Chord Electronics quantum materials research Strange things are afoot in East Farleigh. Chord Electronics have bought and refurbished the Victorian boiler house that sits between the Pumphouse that the company has inhabited for decades and the river for which these buildings were created. This new facility has allowed Chord Electronics to move its offices out […]
Q&A with Minimserver maker Simon Nash I recently switched server software on my Melco N10 music library from Twonky (the default software) to Minimserver on the advice of the UK Dela (formerly Melco ) distributor ADMM. Doing so brought a small but notable improvement in sound quality which gained more life and openness, but also […]
Clearaudio factory visit Clearaudio is very much a family affair. Founded in 1978 by Peter Suchy today the company is run by siblings Robert and Veronika Suchy in the leafy suburbs of Erlangen near Nuremburg in Germany. Erlangen is a Siemens town, that company employs 20,000 of its inhabitants and Clearaudio occupies one of its […]
Michell Apollo & Muse interview with Jonathan Nye At the Bristol Hi-Fi Show in February this year Michell launched the Apollo and Muse phono stage and power supply, we took the opportunity to talk with Michell MD Jonathan Nye (below) about the new electronics to find out more. The Ear: It’s been quite a long […]
EasyVTA height adjuster for Rega arms One of the things which many vinyl enthusiasts have found very frustrating is the inability to adjust the pillar height on a tonearm with any degree of certainty or repeatability, especially where those adjustments are by means of inserting shims either in the headshell or between the arm base […]
In August Bluesound launched the latest additions to their Node range of streaming devices with three new models, most interesting of which is the Node Icon that pulls in a whole raft of features including dual mono ESS DACs, balanced output, aluminium casework and dual headphone jacks. More interesting is that includes new MQA tech […]
Voigt 4ft Tractrix Horn loudspeakers At the Phipps Brewery in Northampton last month Lowther proved they can organise much more than ‘a piss up in a brewery’. The tap room demonstration of the Voigt 4ft Tractrix horn was a revelation in all sorts of ways. Firstly holding the demonstration in a large bar was very […]
Audio-Technica explain the vinyl replay cartridge Senior Technical Product Specialist at Audio-Technica, Darcy Archer, answers questions on the role of the cartridge in a record player. For those new to vinyl playback, could you explain what a turntable cartridge is and its role in the overall sound quality? The cartridge is where our vinyl experience […]
Jplay streaming control app Jplay is a streaming control app that works broadly along the same lines as Roon but does not require a core to be running on a separate processor, what’s more it aims to provide high sound quality as well as a rich user experience. Roon has proved that streaming enthusiasts are […]
Metrum Acoustics explain I2S Now let’s take a trip down memory lane, back to the day when 14 bits were read off a silver disc and converted to 8 bits (EFM or Eight to Fourteen Modulation). Two times 8 bits made up for one 16-bit sample, for one audio channel. This was done to correct […]
Bluetooth technology At its basic core, Bluetooth employs UHF radio waves in the ISM bands to connect between source and receivers. When first designed and brought to market in the ‘90s, it was primarily for transmission over very short distances of up to 10m. The technology is shared by nearly 40,000 partners and governed by a central body that […]
The curious plight of MQA As many readers will have seen in the hi-fi press and group forums, MQA was placed into administration on the 6th of April. Rather than rehash the press release of this news, The Ear thought that now might be a good time to look at what the company set out […]