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 […]
Want a streamer but don't want get involved with networks and separates? Novafidelity's X12 is about the least expensive answer on the market. There are a number of ways to get into music streaming, apparently the simplest is to add a DAC to a computer but what that doesn’t reveal is that you need to […]
Bluesound is NAD in disguise. Made by the same Canadian parent company this range of streaming audio products ticks all the boxes in René's list of what's required in a decent multiroom product. The market for products that can rip, store and play music is rapidly growing and has full press attention worldwide, but that […]
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 […]
2014 was a good year for new kit, both René and I struggled to narrow our selection down to three piece each and many fine products were discovered that didn’t make the cut. But the six products below were the cream of the crop, the components that made our music sound more compelling than all […]
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 […]
Not many audio companies make streamers with built in storage and amplification, scratch that, nobody seems to make a streaming audio system in one box apart from Cocktail. There are a few streamers with onboard storage made by the likes of Naim, Sony and Olive and there are quite a few computer based options. But […]
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 […]