This is a DAC with a difference from a Dutch startup that seems to have considered all the options and produced a humdinger straight from the gate. Products from small new companies are often fraught with challenges as far as the consumer is concerned. Can I trust this (new) brand? Will it last? What if […]
Like father, like son is certainly true for Paul and Scott McGowan of PS Audio. Scott developed his own amplifier under the name of his father’s company but financed it with crowd sourcing website Kickstarter. It’s a totally different amplifier to anything PS Audio has yet made, both in looks and technology. The Sprout is […]
Naim's qutest streaming amplifier is 2 and for its birthday the engineers in Salisbury gave it a new antenna and access to more music than you can shake a baton at. Why review this 2014 revamp of Naim’s most affordable streaming amplifier now? Because alongside the rest of the Uniti range it recently gained two […]
Dutch DAC specialist Metrum Acoustics has always been at the forefront of digital technology, but with its latest creation it has re-written the rules of digital to analogue conversion so comprehensively that René had no choice but to buy one. The story of Metrum Acoustics started for me in 2010 when the first NOS Mini […]
An asynchronous USB DAC for tweakers and music lovers alike, Henry Audio has taken over where QNKTC left off to provide a different take on the challenge to make computer audio as hackable as the software used for playback. Henry is a USB DAC with a difference. It was created as an open source project […]
The Geek Out DAC caused quite a kerfuffle in the forums when its maker Light Harmonic started making all sorts of claims for its performance. I even had comments from competitors, and they were not entirely positive, something was clearly afoot. How could a pocket size USB DAC make so much impression in an increasingly […]
Small is beautiful. This elegant Japanese desktop proves that size need not limit musical enjoyment nor aesthetic style.Desktop speaker systems take many forms but none as elegant as Eclipse’s ovular TD-M1. Not only does it have looks but it ticks all the boxes as far as audio technology is concerned too: active drive from an […]
Norway is not the first country you think of when looking for manufacturers of great audio equipment. But it is home to companies that are well known all over the world. Some will remember Tandberg, famous in the seventies and eighties for tape recorders and receivers, these days they only make pro gear. Of course […]
Released into the wild in September 2013 the Loki is Schiit’s first dedicated DSD-capable USB DAC. As DSD is essentially a sub-niche within the existing niche of high resolution audio. While it remains to be seen whether DSD will achieve – and more importantly maintain – a meaningful toe-hold in the marketplace, the recent trend […]
An almost cubic DAC with a knob on it, from Bulgaria, with my reputation? Not half. Turns out that Antelope Audio has its origins in the US but all the R&D and marketing comes from Sofia, so Bulgarian enough then. I tried the first Antelope converter (now dubbed Zodiac 192 kHz) when the digital streaming […]
The term all signing and dancing gets bandied around rather a lot when it comes to audio electronics but in the case of the NAD D7050 it would appear to be appropriate. The sheer amount of badges shown on its web page gives you some idea of its capabilities; these include Bluetooth aptX, Apple Airplay, […]
California-based Schiit Audio was established in June 2010 by industry stalwarts Mike Moffat – digital audio specialist and founder of Theta – and Jason Stoddard – former chief amplification engineer at Sumo. Their ambitious mission was to bring high-end performance and superior design and build quality to audio products, manufactured locally in the USA, and […]