Articles
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Chord Electronics Hugo TT 2 DAC/M Scaler upscaler
|As many music lovers know, the legend of Chord Electronics’ Hugo family of products started several years back with the first generation Hugo, which was a wildly overachieving portable headphone amp/DAC that took the marketplace ...read more -
NAD D3045 hybrid digital DAC/integrated amplifier
|Back in the 1970’s, NAD created what turned out to be a modest-looking, sensibly priced, wildly overachieving, and downright unlikely high-end giant killer in the form of its legendary 3020 integrated amplifier. The little amp ...read more -
Campfire Audio Atlas universal-fit earphones
|Campfire Audio entered the high-end earphone market in 2015 with three models (the Jupiter, Orion, and Lyra), which were followed in 2016 by four more models (the flagship Andromeda, Lyra II, Dorado, and Vega). Then, ...read more -
Quad ERA-1 planar magnetic headphones
|Back in the day, the first truly great loudspeakers I ever owned were the Quad ESL-57 electrostats and ever since I’ve viewed the brand with respect and even reverence. Frankly, those loudspeakers were so far ...read more -
Abyss AB-1266 Phi CC edition planar magnetic headphones
|The Abyss AB-1266 Phi edition planar-magnetic headphone represented an evolutionary improvement upon the original AB-1266 that first appeared in 2013. In fact my conclusion was that the AB‑1266 Phi edition took “an already superb headphone ...read more -
Schiit Audio Jotunheim Multibit headphone amp/preamp
|When Schiit Audio introduced its Jotunheim headphone amp/preamp in 2016, it was considered a technical marvel and a bargain. Jotunheim used a unique balanced circuit topology, called a ‘Pivot Point’ gain stage, developed by company ...read more -
Cayin iHA-6 headphone amp, iDAC-6 DAC, and iDAP-6 digital audio player
|If you jumped into an audiophile’s time machine and went back about a year and a half (to late 2016), you might have seen and heard two compact yet very impressive new components from Cayin ...read more -
iFi Audio Pro iDSD DAC/headphone amp/preamp/streamer
|Many of you know the backstory behind iFi Audio. In essence, the firm is a spin-off from the well-regarded British high‑end audio company Abbingdon Music Research (AMR) and iFi’s mission is to make AMR-like technology ...read more -
Magnepan 30.7 four-panel dipolar planar loudspeaker system – Revisited
|In Hi-Fi+157 I wrote a favourable preview of Magnepan’s new flagship loudspeaker, the model 30.7. Now, as the loudspeaker nears full serial production, I wanted to provide a follow-up review to discuss one important change ...read more -
Cleer NEXT headphone
|Cleer is an ambitious manufacturer of personal audio products that makes a point of keeping a finger on the pulse of contemporary mass-market trends. In practice, this means the firm presently offers two in-ear headphones ...read more -
iFi Audio Pro iCAN, Chord Hugo2, Final D8000, and Campfire Andromeda system
|As high-performance personal audio systems have evolved, they have become more specialised. Some focus on top class headphones and electronics intended for use within the relative quiet of one’s home, while others centre on advanced, ...read more -
Vicoustic Multifuser DC2 room treatment panels
|About a year and a half ago I moved to a new, downsized home that had a listening space whose acoustic characteristics I did not fully understand. The room is a second storey space and ...read more -
FiiO X7 Mk II Digital Audio Player
|FiiO is an approximately 10 year-old Chinese firm that enjoys a reputation for building high performance, high technology, and high value personal audio products. No wonder the company’s whimsical slogan, which translates only imperfectly into ...read more -
PSB M4U 8 wireless noise-cancelling headphones
|In 2012 the famous loudspeaker designer Paul Barton, founder of PSB Speakers, launched his first ever headphone, called the PSB M4U 2, priced at $400. The M4U 2 was versatile with a capital ‘V’, so ...read more -
Campfire Audio Polaris and Andromeda universal-fit earphones
|I first became aware of Campfire Audio at T.H.E. Show 2016, where the guidebook for the event featured close-up advertising photos and revealed the exotic and purposeful looks of Campfire’s newly launched range of universal-fit ...read more