Best Hi-Fi of 2022
The best of the best that we have reviewed on the Ear over the last 12 months
CD transport
Jay’s Audio CDT3-Mk3
The Chinese manufacturer Jay’s Audio – note the possessive apostrophe – is the personal project of Jay Ho, who also goes by the alternative first name of Jacky. Perhaps his actual given name just doesn’t translate that well into English. There’s no equivocation, though, about Mr Ho’s engineering credentials. His 2021 Red Book CD transport, […]
Lyngdorf CD-2
Are you one of those people caught up in the headlong rush to abandon physical media? Are you now committed to only using your preferred streaming service to deliver all your music? has your local charity shop got boxes full of your old CDs because you discovered that they have no second hand value? Or […]
YBA Passion CDT450 and IA350
YBA. Am I the only one who thought Young British Artists? Tracy Emin and unmade beds, Damien Hirst and pickled sharks? Wrong answer. In the context of good music reproduction, YBA can only mean Yves-Bernard André, whose initials grace the brand he launched way back in 1981. Since then he has been dedicated to combining […]
Rockna Wavedream Net & Wavedream DAC
Streaming audio is beginning to mature, there is a general consensus about how things should be done for best sound and ease of use, and even the spiky issue of which format to use is starting to become clear. But there are still two schools of thought, there’s the Mac and DAC with USB connection […]
47 Labs Shigaraki system
This review was written in 2005 when the world was a wealthier place and the Shigaraki System cost just over £5,000. Seven years later the system still exists albeit with an upgrade to the speakers and costs nearly £9,000 in total, so despite that fact that the Japanese have been in recession for so long […]