Articles
-
Meridian Director DAC
|Meridian Audio is a complex brand. The firm is at once a high-end audio company, a luxury label, and a champion of new audio technology, so it has feet in many camps. Recently, though, Meridian ...read more -
Cambridge Audio Minx Xi
|In the time before it fell under the auspices of Audio Partnership, Cambridge Audio was an audio innovator of note. Back in the early 1980s, Cambridge Audio’s founder Stan Curtis launched the first multi-box CD ...read more -
Peachtree Audio nova125 integrated amplifier/DAC
|Some years ago, Peachtree recognized that a seismic shift in the high-end audio universe was at hand—a shift wherein PCs would step outside of their traditional roles as office tools to become full-fledged digital audio ...read more -
First Look: HiFiMAN HM-901 high-resolution digital music player/DAC
|What follows is a “First Look” blog about a very special high-performance digital audio player that has, if truth be told, gone through one of the longest gestation periods in personal audio history. The product ...read more -
Shanling H1.1 DAC
|To Be or not to USB; that is the question. Although I still play lots of CDs, and some vinyl, I now have a laptop with iTunes and Spotify Premium. So, being able to play ...read more -
First Look: iFi iDSD nano DAC/headphone amp & iCAN nano headphone amp
|Early this year I wrote a blog about iFi Audio’s iCAN nano headphone amplifier (click here to read), but mentioned at the time that my findings were based on a pilot production sample and not ...read more -
First Listen: Chord Electronics Hugo portable high res DAC/headphone amp
|A Hi-Fi+ review project I’m working on at the moment involves the Chord Electronics Hugo portable high res DAC/headphone amp, which is priced at $2,395 in the US or £1,200 in the UK. In practice ...read more -
AURALiC VEGA Digital Audio Processor
|AURALiC’s VEGA Digital Audio Processor (£2,890) is a powerful and versatile digital-to-analogue converter that can also serve as a digital input-only, balanced output-capable preamplifier. Specifically, the VEGA supports all PCM files from 44.1 kHz/16-bit resolution ...read more -
First Listen - HiFiMAN HM-901 high-resolution portable digital music player
|Over the past year, the firm Astell & Kern has garnered considerable press attention, first for its AK100 high-res portable digital music player and then for its even higher-res AK120 player. The A & K ...read more -
TEAC UD-501 digital converter
|The TEAC UD-501 is currently the cheapest DAC to support DSD replay across USB. It has fixed single-ended phono and balanced XLR outputs, and a volume control for the built-in headphone amplifier. There is no ...read more -
Devialet 170 integrated DAC/amplifier
|A few years ago, a then-unknown French company by the name of Devialet launched its one and only product… and the high-end audio world changed. The slim, powerful D-Premier combined innovative amplifier and high-grade DAC ...read more -
dCS Vivaldi CD/SACD Transport and DAC (part 1) (Hi-Fi Plus)
|Discuss the technicalities of the four-box Vivaldi system with the engineers at the dCS factory and it is very easy to be overwhelmed with the whole thing. They talk with confidence, enthusiasm and real depth, ...read more -
Electrocompaniet ECD 2 DAC
|No company has a completely ‘score’ product line. There are good guys and bad guys in every line-up. The art of a good designer is to limit the number of bad guys and make the ...read more -
Conrad-Johnson HD3 digital-to-analogue converter
|The conrad-johnson HD3 DAC defines how the audio business is changing in perfect microcosm. The DAC is a 24-bit, 96kHz design that sports just one input – a USB socket – and will be sold ...read more -
Primare DAC30 digital to analogue converter
|The up-market DAC market (broadly priced from about £1,500-£3,000, but centred around the £2,000 mark) is getting very contended, and for good reason. It’s the point where the designer can work to a set of ...read more