Sigberg Audio Saranna active speakers Norway seems to be one of the best places to live in the world. Standards of living are incredibly high, inequality is low, education and healthcare are world class and their EV adoption rate and environmental standards make the UK, USA and most of Europe seem like they’re stuck in […]
Acoustic Energy AE1 40th Anniversary speakers You will have almost certainly noticed that nostalgia and retro are ‘doing the numbers’ in a huge swathe of product categories at the moment. It’s not too hard to see why either. Retro creates a pincer movement that snares people who couldn’t afford the object the first time around […]
Seismion Reactio 2 isolation device Vibrations are good, if air could not be vibrated we wouldn’t have sound. But when they get into the electronics and mechanics of audio equipment they are bad, they distort the signals being reproduced and change the sound so that it fails to accurately reproduce the original recording. Vibration is […]
Clipaudio Dolomite turntable and Ninewave tonearm One of the most amazing things about hi-fi is the ongoing quest to wring the most out of what many would term outdated media. Within living memory we have been informed that the LP is dead, long live the CD, and then that streaming will never catch on; it’s […]
Merlin Cables Tarantula speaker cable A speaker cable that costs just £16 a metre? Surely, at that price, the Merlin Cables Tarantula is way beneath the level of an audio product deserving of the attention of The Ear’s readership? Well, not necessarily. There is context here that some might find interesting, perhaps even useful. Surprisingly, […]
Dali Kupid speakers At countless hi-fi shows I’ve marvelled at the sheer size, not to mention cost, of Danish loudspeakers from Dali which are often a talking point. Now there’s the opportunity to sample the brand’s sound for a mere £300. Yes, a budget Dali is launched today (1 October) in the shape of the […]
Hana Umami Red moving coil cartridge Hana was founded in 2021 by the Excel Sound Corporation which launched the brand in order to market the firm’s own moving coil cartridges to the public. Excel has a long history of cartridge manufacturing on behalf of third parties since 1964, so knows more than a thing or […]
Cyrus 40 PPA phono stage Dispensing his version of the genre’s history, piano playing jazz dude Ben Sidran sang about the underrated importance of a good travel agent. It goes on a bit but it’s quite good, especially the slightly less long live performance (just over 13 minutes) from the 1986 LP On The Live […]
Bryston Bi-200 integrated amplifier There are a few refreshingly candid companies in audio; organisations where the outlook is defined by an almost pathological honesty. Even among these firms, Bryston stands out for a nigh on complete lack of fluff in terms of how they describe their product. It is their considered opinion that all their […]
Heed Abacus S streaming DAC Hungarian hi-fi manufacturers are not two a penny, at least not among brands available in the UK. From what I have seen and heard from them over the years, Heed Audio like to do things a little differently. I purchased their Cannalot III, Class A headphone amplifier a couple of […]
Inakustik NF-4005 Air interconnect & LS-4005 Air speaker cables Even hard nosed industry lags that have seen everything were taken aback by the sheer girth of Inakustik’s cables when they saw them in the system, the NF-4005 Air interconnect appears to be almost as wide as it is long such is its hawser like bulk. […]
Tom Evans Audio Design Groove+ SRX Mk3 phono stage I have been using a MkII Groove+ SRX since this phono stage was launched in 2017 and I have found very few alternatives that could deliver more of the signal with less distortion, and virtually none that do so at the asking price of that design. […]