A relatively new kid on the block, Hegel is making waves in audio markets around the globe by thinking outside the box, as Trevor Butler discovered when auditioning their latest integrated amp with on-board DAC. Taking the smartly-branded white carton from Editor Kennedy I was staggered at the weight, after all this is just an […]
Someone called the other day and said what’s your favourite valve amplifier in quick fire, fingers on the buzzer style. The first one that came to mind was the Ongaku, as made by Audio Note Japan in the eighties and nineties, I mean what else is there! I don’t use valve amps because decent ones […]
The most affordable amplifier in Rega’s armoury is not just prettier than its predecessor the Brio-R but it sounds more powerful to boot. But look at the specs and you’ll see that both are rated to produce 50 Watts, so what gives. A lot of small but significant changes, that’s what, and the fact that […]
Back in 2015 I spent several highly enjoyable months with a Naim NAP 250 DR and the experience left me keen to hear what the next power amp up in the catalogue could do. That model is the NAP 300 DR, the two amplifiers don’t look that different on paper, the 250 is specced to […]
Tom Evans is obsessed with noise, or rather he is obsessed with reducing it in his phono stages and amplifiers. So when he gets some new regulation chips in and upgrades his range of Groove phono stages a great deal of enthusiasm can be found to be emanating from Aberbargoed in south Wales. Tom is […]
Bryston’s latest cubed amps are a logical follow on from the previous squared series in naming terms at least, and it factor terms too, as this represents a pretty thorough overhauling of Bryston’s core product range; power amplifiers. Bryston’s Chris Russell explains it thus: “As far as the Cubed Series goes; first, it employs a […]
iFi goes in for compact audio in a big way, I've lost count of the number of models there are that look a bit like this but they seem to do nearly everything including digital to analogue conversion, USB power line clean up, headphone amps and a tube preamp to name but a few. I […]
It would have been easy for Cyrus to have made a straightforward phono stage, they could undoubtedly have made one that sounded great and it would have sold to fans of the marque. But instead they chose to do it a little differently, to make a product that had features not found on any other […]
The NAP 250 power amplifier has been a mainstay of the Naim range since time immemorial, or at least that’s the way it seems. The first NAP 250 was first made in 1975 and had the ‘chrome bumper’ livery of that era (it wasn’t chrome nor did it have bumpers but that’s by the by) […]
Tom Evans has been making his Groove phono stages for some time now, the anniversary in this particular model’s name refers to 20 years of them and that occurred in 2010. Having been there at the start with the Michell Iso, which was effectively the first Groove and shared the black acrylic case that continues […]
Arcam has gone through a few changes since its heyday in the eighties and nineties. Once an independent run by its founder and chief engineer John Dawson it is now owned by Canadian conglomerate Jam Industries and run by a dedicated managing director who leaves John to get on with the interesting stuff. He appears […]
Space has been more expensive than stuff in this part of the world for some time now and that has had quite a severe effect on the world of stereo systems, hi-fi, call it what you will. The popularity of headphones is not merely linked to the the quantity of music you can keep on […]