Audiolab 9000N streamer Audiolab has carved itself a firm niche in the market with affordable, value for money equipment, by designing in the UK and manufacturing in China. However, the 9000N is not a beer-budget model sitting, as it does, at the top end of their price range. The Audiolab engineers have lots of experience […]
Fell Audio Disc CD player Years ago I recall hearing the naysayers proclaiming that the end of the CD format was nigh. Yet here we are, in 2025, reviewing an entry level CD player, and from a British manufacturer at that. Fell Audio made great waves towards the end of last year following the announcement […]
Laiv Harmony DAC Way back in the 20th century, Sony and Philips set the CD standard at the maximum for current technology. A bit depth of 16 bits was the limit of what could be achieved for recording, storing and decoding as an affordable commercial product and was deemed adequate for good sound quality, providing […]
Auralic Aries S1 streamer & S1 Purer Power Early this year Auralic announced their most ambitious component yet in the Aquila X3, a two box modular streamer, CD player, preamp and undoubtedly more with a price that starts just shy of £14k. We hope to see this beast at the High End show in a […]
CAD 1543 MkIII DAC By the standards of domestic electronics separates hi-fi is pretty hairshirt stuff, it takes up a lot of space, isn’t very easy to use and sounds its best with media that you actually have to pay for. In an age of instant access and inexpensive alternatives it’s remarkable that anyone bothers […]
Emotiva XDA3 DAC/preamp The marketing line ‘why pay more?’ is as old as retailing itself but, for the longest time, it hasn’t prevented audiophiles answering quite reasonably: ‘above a certain level, small improvements start to cost a lot’. The law of diminishing returns has been a thorny fact of life for hi-fi owning music lovers […]
Xact S1 Evo server/streamer Every now and then a component comes along that rearranges expectations to such an extent that its necessary to recalibrate the potential of that particular product category. The Xact S1 Evo has done just that for server/streamers, I now know that there is more, quite a lot more that can be […]
Cambridge Audio EXN100 streamer/DAC Sometimes a product arrives out of the blue with impeccable timing; so it was with the new network player from Cambridge Audio. The EXN100 is a complex beast, featuring a DAC to handle various digital inputs, comprehensive streaming abilities, internet radio and a preamplifier. Until Qobuz get their act together and […]
Electrocompaniet EC1M MkII streamer & DAC The ECM 1 MkII is not a new product but my attention was drawn to it by someone whose ears I have come to trust, namely Rich Trussel of Network Acoustics. Rich has a pretty fancy system with Vivid G2 speakers and a Soulution power amplifier, he must be […]
Melco S1 network switch “That’s a lot of money for a switch” is the most common response when I mention the figure, and it is, but network switches are critical to the performance of any streaming system, more so than many realise. They are the gatekeepers for any streamer and have to get the signal […]
Bricasti Design M11 R-2R Classic DAC When Madrigal Labs folded in 2004 and the Mark Levinson brand they worked for was sold to Harman, Brian Zolner and Casey Dowdell combined their names with a little bit of Italian flare to create Bricasti Design. These guys are audio engineers to the core, not the sort of […]
Mutec REF10 SE120 master clock The REF10 SE120 is just one product, not two, and quite a compact one at that. It is a 10MHz master clock, the £5,200 flagship design from Berlin-based Mutec. Not so long ago such a device would be regarded by most audiophiles as professional exotica to be found only in […]