There’s a huge problem with HD music today say Benchmark and recent advances in high-resolution digital formats have well outpaced most existing amplifier technologies they say. Whilst recordings are possible that have dynamic ranges that exceed 120 to 125 dB Benchmark claim it’s hard to find a power amplifier that can deliver more than 100 […]
Oppo, those of the famous DVD and BluRay players, have announced they will be launching a new Planar Magnetic Headphone (PM-1) and a headphone amplifier (HA-1). The PM-1 headphones use an FEM optimised magnet system with very high energy Neodymium magnets. The headphones magnetic system and conductor patterns are said to be optimized for maximum […]
“The Cartridge Man is Len Gregory and he’s been making cartridges for a good number of years now. He used to produce a cartridge based on the AKG P8ES, but as AKG ceased production and were eventually bought this eventually meant that Len’s supply of components dried up. Around the same time (twenty-ish years ago) […]
Forming part of the bijou Chordette range, the new Qute EX adds a new chipset and circuit board which enables decoding at up to 384kHz PCM and DSD 128 over USB (against the QuteHD’s 192kHz PCM and DSD 64). Existing QuteHD DACs can be upgraded with the new chipset and board at the factory for […]
JoSound Cartouche loudspeakers use a Voxativ driver and an innovative bamboo construction that makes these €22 000 loudspeakers really stand out from the crowd. “We first came across the JoSound range of loudspeakers twelve months or so ago when we attended the Paris Hifi and Home Cinema Salon and were very impressed with what we […]
Norwegian-based manufacturer and quirkily named QNKTC (Quantization Noise Killed The Cat!) has unveiled its new competitively priced DAC, the £110 AB-1.2. The device has is roots in an open source project, as a hardware implementation of the Audio Widget venture. The project was started by an online group who wanted to develop the very best […]
Brand new to me but a staggering forty five years old Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera’s eponymous album is enjoying a re-release on Grapefruit Records and it’s a really entertaining listen indeed. Starting out as an R&B/Soul band called the Five Proud Walkers, EGVO took a pretty dramatic change in direction in 1967 after supporting Pink […]
Hifi Pig announced the launch of these new loudspeaker cables from Atlas way back in June and here Jerry takes a listen to them and gives his impressions of how they perform in his system. “The cables appear well made and very easy to use – the “Z-plugs” (4mm banana) on the set of cables […]
At the top of the Tellurium Q range the Black Diamond USB cable comes in at £636 for a 1 metre length. Dan gives it a serous listen and see if it reaches muster. “The Black Diamond, as all other Tellurium products, doesn’t come accompanied with a huge white paper of techno-babble, it simply comes […]
“So much to see here in the darkness…” Australia (and indeed the world) is enjoying a wealth of heavy music right now. Metalcore, new-school thrash, death and progressive metal are all thriving and our newsfeeds are chock full of new releases, gigs, tours, mind boggling arrays of sub-genres and all manner of heavy goodness. Yep, […]
Kathryn Williams is Liverpool-born but resides in the fine city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Crown Electric, the company Elvis used to drive for before finding fame, is her tenth album and her first solo record in four years. The album is the distillation of over sixty songs that were narrowed down to the thirteen we hear on […]
Keith Monks today announced that the new discOveryOne Record Cleaner had started production in the UK. Jon Monks, son of the founder, Keith, will be demonstrating the discOveryOne Record Cleaner during the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. Cleaning is a simple process of applying cleaning fluid and cleaning brush manually in the case of the standard […]