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Living Voice is celebrating their 25thanniversary and have created a special R25 edition of the Auditorium model to mark the occasion. I caught up with founder and designer Kevin Scott late last year to find out a bit more about the brand’s journey from the first Air Partner to the incredible Vox series of horn […]

easy-vta-JK

However much one might love turntables, vinyl replay and records themselves, most eventually reach a point where they are forced to ask whether or not their record player is optimally set up. As those who read the audio press on a regular or even occasional basis will soon discover there is debate about pretty-much every […]

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It’s a matter of taste of course but the same cannot be said for sound quality. You would not be here if sound didn’t matter to you and nor would these 14 albums. Each has been chosen by one of our contributors as the best combination of music and sound quality that they have heard […]


RBarclay-Linn-Selekt-DSM-dial

In September I was invited to the press launch of Linn’s Selekt DSM, their all-new configurable network music player. After being briefed on its design and architecture and taken on an extensive tour of the factory where I saw the new product being made, I auditioned Selekt in numerous configurations and got a feel for […]

John-Garfield-Bamford

John Bamford was one of the main reasons why I became so embroiled in this reviewing malarkey. In my early days at Hi-Fi Choice he was a mentor and a guide through the maze of techno babble. He was also the man who opened my ears to the full glory of prog rock and Frank […]

dem-system-with-PF24

There are different ways of starting a hi-fi company, the traditional route of building products in the shed and working up to larger scale operation is the best known but also the slowest, there are plenty of brands that started out that way but the world is changing. Now large corporations own many of the […]


VIP-lounge

The unseasonably hot night of Wednesday, April 18th saw the launch of a new sound system at Mayfair’s Tape London nightclub. Great: what’s this got to do with The Ear, you might ask? And rightly: last time I looked, we hadn’t been taken over by International DJ magazine. But Tape is a venue with a difference […]

Udo-Besser

At the Bristol show last month I caught up with AVM boss Udo Besser to find out about the AVM30 range that his company produced to celebrate its 30th anniversary last year. Initially built as a limited edition for the German market Udo took the opportunity to launch them at the show with UK distributor […]

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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 […]


neo-psu-offside

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 […]

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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 […]