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 […]
Marantz officially launched its new 10 series reference source and amplifier in Eindhoven, Holland last week. Designer Ken Ishiwata mentioned that the original Model 10 from Marantz was an FM tuner designed by Richard Sequerra, a tube design that was so complex it effectively bankrupted original owner Saul B Marantz. Let’s hope this new 10 […]
With vinyl making a resurgence, to the extent that British supermarkets now stock LPs alongside the fruit and veg, a surge of specialist retailers dedicated to everything analogue is appearing. Trevor Butler has been to the Swedish capital to find out more about one and to meet its proprietor. Just a few minutes away from […]
Prism Sound has established itself as one of, if not the, foremost brand in digital conversion for recording studios, so it was apt that they chose Mark Knopfler’s British Grove studio in Chiswick, London to formally launch their first product for the hi-fi market. We first heard about Callia back in February, since then it […]
Music First Audio is not the largest of audio companies and up until recently it didn’t have anywhere to demonstrate its wares. This all changed a few months ago when proprietor Jonathan Billington leased the unit next to his production facility in Hastings. Now he has somewhere to display an array of MFA products and […]
A hi-fi component can only make the sound it transmits worse, it has everything to lose. The signal can only be degraded as it’s extracted from the source, amplified and transduced into acoustic sound by the speakers, so the best component is the one that has the least effect on the signal, the one that’s […]
Ever since I started using the Melco N1A server as a source for digital files there has been the option of connecting the USB output directly to a DAC or using the network output to drive a streamer and plugging a coaxial digital output into the same DAC. It’s not a totally flat playing field […]
Audioquest’s unfeasibly young headphone guru Skylar Gray responds to some of the comments in Richard Barclays recent review of the NightHawk headphones. We appreciate the time and effort Richard Barclay has put into getting to know and understand NightHawk. Thank you very much. We’d like to offer a few points of clarification that might prove […]
Ever since I got into sound systems I have been fascinated with amplifiers, integrated ones, pre- and power amplifiers, tubes and transistors. I’ll never forget buying my first real amplifier at the age of 15, it had EL84 tubes in the output stage and the front panel had as many knobs as possible, including tone […]