Let’s get one thing straight from the start, the Mu-so does not shoot out colours like the picture on the Naim website, pity really as it looks rather good but I guess the novelty would wear off! It does look pretty gnarly without its wraparound grille though, drivers pointing everywhere in complete contrast to the […]
When it comes to audio components I prefer the designs of a knowledgeable person who follows their own path. A man, in this business it’s usually a man, who builds a design from scratch, using a love for music, technical knowledge and a commitment to excellence as the main tools. A man like Cees Ruijtenberg; […]
It has been a while since Rega used this name on a turntable but in the seventies, eighties and nineties the Planar 3 was considered the next best thing to a Linn LP12. The company built its reputation on the Planar 3 and cemented it with the RB300 tonearm, a turntable and arm that remained […]
There aren’t many really good CD players on the market today, they have always been pretty scarce in truth. There have been good ones and better ones but the reason for vinyl’s survival through the dark days that preceded its revival is that the competition was so weak. But oddly enough in what appear to […]
The Canadians seem to be a honest, dependable bunch by most standards and this is reflected in the music of people like Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Oscar Peterson, we’ll reserve judgement on Justin Bieber. It is also apparent in the products of Bryston, who have been making solid, reliable and mercifully snake-oil free electronics […]
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 […]