, it isn’t completely clear which driver counts as being at ear level, but this doesn’t seem to be any impediment to the LX-2’s performance.…

Soundbars are often considered to be secondclass citizens in the hi-fi world, along with their larger ‘soundbase’ cousins. That’s a little harsh, since a good soundbar or soundbase can provide a worthwhile upgrade for the wafer-thin speakers that are built into flat TV screens. But, almost by definition, these speakers still have to prioritise compact design over audio quality to fit into the narrow shelf space available in many homes. Sonos’ new Playbase is an attempt to break the mould and go beyond the TV-centric design of conventional soundbars and soundbases. Available in black or white, it could still pass for a slimline soundbar from the front, as it stands just 58mm high and 720mm wide. However, it’s the third dimension that stands out, with the Playbase measuring a full…

I’ve just returned from an excellent demonstration of Gamut’s range-topping Zodiac loudspeaker at Stone Audio’s glorious showroom near Poole. These limited edition speakers are lovingly crafted in Denmark at the qualitative tempo of just one pair a month. With only 12 pairs a year, each set is discretely marked with its corresponding astrological birth sign – my birthday is late August and I promise to look surprised. This astrological system makes one wonder if the Libra pair sounds particularly well balanced, the Gemini speakers are absolutely identical or whether the Virgo speakers need a longer run in... And while £100k a pair sounds suitably high end, I’ve encountered many ‘uber’ products that cost far more. Furthermore, that price does include Gamut’s CEO and chief designer, Benno Baun Meldgaard personally setting…

Various Artists American Epic: The Sessions CD Sony Music CONSISTING OF A documentary film series, coffee-table book and this extraordinary double album, American Epic has been a long time in the making. I know because on a December day in 2006, I met Bernard MacMahon – the director who initiated the project – in a windswept graveyard in Mississippi, where we had gathered for the unveiling of a commemorative plaque to the Delta blues legend Charley Patton. MacMahon had a camera crew with him and when I asked why, he explained his vision to chronicle the history of the earliest recordings of American vernacular music and the record company scouts who in the twenties fanned out across the mountains, prairies, villages and ghettos to capture the blues, folk and popular songs…

NO ATTEMPT HAS been made to hide the conductors in these audio interconnects. The clear outer PVC sheath shows off the high purity copper coax within. The HDX1 is an updated version of the company’s G1000HD range and is now made from a higher purity copper than previously. It also boasts a new connector design. The cable has a central conductor that is a single solid core of highpurity copper, surrounded by low-density gas-injected dielectric insulation. Over the top of this there is a dual-layer shielding system consisting of two layers of dense coverage, high-purity copper braiding, which is finished off with a vibration-damping translucent PVC outer jacket. Each end of the cable is topped off with gold Puresonic RCA connectors boasting gold-plated contacts and a full round earth contact…

ILLUMINATING YOUR TURNTABLE usefully can be difficult to get right. Simply having a light above a record deck will mean that the tonearm and cartridge will cast a shadow over the stylus, which is where you want the light to fall, while having a light at the back means it’s likely to shine in your eyes as you are cueing up an LP. A far better solution is to have a light you can freely position at an angle above the tonearm to illuminate the stylus area. Light up your life The Illuminati consists of a diffused bar of white LED lamps fixed onto a flexible gooseneck arm that has a clamp at the base for fixing to your rack. The lamp is powered via a USB connector into a…

Our guide to the record shops of Scotland’s cultural hub and vibrant music scene is relatively recent arrival James Thornington (pictured), former co-owner of London’s Kristina Records in Dalston. Like most of our interviewees, he was bitten with the music bug from an early age, seriously collecting vinyl since the age of 12. Growing up in Liverpool, James’ biggest influence was shopping at the legendary Hairy Records: he worked there for a number of years as a Saturday boy, getting paid in records. A teenage love of metal led to him tracing its roots in hard rock and prog, which led to an interest in West coast rock and – a big passion – the Grateful Dead. He made the leap to the East End of Glasgow a couple of…