Innholdsfortegnelse for Feb-18 i Hi-Fi Choice

PRICE: £150-£250 AVAILABLE: NOW CONTACT: 0207 9402200 WEB: CAMBRIDGEAUDIO.COM CAMBRIDGE AUDIO HAS started off its 50th anniversary year by introducing a new pair of dedicated phono stages. The moving-magnet Solo (pictured top) claims 36dB gain (@1kHz) and 10W maximum power consumption. With nominal output of 300mV, it is expected to cost £150. Priced at £100 more, the Duo incorporates both moving-magnet and moving-coil input stages, with 60dB gain claimed for the latter. It also includes a dedicated headphone amplifier with 6.35mm output jack and volume control so that listeners can enjoy their vinyl without switching on the main hi-fi amplifier. Both phono stages come equipped with a rear-mounted balance control to trim channel level inbalances in cartridges and utilise a switch mode power supply and surface mount components for improved…

Fine tune like a pro The dark art of subwoofer setup is explained in this fantastic series of videos produced by REL. Corner placement, orientation, phase, crossover and room correction for both two-channel and home cinema are all explored in depth: bit.ly/2EyJWhd Listen with Focal For those that fancy checking out some interesting music from different genres, Focal’s Listen Beyond series compiles an impressive selection of tunes neatly split into categories. The playlists are available via Tidal, Spotify, Deezer, Qobuz and Google Play Music: bit.ly/2Ey5cDM A question of balance If you look, there’s copious amounts of information about setting up your turntable online, but when it comes to the art of balancing the tonearm, it’s all rather quiet. This excellent guide, with beautiful interactive illustrations produced by thinglink is a…

This flagship network audio player boasts a formidable spec sheet. Ed Selley listens in to see if it has sonics to match DETAILS PRODUCT Pioneer N-70AE ORIGIN Japan/Vietnam TYPE Network music streamer with DAC WEIGHT 11.4kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 435 x 121 x 364mm FEATURES ● 32-bit/384kHz and DSD256- capable DAC ● Wi-fi and Ethernet streaming ● Digital inputs: 1x USB-B; 1x coaxial; 1x optical ● Digital outputs: 1x coaxial; 1x optical ● Integrated Tidal, Spotify and Deezer support DISTRIBUTOR Pioneer & Onkyo Europe GmbH WEBSITE pioneer-audiovisual.eu/uk Japanese manufacturer Pioneer has become rather prolific in the world of networked audio players of late. The N-70AE represents the flagship of its four dedicated streamers – alongside a networked all-in-one system with CD player and DAB on board that claims 2x 50W power…

DETAILS PRODUCT KEF LS50 Wireless ORIGIN UK/China TYPE Active loudspeaker system with wireless streaming WEIGHT 10 (left) 10.2kg (right) DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 200 x 300 x 308mm FEATURES ● 25mm aluminium tweeter ● 130mm magnesium/aluminium mid/bass driver ● Inputs: 1x USB Type-B; 1x optical; 1x RCA ● Quoted power output: 2x 200W Class D; 2x 30W Class AB DISTRIBUTOR GP Acoustics (UK) Ltd TELEPHONE 01622 672261 WEBSITE uk.kef.com Sooner or later, thinking gets connected and everyone’s happy. KEF’s LS50 Wireless is a neat (and I do mean neat) example. Prior to its launch, there tended to be just two types of self-powered stereo speakers you could buy in the UK. One is the truly active type favoured by recording studios, with dedicated built-in power amplification for each driver that requires a…

Fifty years ago soul legend Aretha Franklin signed to Atlantic Records, heralding a 12-year period in which she scored her first number one single (Respect) and no less than five gold-selling albums. During the Atlantic years, Franklin – then in her mid-twenties – also transformed from a raw and passionate ex-gospel singer into the true queen of soul: an artist regularly producing iconic songs for the ages, all delivered with a voice that had been honed into something smoother and more luxurious while still retaining all the passion and emotion she showed in her formative, pre-Atlantic years. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Franklin signing to Atlantic Records, the Rhino imprint hired producers Nick Patrick and Don Reedman to create something truly special – a new compilation album that takes…

Staff manned phone lines, whispering progress to secret hi-fi glitterati A hi-fi chum tipped me off that a small auction house nearby was selling some rather choice second-hand high-end components. His thought was, that tucked away in my backwater at the end of a general house clearance sale they might go for peanuts. Looking at the lots online confirmed there were indeed some rather splendid items that could surely be picked up on the cheap. I visited the auction house on one of their viewing days and delighted in the dusty but rarified kit. There were many sought after classic Japanese amplifiers, superbly engineered English turntables from Garrard and Michell, towering Tannoy loudspeakers and an embarrassment of sophisticated valve amplifiers. I felt duty bound to help the auctioneers understand a…

A common theme of many Dealer Visits has been the need to move away from high street locations into out of town premises. These pressures are present all over the UK, but for organisations like Paul Green Hi-Fi they are especially acute. The company has been in Bath since the sixties, originally as an electrical wholesaler run by Paul’s father, but in recent years, the centre of the city – while extremely pretty – has become a difficult space to run a hi-fi dealership out of. Property prices, and with it rents, are high and a great deal of commercial property has become residential in more recent years. Additionally, parking hasn’t substantially increased since Jane Austen was last shopping there. As such Paul – who handed over management of the…

When Brit-soul-boys The Real Thing asked disco dancefloors “Can you feel the force?” back in 1979, only a Time Lord could know that we’d be answering in the affirmative some four decades later. Star Wars fever reached peak contagion levels over the festive season, as The Last Jedi hit the big screen in time for the ruby anniversary of the first instalment of the series, 1977’s A New Hope, its stirring soundtrack also helmed by the masterful John Williams, composer of the famous original score. Like the multi-Doctor Who Christmas special, sci-fi cinema revisited its own illustrious past in 2017: in addition to the return of George Lucas’ space opera, Blade Runner 2049 returned to the visual feast created by director Ridley Scott in the early eighties with a love…

Calgary is dry. Canada dry. Within minutes of landing in this compact city, set rather neatly between the Rockies and the Canadian prairies, I can feel all the moisture draining from out of my body as my tongue dehydrates into a NASA strawberry. Mohammed, my Uber driver, emphasises the cleanliness of Calgary as we take the highway into the city. Having dumped my bags, I map out public transport routes to the five record stores that I am set to visit during my visit. The city has a light railway network that will drop me right by a few of the stores that I have on my list with train station names that sound like gnarled blues guitarists such as Fish Creek Lacombe and Crowfoot. It’s a neat town, laid…

PRICE: £1,099 AVAILABLE: NOW CONTACT: 02890 279830 WEB: MARANTZ.CO.UK AFTER THE INTRODUCTION of the analogue-only PM8006 integrated amplifier with phono stage (£1,099) at the end of last year, Marantz kicked off 2018 by unveiling its matching ND8006 – a digital music player that combines network streaming and CD playback. Designed by the audio specialist as a high-quality universal music player, it can be used to partner a conventional integrated amplifier (such as the intended PM8006) or connected directly to a power amplifier or active speaker of your choosing, thanks to its built-in digital preamp. HEOS integration also enables it to form part of a multi-room setup – just add HEOS speakers. Disc playback extends to CD and CD-R/RW (MP3/WMA), but unlike other disc players in the Marantz range, SACD isn't…

PRICE: £1,195 AVAILABLE: NOW CONTACT: 01622 721444 WEB: CHORDELECTRONICS.CO.UK The Venetian Tower in Las Vegas seemed an appropriately glamorous location for Chord Electronics to unveil the latest addition to its family of DACs to an expectant public at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (see overleaf for more). Dubbed “The World’s most advanced compact DAC”, Qutest is based on the latest version of Rob Watts famed proprietary FPGA technology – developed for the Hugo 2 (HFC 428) no less. Designed for static use within the home, the new digital-to-analogue converter benefits from being powered via a 5V micro USB port, offering up to 32-bit/768kHz PCM and DSD512 via its USB Type-B input, 24-bit/384kHz PCM and DSD128 from its coaxial (BNC) and 24-bit/192kHz via optical Toslink. Created by Chief Designer John Franks,…

Unique group tests Our Group Tests are supported by rigorous and exhaustive listening tests carried out by experts MULTI-ROOM SPEAKERS GROUP TEST THE ONE COMMON factor with all multi-room speaker systems is their use of wi-fi to connect to a home network, rather than Bluetooth. Some of the speakers reviewed offer Bluetooth as an additional option, but the wi-fi connection provides the increased range that’s needed to connect multiple speakers located in different rooms. Wi-fi also provides superior bandwidth to Bluetooth, which should help to avoid some of the compression compromises involved when streaming music via Bluetooth. For that reason, testing primarily focuses on using the manufacturer’s app to stream test music from a variety of devices using wi-fi. For iOS compatibility, an Apple iPad Pro is used as the…

DETAILS PRODUCT Denon HEOS 5 HS2 ORIGIN China TYPE Wireless multi-room speaker system WEIGHT 3.2kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 294 x 209 x 166mm FEATURES ● Quoted power output: Not specified ● Up to 24-bit/192kHz and DSD128 playback ● Bluetooth wireless connectivity ● Streaming service support: Spotify; Tidal; Deezer DISTRIBUTOR Denon UK TELEPHONE 02890 279830 WEBSITE denon.co.uk We first saw the original HEOS 5 as part of a full multi-room setup in HFC 395 and it’s still on sale on a number of online stores. This is the up-to-date HS2 model, which now includes Bluetooth and support for hi-res audio up to 24-bit/192kHz. The HEOS 5 HS2 is one of the larger speakers in this group and houses four separate drivers – two tweeters, and two mid/bass drivers – along with a…

DETAILS PRODUCT Raidho XT-1 ORIGIN Denmark TYPE 2-way standmount loudspeaker WEIGHT 8kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 145 x 320 x 230mm FEATURES ● 1x sealed ribbon tweeter ● 1x 100mm titanium mid/bass driver ● Quoted sensitivity: 85dB/1W/1m (6ohm) DISTRIBUTOR Decent Audio TELEPHONE 05602 054669 WEBSITE decentaudio.co.uk; raidho.dk In the great scheme of things, sometimes a set of circumstances come together to produce a really special product – one that is unexpectedly strong. I could give you a list of them as long as your arm. For example, in the case of the first NAD 3020 integrated amplifier the company took the bigger, fatter 3030 – threw away all the superfluous bits and pieces and instead put a great circuit into a small box. The result was something that far exceeded everyone’s expectations.…

DETAILS PRODUCT Pro-Ject Juke Box E ORIGIN EU TYPE Belt-drive turntable all-in-one system WEIGHT 5kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 415 x 118 x 334mm FEATURES ● 33 & 45rpm ● Built-in MM phono stage ● Ortofon OM 5E cartridge ● Inputs: aptX Bluetooth; 1x RCA ● Power output: 2x 50W (4ohm) DISTRIBUTOR Henley Audio TELEPHONE 01235 511166 WEBSITE henleyaudio.co.uk Though it will undoubtedly have well-healed analogue addicts cracking a derisory smile, Pro-Ject’s new Juke Box E is not aimed at them. Rather, this combined belt-drive turntable fitted with cartridge, phono stage, Bluetooth-equipped preamp and 50W stereo power amp is designed for people who want an integrated vinyl playing system for not much money. It costs £369, so when you’ve added a pair of small speakers you’re talking about a one-stop vinyl spinning…

Any dents are repaired and the cabinets cleaned and polished Despite the flurries of slushy snow, Copenhagen in December, as seen through the windows of Mads Klifoth’s Audi S3, isn’t quite the pre-Christmas extravaganza I’m expecting. Yes, the streets are decorated with festive illuminations, but oh so subtly. Every point of coloured light, swayed by the breeze, is a kind of ‘taste council’ vetted soft, waxy yellow. There’s none of the garish and overly bright LED blues, reds and deep-freeze whites so evident in Blighty. All is ‘just so’, nothing recklessly, joyously OTT. Wonderful as Copenhagen is, I have to admit I’m a little underwhelmed. But my spirits lift the moment I walk through the doors of Audiovector’s waterside HQ located in the increasingly fashionable and expensive Nordhavn harbour district…

Digital and analogue filters can introduce distortion and subtle timing errors We are living in a time of renewed appreciation for the qualities of analogue audio. A whole new generation of music enthusiasts are turning to vinyl or open-reel tape as their medium of choice. For many people, reverting to an analogue format may seem to be something of a backward step driven more by nostalgia than a desire for improved sound quality. However, many can hear significant differences and consider analogue to sound more natural and less clinical. Although there are noticeable differences within the world of digital audio in the degree of realism produced by, for example, hi-res PCM digital, DSD, MQA, and other digital formats, analogue sources are able to reproduce something that seems to be missing…

ALBUM OF THE MONTH Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet Landfall CD Nonesuch A LOT HAS happened to plunge Laurie Anderson’s life into post-millennial gloom since her last album Homeland eight years ago. She lost husband Lou Reed to a heart attack in 2013, but it’s another trauma that inspired Landfall: the destruction of Hurricane Sandy, which flooded New York, cutting power in and around the city. Anderson’s home was hit by the full force of the storm and she lost most of her most cherished possessions, an experience she describes in Everything Is Floating, which acts as the fulcrum of these 30 short pieces evoking the horror of a city plunged into chaos and exploring the terrifying realisation that our civilisation is a fragile construct that nature can sweep away in…

DETAILS PRICE £95 WEBSITE brainwavzaudio.com OUR VERDICT THIS IN-EAR HEADPHONE is the first model we’ve seen from Brainwavz and boasts dual-balanced armature drivers inside each semi-transparent earpiece enclosure that fit comfortably in the ears. Along with the two enclosures and detachable MMCX cable, you get a set of six different-sized silicone tips, a pair of Comply T-100 Isolation Earphone Tips, a replacement cable and a carry case. The detachable cable that fits to each earpiece has pliable ear hooks that wrap over the top of the ear. Only a slightly raised moulding seam on the enclosures give away the B200’s entry-level price tag. I use an Oppo HA-2 SE portable headphone amplifier/DAC (HFC 423) to drive the B200 and am struck by the full and well-balanced performance, with bass proportions…

"These services treat you like a criminal. And they are subscription based and we think subscriptions are the wrong path. One of the reasons we think this is because people bought their music for as long as we can remember… When you own your music it never goes away. When you own your music you have a broad set of personal use rights — you can listen to it however you want," so said a certain mister Steve Jobs back in 2003. In fairness to Apple's head honcho of yesteryear, had he lived to today he almost certainly would've admitted that even he can't be right all the time. In fact, he would probably have been inclined to suggest that the time might be rapidly approaching when his iTunes download…

THE CES SHOW held at the start of the year in Las Vegas, Nevada has long been one of the major events in the audio calendar. Now in its 51st year, the well-established show dominates the city’s strip, making use of various convention centres and the Venetian Hotel to accommodate more than 3,700 exhibitors over 2.5 million square feet of exhibition space. This year saw the organisers push back the usual early new-year start date by a week, and the four-day event opened on 9 January. As regular readers will know, CES is not a dedicated audio show – in fact it covers an increasingly broad area that sets the tone for tech trends in the year ahead with 8K and QLED TVs, AI assistants, virtual reality and health gadgets…

NAIM UNITI STAR £3,499 DETAILS PRODUCT Naim Uniti Star ORIGIN UK TYPE One-box system WEIGHT 13kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 432 x 95 x 265mm FEATURES ● CD; UPnP streaming; aptX Bluetooth; AirPlay ● 24-bit/384kHz and DSD128-capable DAC ● Claimed power output: 2x 70W RMS (8ohm) ● Digital inputs: 2x coaxial; 2x optical; 1x USB-A; 1x HDMI ● Analogue inputs: 1x RCA; 1x DIN ● Chromecast support; integrated Spotify and Tidal streaming DISTRIBUTOR Naim Audio Ltd. TELEPHONE 01722 426600 WEBSITE naimaudio.com It’s been fascinating watching Naim Audio evolve into the company it is today. It seems to have achieved the impossible, namely keeping many of its minimalist fans born and raised on two-channel separates while successfully engaging a new audience that wants stylish, versatile, easy-to-use systems. It has trodden a very careful…

IN THE LAST year or so, multi-room audio has gone from being a niche concern, populated by a few specialists such as Sonos, to a mass-market product category. As prices come down, new technologies have come along that have prompted manufacturers to continually update their existing multi-room systems. A good example is the revamped Sonos One, which is the first multi-room speaker to provide compatibility with the Amazon Alexa voice assistant. It would be easy to dismiss it as a gimmick if the Sonos didn’t also provide such impressive sound quality considering its decidedly diminutive dimensions. Other new technologies include the Chromecast support found in Harman Kardon’s Omni 10+, and support for Apple’s forthcoming AirPlay 2 in Libratone’s ZIPP Copenhagen. Most manufacturers have several multi-room options in their range, but…

DETAILS PRODUCT Harman Kardon Omni 10+ ORIGIN US/China TYPE Wireless multi-room speaker system WEIGHT 1.3kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 181 x 166 x 159mm FEATURES ● Quoted power output: 25W + 25W ● Up to 24-bit/192kHz playback ● Bluetooth wireless connectivity ● Streaming service support: Spotify; Tidal; Qobuz; Deezer ● Chromecast support DISTRIBUTOR Harman Kardon TELEPHONE 0161 2223325 WEBSITE harmankardon.co.uk As a starting point for Harman Kardon’s Omni multi-room speaker range, the Omni 10+ is compact and eye-catchingly spherical. It’s competitively priced and that compact design – available in either black or white finish – makes it ideal for sitting on a shelf or table in a bedroom or kitchen. And, for larger rooms, you also have the option of pairing two of the speakers together to create a proper 2.0 stereo system.…

DETAILS PRODUCT iFi Audio nano iDSD Black Label ORIGIN UK/China TYPE Portable headphone amp/DAC WEIGHT 139g DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 64 x 26 x 96mm FEATURES ● 32-bit/384kHz and DSD256- capable DAC ● Input: USB-A (male) ● Outputs: 2x 3.5mm headphone jacks; 3.5mm line ● Quoted battery life: 10 hours DISTRIBUTOR Select Audio TELEPHONE 01900 601954 WEBSITE ifi-audio.com Launched back in 2014, iFi Audio has updated its nano iDSD affordable DAC and headphone amp with this new ‘Black Label’ version. The price remains competitive, although, as the name suggests, the new model has a black metal case, rather than the silvery sheen of its predecessor. The main difference is that the new nano iDSD puts more emphasis on mobile devices. The analogue RCA and digital outputs of the original model have gone,…

When you switch to ‘Masters’ quality the difference is simply phenomenal Neil Young has long had a bee in his bonnet about the dismal audio quality of digital music. He started complaining back in 2012 about the failings of MP3 as a low-resolution format and expressed the hope that better devices would come to market allowing audiences to listen to music the way it was meant to be heard. “I don’t need my music to be devalued by the worst quality in the history of broadcasting or any other form of distribution,” he harrumphed as he pulled his entire catalogue from streaming platforms. When the upgrade in sound quality didn’t happen, he put his money where his mouth was and began to develop his own digital music player, which he…

If you like your music legends to boast the glamorous looks of a matinee idol, then Van Morrison isn’t really for you. If you expect them to be cute and affable as they sign autographs and pose for selfies, then you’ve definitely come to the wrong place. But if all you really care about is the transcendence of the music and one of the most evocatively soulful voices of all time, then Van is the man. He’s been called “moody, unpredictable, perverse, often downright wilful” – a description with which he presumably has no argument as it appeared in the liner notes of one of his own albums. Over the years he has turned the concept of the ‘difficult artist’ into an art form in itself. He has fired entire…

magine the gloomy faces of Sony’s amplifier engineers, circa 1977, when they discovered what arch rival Hitachi was up to. Power MOSFETs were just around the corner, and anyone who thought that they weren’t a commercial threat needed their head testing. Here was a new type of output device that offered huge benefits, and Sony had nothing to match it. The company had to conjure up something radical just to keep customers interested, especially as the hi-fi magazines would be raving about Hitachi’s new baby for years to come. Although Sony’s new 1979 amplifier range used a more conventional discrete solid-state output stage, its engineers had to be radical elsewhere. The challenge was to add a twist to the design – and the company duly rose to the task. While…