Back in November 2020 I reviewed the Network Acoustics ENO in these pages, and the Editor awarded it an Innovation award, I nominated it as one of my Best of the Year products. In the ensuing months Network Acoustics have supplied a lot of ENOs to customers around the world, and the overwhelming feedback seems to be, in broad […]
How’s this for Japanese logic, the smaller a Melco music library is in purely physical terms, the more expensive it can be, less is clearly is more in Nagoya. The N10 is the most expensive HDD equipped music server that Melco makes, yet it inhabits the same size chassis as the N100 (the entry level […]
We have seen an increasing number of one-box solution devices entering the market in recent times, even music enthusiasts want fewer boxes in their homes and brands including Naim, Hegel and NAD among others are competing in this sector. Recently I have been lucky enough to play host to the NAD Masters M33 BluOS streaming […]
It has taken a few years for streaming audio enthusiasts to wake up to the importance of the network switch but ever since Melco released the S100 in 2019 this fact has begun to seep out and is gaining momentum. Last year Innuos unveiled their entry in this market the PhoenixNet yet before then a […]
The BBC runs a very popular police drama called Line of Duty, the latest season of which is currently being broadcast on Sunday nights. One of the most common comments on-line and in the press about this gripping series concerns the barrage of acronyms and abbreviations threaded through the dialogue. My theory is that the […]
March was Hegel month in the Kelly household, not only did I spend many happy hours with their excellent V10 phono stage but I also enjoyed some quality time with its stablemate, the Hegel H390 integrated amplifier, which was here at my request, as the obvious companion. Actually, calling the H390 an integrated amplifier sells […]
Auralic products can be idiosyncratic at times, the Vega streaming DAC doesn’t have the Lightning Server onboard for instance so isn’t as complete a streamer as an Aries, but it is admirable for its commitment to product improvements and its unequivocal stance on the thorny subject of MQA. Those unfamiliar with this acronym should know […]
Simaudio’s software engineers had a busy lockdown if the recent announcement of Spotify Connect integration is anything to go by. Unlike streaming services that will be familiar to the sonically aware such as Qobuz and Tidal which can be integrated into an audio company’s control app Spotify Connect works rather differently. In fact it works […]
Regular readers of The Ear may recall that in September of last year we published my comparative review of the Tellurium Q Black and Black Diamond digital RCA cables. To summarise that, the Black was good but the Black Diamond was considerably better, and stayed in my system thereafter as my reference cable. Geoff Merrigan, […]
Métronome made its name with CD transports in the ‘90s, substantial sculptural examples of the art that made most of the competition look flimsy by comparison. Now that the silver disc is in decline in many parts of the high end world the French company has branched out into streamers and DACs. OK it has […]
If you had told me even a couple of years ago that I would start to consider the network switch to be as critical a part of a streaming system as the DAC I would have presumed you had a screw loose. Yet today having first tested the Melco S100 and now the Ansuz X-TC […]
Merason DAC1 digital to analogue converter If you spotted the Merason DAC1 at the High End show in Munich you wouldn’t equate it with Swiss origin because high mass is clearly not a goal in its construction. It looks like something from France or the UK in its use of an acrylic front panel and […]