Equipment+
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Final SONOROUS III headphones
|Final is a well-regarded Japanese manufacturer of high-performance headphones and earphones; the company started out in 1974 as Final Audio Design under the leadership of the legendary audio designer Kanemori Takai. Sadly, Takai-san passed away ...read more -
Raidho D-1.1 standmount loudspeaker
|I loved the original Raidho C1. It had a winning combination of low-impact cabinet size, wonderful build quality, and interesting in-house driver designs, all integrated into a satisfying whole. Musically, it grabbed my attention right ...read more -
Origin Live Sovereign turntable with Enterprise-C tonearm
|The British have two very galling character flaws. We are not good self-promoters, and we love a bit self-deprecation. So, when it comes to a turntable brand like Origin Live and it’s flagship tonearm and ...read more -
AKG Acoustics N90Q headphones
|Some reviews have a long gestation period, but this one takes gold. I first encountered the AKG N90Q back in June 2015, and received my review sample toward the end of the year. Almost immediately, ...read more -
iFi Audio Pro iCAN balanced, hybrid valve/solid state headphone amp/preamp
|My very first exposure to the iFi Audio brand, which is a spin-off of the British high-end audio electronics manufacturer Abbingdon Music Research (AMR), came at an audio show a number of years ago. I ...read more -
Magico M3 floorstanding loudspeaker
|It’s a harsh truth of the audio business, but a truly honest loudspeaker is as rare as a truly honest politician. The Magico M3 is a truly honest loudspeaker. And it’s only when you hear ...read more -
Schiit Audio Jotunheim headphone amp/preamp
|For many years Schiit Audio staunchly resisted building combination headphone amp/DACs, their thinking being that DAC technology typically evolves much faster than amplifier technology, meaning that amp/DACs are potentially in danger of growing obsolete more ...read more -
Focal Utopia headphones
|The French loudspeaker specialist Focal made its first entry into the headphone market space some years ago with its original Spirit headphone—a design that was later expanded upon to become an entire range of Spirit ...read more -
Transfiguration Proteus cartridge (again)
|I’m not saying that Transfiguration cartridges are like buses, but no sooner have you reviewed one than another comes along, often with the same name! Clearly, Seiji Yoshioka who designs the Transfiguration cartridges can’t stop ...read more -
Pathos Inpol Remix MkII HiDac EVO integrated amplifier
|This product – I hesitate to use the word amplifier because it’s a lot more than that – may have a name that reads like a compilation of dance floor anthems, but that name is ...read more -
Reed Muse 3C turntable and 3P arm
|After a year of presidential elections and referendums, one thing is patently obvious: as a species, we can’t agree on anything. The same holds for turntable design; belt-drive, friction drive, direct drive... arguments of the ...read more -
Rockna Wavedream DAC
|Rockna is a Romanian company that started just before the millennium with a pair of monoblock amplifiers, but its founder Nicolae Jitariu is something of a digital wizard. Jitariu has done design work for Goldmund, ...read more -
MrSpeakers ETHER Flow open-backed planar magnetic headphones
|In 2015 the California-based firm MrSpeakers launched two world-class planar magnetic headphones: the open-back ETHER and the closed-back ETHER C (reviewed in Hi-Fi+ issue 135). Laymen and veteran headphone enthusiasts alike reacted favourably to both ...read more -
Torus Power TOT AVR power conditioner
|Of all the reviews I have ever had to write, none were as simple to write as this one. The Torus Power TOT AVR UK toroidal isolation power transformer is basically a whopping great big ...read more -
PS Audio Directstream Jr digital to analogue converter
|Two years ago PS Audio made a bold statement in the DAC world with the release of the universally hailed and much awarded DirectStream DSD DAC. The DirectStream converts all inputs to one-bit DSD and ...read more