Cute, that’s the reaction that this smallest of the current Quad amplifiers elicits. And it is I guess, a valve integrated in a chassis that’s about the size of an original Quad II is an unusual thing. But they sold an awful lot of Quad IIs back in the day, so perhaps it’s a popular […]
A few months ago I spent some time with the Auralic Aries Mini, a streaming bridge that connects a music server to a DAC and provides a control interface in the form of a very attractive iOS App. That product is the least expensive in Auralic’s catalogue, further up the chain is the Altair that […]
If you’re looking to moving into streaming the array of options and the complexities of setting a streaming system up can look pretty confusing. But in practice it has got a lot easier than it once was and pretty well anyone with a broadband network can get started. As Aurender shows on the webpage for […]
We are used to miniaturization today, the Japanese got very good at it many years ago so we tend to take for granted what are tremendous engineering feats. Nonetheless the feature count on the Mytek Brooklyn does take the proverbial biscuit. For a start it's both an analogue and a digital preamplifier with single ended […]
Does the name Gato Audio ring a bell? Does this Danish audio company have any presence where you are? If not that’s a pity because Gato Audio deserves your attention for the high standards it sets in design both inside and outside its products. I want to share the joy that this amplifier has brought […]
A relatively new kid on the block, Hegel is making waves in audio markets around the globe by thinking outside the box, as Trevor Butler discovered when auditioning their latest integrated amp with on-board DAC. Taking the smartly-branded white carton from Editor Kennedy I was staggered at the weight, after all this is just an […]
Every streaming system needs a library, not the sort that furnishes a room but typically a hard drive where all your music is stored. You can get by on streaming services like Qobuz and Tidal if you want more music but there’s a monthly fee and a quality compromise. Most digital music libraries are stored […]
Focusing now on digital ingenuity, German brand Lindemann launches a new range of compact electronics. Trevor Butler put the top-of-the-range DAC through its paces and liked what he heard…Lindemann is an audiophile brand created by Norbert Lindemann back in 1993 with a range of integrated amps and speakers. Later a CD player and phono stage […]
2016 might have been a bad year for rock stars but it was a good one for audio equipment. We saw and heard a plethora of fabulous new components that made our systems sing and renewed our love of music. Rather than trying to find something worthy in a variety of categories we picked the […]
Melco shook up my reference system last year when they leant me an N1A music server with USB as well as a direct Ethernet output, a spinning disc hard drive with linear power supplies that meant I no longer needed a network switch in the system. Having both outputs from the one device means it’s […]
There are a few different ways to get music streaming into your life, you can hook up a laptop to a DAC or you can connect a hard drive and a streamer to your network. The former approach is popular because many of us have laptops, but these are compromised by the electrically noisy nature […]
Streaming music over your home network is a great way to enjoy a collection once it is ripped to any kind of storage device. For many of us this could be a (dedicated) computer, a hard drive, a NAS or a music server. Playback could be in one location only or in multiple rooms with […]