M2Tech has taken a leaf out of Audioquest’s book and built a Dragonfly competitor in the highly compact form of the HiFace USB DAC. This asynchronous converter is only 88mm long (3.5inches) yet can decode at up to 32-bit/384kHz and combines a USB plug input with minijack output. It plugs straight into a PC and outputs to medium and high impedance headphones or via a minijack to RCA cable to an amplifier.read more
Linn has revived the Isobaric principle in its latest floorstander the actively driven Akubarik. With its Aktiv power pack cunningly blended into the tapered back of the speaker this is an extremely neat looking design given its inherent firepower and bandwidth. The isobaric element consists of two bass drivers placed face to face and venting through the bottom of the cabinet.read more
Every once in a while a product appears on the market that is so appealing that you need to buy it. This time it is not a gadget but a real audio product from a highly reputed company in Salisbury. A small power amplifier in the Naim tradition designed primarily to be used with their new DAC-V1. Or, as in my case, just as a power amp. Now most reviews do combine the V1 and NAP 100, focussing on the D/A-converter, I prefer to use the NAP 100 on its own. read more
Thöress 300B
Thöress Preamp, surely some relation to the TW-Acustic Phono
Werther's Original as found in the Brodmann Acoustics room
Velodyne vTrue
The Varios tweeters come flappers
The mighty Tannoy Canterbury GR
Soulution power... read more
Chord Co has recently made such a dramatic breakthrough with the design of its interconnects that the world needs to know what has been going down in the sleepy Wiltshire town of Amesbury. R&D supremo and music aficionado Nigel Finn invited me down to the factory to see how they do things and to hear the effects of his Tuned ARAY upgrades to their cables. Both experiences were impressive but the listening bit was a major distraction – it went on way longer than duty required.