What do you do after you have set up a vinyl mastering studio using vintage hardware and established its credentials with some truly great sounding records. If you’re Darrel Sheinman founder of Gearbox you decide to make a turntable using the brand that’s been so carefully nurtured. And not just any turntable, the Gearbox Automatic combines technology […]
A few years ago Rega set out to build the ultimate turntable, they looked at completely new ways to create a plinth with massive stiffness and negligible weight and used technology from F1 and aerospace to create the Naiad, the only cost no object product the company has ever built. The research that was done for […]
Most loudspeaker makers improve their products by degrees; they refine cabinets, drive units and crossovers and gradually make them better. You get the occasional jump in performance when a new cone or dome technology is developed but on the whole it’s an incremental process. Newcomer Kii Audio takes a rather different approach. Rather than using […]
The Auralic Aries started out as a compact network streamer in a curvy plastic case, it looked cool and sounded even better, eventually spawning an alternate LE version with a lesser clock and basic power supply and a Mini with onboard DAC. Last year the company launched a flagship Aries G2 with a fancy milled case and […]
When it comes to the bleeding edge of digital audio file streaming is where it’s at and servers are the most important part of the system, they are after all the source. We have had DACs for long enough now that progress is incremental, even streamers, which lest it be forgotten come from the low […]
When Naim released news of their forthcoming network streamers (ND5 XS2, NDX 2, ND 555) it became apparent that their hierarchy is not as straightforward as you might expect. I had imagined that each of the three would have the same basic streaming engine and DAC and that the power supplies would be upgraded with every move […]
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 […]
It’s about time Rega incorporated a phono stage into its entry level turntable. With the world awash with cheap, flimsy turntables that are more likely to destroy vinyl than do it any justice the market is crying out for easier solutions. Unlike all other forms of music players in the home the turntable is the […]
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 […]
The Chord Mojo DAC and headphone amp is a very nice piece of kit, compact and solid with coloured controls and amazing spec for the size and price, but it was designed to be used with a smartphone, which while undoubtedly very impressive devices are not the last word in high fidelity. A smartphone is […]
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 […]