Innholdsfortegnelse for Yearbook 2025 i Hi-Fi Choice

While some audio brands tend to focus on a specific area of the market, say speakers or turntables, others like to cast their net far and wide. The catalogue of Emotiva, a manufacturer from Franklin, Tennessee, runs the gamut from speakers, subwoofers, cables and headphones to amplifiers, preamps, CD players, home theatre processors and portable DACs. In short, if you can think of it, Emotiva almost certainly makes it. One example of this wide-ranging lineup is the BasX A2m Stereo Flex (aka BasX A2 Mini), an integrated amplifier that’s designed to bring speaker-driving juice to wherever you might need it most. Dimensions of just 209mm wide by 76mm high make it amenable to desktop use – although it’s 362mm deep, so not akin to a WiiM Ultra (HFC 522) or…

Every time it looks like two-channel audio has finished this latest phase of function and design evolution, something else seems to come along to start the process rolling again. Rotel’s A8 arrives in the midst of this ongoing evolution feeling a little like it has dropped through a hole in time. It would be completely normal to a teenage version of myself looking at the options for a budget amplifier back in the Nineties! You get three RCA line inputs, supported by a moving-magnet phono stage. This is made available to a single set of speaker terminals and a 3.5mm headphone socket. There are no digital inputs of any kind; even the Bluetooth of the A11 Tribute (HFC 469) has been expunged. At a point where even some very similarly…

Does the world need yet another new hi-fi brand? Luke Tyson, project director of Fell Audio, says: “definitely!” He argues that the spirit of British-made entry-level audio has waned and needs reviving. “At a time when affordable, UK-built options are almost non-existent, we’re proud to offer a fresh take. We’d actually welcome more brands to take up the challenge of building something exceptional, affordable and homegrown,” he explains. He has a point. Things are getting very expensive these days. “We have seen hi-fi prices rise, but a lot of it hasn’t really changed much to justify the price hikes. In some cases, it’s even lost a bit of what made it special. So, with Fell Audio, we wanted to bring back that balance of quality, specifications and value.” It’s all…

Even if you have only a casual acquaintance with YouTube’s burgeoning cheap audio debating society, you may have found yourself dodging military-grade click bait proclamations from the surreal land of dinky, game-changing giant killers where palm-sized Class D amplifiers and DACs from the Far East costing just a few hundred quid have led some who’ve experienced their charms to question the assumed sonic superiority of big beast, multi-thousand-pound exotica. It sounds like the sort of thing any sane audiophile would file under ‘yeah, right’ but, seeming to defy instinct and reason, the idea that pukka, big-buck, high-end sound quality really can be had for the cost of a fancy air fryer does aptly seem to be generating some heat – a promise that seems both too good to be true…

Two-channel audio is developing into something quite different to how it was at the start of the century. On the one hand, we have devices that do an astonishing amount of things; streamers that are fully functional system front-ends, integrated amps that are all-in-one systems in all but name and active speakers that are complete systems. These multifunction devices are complemented by more function specific products than intended. The Cambridge Audio MXW70 is a case in point. It’s a compact power amplifier that is designed to partner the company’s MXN10 (HFC 503) network streamer and DacMagic 200M (HFC 484) DAC, turning them into complete systems. There is a plethora of other devices that it could reasonably be partnered with, however, so it looks like a fairly savvy piece of development…

It’s been a busy few years for Cambridge Audio. Having moved into genuine high-end territory with its Edge range, it has dabbled in vinyl, become a strong contender in wireless headphones and done a strong job in lifestyle components to boot. The EX Series is intended to plug the gap between the affordable (and very good) CX models and the decidedly less affordable (but still very good) Edge series. At first glance, you might be forgiven for thinking Cambridge has simply taken the CX amp and streamer, and put a large black stripe on the front panel. The EXA100 amp is extremely similar externally to the CXA81 MkII and the slight boosting of power from 80W to 100W doesn’t really feel like a huge step forward (although, given that the…

When the Debut arrived on the market many years ago, it represented both the bottom rung of the Pro-Ject range and pretty much the cheapest fully functional turntable available. The T1 models replaced the Essential range (which in turn was the first real sub-Debut series Pro-Ject made) in 2020 and the company has now updated the three models to become the T1 EVO family. These all share the same basic platform, which is similar to the original T1. This is still a belt-driven, unsuspended deck that, unusually for Pro-Ject, uses a felt mat-topped glass platter sat on a sub-platter that the belt acts on. All three models benefit from this sub-platter being upgraded to a more substantial device that looks and feels more akin to the one used on the…

Testing a brand new turntable in 2025 is not that uncommon; indeed far more common than testing a device for playing a 70-year-old format ought to be. Testing a turntable where the only component shared with anything else on the market is a cartridge is rather rarer, however. It’s given an even more unicorn-like quality when the turntable in question could be described as reasonably affordable with a straight face. The Unitra GSH-630 Fryderyk is all of these things (and, as we shall discover, more besides). It’s the more affordable of two models designed and built in house by Unitra. The company is relatively new, having been founded in the last few years. It takes its name from the brand that acted as an umbrella of firms building audio equipment…

Turntable manufacturers often find themselves making a phono stage to ensure the hand-off from their product to the rest of a system is exactly as they would like it to be. Vertere is no exception and already produces the excellent Phono One MkII, but the Calon (Welsh for ‘heart’) is designed to complement its more expensive models. All phono stages need to apply an EQ curve to the incoming signal to correct EQ applied to the record. The Calon applies the bulk of its gain to the signal before RIAA EQ is applied as Vertere argues that the result is more consistent and closer to the original. This also allows gain to be adjusted before and after the EQ phase and you can have up to 73dB – enough for…

Denmark’s Ortofon has a new range of moving-coils out and the MC X range replaces its entry-level Quintet series, running it close in terms of price. It starts with the entry-level MC X10 reviewed here, the only difference between the models in the range being the stylus and cantilever combination – meaning the body and generator remain identical. Ortofon’s Trade-In Scheme allows you to upgrade from one MC X to another or replace the cartridge should it get old or damaged at a special rate; see Henley Audio’s website for more. Instead of having big, heavy magnets attached to one end of the cantilever (like moving-magnets), MCs sport tiny, super-light coils. This means the stylus can trace the record groove in a more nimble and precise way. Quite simply, the…

There are lots of DACs available that can also act as a Bluetooth receiver for a set of wired speakers or other hi-fi equipment, including iFi’s own GO Blu (HFC 483) and Zen Blue V2. However, the new ZEN Blue 3 casts its net much wider, with the company claiming it is the first DAC to act as both Bluetooth receiver (RX) and transmitter (TX) with support for lossless audio as well as a conventional wired DAC for hi-res. It’s more expensive than its predecessor – with the Blue V2 remaining on sale at £200 – but its additional features mean that it earns its keep as part of a wider home entertainment setup. The basic design remains unchanged, with a low-profile metallic case that feels very sturdy although the…

Smartphones have a lot to answer for, and I’m not taking about calls. Responsible for perfecting the art of navigating a busy high street and reducing life, the universe and everything to a digital theatre that sits in the palm of your hand, for millions of young users its built-in streaming capabilities plus a pair of earbuds tidily tucks up the idea of what some older folk still refer to as ‘hi-fi’, too. Yes, vinyl and the notion of a ‘separates system’ sustain a parallel yearning for ‘the old ways’ but it can hardly be a surprise that modern smartphone touchscreen functionality informs the template for the rapid rise of the single do-it-all unit and its tesseract-like gift of folding multiple unseen dimensions into a flattened, just-add-speakers cube that seeks…

Every time Acoustic Energy launches a new small loudspeaker, there’s a shudder in the space-time continuum. The company made its name with the now-legendary AE1 mini-monitor of the late Eighties and it was so good it casts a shadow over its other small speakers even now… Of course, the AE300² is not the modern equivalent and nor is it meant to be. It costs roughly the same as AE’s first ever speaker – but only when you ignore 40 years of inflation – so in real terms it’s way cheaper. This is a premium budget design that sits between the mid-price 5002 and entry-level 1002 series. Designer Mat Spandl explains that this is the company’s first product to appear since the launch of its flagship Corinium (HFC 513), and much…

This is encouraging. There appears to be a kind of death match smack down happening in the affordable standmount arena that’s shattering preconceptions of what can be bought for around £400-£500. True, you don’t even need to spend that much to secure a decent pair of budget boxes these days, but circa £500 seems to have become the new inflection point for a serious escalation in bang-for-buck value. A recent entrant – Elac’s much admired Debut 3.0 DB63, at just under £400 – is seeking to reset the standard yet again, daring rivals from KEF, Monitor Audio, Wharfedale, DALI, Triangle, Q Acoustics, Fyne Audio et al to do better. The great news is that the battle to build the most potent budget banger continues apace. Evidence comes from America’s Klipsch…

My first encounter with a Russell K loudspeaker was the RED 50 (HFC 422). Part of a six-strong standmount roundup, it didn’t so much out-perform as aim a flamethrower at its rivals, roasting the rest of group with a display of timing precision, tonal naturalness and sheer musical believability that the best of the rest simply had no answer to. It’s still a mainstay of my reference lineup and, along with Falcon’s LS3/5a Gold Badge (HFC 470) and the ATC SCM7, an all-time favourite standmount. So why the need for a Special Edition? It’s a question Russell Kaufman must have wrestled with because, after producing excellent SE versions of the RED 150 and RED 120 (HFC 503) floorstanders, tumbleweed had started to blow across an imagined stage awaiting the launch of…

Since launching in 2021, Wisconsin-based Perlisten Audio has appealed to audiophiles with its flagship S series of speakers and subs. Prices here aren’t exactly ‘budget’, but the compact R10s sub strikes us as more of a ‘hi-fi’ proposition than the company’s bigger, costlier bassmakers. Like all Perlisten subs, the R10s is a sealed rather than ported design. Facing front is a 250mm glass-fibre bass driver, framed by a 25mm-thick baffle whose curved edges give the otherwise cubic satin-black cabinet a degree of style. Lurking inside is a Class D amp stage rated at 750W (RMS), plus Perlisten’s custom 48-bit DSP engine. This is not a model for the analogue hi-fi ‘purist’, but the manufacturer argues that the proof of its processing is in the performance. The R10s’ digital ‘brains’ facilitate…

As an argument, minimalism versus maximalism is about as old as they come. As a category in general, wireless earphones tend towards the more feature-loaded end of the spectrum but JBL really took the idea and ran with it. The Tour Pro 2 (HFC 508) made pretty much every other earphone on the market look a bit sparse. I loved it, but many made the argument that it couldn’t always match the best-in-class sonically. The Tour Pro 3 sets out to make amends on the perceived limitations of the earlier model. The 10mm dynamic driver is now joined by a balanced armature for high-frequency work. The overall frequency response hasn’t changed, but the two drivers now work less hard to achieve it. Bluetooth is still 5.3 with AAC support for…

Pulp More CD Rough Trade Records WHAT’S IN A name? Tons, as it happens. At first glance Pulp’s More may look like one of those lazy, ‘couldn’t-be-bothered - to think-of-a-concept’ titles that weary bands put out when they’re all but spent. It’s not. On the contrary, beyond ‘doing what it says on the tin’, it may actually be one of the most accurate descriptors ever bestowed upon an album. More is more Pulp in more ways than one. True, it adds to their catalogue numerically – it’s their eighth in all and their first in 24 years. And as you might expect from a band with such an intelligent grasp of its enduring appeal, there’s not been a lot of messing with the formula. It’s witty and knowing with a broad louche…

After a period where affordable hi-fi looked positively moribund and largely replaceable by one-box solutions, it is suddenly looking very lively indeed. The original Audiolab 6000A (HFC 446) was one of the first of a wave of integrated amps that restored a bit of life to the category and it has held its own in an increasingly busy segment since 2018. Now Audiolab has given it a refresh… As the ‘MKII’ name suggests, this is not a wholesale change as there really wasn’t a great deal wrong with the original. The amp section delivers the same headline power output of 50W into 8ohm – rising to 75W into 4 – which should be sufficient for most similarly priced speakers. Behind the headline figures, Audiolab has focused on improving the real-world…

Few companies have been as ideologically consistent in their two-channel output as Marantz. A significant number of its current integrated amps are Class AB devices that present analogue inputs and a phono stage for connectivity, much as they did 30-plus years ago. Other integrateds offer more extensive functionality and still do so within an aesthetic that is recognisably ‘Marantz’. The MODEL M1 slides into this range like an iceberg in the Mediterranean. It looks different to every other Marantz amp and differs significantly internally too. The reason for this is that it is intended to take Marantz virtues and make them available to people wanting to use them in a less traditional sense. One of these notional requirements is the ability to use it in a ceiling void, which shapes…

Unison Research, the self-proclaimed: “Italian leader in the production of tube amplifiers”, has an extensive portfolio with no fewer than 15 such units across pre, power and integrated categories. It also sells two CD players with tube-based outputs, plus solid-state amplifiers incorporating tubes in their input stages. In short, you might say it loves tubes. The Simply Italy Black Edition is its most wallet-friendly tube integrated, £2,300 standard iteration aside. This is a compact amplifier boasting a quartet of tubes – two Gold Lion KT77 power devices, operating in single-ended ultralinear mode and two Gold Lion ECC82s in the driver stage. All four are protected by a black metal grille. The tube complement is one area where Unison Research has revised its entry-level amp, switching from EL34s. The claimed Class…

Long story short, Essexbased Ruark – a family business founded in 1985 by father and son Brian and Alan O’Rourke – started off making some of the best-looking and sounding British speakers to grace a music lover’s lounge. With cabinets exquisitely crafted from real wood, model names to raise the blood like Sabre, Crusader and Excalibur, and a warm, scalable sound with an unerring ability to nail the sweet spot, few rivals could get close when it came to melding a gorgeous aesthetic with seriously good sonics. A trained cabinet maker, O’Rourke senior knew how to weigh the contribution of materials and construction in matters of sound quality, and it’s been a touchstone of the company’s ‘process’ ever since. Yet, as the millennium and retirement for Brian approached, Ruark’s centre…

Before we go any further, some sad news: English Acoustics is no more. The company ceased trading in July, but the good news is that the Downton can still be found online. Preamplifiers are similarly a dying breed. Yet many audiophiles reckon that a good active type confers many benefits, not least the gain to properly drive pretty much any power amplifier. And at the same time, the passive volume controls in DACs are often poorly implemented, in sonic terms. Products such as English Acoustics’ Downton make a strong case for preamplifiers in general. It’s a bespoke ‘clean-sheet’ all-valve design that gives a claimed 6dB of gain to line sources and 44dB to moving magnet phono sources. Apropos of the latter, the company told us that its phono stage follows…

There are points where the evolution of two-channel audio appears almost wilfully non-linear. At one level, we have a process by which integrated amplifiers are taking on ever more functionality to the point where defining an integrated amp and an all-in-one system really comes down to the disposition of the manufacturer. Against this, the two-box pre and power amp should be something we are seeing less of, but – for various reasons – this isn’t the case in reality. The latest to go down the pre/power route is Audiolab – a company with considerable pedigree in two-box amplification. The 9000Q preamp and 9000P power amp are an evolution of the existing 9000A integrated amplifier and, at first glance, there doesn’t appear to be much to show for the process other…

This giant new CD player could be straight out of the late-Eighties or early Nineties – in spiritual terms, at least. It is unapologetically expensive, but is more heavily engineered than your average battleship. It fills a sizeable gap in Rotel’s flagship Michi range and the manufacturer describes it as a ‘Transport DAC’, meaning it’s a CD player with digital inputs as well as outputs – so can be used to upgrade, say, a budget streamer or even a legacy DAT or MiniDisc player. The Q5 is the largest CD player I have come across and it sports a top loading disc mechanism housed in a machined aluminium chassis that’s sprung to isolate ground-borne vibrations. The disc transport feeds the ESS Sabre ES9028PRO DAC, a premium eight-channel design that Rotel…

Soulines may be a new name to you, but the company has been making turntables officially for 14 years, since the introduction of its now-discontinued Hermes DCX. I say ‘officially’ because, since 2009, Soulines’ founder Igor Gligorov has been creating turntables from all sorts of recycled parts. My favourite is the ‘Half Moon’ – made from recycled MDF, hockey pucks and a wooden barrel cover with a Lenco platter and Philips VCR motor! This hobby was turned into a full-time job in 2011 and Gligorov’s background as a mechanical engineer and trained musician stood him in good stead. As a result, all of his creations are mechanically modelled during design and based on sound engineering and vibration control principles. The tt9 is the entry-level offering in the Soulines range and…

Spend enough time accruing and listening to records, and the issue of surface noise will rear its head before too long. Even if you exclusively buy new vinyl and keep it in anti-static sleeves while adhering to the sort of cleanliness policies normally associated with assembling satellites, debris picked up during the production process to say nothing of basic airborne material that hits the record during playback, will gather to the point of audibility. This is where record cleaning comes in. For a long time, the choices available were between wet cleaners which rotated the record through liquid before you dried it by whatever means you saw as appropriate or vacuum cleaners that apply a cleaning fluid you put on the surface of the record before vacuuming it back off.…

Of all the product categories to be engaged in a cut-throat race to add features and technology, cartridges might seem the most unlikely. Nevertheless, over the last few years, specs and technology available at various price points have noticeably improved and we find moving-magnet cartridges for sale at costs that have increased dramatically. Audio-Technica has used the latest update to its VM range of moving magnet designs to go all-in on offering more features at a range of very competitive prices, culminating in a flagship that offers a compelling spec for a whisker over £500. Unlike the more affordable VM-95 models below the VMx range, there are more variables at work than simply changing the stylus profile, so it makes sense to secure more than one for testing to see…

Some products are so innovative in what they do that they create a template that rival designs can’t help but adhere to. Audiolab’s M-DAC is a perfect case in point. It was one of the very first affordable DACs to combine a USB input supported by conventional electrical digital ins that possesses the means to be a pre and headphone amplifier. No less importantly, it was one of the first products to switch to ESS for its decoding and the effectiveness of the implementation was a key element in the take up with other companies. So successful was the M-DAC’s spec, the basic premise of the D7 remains largely unchanged. It combines digital inputs with a volume control and headphone amp to become a serviceable digital preamp as well as…

In the somewhat grey, understated shape of its ST60 streamer, Arcam pretty much had its closest competition by the throat at its launch back in 2020. Although, to some extent, bedevilled by an inexcusably sluggish and sometimes flaky MusicLife control app (which did get better), the hardware sounded so good, nothing else came close for the money or, indeed, some way north. Remarkably, the ST60 was Arcam’s first stab at a standalone streamer. A lot has happened in five years, not least the arrival of absurdly capable, super affordable network players from the likes of WiiM and a general proliferation of sophisticated streaming talent in all its forms, from transports that need to be paired with a DAC to all-singing hubs that provide streaming transport, DAC and amplification in one…

How much to spend on streaming is one of hi-fi’s more debated subjects. If you already have a DAC – even one built into your amp or enabled access to the one in your CD player – some believe the answer couldn’t be clearer cut. Buy a cheap network transport such as WiiM’s £90 Mini, subscribe to one or more of the streaming services and, assuming you’re already happy with the performance of your DAC, call it a job well done. To spend any more, it is argued, is a waste of money. Maybe. There’s an affecting focus on nuance, temporal flow and musical inflection The opposing school of thought is that network transports, much like CD transports, do make a crucial difference and a better, more sophisticated and expensive…

Some first impressions can stick with you for a very long time and the original Neat IOTA is very much one of those instances. Walking into the Neat room at the 2013 Bristol Show and being confronted with a pair of speakers no larger than some of the home cinema satellites running elsewhere in the hotel before being told: “No, really, there’s no sub” has stuck with me for a very long time. The IOTA was a small speaker that believed, despite clear visual evidence to the contrary, that it wasn’t small at all. It was quite brilliant and Neat did very well with it. Twelve years is a long time, though, and Neat has revisited its baby, taking into account lessons learned from the development of other models in…

If you’re initially drawn to a new speaker by the clue in its name – this SVS Ultra Evolution Bookshelf, for example – I’d advise caution. Especially if, in the case of the SVS, you feel inclined to take the hint and place it on a bookshelf. I’ve just checked and there isn’t a shelf in my house, for books or anything else, capable of accommodating a speaker 378mm tall, 220mm wide and 295mm deep that weighs 8.6kg. Not that I’d feel happy putting any half decent ‘small’ speaker on a shelf rather than a dedicated stand, but the Bookshelf’s smaller sibling, the Nano (HFC 522), far from being tiny, is ideally bookshelf-sized and theoretically fits the bill if needs must. It’s something of a sonic star, too, but as…

While Paint It Black might be the best rock track to summarise subwoofer cosmetics, REL’s new Special Edition T/9x is way more ‘prog’. It’s available in Italian Racing Red, Le Mon Yellow and the punchy orange Tangerine Dream. A £150 premium on a standard T/9x in black or white gets you a bold new colour makeover, larger, triple-chrome-plated feet and a chrome badge. Flourishes of carbon automotive styling abound, including the neat carbon border to the REL badge on top and the main driver’s super-light carbon cap. The squat box, with radiused corner verticals, is hefty and its braced MDF construction houses a front-facing 250mm carbon fibre-coned driver. A downward-facing 250mm composite cone driver acts as an ABR. Driving is courtesy of a Class A/B mono amp boasting 300W and…

With the soundbar market dominated by affordable models designed primarily for TV audio, this offering from new Danish brand Canvas HiFi sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. And not only because of its hefty price and weight. Canvas bills its soundbar as: “hi-fi reinvented” and intends it to serve as both a premium partner for a TV, for which HDMI eARC connectivity is provided, and as a music system. Connections include Apple AirPlay 2, Google Cast, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect and DLNA for wireless streaming, plus an optical/analogue input. Roon certification is pending. All signals are passed through its DSP, which includes ‘BACCH 3D’ filtering, a crosstalk-cancellation process created by Princeton University professor Edgar Choueiri and claimed to deliver true 3D stereo imaging. Playback, whether music or TV/movie content,…

Master & Dynamic is perhaps best known for its range of Bluetooth headphones, such as its Editor’s Choice-winning MW09 (HFC 515). Enter the recently launched ME05 update, designed for use with the latest mobile devices and available in a variety of colours. The basic design hasn’t changed much, with a solid-brass body for the main earpieces. This feels very sturdy, as does the thick oxygen-free copper (OFC) wire, which allows it to get the most from hi-res audio. The sturdy design is ideal for travelling and M&D includes a canvas pouch, along with five sets of silicon and two sets of memory foam ear-tips to get a good fit. Inside the brass housings you’ll find 8mm bio-cellulose drivers, rather than the beryllium of the MW09. A USB-C adapter is provided…

This handy device has been produced to correct tonal imbalance and spatial disconnection for headphone listening and is compatible with a very wide range of dynamic headphones. The ARC ON-EAR is designed to offer a consistently accurate, speaker-like reference experience without requiring any plug in, software host, or DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) setup. Essentially, it aims to provide the same listening experience on headphones that you would get from speakers in a good listening room. The ARC ON-EAR contains a 200mW low-distortion headphone amp with digitally controlled analogue volume and studio-quality DAC. It has dedicated push buttons for bypassing calibration and studio simulation, five storable presets and a user-assignable button for common actions. A companion software app is used to manage these presets and all settings. The analogue input is…

To say that Cyrus has applied a consistent design aesthetic to its products rather undersells its commitment to the same approach. For as long as I have been active in the audio industry, it has made use of the same half-width metalwork. Subtle details have changed as to just how black it is and what display it uses, but the basic look has remained undeviating for decades. With the 40 Series, that all changes. This all-new range takes some of the thinking that went into the XR components and improves it further by placing that work in completely new casework. The 40 AMP is very much in the vein of recent Cyrus integrateds, combining analogue and digital inputs in a manner that makes it more akin to an all-in-one system.…

It’s been an excellent year for anyone that’s shopping for a sub-£1,000 stereo amplifier and we’ve seen some strong new arrivals in the market of late. The B1xi (borrowing the name of a simplified version of the original A1, which appeared in the late-Eighties) is Musical Fidelity’s entry into the category and the first of a series of Xi models to replace existing versions. The B1, however, is a new amp that sits in the same price band as the long-running M2si (HFC 446). This was an exceptionally minimalist device that concentrated on wrapping some solid casework around a hefty amp and not offering a great deal else. The B1xi represents a considerable departure from this approach. When dealing with the amplifier section, the B1xi is down on the M2si…

Some companies have become so synonymous with a certain product category that it can obscure quite how prolific they are in other areas. Pro-Ject is so indelibly associated with turntables that it is easy to forget that it has also developed a complete range of partnering electronics at multiple price points. Initially this focused on supporting its turntables, but the CD Set E is a fairly emphatic demonstration that things have developed further than that. The CD Set E is assembled from E Series components which all come in below £300 and provide options for vinyl playback, phono stages, a Bluetooth receiver and a CD player. They are both sold separately and bundled and packaged together to become the CD Set E that is £148 cheaper than buying the components…

Affordable separates have staged something of a fightback in recent years over all-in-one and just-add-speaker alternatives. The system-in-a-box concept – where everything you need is sold as a single packaged unit – has played a small but important role in this resurgence. Such systems offer the flexibility and upgradeability of a traditional setup while removing the uncertainty of having all the parts and cabling needed to get up and running. Pro-Ject’s CD Set E (HFC 525) is a perfect example and the Colourful Audio System E is part of the same range and yet the two setups do not have a huge amount in common. The biggest difference is the Colourful Audio System swaps out the CD front end and moves to vinyl, while the turntable employed is unique to…

Fosi Audio is a Chinese company that’s been going for less than a decade, with a range of products that appear to offer great value for money. The ZP3 is its sub-£200 preamp with XLR in and outputs, switchable filtering plus remote volume control. What’s not to like? The finish is industrial, the casing is basic and gives a sense that you’re dealing with a prototype. The action of the volume control knob is poor and there’s no visual way of telling what the setting is. But let’s not forget that price tag. The ZP3 has a welter of inputs: two pairs of RCA phono line-ins, plus a pair of XLR ins, RCA phono and XLR outs alongside an RCA sub out. The front fascia features the main volume control,…

It’s taken long enough but Quad has finally revived one of the best-selling pre/power amp combinations of all time. Between 1967 and 1982, 120,000 Quad 33 ‘control units’ were sold, while the 303 power amplifier remained in production until 1985 to reach 94,000 sales. So these new Quad 33 and 303 models have big shoes to fill, but retaining the original model designations and dimensions is a start. And that’s pretty much where the resemblance stops. Welcome to the 21st century. Anyone that knows the originals will instantly recognise the look, which – as with the Thorens TD 124 DD and other revisited components – is crucial if the 33/303 is to exploit all that nostalgia promises. But Quad has been brave, avoiding ‘exact replica’ visuals. Instead, the 33 and…

For a company that makes no fewer than eight phono preamps ranging in price from £175 to £10,000, Musical Fidelity’s history as a purveyor of turntables is rather sparse and, it must be said, unfulfilled. True, 2002’s M1 was a mighty opening gambit and statement of intent cooked up by company founder Anthony Michaelson and then distributor, now proprietor, Heinz Lichtenegger – all crystalline acrylic magnificence and resonance-defying layer-cake construction that made a Linn Sondek LP12 look about as sexy as a filing cabinet. Mostly, it sounded the business, too, though come the tricky second turntable there followed many years of radio silence. Finally, in 2015, a budget/midpriced vinyl spinner called the Roundtable debuted as part of a compact, affordable MF separates system, the Merlin 1 (geddit?), but despite being…

After initially launching without them, turntables are now front and centre at Technics, and the company now finds itself engaged in creating a second generation of decks for the range. The GR model of the iconic SL-1200 became the GR2 and extremely good it is too. Logic dictates, therefore, that the higherspec SL-1200G model is up for the same treatment, but Technics has sprung a bit of a surprise and instead released the SL-1300G you see here. This is essentially a three-way combination of parts and ideas. It is a mechanical combination of the SL-1200GR2 and SL-1200G while conceptually being more akin to the SL-1500C, which has been doing sterling work as a domesticated variant of the SL-1200 for some years now. This means that there is no pitch control,…

Released in 2016, the Cyrus Phono Signature combined an astonishingly low noise circuit with a level of flexibility in connectivity and setup that little else near the price could match. It proved so compelling that I bought one on the spot. Since then, the company has brought the Phono Signature into the Classic range as the Classic PHONO (HFC 520)and done some detail tweaks – but largely left a winning formula be. The 40 PPA is not a clean-sheet design, but it does differ in a number of areas to the Classic Phono that is still on sale. The most significant is the power supply. Gone is the small toroid mounted in front of the board in the Classic Phono and in its place comes a smaller EI-type device, which…

Launched at the Munich High End show, the MP-700 is Nagaoka’s new top-of-the-range moving permalloy cartridge. For the uninitiated, permalloys are similar to moving-iron carts, where both the coil and the magnet are fixed in the body and a tiny sliver of ferromagnetic metal – such as iron – is attached to the cantilever. This makes the moving mass of the cantilever assembly less than that of MC or MM options. The MP-700 has a boron cantilever fitted with a new micro-ridge nude diamond stylus measuring 0.12 x 0.3mm. The cantilever is supported with a soft damper and has a newly integrated suspension wire in the pivot system to provide stability, enhanced stereo separation and clarity across the frequency range. Nagaoka has added an induction plate inside the cartridge to…

When it comes to pricetags, the best-selling DACs aren’t even close in price to the £4,700 of HiFi Rose’s RD160, but there’s still plenty of interest in designs to aspire to. Chord Electronics’ Hugo TT2 (HFC 468) is a case in point, as it offers great sound, good connectivity and decent upgradability. It’s precisely the sort of product the RD160 has to take on, if it is to succeed. The RD160 is interesting for two reasons. First, the vast majority of its fascia is taken up by a large, fine-pitch display that can be switched between different modes. One of these gives a diagrammatical representation of the digital input selected, digital filter in use, upsampling status, output selected and volume. It might seem like a gimmick, but you end up…

As relationships go, the one between Bluesound and sister brand NAD – under the umbrella of the Lenbrook group – is a complex one. The Node family of devices has generally been aimed at the more affordable end of the market and everything in the inventory makes use of the BluOS operating system, which is particularly good for multi-room use. NAD is then free to make more classically ‘hi-fi’-type devices that, thanks to the same BluOS operating system can still join the family. The newly arrived NODE ICON sees the boundaries of that relationship tested somewhat. This is the largest and most sophisticated Node yet and, while it’ll still play happily in all Bluesound systems, it’s clear that the company has wider ambitions for it and that it is a…

Unlike some streaming components with big colourful displays that leave very little to the imagination, the Silent Angel Bremen SL1 Plus leaves everything to the imagination. A dark slab of metal every bit as featureless and inscrutable as the sleek black monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey, you wouldn’t even know it was powered up but for a pale blue light that shines down from the front. But then why not keep things brutally simple? Front panel touchscreen displays are mostly just for visual titillation, pleasingly colourful yet showing less than the control app on your smartphone or tablet which, in turn, also makes the need for a conventional remote redundant. The Silent Angel’s world at your fingertips is called VitOS Orbiter. It isn’t the prettiest mobile app I’ve ever…

Astandmount speaker with thick, rounded, age-dried Italian walnut cheeks elegantly book-ending a baffle dressed in a coating that resembles fine rain leather, the Chario Aviator Ghibli is quite simply gorgeous. Right away, there are points of difference, the large, treated silk dome tweeter and its waveguide sitting below the 130mm mid/bass driver and looking more like a small dome midrange. In a way, it is. Made-in house like the mid/bass driver, the under-hung tweeter isn’t that unusual in configuration, but its size (38mm) and low 1,270Hz crossover point are. Chario’s reasoning is that human hearing is relatively insensitive to phase distortion between 800Hz and 1,500Hz, but above 1,500Hz, the situation flips and it becomes the most sensitive, hence the jumbo tweeter and low crossover. This is a ported design, firing…

In recent years, Q Acoustics has been systematically fleshing out its range so that it now stretches evenly into the thousands of pounds bracket, but it has now returned to the segment that it built its reputation on. The 3000C models replace the 3000i range; the company has decided against changing the number again, presumably to maintain the gap to the 5000 models. The 3020c is the middle of three standmounts and represents a £100 price jump over the outgoing 3020i (HFC 441). The basic layout and dimensions of the cabinet are unchanged, but you do gain some useful refinements for the extra cash. In a change to the preceding model, the tweeter is hermetically sealed. It’s a 22mm unit that follows a classic Q Acoustics pattern of a soft…

At the time of the acquisition of Wharfedale by China-based IAG, there was much gnashing of teeth over the chances of the new owners disregarding a company heritage dating back to 1932. Mind you, similar worries were expressed when the same outfit snapped up Castle, Quad and Leak, and more recently Mission, then Audiolab… The worries have of course proved unfounded; not only has IAG breathed new life into its brands, it’s also proved sensitive to all that history. It still makes the latest versions of Quad’s classic electrostatic speakers, has developed Audiolab with the likes of the latest 9000 series and – as of two years ago – is back making selected speaker models in the UK, having built a new production space, complete with anechoic chamber, at its…

It’s probably about right to think of Monitor Audio’s extraordinary £70k Hyphn floorstander as the most potent symbol of the Essex-based company’s methodology. Every big-time speaker brand needs a statement product to get the adrenaline pumping – maybe all the better if it looks more like the striding pillars of the heroic TARS robot from the sci-fi film Interstellar than a conventional luxury high-end tower. And, as is usually the case, some of that exotic, unconstrained tech, will eventually, tier-by-tier, trickle down to more affordable fare – not just in terms of specific materials, but the company’s overarching Transparent Design Philosophy. Indeed, TDP applies all the way down to MA’s practical battle star of the past quarter century, the humble Bronze. Now in its seventh generation, the evolving entry-level lineup…

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What comes to mind when you think of UK audio brand Meridian? Most likely its range of high-performance (and high-ticket) digital active loudspeakers, a product category it effectively launched in the Eighties with its D600. Since then it has evolved the concept, so that its current DSP8000 XE floorstander features eight drivers, eight built-in amplifiers and sells for £80,000. This makes the new Ellipse – a compact, wireless desktop speaker – a bit of a surprise. Meridian has in the past lent its sonic expertise to Bluetooth speakers from LG, but now it’s entering the market itself – albeit at the premium end. And considering that the technologies built into its full-size stereo speakers, from D/A conversion and DSP to amplification and drivers, are the same that go into any…

At the start of 2025, Audio-Technica released its latest range of professional open-back reference headphones, the R Series. The ATH-R50x has been designed to offer a natural listening experience with an expansive soundstage. The drivers are modelled on those used in the original ATH-R70x, but have been re-engineered to deliver more powerful bass and accurate upper midrange response. There’s a quoted frequency response of 5Hz to 40kHz, sensitivity of 93.3dB/mW and the 45mm drivers have 50ohm impedance. The ATH-R50x is excellent value and offers an open and spacious sound Two detachable cables of 1.2m and 3m lengths come supplied and hook up to the left earcup with a robust 2.5mm twist-lock connector. At the other end, each cable is terminated with a 3.5mm gold-plated stereo jack. A carrying pouch is…

In 2024 year Chord Electronics expanded its established Professional (pro audio) range with a high-end amp named Alto. The all-analogue amplifier was originally designed for use in recording studios and only sold through specialist channels. However, increased demand from Chord Electronics mainstream audiophile audience was so strong it decided to make the Alto more widely available. It still comes with a professional price tag, however, weighing in at £3,000 – which puts it in a very different league from the more affordable Mojo 2 (HFC 461). Finished in Matte Black, with a sturdy metal case, the Alto comfortably fits onto a desk or shelf. On the inside it is powered by Chord Electronic’s ULTIMA amp tech, which uses “dual-feed forward error correction” to compare in and output signals and adjust…