Ken Ishiwata is a bona fide hi-fi guru, he’s got the look, the clothes and the underground lair, I mean listening room, to die for. In an unassuming office building in Eindhoven, Holland, Ishiwata has created one of the best sounding rooms in the world (see more here and here). This is where he refines […]
Focusing now on digital ingenuity, German brand Lindemann launches a new range of compact electronics. Trevor Butler put the top-of-the-range DAC through its paces and liked what he heard…Lindemann is an audiophile brand created by Norbert Lindemann back in 1993 with a range of integrated amps and speakers. Later a CD player and phono stage […]
There aren’t many really good CD players on the market today, they have always been pretty scarce in truth. There have been good ones and better ones but the reason for vinyl’s survival through the dark days that preceded its revival is that the competition was so weak. But oddly enough in what appear to […]
Last year I visited Ken Ishiwata at Marantz Europe’s HQ in Eindhoven, Holland. This is where he has built a substantial listening room in the basement of an office block, it’s one of the best I’ve encountered and not a bad place to show off the latest Marantz components that Ken had given the Special […]
I don’t know about you but Elipson’s spherical Planet loudspeakers are among the most attractive in the business, the timeless geometric design has been in production for decades and deservedly so. I guess it was inevitable that one day they would come to the conclusion that some matching electronics might not be such a bad […]
2014 was a good year for new kit, both René and I struggled to narrow our selection down to three piece each and many fine products were discovered that didn’t make the cut. But the six products below were the cream of the crop, the components that made our music sound more compelling than all […]
Not many audio companies make streamers with built in storage and amplification, scratch that, nobody seems to make a streaming audio system in one box apart from Cocktail. There are a few streamers with onboard storage made by the likes of Naim, Sony and Olive and there are quite a few computer based options. But […]
The phrase is game changer. This not a CD player as we know it, with the possible exception of the £6,000 Rega Isis nothing I have heard in digital audio delivers resolution and musicality in such convincing and entertaining fashion as the Saturn-R. Ever since streaming came along I have pretty much given up on […]
Could it be that one reason Canary Audio makes a big deal out of its 100% American manufacturing is that it has a name that sounds slightly oriental? Or am I over analysing things a little. Canary is most definitely a North American company, after all it builds a range of tube components from the […]
This section is dedicated to classic components, products that are not longer made but which warrant attention because they were excellent value in their time and are therefore a great second hand buy. The first example is Rega’s last entry level CD player the Apollo, its £475 price point was so modest that many enthusiasts […]