Using an acronym for a serious piece of hi-fi might be a fun play on words but it risks understating the product. Chord have used similar quirky names for other DAC products; the previous 2Qute and latest Qutest, for example. However, there is nothing understated about the DAVE when one looks further. The name stands […]
ATC aren’t into change for changes sake, they won’t revise the range every year or so just to refresh its profile in the market, indeed even when they give something a major overhaul as is the case here the appearance remains much the same. The only external difference between the new CDA2 and its predecessor […]
I don’t suppose it’s deliberate but some companies manage to come up with the most confusing naming for their products and Merging Technologies has joined the club. Originally the Swiss brand brought out the NADAC network attached DAC, essentially a digital to analogue converter with a network connection that meant you could send music data […]
Last year Auralic introduced two new products that significantly upped the standard of build seen in their range up to that point. It’s not that the standard Vega or Polaris aren’t well executed and finished but rather that the G2 products are bigger, more substantial and have a form factor that fits in with high […]
It came as a surprise when I noticed that people were using the word Sonos as a generic name for streaming or multiroom sound systems. The brand has made it to Hoover status in under 15 years. It did this by making affordable attractive products with a control system that anyone could use, in the […]
For a long time Metrum Acoustics could only supply digital to analogue converters (DACs) at either end of the scale, they made expensive ones and relatively affordable examples but there was nothing in between. This gap has now been filled with the Onyx and Jade converters, derived from the Adagio and Pavane models with almost […]
In our steady progress through Auralic’s slowly expanding range of streaming devices we have enjoyed the Aries Mini network streamer and Altair streamer/preamplifier, so it made sense to move onto the Altair based all in one integrated amplifier, DAC and streamer the Polaris. This was until recently the top model but the introduction of the […]
When Naim announced the new Uniti models last year little did we know just how different they would be to the range that was replaced. Gone is the brushed aluminium facia and black paint finish and with it the straightforward rectangular box construction. Now we have a shiny and slick bit of casework design that […]
It says something about the size of the German market that AVM, a brand with a substantial range of high end hardware, was virtually unknown on these shores until it started working with PMC. AVM’s products have so much consistency of industrial design that it’s difficult to tell them apart at a glance, it’s hard […]
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 […]
Cute, that’s the reaction that this smallest of the current Quad amplifiers elicits. And it is I guess, a valve integrated in a chassis that’s about the size of an original Quad II is an unusual thing. But they sold an awful lot of Quad IIs back in the day, so perhaps it’s a popular […]
A few months ago I spent some time with the Auralic Aries Mini, a streaming bridge that connects a music server to a DAC and provides a control interface in the form of a very attractive iOS App. That product is the least expensive in Auralic’s catalogue, further up the chain is the Altair that […]