Articles
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The Chameleon test
|The absolute sound – the ethos, rather than our stable-mate – can be paired down to attempting to recreate the sound of live, unamplified music in a natural acoustic environment. This remains a valued goal ...read more -
Audio Research Reference 250 monoblock amplifiers
|Coming after the outstanding Reference 75 stereo amp, I have to admit some reticence in taking on the Audio Research Reference 250 monos. The quality of the Ref 75 sound runs deep, and although these ...read more -
Bristol Sound & Vision 2014
|Following a few weeks after CES, the annual Bristol Sound & Vision show might not be the largest audiophile ‘launchpad’ for new products, but it gets more than its share. The ‘Bristol Show’ (only the ...read more -
KEF X300A desktop speaker system
|Hi-fi magazines are not known for their interest in desktop systems that work with a computer, but this is changing. For many people, their computer is now their main source of music (and, vinyl revival ...read more -
Hegel H80 amplifier
|The role of amplifier has changed recently. The nexus role of ‘curating’ sources and feeding them to a pair of loudspeakers remains, but increasingly ‘sources’ have become a single computer source. That means increasing onus ...read more -
Kronos turntable
|The word ‘Kronos’ comes from Ancient Greek mythology, but although more correctly directed at ‘Cronus’ (the youngest and the leader of the first generation of Titans and the father of Zeus), the term is often ...read more -
Naim Audio ND5 XS, Nait XS 2, Neat Acoustics Motive SX2 system
|When we assemble complete systems for review, occasionally we end up making a system that is almost impossible to audition outside of the reviewer’s listening room. This is not that sort of system. Naim Audio ...read more -
The Great Leap Forward
|I’ve recently been through several loudspeakers in the review process recently. And two in particular highlight a marked step-change in the way audio systems have sounded, and now sound. The two loudspeakers are the excellent ...read more -
A fine Bromance?
|To audiophile manufacturers touring the high-end show circuit, CES marks the end of the year, rather than the beginning. It also is the start of a brief lull in event activity that kicks off again ...read more -
Trinnov Amethyst preamp
|Calling the Trinnov Amethyst a ‘preamp’ is a bit like calling Rafael Nadal ‘a tennis player’; it’s true, but dramatically fails to get across the bigger picture. You see, the Amethyst does all the conventional ...read more -
McIntosh MA5200 integrated amplifier
|You know where you are with a McIntosh Labs product. And it’s probably middle America. The brand is hugely popular in the United States, but also has a strong following across most of the world. ...read more -
CES 2014: Miscellaneous
|There’s always so much more at CES. Much of it doesn’t fit the standard categories of turntable, digital player, amplifier or speaker. And some cover more than one base at once. Hidden in this rag-tag ...read more -
CES 2014: Loudspeakers, $15,000+
|If this year was the time of ‘Statement’ amplifiers, when it came to top-end loudspeakers, CES 2014 was more the year of filling in gaps in the portfolio. While there were new top-end loudspeakers to ...read more -
CES 2014: Analogue
|Given all the fuss about the ever-increasing interest in all things vinyl, you might have expected CES to be packed full of turntables. This wasn’t quite the case. Where two or three years ago, manufacturers ...read more -
CES 2014: A personal viewpoint
|There’s a famous inscription on the James Farley Post Office that fits, It reads, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” ...read more