Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2022 i Hi-Fi Choice

PRICE: £99 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: IFI-AUDIO.COM IFI AUDIO IS launching its new ZEN Air range, which simplifies the circuitry and strips back some features from its previous ZEN products while retaining key core elements to enable a more affordable price point. At £99 each, the ZEN Air DAC, ZEN Air Blue, ZEN Air Can and ZEN Air Phono look similar to their brand equivalents in the main ZEN line, featuring the same desktop-friendly size and shape but instead of the extruded aluminium enclosure they sport a synthetic polymer case with a textured finish, each in a different shade of grey. The Zen Air DAC, like the ZEN DAC includes a headphone amp and can also be used as a DAC/preamp to feed an amp and speakers or a pair of…

PRICE: £900 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: BOWERSWILKINS.COM BOWERS & WILKINS has unveiled its Panorama 3 soundbar with Dolby Atmos spatial audio. Boasting both AirPlay 2 and aptX Adaptive Bluetooth, iOS and Android users can stream music to it from their mobile devices and it also features Spotify Connect. For hi-res listening, the Panorama 3 also supports the Bowers & Wilkins Music App, giving listeners instant access to a host of streaming services including Deezer, Last.fm, Qobuz, Soundcloud, Tidal and TuneIn with the choice of available services set to expand later in the year. The Panorama 3 – named, like its two predecessors, in tribute to two iconic film technologies from the golden age of cinema (Panavision and Cinerama) stands 65mm high, 140mm deep and 1,210mm wide – its low profile designed…

PRICE: £120 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: LYPERTEK.COM UK COMPANY LYPERTEK has launched its PurePlay Z5 true-wireless earphones with Hybrid Active Noise Cancelling technology and a newly developed PureControl ANC app. Lypertek has also developed its brand new PureControl ANC app, specifically designed for the PurePlay Z5 – which the company says provides added functionality and a personalised service to create your own individual setup. The PurePlay Z5 features an Ambient Sound Mode to hear the world around you without removing your earphones and Auto-Ambient – a new feature designed and developed by Lypertek with the aim of reducing the need to interact with earbud controls – automatically activating Ambient Sound Mode when audio playback is stopped or paused. This feature can easily be switched on or off via the app. Then…

PRICE: €2,400 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: FERRUM.AUDIO POLISH COMPANY FERRUM has launched its new ERCO desktop headphone DAC/amp, which comes with its logo cut in corten steel on the front and three control dials – one to control volume, one to set the gain level to match your headphone and one to select from four inputs. A small LED indicating MQA status sits beside the two headphone outputs, one balanced Pentaconn and one unbalanced jack. The ERCO boasts a DAC chip from ESS and on the rear are four inputs and a trigger out. You can connect one analogue and three digital devices (via optical, coaxial or USB-C) and two output devices, one balanced (XLR) and one unbalanced (RCA). The logo brightness can be dimmed with the slider and the two…

For anyone still under the outdated misapprehension that Chinese-made hi-fi means cheap and cheerful alternatives to the big-name brands, it’s time for an eye-opener. In practice, not only are quite a few of those big names having their products made in China, but its home-grown brands are also stepping up their game and making serious inroads into markets that were once dominated by Western and Japanese names. A case in point is Matrix Audio – the company founded in 2009 by three music-obsessed friends who met in high school in the ancient city of Xi’an – and more specifically the X-Sabre 3 we have here, following on from the X-Sabre Pro DAC, Element X (HFC 473) and more recently the Mini-i Pro 3 (HFC 482). The X-Sabre 3 is the…

Given a much-needed spruce up, the new McLaren Edition of the Fives gets the iconic F1 team’s matte black and papaya colour scheme on the tweeter domes and control panel. Also, the braided mains power cable and umbilical lead that connect one speaker to the other now have orangey flecks. There’s even a ‘stability pad’ on the underside of the speakers, which is a piece of rubber patterned to look like a tyre! The changes aren’t just cosmetic, as the mid/bass driver gets a new carbon fibre cone and the Klipsch Connect app is now fully up and running. It gives you an assortment of sound tweaking options, including tone controls and (the optional) subwoofer level. I prefer to carry out testing with the settings left flat, but then again…

SOMETIMES IT’S HARD to come up with a clear pecking order in a Group Test, at others it’s easy. In this case it’s the latter as these speakers differ in their ability and value. In sixth place is Klipsch’s The Fives McLaren Edition; it’s a nice enough product but the go-faster racing stripes don’t add enough to justify the price. The plain non-McLaren version is way better value. The system itself is feisty and fun to listen to, but its lack of UPnP functionality holds it back. In fifth place is Naim’s Mu-so 2nd Generation. It’s probably best to think of it as ‘the world’s greatest soundbar’. It is brilliant at doing what it’s designed for, which is to give a super-slick access point for music in a small room,…

We could argue whether the Seventies was the greatest decade for music (it was), but to anyone serious about hi-fi it’s also remembered for the launch of two components that would become British icons: the Linn Sondek LP12 turntable in 1972 and the BBC-designed LS⅗A compact near-field monitor in 1975. Both are still in production, both still revered across the planet, both visually all but indistinguishable from their 40-plus year-old progenitors. Yet the business sensibilities that have ensured their longevity could hardly be more different, and they are highly germane to this review. Linn’s approach has been a shining example of assiduous evolution over the years to the point where the sonic objectives of the latest Sondeks rolling out of its Glasgow factory are light years removed from the slightly…

One of the first issues that many people consider when choosing a speaker is its size and how it fits in their room. Size may be the factor that determines whether you choose bookshelf, standmount or floorstander. However, the design of the enclosure can have a significant impact on the sound. The main use of the enclosure is to house the bass driver to control its resonances and acoustically couple it with the room. Midrange drivers need their own chamber separate from the bass to minimise interactions between the two. Tweeters are usually self-contained so don’t need enclosures. An important point to note is that to reproduce bass, you need to move lots of air. That means you need a larger area cone and enclosure than for higher frequency notes.…

A PROBLEM OFTEN encountered when connecting new items of audio equipment into your hi-fi is the introduction of hum. This is invariably caused by the dreaded earth loop and occurs when a piece of equipment is connected to earth via more than one electrical path. An earth loop can occur in a system when the signal earth is connected to the mains earth on a component. The equipment is therefore connected to earth via both the audio signal earth and the earth in the mains connector. This has led some to remove the earth connection in the mains plug as a way of curing the hum, but this poses a real safety hazard and is certainly not to be recommended. iFi Audio has come up with an elegant solution to…

COMPUTER-GRADE USB CABLES are fine for connecting printers to your PC, but don’t cut the mustard when it comes to audio. They may be low cost, but using them can result in unwanted effects that can manifest as errors in the digital data stream, which the DAC has to correct. This has led Black Rhodium to develop a series of cables specifically for audio. The Operetta sits at the top of the range and is available with a USB Type-A connector at one end and a Type-B at the other. It incorporates a noise filter in the power lines to limit the effects of noise transmitted along the 5V USB power lines. It also has a special screen designed to reduce the negative effects caused by external RFIand EMI. Finally,…

PRICE: £2,200 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: MARANTZ.COM MARANTZ HAS INTRODUCED its MODEL 40n integrated amplifier with a new 70W per channel (into 8ohm loads) Class A/B amplifier stage. A larger power supply transformer, four output transistors per channel, heavy copper bus bars and short power pathways are intended to lower internal impedance and deliver high instant current capability: “making the MODEL 40n highly dynamic and an excellent match even for difficult-to-drive loudspeakers”. The MODEL 40n integrated offers compatibility with PCM files up to 24-bit/192kHz and DSD128. It also features built-in access to Spotify Connect, Amazon Music, Tidal and TuneIn internet radio, while wireless connectivity options include Apple AirPlay 2, Bluetooth and wi-fi – with HEOS for multi-room applications. The MODEL 40n offers a full complement of analogue and digital inputs, including…

PRICE: £450 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: DENON.COM DENON HAS JUST released the Home Subwoofer – its highperformance wireless sub, which the company says: “adds clear, extended bass to the Denon Home Sound Bar 550 or any Denon Home wireless speaker”. The 203mm bass driver has been fitted to a compact enclosure that matches the design of Denon’s Home speakers and soundbar and comes with HEOS built-in for multi-room applications. It can be wirelessly paired with the Denon Home Sound Bar 550 and users can also add a pair of Denon Home wireless speakers, creating a 5.1 surround sound experience. Settings for output level, low-pass filter and phase can be adjusted within the HEOS app to optimise the subwoofer for more challenging room acoustics.…

PRICE: £9,000 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: WILSONAUDIO.COM/ABSOLUTESOUNDS.COM WILSON AUDIO HAS added a new subwoofer to its range of speakers. The LõKe (pronounced “low-key”) is the US brand’s smallest and most compact sub yet, measuring 352 x 527 x 552mm (WxHxD), and is an extension of the company’s TuneTot eco system. LõKe encompasses compatibility across the full range of TuneTot bookshelf speakers, and the company claims it fundamentally expands the core capabilities of its other smaller floor-standing loudspeaker models including: SabrinaX, Yvette, Sasha DAW and all of their predecessors. Taking data points from Wilson’s larger subwoofer systems – Subsonic, Thor’s Hammer and WATCH Dog – LõKe is an all-in-one that’s claimed to be simple to setup and easy to manage. Incorporated into LõKe’s built-in 500W amp are the most utilised functions from…

Hi-Fi Choice employs the most methodical test and measurement regime in the business. Here’s how we do it… WIRELESS LOUDSPEAKERS GROUP TEST CARRYING OUT THIS roundup proves to be quite complex in one respect, because we are assessing products that purport to do pretty much the same thing – play music wirelessly in a relatively compact space – yet they all have their own specific ways of doing this. So each is examined on a ‘case-by-case’ basis rather than following our usual strict methodology. Each speaker system is plugged into the mains, connected up with any umbilical tethers that are needed, then the relevant apps are downloaded and the speakers fired up. The quick-start guide for each setup is followed; all are pretty self-explanatory. We find that the systems generally…

Easily the most striking design here, this has a retro-futuristic sense of glamour to it. Cabasse would argue that form follows function; the boxy fibreboard cabinets of its rivals are far from ideal sonically, of course. However, the compact size of the Pearl Akoya means there’s not a lot of internal cabinet volume to play with, and that creates other limitations. Unusually, this speaker is sold as a single item, so you need to buy a pair for stereo and then sync them using the app. This proves easier said than done, as first time round both speakers struggle to find my wi-fi network. After powering everything down and starting again, we’re in business. The Cabasse StreamCONTROL app is nice enough to use, and works with your chosen streaming service.…

When released a good few years ago the first Mu-so was quite a catch. Here was a highly respected UK hi-fi specialist getting into more lifestyle-oriented audio. It proved a big success and has been further improved with the more recent release of the 2nd Generation update. It is a veritable thing of beauty, and an ergonomic triumph to boot. Naim’s trademark volume control is a lovely way to operate it and the supplied app is as good as these things tend to get – easily the best in this group. It has no display as such, but doesn’t need one. The user experience is minimalist, uncluttered and effortless. This goes for setup too; you just follow the instructions on the app and after a few minutes, it’s up and…

When it comes to its digital music libraries there are two distinct varieties that Melco offers. There’s the conventionally sized, 430mmwide N1 models and the half-width (or to put it another way 215mmwide) N10. As you’ll no doubt have gathered from the name, the new N10/2 models – starting at £7,000 for the N10/2-H50 and rising to £9,000 for the N10/2-S38 flagship – that we have here hail from the latter. Why the two prices we hear you ask? In a word, storage: the N10/2-H50 packs 5TB of conventional hard-disk drive (HDD), while the N10/2-S38 includes 3.84TB of solid-state (SSD). As you might expect, given Melco’s roots in Japanese computer company Buffalo, the new drives are of a dedicated design, optimised for the kind of ‘write once/read many times’ work…

Soft power. You hear the phrase everywhere these days, particularly when politicians are harnessing the arts to their casus belli. There was Nadine Dorries, secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, telling the Commons that: “culture is the third front” in the Ukrainian war. “I’ve been working to mobilise the full might of the UK’s soft power against the Russian state and applying pressure across the sectors,” she boasted. Fair enough, Muscovites won’t be getting to see Adele or Ed Sheeran in concert, although we could send James Blunt and see if him bleating You’re Beautiful outside the Kremlin forces Putin to surrender. The list of those who responded to the war by cancelling or postponing tours of Russia includes Nick Cave, Green Day, Iggy Pop, The Killers,…

DESIGNED TO REPLACE the low-cost twin flex supplied with a starter music system, the Twist Classic is a two-core twisted pair employing 0.75mm2 tinned copper conductors insulated with a 1.2mm silicone rubber dielectric. At one end there’s a large ferrite tube to filter out high frequency interference. The cable is terminated in gold-plated Z plugs at each end and is available in 3m and 5m pairs. Other lengths and terminations are available on request. The Twist Classic is very flexible and is easily routed around the tightest of corners in my listening room. Hooking up the speaker cable to my valve monoblocks and transmission line speakers, I turn to a classic LP of JS Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in D major played by Peter Hurford on the organ. This powerful…

Hi-FiChoice Recommends ESSENTIAL HI-FI YOU’LL WANT TO OWN 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…

IN EVERY ISSUE: Reviews of all the latest turntables, amplifiers, loudspeakers, DACs, CD players, streamers and hi-fi accessories. Plus: group tests, music reviews, opinions, news and all your hi-fi woes answered HURRY OFFER CLOSES 19TH MAY 2022 PRINT + DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION One year’s worth delivered to your door Great savings on the shop price Download each new issue to your device A 75% discount on your Digital subscription Access your subscription on multiple devices PRINT SUBSCRIPTION One year’s worth delivered to your door Great savings on the shop price Never miss an issue SUBSCRIBE TODAY SUBSCRIBE SECURELY ONLINE https://hfc.secureorder.co.uk/HFC/HFC2022 CALL OUR ORDER LINE Quote ref: HFC2022 0344 243 9023 Lines open Mon-Fri 8.00am – 8.00pm & Saturday 9.30am – 3.30pm Calls are charged at the same rate as standard UK…

PRICE: £630 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: AIRPULSEAUDIO.COM/EN AIRPULSE HAS RELEASED a new bookshelf speaker – the A80 – which the company says it: “created to be the perfect combination of conventional loudspeaker and digital XMOS system”. An entry-level plug-and-play standmount from ex-Acoustic Energy designer Phil Jones, the A80 utilises the brand’s signature horn-loaded aluminium ribbon tweeter and proprietary 114mm magnet ferrite mid/bass unit to drive the system. AirPulse says: “The thin aluminium ribbon diaphragm has high sensitivity, superb transient response, extended frequency range and well-defined resolution. This meticulously formulated horn shape produces directional and optimised high frequencies from the ribbon tweeter so they are aimed at the listener, minimising unwanted inflections and producing a superior, three-dimensional sound with excellently defined details.” The mid/bass driver is a hard anodised aluminium alloy cone…

PRICE: £289 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: SCVDISTRIBUTION.CO.UK Portable audio specialist EarMen has introduced a new balanced, battery-powered device – the Colibri, a pocket-friendly USB DAC, preamp and headphone amp. Featuring a fully balanced 4.4mm output, the Colibri has its own battery so it won’t consume power from the sound source. It comes with a gold-plated PCB and a full set of buttons on its side offering audio control while on the go. Compatible with Apple and Android mobile devices, it’s housed in a stylish CnC-milled aluminium block with both sides glass surfaced. Colibri supports hi-res PCM files up to 32-bit/384kHz, DoP, up to DSD128 and MQA. It measures 77 x 14 x 35mm (WxHxD), weighs 51g and boasts a claimed battery life of up to five hours per charge.…

PRICE: £129 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: YAMAHA.COM RELEASED ON WORLD Hearing Day, Yamaha’s new TW-E5B true wireless earbuds feature the company’s Listening Care technology intended to provide intelligent equalisation at any volume, helping to support safe listening. Designed so that the 7mm driver unit and exit are placed on the same axis as the sound conduit, the TW-E5B is designed to eliminate obstacles from the sound conduit to the sound exit as much as possible. Yamaha explains that by driving the diaphragm quickly and accurately in response to the input signal, a clear high-frequency range can be reproduced. Additionally, a small hole is on the rear side of the earbuds to control the back pressure generated from the driver in a bid to maximise the use of air inside the earbuds…

IT’S OFTEN SAID that there are no great technological advances these days. Think back to the Eighties for example, when both CD and DAT music formats were launched and microcomputers were exponentially faster and more powerful at the end of the decade than they were at the beginning. Instead, now we seem to be getting small, incremental improvements as consumer technology gets faster and more powerful. While this change isn’t necessarily as eye catching, from time to time you suddenly realise that things that weren’t really possible 10 years ago, now are. One such example is wireless loudspeakers. Of course, these existed a decade ago, but were far more crude; the sound was poor and the operation glitchy. It’s only in the past couple of years that wireless speakers have…

Coming five or so years later than the original LS50, KEF’s replacement adds extra functionality and has untethered the two speakers and updated the electronics. It’s still one of the most attractive designs here. It naturally has an app which is swish and easy to use, but before you fire it up you’ll need to load Google Home for initial setup. After that you can unlock its group-leading connectivity; it has a wealth of inputs including HDMI, optical digital, analogue and Ethernet. The system comes as a master and a slave, with the former having a neat illuminated control panel. It is less responsive than some touch-sensitive systems, though; our review sample needs a slight finger prod to work. Each speaker has a single mains cable; it then syncs with…

Balanced Mode Radiators are not a gimmick; they’re the result of decades of research and a spin-off from military research stretching back many decades. The technology was popularised by NXT, which has licensed BMRs for many applications. The benefits include a wide bandwidth and propagation of sound across the 180° plain; the drivers are way less directional than normal speakers. Each Q Active 200 loudspeaker has two BMRs, each with its own DSP and amplifier channel. The upper one runs from 20kHz down to 5kHz; the lower only works up to 5kHz. A rear baffle-mounted driver takes care of low frequencies. Q Acoustics offers optional, stylish and expensive stands; conventional ones work well too. Class D amplifiers deliver a claimed 100W RMS per channel. Switchable bass compensation is fitted to…

Of all the quirky wordplays Chord Electronics has used in naming its products, Mojo – a portmanteau of ‘mobile’ and ‘joy’ – is undoubtedly the Qutest… sorry, cutest. Launched in 2015, no one really knew if Chord’s hunch that what the world really needed was a portable headphone amp/DAC that could channel ‘studio quality’ sound into the most demanding high-end headphones would catch on. Game changer is a term with a grand history of being bandied about in hi-fi circles, sometimes with little justification. But there can be no argument in attaching it to the Mojo which all but bewitched reviewers, sold like crazy and still has no sonic equal for the money. Reflecting the thorough overhaul, the new Mojo – virtually the same dinky form factor, more coloured orbs…

Since Roksan was acquired by Monitor Audio in 2016, things have been quiet for the brand. However, the arrival of the Attessa range changes all of that. Roksan has never been particularly prolific in this area, but the Xerxes and Radius have fine reputations at their price points. The Attessa is a clean-sheet design; there’s next to nothing you can readily identify from existing models that has been employed in its design and construction. This is perhaps most apparent in the plinth. This is a single section, rather than one split by decoupling ‘blobs’ as used in the older models. A reasonable degree of isolation is achieved via three slightly pliant feet, but there’s no other suspension or decoupling. This plinth mounts the bearing; which extends a considerable distance below…

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever Endless Rooms CD Sub Pop TOWERING CHORUSES, INTERLOCKING guitars, motorik rhythms and sparkling pop hooks – welcome to the first great post-lockdown record. In recent times we have reviewed many great albums shaped by the unique circumstances of the pandemic, recorded remotely and which had normal conditions prevailed would never have been made at all. Australia imposed one of the longest and strictest lockdowns, but the third album from Melbourne’s RBCF is the sound of the quintet reuniting as a real band to play together again and collectively bounce off each other’s creativity following the long bout of enforced separation. In short, Endless Rooms finds the band simply doing what they do best: “chasing down songs in a room together,” as they put it. Formed in 2013,…

LIKE MANY ITEMS in the audio chain, passive components can have a significant effect on sound quality. However, although there are many soldering iron-wielding audiophiles who are prepared to spend lots on audio-grade capacitors, some often think twice about spending a similar amount on resistors – which are of equal importance. The Charcroft Audio Resistor (CAR) is composed of Vishay’s Bulk Metal Z-foil technology, and the design offers a combination of low noise, low inductance and low capacitance. Although it’s widely acknowledged that regular foil resistors are the component of choice for audio applications, Charcroft claims the special ‘naked Z-foil’ design without case or encapsulation adds an additional dimension in reducing signal distortion and increasing clarity. These are available in a range of preferred values from 10ohm to 100Kohm. Other…

1 OUTER SPACE After all the grim news about clubs closing due to COVID, it’s great to hear that Outernet Live, a new 2,000 capacity venue in the centre of London, is set to launch. Forming part of Outernet London, “a billion-pound immersive media, music and culture district” to be located on the corner of Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road, it’s said to be the largest live events venue to be built in the centre of London since the Forties, and will be housed beneath The Now Building. Plans announced describe it as: “the most advanced experiential public space in the world” with 23,000ft2 of floor-to-ceiling 16K screens. “From major movie premieres, staged in ways that have never before been possible, to intimate artist showcases that could then be…