Audiophilepure

https://www.enjoythemusic.com/superioraudio/equipment/0926/Gershman_Symphonia_Loudspeaker_Review.htm

The first album selected was Pink Floyd’s The Wall. I tried to keep the mix of my albums different from the three reviews that were being done this month. However, Pink Floyd represents my favorite material. Their songs are fantastic because each one is a challenge for any system to reproduce. The rock opera’s peaks and valleys blend into themselves long before you even start to worry about the detail you never knew you missed.

First impressions are always the most lasting. Mine was that The Wall seemed to come alive when I heard the album start to play, even from the beginning, with the Symphonia speakers. It started with a soundstage that could only be described as a tapestry, an impeccable blend of layers of music and vocals set within the perfect framework. This framework is a creation of no small feat.

The framework for The Wall’s soundstage reproduction required no small amount of finesse. The Symphonia floorstanders accomplished this task exceptionally well. Their ability to exude a sense of depth was uncanny. Once you added a sense of width, you could imagine a sense of the world you were hearing the material within. It was impressive. The individual layers of vocals and instrumentals were no less detailed or focused on their presentation. The ability to capture the pristine beauty of each layer and render it became apparent the longer you listened. They drew you in with beauty and kept you there with intricacy. It made everything seem so incredibly immediate and alive. The way one layer wove into another was artistry in the making, and it unfolded before your eyes and in your ears.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/m%C3%A9tronome-dsas-streamer-server

The Audirvāna team continues to improve the platform. Just since the launch of Studio v3, updates have improved the Remote app, and DSP supports both SoX and r8brain upsampling algorithms to higher-rate PCM and to DSD. The latest Audirvāna also supports plug-ins, but the Audirvāna in the DSAS can’t use them because the relevant plug-ins cannot be used “headless”—that is, without a display.What other Audirvāna features are unsupported on the DSAS? Just one: metadata editing, which is currently supported on desktop platforms only, not on the Remote app. Damien told me, however, that app-based metadata editing will be added with an update later this year.

https://www.hifinews.com/content/magnepan-mg27i-loudspeaker

Despite the on-tap power from the Gryphon and Constellation amps, I would still have liked the speaker to leap more decisively into some music. Drums could at times enjoy more thrust and impact, just as the gorgeous instrumentation on The Beach Boys’ ‘Sail On Sailor’ [Holland, Capitol Records; 192kHz/24-bit] came across as slightly held back.

Other times, though, the MG2.7i left nothing to be desired. Henry Jackman’s ‘Kong The Destroyer’ theme, from monster movie Kong: Skull Island [WaterTower Music 39884] moved from dramatic low-strings and brass to softer woodwind motifs, and the speakers fully captured the scale of the performance, notes decaying beautifully. In the ‘The Battle Of Skull Island’, the roar of the horns was a standout, as was the handling of its fast, snappy string rhythms. With music such as this, and given the breathing room and amplification to succeed, Magnepan’s MG2.7i is a sonic star.

With the EMM, the soundstage was very clear. Mostly, the instruments were placed on each side, as was common with early stereo, but in ‘So What’, Miles’ horn came out from the right toward the center, with a remarkably three-dimensional effect. The result was spellbinding, as that solo can be. ‘Freddy Freeloader’ sounded as if it had been recorded with a different mic set up. It was still left-right, but the horns seemed more up front, with more space around them, and with a bit more warmth. The detail, again, was superb, but in the service of the music. Miles’ occasional hesitancies in his attacks, his sudden volume changes, and his other somewhat unusual expressive devices, were as – or more – clean and clear than I’ve ever heard.

https://www.theaudiobeat.com/equipment/octave_v_70_se.htm

In the time I had the Octave V 70 SE, it was powered up for at least six hours every day. During that time, it didn’t hiccup, belch, or lose tube bias. It always remained exceptionally quiet and never got too warm to the touch. I never doubted its reliability and eagerly looked forward to my listening sessions. Sound-wise, there was nothing not to like. All the appropriate boxes in the audiophile lexicon were checked. I was finally able to put aside thoughts of the equipment used to bring the music to life. Instead, I could devote my attention to the music itself. Powering my EgglestonWorks Emma EVO speakers (6-ohm load, 88dB sensitivity), it never ran out of steam and, if pushed, would drive them to disco levels. It also cared not what genre of music I played — it handled all of them with poise and musicality.

I did have a few functional nits to pick with the V 70 SE, however. I wish there was an easier way to see the level indicator of the volume knob. Sitting in my listening seat, I could not tell what position the volume was in. I ended up putting a piece of black tape on it so I could tell where it was positioned. Similarly, it was difficult to tell which of the inputs was selected because the lettering on the input selector knob was so small. I would also have liked to have seen input selection available on the remote control, since I have gotten lazy over time and would just as soon not have to get off my butt to change sources. Lastly, changing the driver tubes appeared to be a challenging task, since only the very top of those tubes were visible, protruding from the chassis, leaving no easy way to grasp them for their removal and/or replacement.

https://www.headfonia.com/questyle-m15i-blues-blue-and-electro-purple-review

To trial out the Questyle M15i Blues Blue and Electro Purple, I used my Windows 10 computer, Samsung Galaxy Note S25 Ultra, and Apple MacBook Air M1. Loading the dongles was done with Sennheiser HD6XX, HEDD Audio HEDDphone Two GT, HEDDphone D1, and various IEMs like the Moondrop Authentic, Letshuoer Sonata, and DX1.

As always, the practicalities first. Apart from the plug-to-play nature of the units, using the Questyle M15i Blue and Purple was quite seamless. The power up and down were relatively noiseless, and during operation, noise was never a problem even with very sensitive IEMs. Even when driven relatively hard by driving the HEDDphone 2 GT and the Moondrop Skyland, neither of the units became particularly hot. I had no good way of estimating how much current they would draw from the USB, but my phone didn’t