Equipment+
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Norodst Valhalla 2 cable system
|Nordost has put a lot of faith in mechanical tuning recently. The company discovered that a cable’s mechanical properties (including its physical length) are vital to in its sonic performance. The results of this investigation ...read more -
iFi Nano iDSD portable DSD DAC/headphone amplifier
|Have you ever wondered what would happen if a high-end audio manufacturer with a reputation for sonic excellence applied itself wholeheartedly to designing affordable electronics for personal audio applications? As it happens, that very question ...read more -
QUAD ESL 2812 electrostatic loudspeaker
|After much dropping of hints I was offered the chance to spend a couple of months living with the latest Quad Electrostatic speaker, the 2812. Many years ago I owned three different pairs of the ...read more -
iFi Nano iCAN portable headphone amplifier
|In high-end audio, context can be everything. Directly following this review, I have also prepared a review of iFi Audio’s Nano iDSD portable DAC/headphone amplifier, in which I observe that the iDSD can be a ...read more -
Stax SR-009 / SRM-007tII 'Kimik'
|We have already touched upon the Stax SR-009. Our Publisher, Chris Martens, has a great deal of respect for the product, both when it is driven by Stax ‘energisers’ (Stax-speak for electrostatic headphone amplifiers) and ...read more -
Linn Akubarik
|The original Linn Isobarik was once the top dog on the flat earth. If you had a pair, driven by a Naim six-pack and with a fully loaded LP12 at the front in the 1980s, ...read more -
Conrad-Johnson MF2550SE
|Most people associate conrad-johnson with amplification, specifically valve (tube) amplification. But the company has a long history of also producing good solid-state electronics; it just doesn’t do it that often. In fact, the last solid-state ...read more -
Usher BE20 DMD Dancer loudspeaker
|The Usher Be20 DMD, the top of its Dancer range, cost £15,750 per pair. For a loudspeaker this powerfully built in today’s market, that’s chicken feed. This is a solidly built piece of equipment (123kg ...read more -
Electrocompaniet ECM 2
|While we could spend our disposable income on family holidays or outings to restaurants, we audiophiles have a habit of diverting unreserved funds toward new bits of hardware to enhance our listening pleasure. And it ...read more -
Analogue Works Turntable One turntable and Design/Build/Listen The Wand tonearm
|Turntable maker Tom Fletcher left a considerable legacy in his passing. There’s Nottingham Analogue of course, which Tom handed on to family and co-workers as his illness progressed. Then there is (was?) Fletcher Audio that ...read more -
Westone W10 earphones
|Over the past year or so, the Colorado Springs, CO-based firm Westone has worked steadily and methodically to revise, update, and improve its several ranges of universal-fit earphones and custom-fit in-ear monitors. For those unfamiliar ...read more -
Focal Aria 926
|Focal’s Aria range sits between the Chorus 800 and Electra line-ups and faces the tricky challenge of replicating some of the technology of the former rather closer in price to the latter. The Electra and ...read more -
Devialet 250
|I’ve had a Devialet D-Premier more or less since the get-go. Which, on reflection, is only about four years. In that time, it went from being a stylish, thought-provoking piece of audio technology, via genre-bending ...read more -
Van Damme UP-LCOFC loudspeaker cable
|There is something of a Cold War in audio, between those who think cables sound different, and those who think they don’t, or can’t. Setting aside the militants at either end of the bell-curve, there’s ...read more -
Chord Electronics Hugo DAC/Headphone amplifier
|Are those people crazy?” asked a high-end audio/headphone enthusiast who had just learned the suggested retail price of Chord’s new Hugo portable DAC/headphone amplifier. “That’s an awfully steep price for a portable.” “It’s certainly not ...read more