Equipment+
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Wilson Benesch Square Five loudspeaker
|Wilson Benesch’s recent brush with the top-end of loudspeaker design – the Cardinal – was a distinct success, but it remains a top-end loudspeaker, and those who cannot afford top-end loudspeakers, such lofty goals and ...read more -
The Zanden Model 3100 Line-Stage
|Reviewers are supposed to be neutral, disinterested observers. But the truth is, that to do this job well – in fact, to do this job at all – you have to be passionate about recorded ...read more -
Anthony Gallo Acoustics Reference Strada 2 monitors with TR-3d subwoofer
|Anthony Gallo has always been an iconoclastic loudspeaker designer and thus his speakers neither look nor sound like the majority of their competitors. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Gallo’s otherworldly Reference Strada 2 ...read more -
Clearaudio Da Vinci V2 Moving-Coil Cartridge
|I recently reviewed Clearaudio’s Goldfinger Statement flagship cartridge, a device constructed from just the kind of exotic materials you’d expect and with a price tag to match. Flashy, bordering on the gaudy, it is Clearaudio’s ...read more -
JansZen zA2.1 Speaker Review
|The JansZen zA2.1 attempts to deliver the advantages of a full-range electrostatic speaker, but in a small-footprint suitable for medium-sized rooms. Unlike planar speakers, which almost all require a large room to really work their ...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 -
PMC fact.12 loudspeakers
|For the fact.12, PMC did not rely entirely on its own R&D facilities, but took advantage of one of the country’s most remarkable research institutes. The National Physical Laboratory in Teddington is probably visible from ...read more -
Abyss AB-1266 planar magnetic headphones
|Several years ago Joe Skubinski, the founder of the high-end audio cable company JPS Labs, took a momentous decision. Specifically, he decided to spin off a sub-division of JPS Labs for the specific purpose of ...read more -
Consonance Die Walküre turntable and T988 tonearm
|Consonance’s Die Walküre is the biggest record player I’ve encountered at this price point. A rounded triangle shape that, when coupled with its aluminium subchassis, will accommodate up to three tonearms. Starting at the bottom ...read more -
Aesthetix Janus preamplifier and Atlas power amplifier
|The all-tube moving-coil stage is a rare beast indeed. Whilst tube phono-stages are both common-place and popular, when it comes to low-output moving-coil cartridges, the vast majority switch to either transformers (Zanden) or J-FETs (Audio ...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 -
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