Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2021 i Hi-Fi Choice

PRICE: £140-£2,900 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: KSDISTRIBUTION.CO.UK NOBLE, THE TEXAS-BASED custom and universal IEM specialist, has partnered with audio distributor KS Distribution in a deal to make the company’s universal-fit in-ear monitor and true wireless range available in the UK. The products now available to British buyers include the Sultan, Khan, Zephyr, Falcon Pro and Falcon 2. Priced at £2,900, the Sultan (pictured top left) is a seven-driver hybrid universal IEM claimed to feature a tight, yet extended bass using a 10mm dynamic driver. Detailed mids with the use of four Knowles balanced armature drivers and non-fatiguing high-frequencies are rendered by dual electrostatic super tweeters. The £2,400 Khan (bottom right) is a six-driver hybrid universal IEM that utilises Tri-Level Hybrid Technology to produce a sound signature descending from Noble’s Kaiser 10 and…

ALL THE AMPS in this month’s Group Test reside at, or somewhere near, the bottom of the hi-fi ladder pricewise. They are essentially ‘starter’ products designed to get customers up and running with a proper, traditional source-amp-speakers system. For younger music lovers now discovering the joys of hi-fi, it could be the start of an onward journey to grander things. For others, it’s perhaps an upgrade from something unworthy purporting audio credibility or possibly once decent kit so old its golden days are a dusty, distant memory. Whatever the case, don’t be put off by these amps’ entry-level status or price tags that, in some instances, simply look too good to be true. Sure, a few amp designers get to hear the words “cost no object”, but most must adhere to…

Assiduously evolved and improved over the years, the basic design is little changed from that of 2007’s PM6002 and, just like all the successors, the PM6007’s prime objective is to keep its price competitors eating dust in the rear-view mirror. Judging by past efforts, the success rate hasn’t been too shabby at all. Were physical presence and the number of twirly knobs determining factors, this race would already be won by the Japanese amp. In a group containing the super-svelte NAD, the diminutive Rega and the yet daintier Pro-Ject, the PM6007 is a battleship. Just to look at it, you know you’re getting your £500’s worth in sheer surface area alone. It’s really well made too, right down to the copper screws. All right, the 14-year-old styling may grate with…

If you’re tempted to infer from the io’s name that the little amp is half a Brio (HFC 422), the model one tier higher up the range, that would be selling it somewhat short. Sure, it’s quite a bit smaller and some £220 cheaper but, truth is, it’s a Brio with a few strategic cost-saving revisions in a smaller, cheaper chassis. Arguably, this makes it even more cost effective than its thoroughly excellent sibling, and that’s saying something. The io made its debut as part of Rega’s System One, three components in a synergistic alliance – a Planar 1 turntable, a pair of Kyte speakers and the io – for just £999. But it can also be purchased separately and only the AXA35 costs less in the group. Power is…

Where would we be without Freemuse’s freedom fighters? We all know that 2020 was a catastrophic year for jobbing musicians, with livelihoods destroyed by the ban on live performances. In truth, there wasn’t much anyone could do about that for a pandemic is what some insurance policies still refer to as an: “act of god”. But what about those artists whose creative freedom has been restricted by wilful acts of mankind? Every year, Freemuse, the independent global organisation that campaigns for freedom of artistic expression, publishes an annual report, which monitors censorship and scrutinises violations of artistic freedom the world over. The State of Artistic Freedom 2021 report has just landed on my desk and the headline figures make for alarming reading. 2020 saw 978 violations of artistic freedom in…

Van Morrison Latest Record Project: Volume 1 CD BMG LOCKDOWN CAN DO funny things to people, especially to a restless soul like Van Morrison. You’d think at 75 he might have welcomed the down time but frustrated by being unable to perform live, he lashed out at what he called the: “pseudo-science” behind the Covid-19 restrictions and mounted a legal challenge to the ban on live music. After years of being infamously grumpy, at last he had found a cause for his indignation. His stance earned him plenty of negative headlines, although he deflected some of the criticism by setting up a hardship fund for struggling musicians less well cushioned than himself. It seems Morrison is determined to continue stirring things with what is likely to prove the most controversial album…

EVEN IN THESE enlightened times, many audio components – including from some up-market brands that should know better – come supplied with what amounts to be a kettle lead. Just having a cable with a mains plug on one end and an IEC connector on the other doesn’t make it suitable. Direct action The Red Dawn is top of Nordost’s Leif family entry-level range and employs three high-speed, low-loss, heavy gauge 14 AWG Micro Mono-Filament conductors sheathed in FEP insulation. The minimal propagation delay resulting from this ensures power is transported as directly as possible. The purpose-built audio-grade connectors are designed to maintain the low source impedance of your AC supply for excellent earth connection. Connecting the mains lead to the power supply of my reference preamp and phono stage,…

ORIGINALLY DESIGNED FOR use with its DG-1 record player and Phono-1 cartridge preamp (HFC 463), Vertere’s Iso-paw Isolation Footer is also useful for use with phono decks and DACs. Designed to enhance the performance of whatever they support by providing increased immunity from unwanted external vibrations, Iso-paws are 25mm in diameter and 16mm high, and the maximum weight that each paw can support is 2.5kg – meaning a set of four is suitable for equipment up to 10kg. Paws for thought Each paw is comprised of an acetal plastic support with felt underneath that couples with the support surface. The Sorbothane dome top provides support and offers isolation from external vibrations. To check out their effectiveness, I install an Iso-paw under each corner of my turntable, which has no feet…

ALSO: REVIEWS Six-way affordable standmount Group Test, Auralic Vega G2.1 DAC/preamp/streamer, Orchard Audio Starkrimson integrated, Sonos Roam portable smart speaker, Arcam ST60 streamer, the latest craze for NFTs explained and much more FEATURES Music Legends, Music Reviews, Audiophile News, our comprehensive Buyer’s Guide and sharp-as-nails Opinions section, and all your hi-fi questions answered by our team of experts JUNE ISSUE ON SALE 20 MAY…

PRICE: £900 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: KARMA-AV.CO.UK ALL THE WAY from Youngstown, Ohio, SVS is bringing its new 3000 Micro subwoofer to the UK. Measuring a nifty little (WxHxD) 297 x 278 x 271mm, the 3000 Micro features innovations from the SVS 16-Ultra subwoofers married to active and opposing 205mm drivers and an 800W RMS/2,500W Peak Sledge STA-800D2 amplifier with discrete MOSFET output, and also features the SVS smartphone app for advanced system tuning. According to the company: “Fully active dual-opposing 205mm SVS drivers are connected in parallel to a single power amp. In this configuration they receive identical amounts of current to ensure precisely controlled and mirrored operation. By firing in unison in opposing directions, the mechanical energy transferred to the cabinet is effectively cancelled, creating a sonically inert enclosure…

As years go, 1993 was a fairly inauspicious 12 months for the British music industry. With the nadir reached as Meat Loaf’s I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That) became the biggest-selling single, Take That scored their first number one with Pray and Mr Blobby breezed to the Christmas number one spot, it was perhaps a year to forget. However, over in the world of hi-fi a quiet revolution was occurring and Rotel was right at the heart of it. Up until this point the family-run Japanese company was known for producing a series of solid performing components with a reputation for wallet-friendly pricetags. However, in 1993 it decided to take a leap into the unknown and introduce a series of money-no-object components giving its engineers free…

Cambridge Audio’s ground floor kit nearly always exceeds expectations for design, build and sound quality. Lifted from its carton, the AXA35 simply doesn’t look or feel like a £300 amp. AX takes over from Topaz as the company’s entry-level range and the AX35 is the more expensive of the two amps (the AXA25 costs £215), but comfortably the cheapest in this group. For that you get 35W per channel of Class A/B power into 8ohm, four line-level inputs (flagged A1 to A4) plus a fifth, ‘aux in’, supplied as a 3.5mm jack socket on the front. Plugging in automatically selects this input, which it shares with A1’s RCA. The final pair of RCAs have a nearby earthing terminal and access the moving-magnet phono stage. Being an all-analogue design, there’s no…

I LOVE THE juxtapositions Group Tests permit. Echoing what the late, great Rutger Hauer didn’t quite say at the end of Blade Runner: I’ve heard things you people wouldn’t believe. No, not attack amps on fire off the shoulder of Orion, but the act of the wee MaiA S2 taking on the big hitters here, beating most for features and, in all but ultimate loudness and bass power, rivalling the best sonically from the midband up. If limited space is an issue and your speakers are sensitive, the petite Pro-Ject all but chooses itself. Given the broader brief of this test, however, it’s just edged out by the AXA35 – analogue only, but an object lesson in how to execute a budget Class A/B integrated amplifier. Its clear, open, honest…

With summer on the horizon it’s starting to look as though we may finally be able to get out and about a bit more, making this a good time for B&O to update its smallest portable speaker. Originally launched in 2016, the updated Beosound A1 2nd Gen doesn’t look radically different, sticking with the same circular ‘hockey-puck’ design as its predecessor. The price hasn’t changed either, although B&O has refined the design in a number of ways. The compact aluminium casing is available in a variety of colours and measures just 133mm in diameter and 46mm high. It’s not quite pocket-sized, but you can fit it into a backpack or suitcase with no trouble and there’s a wrist-strap for carrying it. It’s lost a little weight since 2016, slimming down…

This phono stage recognises that some users have multiple turntables, and/or turntables with more than one tonearm, and/or tonearms with balanced outputs. Most integrated amplifiers come with a phono input, but I can’t help feeling it’s often tokenism. Their gain and switching options are usually poor and you rarely see two inputs being offered or a balanced option. I personally run a Marantz Tt-1000, Technics SL-15 and Michell GyroDec on a more or less daily basis, and yearn for one single ‘go-to’ solution – precisely what this Musical Fidelity is. It’s a full-size product with three separate, independently selectable cartridge inputs. The beauty of these is they’re under microprocessor control, so you can toggle between them and the system will remember your choice of load and gain settings for each…

Ever since the advent of the iPod and then music-playing smartphones, music has been a portable commodity that seemingly prized convenience above all else. Sound quality was sacrificed in favour of the convenience of lightweight earbuds and the crushing ‘lossy’ compression of Bluetooth. But, with millions of people stuck indoors during lockdown, mobility and convenience have become less of an issue. The increased reliance on music, meanwhile has seen headphone sales holding up, even as spending on many other items has plunged. According to the Barclaycard Payments service, headphones were one of the top 20 items purchased, as millions of people have been forced to spend more time listening to music at home. Against that background, it’s hardly surprising that Spotify recently announced that it will be launching a new…

THERE ARE ALL sorts of hi-fi accessories that can be filed under ‘snake oil’, but this is not one of them. I’ve been a regular user of Caig DeoxIT ever since a specialist I use to restore classic hi-fi suggested it. Other such products are available of course – and some cost much less – but his experience is that DeoxIT works extremely well in audiophile applications. A great many amps that he repairs which are down slightly on one channel and/or have noisy volume controls or intermittent signal cutting out problems are cured by a squirt or three of this. Of course, it won’t fix dry solder joints or failed components, but you’d be surprised by what it can do. An old NAD 3130 amplifier I have to hand…

■ CD players p110 ■ Amplifiers p111 ■ Pre/power amps p111 ■ Cables p112-113 ■ Network audio players p114 ■ Music servers p114 ■ DACs p115 ■ Loudspeakers p116-118 ■ One-box systems p118 ■ Turntables p119 ■ Cartridges p119 ■ Phono stages p120 ■ Headphones p120-121 ■ Portable DACs p121 CD PLAYERS Audiolab 6000CDT PRICE: £380 REVIEWED: HFC 447 The 6000CDT is exceptional at revealing what’s on your discs to deliver a great big soundstage with plenty of detail inside. It can dig down deep into the mix to eke out the different musical strands while dynamically and rhythmically it’s hard to beat at the price. In short, it’s a super, highly affordable audiophile CD transport. Métronome Technologie Le Player 2S PRICE: £5,100 REVIEWED: HFC 449 As good as the…

CHORD ELECTRONICS’ MOJO DAC/headphone amp (HFC 423) has been given the double thumbs up by Neil Young. A post on his Neil Young Archives website entitled LET’S GET COOKIN with SOUND! describes how Young and the archivists of his vast back catalogue use the Mojo with their phones and desktops to listen to the tracks, and they’ve even created a webpage to detail the correct Mojo set-up so listeners can also enjoy them at their full resolution. You can read the full article at: neilyoungarchives.com. The Mojo is available now for £400. Clear head PRICE: £1,400 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: FOCAL.COM Following last month’s Audiofile story about the launch of its Celestee (on review on page 52) and Clear MG Professional headphones, French company Focal is now releasing a new model,…

INTEGRATED AMPLIFIERS GROUP TEST BEFORE THE TEST proper starts, a few days are spent ensuring all amps are thoroughly run in and functioning correctly. Equipment support for the review period is provided by Atacama, BASE and Townshend Audio, power conditioning, grounding and mains cables by Nordost, interconnects and speaker cables by Merlin Cables and Nordost. Front-end components for the main part comprise an Audiolab 6000 CDT CD transport (HFC 447), Chord Hugo 2 DAC (HFC 428), Apple PowerBook running Audirvana Plus and a MoFi StudioDeck+ turntable (HFC 461). All the amps have built-in MM phono stages. Speakers are Mission QX2 standmounts (HFC 436) on Slate Audio 24in stands. Some of the supporting components, while unlikely to form a typical system, have been chosen both to challenge the amplifiers and allow…

As a sub-brand of Talk Electronics, Edwards Audio continues founder and boss Kevin Edwards’ philosophy of striving for the best possible sound-per-pound across a range embracing turntables, speakers and integrated amplifiers. The IA5 weighs in as the beefiest and largest of the ‘compact’ contenders, but also the most powerful – claiming 50W a side of Class A/B supported by plenty of current from a 200VA custom-wound toroidal transformer. An evolution of the IA1 Mk 2, it has five inputs, four line-level (one via a rear-mounted 3.5mm jack socket) and a fully buffered MM phono stage. Edwards will fit an optional pre-out for adding a power amp if requested. The aesthetics are an intriguing fusion of formulaic and fancy, but striking with red backlit graphics to spice up the black-backed, acrylic…

Even in the scaled-down world of desktop hi-fi, the MaiA S2 appears to be a conundrum to rival the Spinal Tap dressing room miniature bread fiasco. No matter how you fold the meat – in this case nine sources that can be connected simultaneously – there doesn’t seem any way they will all fit inside an aluminium box measuring just 38mm high, 206mm wide and 165mm deep. In addition to the MM phono stage essentially lifted straight from the company’s entry-level outboard Phono Box, it has three line-level inputs (two RCA, one 3.5mm jack) and, on the digital side, one XMOS asynchronous USB and one coaxial (both good for 24-bit/192kHz), two opticals (up to 24-bit/96kHz) and aptX Bluetooth with a dedicated antenna. There’s also a 6.3mm headphone socket and a…

Don’t look back in anger” a certain Gallagher brother once sang and who better to exhort the benefit of the past than JBL? Though the American speaker specialist might be more commonly associated with thoroughly modern fare like portable Bluetooth speakers and headphones on the high street, there’s no doubt the past has been a rich source of inspiration for its loudspeaker output of late. With a 75-year history to draw upon, it’s not exactly surprising, and if our L82 Classic review (HFC 473) is anything to go by, looking back has proved a fruitful starting point for its speakers. Though not a member of the aforementioned Classic range, the 4349 bears many of the same retro hallmarks. It is in fact the most recent addition to the company’s seven-strong…

Audio-Technica enjoyed enormous success with the original AT-LP5 (HFC 405) and five years later has updated it to the LP5X. This is still a direct-drive turntable with a J-shaped tonearm that is fitted for use with a detachable headshell, but the bearing and platter have been revised and the motor that acts on it can now also rotate at 78rpm. The power supply has been changed and no longer performs DC conversion on board, instead using an external wall-wart PSU with the on/off button of the original being changed to auto standby. There is still an internal phono stage that can be switched in and out of the circuit, but it now also has a gain setting for moving-coil designs. As before, a USB is fitted for digitising records. There…

By any standards, the Caruso system was always something of an outlier in the T+A range. Yes, the company already had the compact Cala streaming receiver, but most of its lineup comprises hefty and beautifully engineered separates with monikers such as MP 2000 R MkII and SD 3100 HV – in other words, just what you expect from a very German brand whose name is all about Theory and Application. Launched back in 2008, the original Caruso, however, was different: here was T+A doing lifestyle, with a substantially proportioned ‘nothing to add’ one-box network audio option, complete with an all-new operating system, a total of 200W of amplification plus DSP for active drive of channels for the onboard speaker units, and even user-selectable ambient lighting – and all for £3,000.…

Our story starts in 1970, with the birth of the ‘Technics by Panasonic SP-10’ turntable. The reason for its strange nomenclature was the company created Technics as its high-end brand five years earlier and though the moniker had appeared on a handful of high-end speakers, it wasn’t exactly a household name by the time the new motor unit arrived. The SP-10 soon made big waves in the professional audio sector, thanks to being the world’s first modern direct drive. The system had been around for decades, but had only limited success and was usurped by idler and belt-drive designs. As with so many things the Japanese were doing at that time, designer Shuichi Obata’s team took a pre-existing technology and honed it to perfection. This product really made the Technics…

History has shown us that there can be positive outcomes as a result of mankind having to overcome dreadful situations. The Second Work War was certainly the catalyst for some great technical innovations in the field of electronics. For example, damage to German infrastructure was so severe after the war that a national electricity supply no longer existed and, as a result, local provisional mains electricity supplies had to be put in place – many of which were DC. Consequently, domestic radios were required that could operate on DC, which meant that they did not contain any mains transformers. Valves were therefore designed that used a high filament voltage that allowed two valve filaments to be connected in series and wired directly across the mains. The new German broadcast stations…

When I was in secondary school in the very early Seventies, a teacher asked each member of our class if we could invent one thing, what would it be? As you might guess, there were flying cars and time machines aplenty, but what I suggested was something that would enable me to listen to all my favourite music wherever I was, whenever I liked. Hard to imagine now I know, but back then the only way to have what we take for granted today as music-on-the-go was to carry around a stack of 45s and a battery-operated record player or, as long as you didn’t mind somebody else dictating your soundtrack, a transistor radio. And then along came the cassette. I could buy my favourite albums in this dinky format…

NEWLY AVAILABLE IN the UK, these equipment isolation add-ons are claimed to be the world’s first fully lab-tested isolation feet to offer measurement-backed vibration protection for your equipment. The Ultra Feet have been designed to reduce the sonically damaging effects of vibrations on equipment. By fitting either three or four under your component of choice, the energy-absorbing material disperses vibrations as heat. The feet use a soft-solid polyurethane material called ‘Technogel’, which combines the 3D deformation properties of a fluid and the memory-shape properties of a solid. Bassocontinuo can provide measured data to demonstrate how Technogel reduces vibrations, which according to the company offers real benefits in detail and dynamics while also improving the soundstage as well. The Ultra Feet are available in four different ‘levels’ that correspond to their…