A few months ago I spent some time with the Auralic Aries Mini, a streaming bridge that connects a music server to a DAC and provides a control interface in the form of a very attractive iOS App. That product is the least expensive in Auralic’s catalogue, further up the chain is the Altair that […]
If you’re looking to moving into streaming the array of options and the complexities of setting a streaming system up can look pretty confusing. But in practice it has got a lot easier than it once was and pretty well anyone with a broadband network can get started. As Aurender shows on the webpage for […]
Having established itself as a highly credible entry level to mid market brand Q-Acoustics has rather rashly gone and built a high end loudspeaker. This is fabulous news for the canny audio enthusiast but is tricky terrain from a commercial perspective. The nearest parallel I can think of is the Ford GT40, a seriously capable […]
Way back in the day when Tom Evans was modifying Pioneer CD players with clock upgrades, let’s call it the nineties, he got enthusiastic about Jordan full range drive units. It happens to a lot of people but most stick them in wooden cabinets and make another me too product, Tom had a different idea. […]
Introduced in 2016 the Dynaudio Contour 20 is the smallest member of a range that keeps the longstanding Contour name alive for Dynaudio. Evolution has not only changed the size but also the drivers, the looks, the materials and the crossover into a modern product, looking extremely fresh for the Danish who have always been […]
We are used to miniaturization today, the Japanese got very good at it many years ago so we tend to take for granted what are tremendous engineering feats. Nonetheless the feature count on the Mytek Brooklyn does take the proverbial biscuit. For a start it's both an analogue and a digital preamplifier with single ended […]
Does the name Gato Audio ring a bell? Does this Danish audio company have any presence where you are? If not that’s a pity because Gato Audio deserves your attention for the high standards it sets in design both inside and outside its products. I want to share the joy that this amplifier has brought […]
Being bitten by the super-tweeter bug a few months ago I took the opportunity to try a pair of ELAC 4Pi Plus.2 super-tweeters at home. This is an omnidirectional ribbon tweeter that has been on the market for a very long time and has been incorporated into some of ELAC’s best loudspeakers in the past, […]
A relatively new kid on the block, Hegel is making waves in audio markets around the globe by thinking outside the box, as Trevor Butler discovered when auditioning their latest integrated amp with on-board DAC. Taking the smartly-branded white carton from Editor Kennedy I was staggered at the weight, after all this is just an […]
I imagine that even the youngest readers will have heard of the most famous BBC monitor speaker the LS3/5a, originally developed in 1975 for use in mobile recording vans to monitor speech. It was the successor to the LS3/5, and created because KEF no longer made the necessary drivers. The ‘a’ version made use of […]
Someone called the other day and said what’s your favourite valve amplifier in quick fire, fingers on the buzzer style. The first one that came to mind was the Ongaku, as made by Audio Note Japan in the eighties and nineties, I mean what else is there! I don’t use valve amps because decent ones […]
I heard a pair of the new Totem Sky monitors on a visit to a dealer, it was only a short listen but long enough to recognise the sheer quality and make me want to hear them at home. A couple of weeks later I picked them up and since then they have been making […]