News about Audio visual/Hi-fi and audio/Hi-Fi accessories:
Review: Soundstyle Z2
The Soundstyle Z2 really is a lot of stand for the money and it’s not by any means obvious where corners have been cut.
The very efficient packaging opens to reveal four 25mm pillars and two 50mm ones, plus two large base plates (300 x 230mm) and two small top plates (170 x 130mm), plus enough screws to fit it all together and spikes for top and bottom.
Review: Quadraspire QV60
The last time we reviewed a speaker stand from Quadraspire it was the unique-looking, all-acrylic QX600. Now the company has done it again with the QV60: a wonderfully simple and elegant design in veneered MDF, which looks like no other speaker stand.
Review: Custom Design FS104 Signature
The basic idea behind the Custom Design FS104 Signature is pretty much the same as for all metal stands, but Custom Design has managed, with typical ingenuity, to find a new take on this by choosing both the pillar sizes and the exact design of the top and base plates.
Review: Atacama Duo 6
A brand new design from Atacama, the Duo 6 is so-called because of its support pillars. The front one, 50mm in diameter, does most of the mechanical work, while the 25mm rear is principally there as a cable conduit.
To that end, large holes have been made in its rear so that even quite large speaker cables can be easily threaded inside and fished out again at the other end, making a substantial contribution to the listening-room tidiness.
Review: Electrocompaniet PD 1 DAC
A decade or more back, the rationale for buying an outboard DAC was to upgrade the performance of an older CD player or transport with the latest digital technology. However, now that many current CD players offer upsampling to 24-bit/196kHz as standard, such reasons no longer seem convincing.
Review: Rega DAC
It’s always hard to resist a sense of humour. When we opened up the Rega DAC the first thing we noticed was the large and clear text on the circuit board, saying, ‘Best used with EL84 valves’.
Given that Rega has never made a single valve product in its several decades in business, this is clearly tongue-in-cheek. But then the whole idea of a Rega DAC was something of a surprise at first; the company having previously been in favour of keeping CD transport and DAC all together as one product.
Review: Shure M97xE
Shure may not have quite the profile it once did in the cartridge world, but it maintains a modest range of both hi-fi and DJ models: the M97xE is the flagship among the former.
It includes several features reminiscent of the famous V15 series, most obviously the ‘Dynamic Stabiliser’, a small carbon-fibre brush which rests on the disc during play and, thanks to its damped hinge, provides improved tracking of badly warped records and much reduced subsonic rumble from all discs. You don’t have to use it, as it slips safely out of the way.
Review: Rega Bias 2
Rega seems to make quite a point of not telling us anything about its cartridges.
Well, not much, anyway – we’re told that the Bias 2 is an elliptical-stylus model and that its ideal tracking weight is 1.75g.
There’s also mention of parallel wound coils, which are responsible for the particularly high output (at about 7mV for the usual 5cm/s modulation, about 3dB over the average) and also have a hand in giving the cartridge its unusually low resistance of 170 ohms.
Review: Ortofon 2M Red
Ortofon has publicly stated its aim to be the ‘last firm standing’ if and when cartridge production ever dries up. Luckily that sad end seems to be nowhere in sight and the firm’s range is still enormous and easily the widest on the planet.
Review: Audio-Technica AT120E/T
Audio-Technica is one of the two leading cartridge brands from Japan (the other of course being Denon). It maintains a good range of models, both moving-magnet and moving-coil, the AT120E/T being one of the former.
Its appearance looks quite budget and the packaging is nothing fancy, but there’s some clever technology inside including AT’s ‘Paratoroidal Signal Generator’ assembly.
Review: Isol-8 SubStation LC/HC
Sooner or later, even the most sensible hi-fi enthusiast starts to wonder what sort of difference having a mains conditioner might make to the sound of their equipment.
Mains electricity is the ‘fuel’ that powers your system. So it stands to reason; the cleaner the fuel, the better things should sound. But then doesn’t the power supply in each individual hi-fi component deal with whatever impurities that might be present in the electricity supply?
Review: Magic Racks MR1
There have been plenty of new designs for equipment supports over the years, the majority of them taking rigidity seriously along with such anti-vibration measures as spikes. A few, though, seek to decouple equipment more thoroughly using sprung or otherwise ‘floppy’ support systems, with or without damping.
Review: QED Reference Audio Evolution
Unlike other cables in this group, the QED Reference Audio Evolution uses multiple conductors beneath the screen – four, to be exact.
Connected as two pairs, they are twisted together to make a highly symmetrical assembly which has excellent rejection of interference from magnetic fields, something that normal screening can do nothing about.
Review: Peerless Sigma
Peerless is an American company that majors in stands and mounting systems for AV components, but it includes a moderately wide range of cables in its lineup. The Sigma products are the current top of the range.
This particular model is a straightforward coaxial design, along the lines of good-quality industrial RF cables: it has a stranded core of silver-plated copper, foamed polythene insulation and a notably robust screening assembly with four layers – aluminium foil, braided copper, more foil, more braid.
Review: Furutech Alpha Line 1
This is another simple coaxial cable, in this case using a fairly heavy-duty multi-stranded core of plain copper, a fairly thick polythene insulation, braided copper screen and soft PVC jacket, with an overall diameter of seven millimetres.
Review: Black Rhodium Rhythm
One of Black Rhodium’s most affordable cables, the Rhythm is a relatively thin and very flexible cable which, with its short-bodied plugs, is clearly a good choice for use in confined spaces.
It uses good-quality materials, including a fairly substantial inner core of silver-plated copper, with PTFE insulation and a silver-plated copper screen. It’s not marked for directionality and is connected identically at both ends.
Review: Okki Nokki JB1 record cleaning machine
Okki Nokki distributor Ken White has been selling second-hand records since the nineties, so he knows a thing or two about filth, enough it would seem to have sought out this strangely named machine and decided to bring it to the UK.
Review: Dynavector DV-20X2L
We have yet to encounter a Dynavector cartridge that we don’t like, but new ones don’t come along very often, so when two arrive like buses on a cold night, it’s a cause for celebration.
As is the Japanese company’s style, the new DV-20X2 is available in low and high output varieties, the low output version requires a transistor phono stage or step-up device, while the high can be used with valve and MM phono stages.
Review: Furutech GT40
The Furutech GT40 DAC is something a bit different. Have a close look at the front panel and you’ll see mention of ‘phono’. That’s right, this DAC is also an ADC and a phono stage.
Even as a DAC, it’s still something of a rarity in offering 24-bit/96kHz support. But, at least, we can expect to see more of this, as the chipsets become available.
Review: IDAPT i4
Here’s an accessory which neither makes nor modifies sound, yet we reckon a great number of audiophiles will want to know about it. The IDPAT i4 is quite simply a battery charger, but it has an important difference from most of its ilk in that it can charge a wide variety of kit, up to four items at a time.
Review: Moth Tube Imp valve tester
Few areas of hi-fi are as apt for tweaking as valve amplifiers. At the very least, changing valves is easy since they almost invariably plug in and out. Alternative and/or upgrade valve types are widely available for the commonest varieties. Valves wear out, too, making replacement a maintenance job (though for most signal valves a life of several years should certainly be expected).
Review: Furutech PC-2 optical disc cleaner
Furutech has been an increasingly familiar figure in the world of tweaks recently, thanks to a range that includes cables, mains connectors and more esoteric devices such as an LP flattening oven, a sort of Corby trouser press for vinyl.
Review: Blue Horizon Clean-IT
Blue Horizon is a fairly new arrival on the accessories scene and has probably made most impact with its ‘ProBurn’ cable burn-in device. Clean-IT is rather more mundane; a clear fluid intended to clean electrical contacts, specifically in audio systems.
Review: Chord Chordette Peach
Following in the footsteps of the Chordette Gem, which brought Chord’s DAC expertise to a lower-budget audience, as well as the company’s unique Bluetooth technology, the Peach is basically a Gem with electrical and optical S/PDIF inputs added.
Review: Benchmark Media DAC1
Benchmark was one of the firms that spearheaded the current DAC revival, a few years back. In fact, it’s not so much the firm itself that did it, more its reputation which went before it via the internet in true ‘viral’ fashion.
Review: Keene KLAB20D
This ingenious stereo tuner-amplifier module is the same size as a double mains socket and is designed to fit into a surface or flush-mounted wall box. The KLAB20D includes a FM-only tuner with 10 presets, auxiliary inputs and an efficient 20W per channel Class ‘D’ amp.
Review: DSpeaker Anti-Mode 8033
It’s a sad truth, but the average living room isn’t suited to sub-bass. Room modes (aka standing waves) can create havoc with the lower frequencies, and can contribute to a response that is often far from smooth.
However, insert the DSpeaker Anti-Mode 8033 between the amp’s LFE output and your sub’s line-level input, calibrate the listening area with the supplied mic, and a series of test tones will allow the 8033 to analyse the response and apply correction, so that the overall LFE response is as flat as possible.
Review: van den Hul The Teatrack Hybrid
Even by van den Hul’s standard this is a pretty oddly named bi-wire speaker cable, but construction is sane enough.
Each conductor is a composite of silver-plated copper and ‘linear structured carbon’, vdH’s trademark material which, while possessing considerably higher resistance than metal, avoids the problems (whatever those are) of metal conductors and their crystalline structure.
Review: Supra Rondo 4×4.0
There’s no screen on the Rondo 4×4.0 bi-wire speaker cable, but manufacturer Jenving claims that interference-rejection is enhanced by the twisted construction, which has a tighter pitch (more complete rotations of its spiral per foot) than most cables.
Review: The Chord Co. Carnival Silver Screen
As the name implies, the Carnival Silver Screen is a screened cable, something unusual among loudspeaker wires.
The usual thinking is that at the high voltage and current levels associated with loudspeaker connections, a few microvolts of hum or other interference is just not an issue, but radio-frequency (RF) interference can still be conducted back into the amplifier on unscreened cable and, once there, can get into places where it may produce audible effects.
Review: Pro-Ject DAC Box USB
Along the way, Pro-Ject Audio has managed to get some quite impressive functions into small spaces in its Box Audio series of components. A DAC – even a three-input one – is not quite such a shoehorn feat and, indeed, this is by no means the smallest on the market.
Review: Ortofon Vivo Red
The Ortofon Vivo Red is a new model from Europe’s biggest name in cartridges, this is described by the company as a ‘standard’ low-output moving-coil design.
In as much as its basic technical characteristics are absolutely textbook for the breed, that seems about right! It features an elliptical stylus and an aluminium cantilever, mounted into a plastic body about which we have just one small complaint: it has the dreaded open lugs at the side for mounting, rather than full-enclosed holes.
Review: Grado Prestige Gold 1
The Grado Prestige Gold 1 is a moving-magnet cartridge, complete with replaceable stylus and high output typical of the breed, but there are some notable differences to the generator.
Most moving-magnet designs end up with a very high inductance in the generator windings, which in turn can lead to compatibility issues with cable and amplifier-input capacitance.
Review: Goldring 2300
The Goldring 2300 is halfway up the 2000 series, but this model differs from its siblings principally in the matter of stylus shape, though there are also changes to the generator assembly.
It’s a moving-magnet type, offering the usual advantage of the breed in having a replaceable stylus and its mass is about average at 7.6g. Compliance is moderate and we don’t anticipate any problems fitting the 2300 in any conventional tonearm.
Review: Audio Technica AT-F3/III
Back in the eighties, when analogue was still the default source for the majority of music-lovers, Audio-Technica was one of the most common names to be found at the business-end of a tonearm, and the AT-F3 was a frequent choice for budget-to-midrange systems.
Review: Audio-Technica AT2000T
Moving-coil cartridges are wonderful things, but they suffer from a disadvantage in their extremely low output, often less than 1mV peak, or one two-thousandth of what most CD players produce. Clearly, low-noise amplification is a must.
Review: Arcam rDAC
Over 20 years ago Arcam produced the Back Box standalone digital-to-analogue convertor. This was one of the first (for obvious reasons, the claim to exactly who was first is hotly contested) devices that could bypass the output of an existing CD player via an S/PDIF digital output and convert it to an analogue signal via a higher-quality output stage than the CD player had internally.
Review: Music First Audio Moving coil step-up transformer
Boosting delicate low-level signals from a moving coil pickup cartridge is one of the most difficult challenges in audio, because the gain required is huge. The slightest problem with noise or RF is emphasised to an alarming degree.
Review: Synthesis Matrix Valve DAC
Sometimes a product comes along that manages to create a buzz without any fanfare whatsoever and the Synthesis Matrix DAC, from a relatively unknown Italian company, has done just that.
In fact, Synthesis doesn’t even feature the Matrix DAC on its website, so full credit must go to UK distributor Audio Images, for this cunning bit of stealth marketing.
Review: Chord Company Optichord
The most obviously upmarket feature of the Chord Company Optichord optical lead are the connectors, which have a metal body.
As the optical fibre simply passes through them, they have no effect at all on the signal-passing properties, but they do make handling a bit more reassuring and, as Chord has taken care over the accuracy of the plastic mating parts, they fit nice and snugly into any of the various TOSlink sockets we tried.
Review: QED Profile Optical cable
The QED Profile cables are pretty much a budget range from QED, aimed just as much at the home cinema market as the full-on audiophile.
All the same, we’re inclined to give it some time, if only because QED has a good track record with budget audio links.
Review: Aurios Series 100 Component Shelf
In the past we looked at some clever isolation feet from Aurios. Now’s the turn of its equally innovative isolation platform.
It looks a lot like any lump of painted MDF, but there’s rather more to it than that. It’s actually two lumps of MDF, nicely profiled and joined together with special adhesive in an example of what’s technically called ‘constrained layer damping’.
Review: Supracables AGS-10k
Supra makes cables and accessories associated with cables. The Supracables AGS-10k audio transformer is, perhaps, rather more than a mere accessory, but it’s something that is designed to sit in the cabling between two items – specifically a desktop computer and a hi-fi.
Review: Stello DA100 Signature DAC
Stello is a brand of April Music, a Korean manufacturer of distinctive audio electronics. The distinctiveness is felt not just in the looks, but also in the features: this is just about the only DAC we can think of with an I2S input.
Review: Funk FXR tonearm
Arthur Koubesserian is one of those audio engineers who genuinely thinks outside of the box. He has been doing so since he set up Pink Triangle in the late seventies and his Funk Firm continues the theme with its first tonearm.
The Funk FXR takes a radical approach to the problem of resonance by placing a carbon fibre cross section in the middle of a thin, walled aluminium tube.
