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 […]
Once upon a time when history was in its infancy and nostalgia didn't yet exist, hi-fi fanatics had very little to be perplexed by or snobbish about. They pined for a thing that had a hole in it centre, rotated at either 33 or 78rpm and made sound through a single speaker, life was good. […]
I met up with Steve Silberman of AudioQuest a couple of months back and as well as extolling the virtues of his Ethernet cables he showed me JRiver’s software player for the PC and Mac. At the time he pointed out the many features and great flexibility of this programme, explaining that it can route […]
Forget world hunger, forget the everlasting state of war and poverty all around us, forget the corruption of the great and good! Cast your mind to matters far more important, for instance consider the matter of managing your audio files and routinely transferring them to a mobile device of one kind or another. Now there […]
Some years ago, whilst going through an obsessive period with hi-fi, I got onto the Naim track. Once I tuned into the grip and rhythm of Naim gear nothing else came close. Starting with a Nait integrated amp, I eagerly upgraded through the range as soon as funds would allow. Relishing every incremental improvement to […]