For the purpose of gaining some insight into the Ayre QB-9DSD DAC I asked company president Charles Hansen a few apparently innocuous questions. I was therefore surprised to receive the following response, which makes fascinating reading. Especially for fans of DSD. JK: Is there any benefit in 2x, 4x or greater upsampling of DSD and […]
Last week I was honoured by a visit from Rega’s namesake and founder Roy Gandy. Rumours had been circulating that the long awaited Naiad turntable is as good as a turntable could possibly be and I could wait no longer. So I asked if I could hear it and was surprised when he offered to […]
Have you ever noticed that your system sounds better later in the evening, that it becomes more revealing and effortless ‘round about midnight’? If so you may have wondered why and you wouldn’t be the first. There are a number of possible causes, the most often cited being that most people turn off their TVs […]
Having read many articles on the credibility of high resolution audio, I am left frustrated. Whether for or against, few acknowledge reality and present a plain enough case to reach what needs to be a wide and receptive audience. Both camps bog themselves down in either promoting or undermining the technical attributes of hi-res formats, […]
JASON KENNEDY VISITS THE HASTINGS HOME OF MUSIC FIRST AUDIO AND FINDS A SMALL BUT PERFECTLY FORMED COMPANY THAT HAS BEEN AROUND LONGER THAN YOU THINK. Stevens & Billington made a cult name for itself when people started using its products to build TVC or transformer volume controls with its products in the late nineties. […]
We asked Rega founder Roy Gandy a few questions about the remarkable RP10 turntable. Jason Kennedy: Does the arm have better bearings than an RB1000? Roy Gandy: The arms have evolved continuously over the 30 plus years we have been making them. We can now get much better bearings with finer tolerances which mean that […]
Music it is said is part and parcel of every audiophile's raison d'être. It is the reason for large speakers and annoying electronics that occupy living space and endanger peace, happiness and in some cases marital bliss. And yet it would appear that less of us are parking our ears in front of the audio […]
Bowers & Wilkins most affordable ‘proper’ speakers, the 600, series has been totally revamped for its fifth incarnation. The series has been in the company’s range for 19 years now and was last revised back in 2007 when the FST midrange was introduced in the three-way 683. The new 600 series continues to trickle down […]
To round off the year René and Jason have picked out their three favourite products. The components that have brought them the greatest musical thrills and the ones that they feel will stand the test of time in any well put together system. There was one product that both reviewers fell in love with but […]
After forty plus years producer/engineer Eddie Kramer is finally getting the appreciation that he’s due for the work he did ‘capturing lighting in a bottle’ with rock legend Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix is experiencing something of a renaissance today not least because of the documentary aired by the BBC in October. Eddie was at Metropolis Studios […]
When PMC launched the fact.12 speaker they mentioned that it had benefited from work done at the National Physical Laboratory or NPL in Teddington, London. Last week I found out just what they had been up to in this vast facility that has been measuring things with utmost precision for over a hundred years. […]
Have you ever wanted to talk with someone who has done almost everything with digital recording and playback? If so you’d be in luck if you met Andreas Koch, the owner of Playback Designs. We spoke in Munich during the High End Show and I discovered what he thinks the future holds for digital recording […]