Even as I sit down to write this piece I can hear in my head the tooth-grinding in the ‘cables-don’t make a difference’ faction of the audiophile community. My advice is simple – life is short, so if this does not interest you move on to the next article. If you are still here, I […]
Italian heritage, crafted in the Czech Republic, finds Trevor Butler sampling a compact two-way which really gets the feet tapping. Xavian is a company which has interested me for a while, and whose Classic Series visually resemble the BBC-style monitor loudspeakers I so adore, especially now that it has launched this compact infinite baffle, or sealed […]
The Scandinavian countries have between them produced some iconic audio brands – I bet if you put your mind to it you could name at least half a dozen without hesitation. Copland would certainly be on my list if I was to do the same thing, and yet this is the first time that I […]
Rega Aria 3 MM/MC phono stage More than most audio components there seem to be a myriad graduations of quality with phono stages (preamps). A budget example will give you a good idea of what vinyl is capable of and one at twice the price will clearly improve on that. And this seems to carry […]
The XS 3 is the middle model in Naims’ integrated amp series that began with the original and now iconic Nait in 1983. By then, Naim had already established itself as a highly acclaimed British hi-fi maker with a coveted range of preamps and power amps. Spurred by the success of integrated designs – notably […]
I first visited Monmouth County in central New Jersey in December 1981. I had joined a company called Perkin Elmer Data Systems which was based in Oceanport, New Jersey and was sent there, with a British colleague, for two weeks to learn all about the products which I was going to be selling. This was […]
I have been fortunate enough to have had two Vertere Acoustics turntables through my system for review, and found them both to be class leaders at their price point. I am a great admirer of Touraj Moghaddan, as a designer, as an engineer and as a brilliant ambassador for our sometimes erratic industry. Having founded […]
Spending time with MrSpeakers’ debut open-back headphone in 2015 convinced me that high-end earspeakers could rival the listening experience that had previously been the preserve of full-range loudspeakers in a well-appointed room. The extended frequency response, speed, detail retrieval, expansive soundstage and on-head comfort of the original Ether made it the most immersive headphone I’d encountered at […]
When is a streamer not really a streamer, in Auralic’s case that is when there is not Lightning DS operating system onboard. Auralic has been making the Aries which is purely a streamer with digital only outputs, and the Vega which is ostensibly a streamer with onboard DAC for some time now but the latter […]
With many of today’s audio components requiring external power supplies there is the potential to upgrade performance by replacing these often inexpensive wall-wart style supplies with better quality alternatives made by third party companies. This is nothing new of course but the variety of DACs, headphone amplifiers and other components that have low voltage external […]
Are you one of those people caught up in the headlong rush to abandon physical media? Are you now committed to only using your preferred streaming service to deliver all your music? has your local charity shop got boxes full of your old CDs because you discovered that they have no second hand value? Or […]
An offshoot of a better known speaker brand, the newest floorstander from 5degrees finds Trevor Butler enraptured by the finesse of a ribbon tweeter that he just can’t stop enjoying. This is my fifth, or possibly sixth attempt to commit this review to print. Why? Because before each one I thought I would just reacquaint […]