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 […]
In the early days of USB in digital audio Vertere main man Touraj Moghaddam did a lot of experimentation with topologies and configurations in USB cables, some worked in certain situations but not others, and some PCs were fussier than others. They were interesting and occasionally frustrating times for computer audio. Approximately ten years later […]
The Hegel story begins in 1988 when Bent Holter, a student at the Technical University in Trondheim, prepared his thesis on transistor amplifier design. He quickly discovered that enemy number one was distortion. Holter could not accept the fact that when we supply a simple signal to an amplifier, the output reproduces that signal plus […]
2020 has been an eventful year to say the least but also one in which many have turned to music as an escape from the madness of the world around them. Music is a meditation that allows you to escape from the problems of life, whose powers are not to be underestimated, and having a […]
New York-based Woo Audio was founded in 2004 and specialises in tube powered headphone and loudspeaker amplifiers. Taking three years to develop the WA8 Eclipse reflects the company’s desire to bring the undiluted performance of their big amps to a smaller product for audiophiles who want an authentic tube headphone listening experience without being confined […]
I don’t suppose I was alone in thinking that Melco had gone too far when they announced the S100, a network switch with a £2,000 price tag. How on earth could a switch make enough difference to warrant that kind of expense, especially when Melco’s music servers already have a dedicated output for streamers that […]
It’s only been a year since I reviewed the original Stack Audio Link but the streaming world runs a little faster than most so it’s not surprising that Theo Stack has managed to make some important changes to his small but beautifully formed streaming bridge. It’s probably worth reiterating why this is called a bridge […]
In the interests of transparency, I must preface this review by saying that one of the principals of the recently formed Network Acoustics is a friend of mine called Richard Trussell, and that I have been in regular contact with him while he has taken the long road from ‘good idea’ to ‘finished product’. However, […]
As recently reported this combination of Focal Chora 806 loudspeakers and Naim Uniti Atom integrated amplifier, network streamer and DAC plus a four metre pair of Naim NAC A5 speaker cable is one of five specially priced and sonically matched systems featuring kit from the two brands that will be available for the remainder of 2020. The […]