Maybe I should have used headphones in the photo of the µDAC5 but hopefully the size of a CD is familiar, the idea of course is to give an indication of how compact this digital to analogue converter is. There are smaller, the AudioQuest Dragonfly and LH Labs Geek come to mind, which are also […]
Musical Fidelity has three small and attractive boxes in its MX-series: MX-HPA headphone amplifier; a MX-VYNL phono stage and the MX-DAC digital to analogue converter. All three are fully balanced, a speciality you would not expect at the price. It means you could combine the MX-series with costly high end products that often use full […]
Last year I visited Ken Ishiwata at Marantz Europe’s HQ in Eindhoven, Holland. This is where he has built a substantial listening room in the basement of an office block, it’s one of the best I’ve encountered and not a bad place to show off the latest Marantz components that Ken had given the Special […]
The revival of vinyl has not only brought us new turntables and arms, but cartridges as well. Hana is a new name that makes four models of cartridge at very competitive prices, and they all follow the moving coil principle. I listened to an EH, a high output MC with an elliptical stylus and to […]
Just as I was working up to finally reviewing the Rega Apheta 2, the cartridge that kept me up late on many occasions last year Rega had the temerity to announce a new moving coil above it. The Aphelion is the most ambitious cartridge the company has ever made yet it comes from the same […]
2014 was a busy year of exciting new product releases and refreshes for Schiit Audio, and 2015 has seen no let up. Following the anticipated unveilings of Yggdrasil and Ragnarok, the company’s long-promised ‘cost no object’ statement DAC and amplifier, Jason Stoddard and Mike Moffat have been swift and sure-footed in bringing their recently dethroned […]
T+A stands for Theory + Application, this German company has done just that with its transmission line loudspeakers, electronics and mechanics since its foundation in 1978. The amplifier and record player in front of me, the first I’ve tried from the company, prove as much. The dual mono PA 2500 R amplifier is part of […]
The Mojo is something of a radical move for Chord Electronics, the brand has long been associated with high end audio separates which tend to carry a high end price. The Hugo portable DAC/headphone amp brought the entry level down quite considerably but still kept it within the realm of dedicated enthusiasts, anyone else would […]
Just over a year ago Chord Co, cable mongers to the pace, rhythm and timing cognoscenti, introduced Tuned ARAY to its Sarum range of top ranking interconnects. I got fabulous results with this cable, it’s the first Chord Co cable that has really made an impression, and I have subsequently used Sarum Tuned ARAY analogue […]
Ayre is one of those companies that quietly gets on with producing innovative, well thought out and in my experience great sounding hardware. I have tried amplifiers and CD players in the past and always mourned their loss when the review period came to an end, so when the opportunity arose to listen to the […]
A former turntable manufacturer turned data storage giant has built an audio oriented NAS drive that gives streamers a real shot in the arm. Maki Electronics Laboratory Co was set up in 1975 to make high mass turntables with outboard motors and silk thread drives along with line level preamplifiers. No power amplifiers ever emerged […]
Can this Musical Fidelity integrated with onboard DAC sound as good as it looks? Réne closes his eyes and lets the music work its magic. When I was asked to pick a Musical Fidelity amplifier for a review I was attracted to the beautiful silver front and the quietly shining LEDs of the M3si, but […]