The latest and penultimate model in the Wilson Audio range is a substantial beast that weighs in at over 100 kilos and stands over one and a half metres high. But it fitted into the dem room at KJ West One both physically and sonically, in fact fitted in does not really do it justice […]
Something radical has been happening in West Sussex, the Bowers & Wilkins research labs in Steyning has taken the Kevlar drivers out of the company’s range topping 800 series loudspeakers. The yellow Kevlar cones are synonymous with the brand and have featured on every 800 series model since the first 801 was launched in 1987. […]
We talk to Rob Watts about the digital engineering behind Chord Electronics remarkable Mojo portable DAC. Rob explains just what ‘taps’ are and why they matter, and there’s a lot more to it than digital audio technology. Jason Kennedy: You like to talk about taps in DAC chips, the more the RW: merrier seems to […]
Pete Thomas’ house by the sea, his pied a mer, recently featured in the Sunday Times Homes supplement, it was selected for the quality of its restoration, but that’s not what drew me to the seaside earlier in the summer. One aspect of the interior is somewhat at odds with grade II listing and that’s […]
I was wondering how much influence a loudspeaker stand would have under the Harbeth P3ESR loudspeakers in my smaller system in the study. The forums led me to expect huge changes in sound quality, I had my doubts but thought I would give it a try. I gathered three stands to see what differences they […]
Ken Ishiwata’s listening room is hidden in the basement of an innocuous looking office building in Eindhoven, you would barely guess that this was Marantz’s European headquarters let alone the lair of the guru behind KI signature and SE products for the last thirty years. Yet it’s a magnificent room that took eight months and […]
About a year ago, I created a direct cut recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (a truly remarkable slab of vinyl, Ed). We were lucky enough to receive some great press and have now sold over two thousand copies worldwide. This created the question of what to release next. I have always loved big band jazz […]
It’s hard to avoid basic switch mode power supplies in streaming systems, they power every mainstream element in the system from the router through to the NAS drive and gigabit switch. Cheap switching supplies are marvels of technology, compared with linear types they use very little power and don’t get hot as a result. But […]
Linn is rolling out its Space Optimisation software for a range of third party loudspeakers. This room optimisation tech was released with the Exakt system last year and is now incorporated in Linn’s full range of DS and DSM streamers. The speaker brands that Linn’s engineers have worked on are Bowers & Wilkins, KEF, Spendor, […]
Metrum Acoustics makes a small but remarkably well formed range of digital to analogue converters, but that is not all that sustains the company. The All Engineering production facility behind the brand makes ‘all’ kinds of electronics for different customers at its base in Zeewolde, Holland. Cees Ruijtenberg, founder of Metrum Acoustics (audio products) and […]
In 1983 Peter Lyngdorf founded DALI, the Danish Audiophile Loudspeaker Industry, to supply the Audionord Group in Scandinavia with its own brand of loudspeakers. After few years they moved to a small town called Norager where the factory is based today. This was my second visit to DALI in nine years and it has grown […]
It would seem that iFi and Chord Electronics were ahead of the game when they released their respective Nano iDSD and Hugo hi-res portable DACs last season. Japan and latterly the US and Europe are seeing new, hi-res portable DAC/amps appear on the market on an almost weekly basis. Sony and Denon have both launched […]