When it comes to streaming there is more to life than UPnP. That protocol might be the most popular game in town but as MPD, Roon and latterly Squeezebox have shown alternatives do exist and Italian digital audio specialist Aqua Acoustics is the first to build a modular streamer than can accommodate more than one. […]
About ten years ago when I was working in the retail side of the audio industry, the original PMC Twenty series was launched and we sold a good few of them. They seemed especially well suited to Naim amplification and we sold that combination regularly. Indeed, I liked them so much that when the shop […]
On paper this DAC looks too good to be true, nobody else makes a discrete ladder DAC with this sort of build quality for this price. Happily not only is it true but the DAC delivers sound quality above expectations as well. But before we look at performance it’s worth asking who Holo are, which […]
I recently posted on an audio themed social media group that I was about to embark on a review to compare a second generation cable to its predecessor. Another member, who is not somebody known to me, jumped in and told me in no uncertain terms that without a double blind listening this would be […]
As those who read my output will know, vinyl replay is one of my favourite subjects, both from exploring new releases, and from the ‘new bits of kit’ perspective. Those who delve back through the archives will also note that to date most of my hardware reviews has been of the mid- to hi-end variety. […]
Never having had any of the well-respected ELAC loudspeakers in my own system, but having heard many at various shows and not least in their home territory across Germany, I was more than a little excited when a heavyweight box arrived containing their latest standmounts, all 16kg of it. Inside was a pair of well-packed […]
Given that it is the hottest day of the year as I write this, and that I am inclined to laziness, the easiest thing for me to do would be to refer you to my review of the Copland CSA150’s less powerful sibling the CSA100 , and simply add the words ‘and more so, with bells on’. […]
Australia is not the first place that comes to mind when hi-fi comes up but there is plenty of interest in the subject down under and a handful of manufacturers plus the occasional superstar designer, Mark Döhmann creator of the Continuum Caliburn turntable is from that part of the globe. There are also more accessible […]
Let me start by asking a question. Which component in your audio system has been with you the longest? For me, that’s an easy one – my rack. Since I bought it in 2009 every single other item in my system has changed, from all the cables to all the electronic components and loudspeakers. It […]
There is more than one way of getting data from A to B as Openreach employees know only too well, they are the people who are changing the copper wire connections installed for telephone landlines (and invaded for internet) to fibre optic cables that are capable of significantly higher bandwidth and speed. Inside the home […]
Back in November 2020 I reviewed the Network Acoustics ENO in these pages, and the Editor awarded it an Innovation award, I nominated it as one of my Best of the Year products. In the ensuing months Network Acoustics have supplied a lot of ENOs to customers around the world, and the overwhelming feedback seems to be, in broad […]
How’s this for Japanese logic, the smaller a Melco music library is in purely physical terms, the more expensive it can be, less is clearly is more in Nagoya. The N10 is the most expensive HDD equipped music server that Melco makes, yet it inhabits the same size chassis as the N100 (the entry level […]