Every year on a cold day in February numerous audio enthusiasts converge on the Angel leisure centre in Tonbridge, Kent in search of a bargain. This year it was bright and frosty when I arrived to join the queue of sellers at 8am but inside the big hall things were bustling with kit being wheeled […]
When I reviewed the Rega RP8 turntable I was very impressed with it indeed but felt that something was holding it back. A bit of investigation revealed that the power supply was the weak link and I found that putting a turntable oriented mains conditioner between the wall and the TTPSU brought about significant improvements […]
It’s been a bumper year for great new albums, so much so that we have had to expand our list to thirteen titles all guaranteed to make your system sing and your soul ascend. With pretty well all the important genres covered there should be something for all tastes let alone the adventurous musical explorations […]
If you want to stream music through a decent system there isn’t a huge choice of providers and top of the heap you have Tidal and Qobuz. Both offer lossless streaming of a quality that while it’s not quite up there with locally stored music files is pretty close and more than good enough to […]
I became aware of Samuel Yirga a few years ago when I first heard his Habasha Sessions album. I was instantaneously struck by the natural flow of musical style that combines into a stream of emotional creative narrative and defies classification. It is an album I play often and continue to discover anew each time […]
The Ear took a room at Indulgence this year in order to demonstrate a system that’s very close to the one used for our reviews, and for the opportunity to meet our lovely readers. It was also a good excuse to listen to some great music for three days. The system consisted of a Rega […]
The death was reported last week of long-time audio doyenne John Borwick who devoted his life to all things audio After 11 years at the BBC, where he began as a Studio Manager and became an instructor in Studio Operations, he was made anchor-man of a weekly programme directed at a growing hobby of audio enthusiasts […]
Reuben Klein continues his assessment of the music of Steely Dan and has the audacity to omit the finest song on The Royal Scam, that being the title track. But at the Ear we are open minded (eared) and are willing to tolerate opinions that do not exact with our own, most of the time. […]
In an attempt at honouring the work of the late great Walter Becker, Reuben Klein attempts to establish the finest songs that he and Donald Fagen created. The Dan’s creations are too great of an opus to summarise at one fell swoop. This therefore is part one of three before we get down to the […]
Having made a name with new-thinking in professional loudspeakers, a Dutch brand is launching its foray into hi-fi territory with some highly researched products, as Trevor Butler discovered on a visit to The Netherlands. Conventional box loudspeakers may become a thing of the past if microphone technology is adapted to perfect a directional monitor inspired […]
The loudspeaker brand Diapason is owned and run by a musician with a lifelong passion for truthful music reproduction, as Trevor Butler discovered on a visit to northern Italy. Alessandro Schiavi (above) was destined to become a professional musician but this changed while he was studying piano and composition for the pipe organ […]
Kurt VileB’lieve I’m going down…MatadorVile is a troubadour in the mould of Beck with a voice akin to J Mascis (Dinosaur Jr) who makes great, languid west coast rock. He used to be more intense in his War on Drugs days but time has rubbed the edges down and now he’s a consumate singer/songwriter with […]