Sony PS-HX500 USB Turntable $600 Review
April 2, 2016 Comments Off on Sony PS-HX500 USB Turntable $600 Review
” The PS-HX500 achieves this by arriving with a pre-installed moving-magnet cartridge that’s already fully aligned and ready to go. Out of the box, all you have to do is install the platter while looping the rubber drive belt around the motor pulley and then top it off with its thick rubber mat. For the tonearm, you just put on the counterweight, balance the arm, and dial in the tracking force. The manual takes you through the steps if you’re not familiar with the process, but it’s designed so you can’t go too far wrong. Finally, you plug in the wall-wart power supply and audio output cables, and you’ll be ready to go. I double-checked the alignment of the cartridge and can report that it was installed perfectly, with absolutely spot-on overhang and zenith. The tracking force readout was accurate, and the anti-skating control dialed in the correct amount of bias.”
MOON BY SIMAUDIO NEO 230HAD HEADPHONE AMPLIFIER/DSD DAC/PREAMP $1500 REVIEW
April 2, 2016 Comments Off on MOON BY SIMAUDIO NEO 230HAD HEADPHONE AMPLIFIER/DSD DAC/PREAMP $1500 REVIEW
” Through a system that is so transparent that I could clearly hear the NuPrime ST10 power amplifier warm up after being turned off for a day, the soundstage started flat with almost no depth, and gradually, over the next 30 minutes, deepened and expanded to its normal dimensions. I could also hear how little the Neo 230HAD altered the sound, especially on material I was familiar with. A recent guilty pleasure, the cut via Tidal “Dracula” from Bea Miller’s Not an Apology, has some very deep bass pulses combined with some very rude percussion crashes that can sound either very cool or sorta cruddy depending on your system’s high-level dynamic resolution and low bass capabilities. On my nearfield system it can rock, and with the Neo 230HAD in the signal chain, it did.”
Woo Audio WA7 Fireflies Review
April 2, 2016 Comments Off on Woo Audio WA7 Fireflies Review
” The house sound of Woo has always managed to avoid a Goldilocks scenario with regards to “how much” tuby-ness it seeks to employ. The bed it chooses to lie in always supplies the right amount of warmth without leaving the mids too loose or allowing the low end to get destroyed in a grand wave of slushy softness. The “sweet” sound is there with the WA7, but it’s not in your face waving its hand wildly for attention. The subtlety of it all drives your music with a pleasant demeanor, one that can often counter-balance the directness of the room-less headphone listening experience. Listening to the 24/96 version of Jason Mraz’s Everything is Sound provided a very open representation of the fairly dynamic and varied track. The vocals to the introductory verse sounded robust and textured with a pleasing timbre. As the first signs of the backing band appear in the track, it was easy to pick out the left and right stereo location of the keyboard (right), organ (left), guitar and sax as they jumped around in the sound field.”
NuForce Optoma HEM Lineup Review – Video
April 2, 2016 Comments Off on NuForce Optoma HEM Lineup Review – Video
MARTIN LOGAN ETHOS REVIEW
April 2, 2016 Comments Off on MARTIN LOGAN ETHOS REVIEW
” Due to its convex nature in its panel, this uniqueness made their sound standout from the rest. The apex of the panel produces haunting vivid mid and high right on your face when you set it up correctly. It’s so frontal on your head that for a moment I felt that Kasia Lins was singing just mere inches from my face. It’s that eerie, but in a pleasant way. When my friend visited my place, whom is a headphone audiophile, exclaimed that the sonic presentation is exactly similar to a pair of high-end open can headphone. He called that intense impression I felt referred to as “headstage”. With that correlation, when the Ethos was perfectly tuned in placement, the sound stage was somehow becoming like what my friend mentioned. Not in a bad way, instead it’s very much open with full-scale presentation, back and forth, with vocal focus expressively towards you.”
Is a $1,000 Wireworld HDMI cable worty it!? Review – Video
April 1, 2016 Comments Off on Is a $1,000 Wireworld HDMI cable worty it!? Review – Video
TRON ATLANTIC INTEGRATED TUBE AMPLIFIER REVIEW
April 1, 2016 Comments Off on TRON ATLANTIC INTEGRATED TUBE AMPLIFIER REVIEW
” Try another recording from Atlantic’s back catalogue and suddenly the amplifier makes a lot more sense: John Coltrane’s Giant Steps from 1960. On the opening track of the same name, the amplifier’s ability to track this incredible piece of improvisation is lucid and coherent enough to hear just how much pianist Tommy Flanagan is struggling to keep up with Coltrane’s chord changes (in fairness, at times this track almost seems like Coltrane is reinventing musical harmony from first principles on the fly, and anyone this side of Lizst would have probably just given up). It’s a little difficult listening 56 years later to process precisely how revolutionary this was, but the key changes are quicksilver fast and perfectly related through the Atlantic, where many other amplifiers would simply gloss over them, making Giant Steps sound like yet another jazz album. The Atlantic amp portrays this through the use of effortless dynamics, a fine sense of foot-tapping fun, and a very deep (rather than wide) soundstage.”
Audiophonics DAC I SABRE V3 0 for Raspberry Pi – Video
April 1, 2016 Comments Off on Audiophonics DAC I SABRE V3 0 for Raspberry Pi – Video
Alta Audio Rhea Loudspeakers Review
April 1, 2016 Comments Off on Alta Audio Rhea Loudspeakers Review
” Use a decent amp (any kind) with the Rhea and you will get: Excellent total balance and dynamic range–live sound, no hardness or edginess at the high end, nice body and weight, large and clear soundstage (which, as with my Celesta allow it to float around the room as when I am sitting at the dinner table). Voices in particular are smooth and silky exposing venue reflections and reverb. Very nice bass dynamics; deep and extended, with some tightness and punch, and easily shaking my couch at times for some pieces such as Flight of the Cosmic Hippo by Béla Fleck and the Fleckstones”
fostex g1003mg Review
April 1, 2016 Comments Off on fostex g1003mg Review
“Any such statement epitomizes a transducer designer’s mutually exclusive goals. The thinner and bigger he make her diaphragms, the less rigid and stable they will be when driven. Increased material thickness adds strength but also weight. And for pistonic devices meant to move many thousands of times per second, less mass is better. This basic setup is behind the current trend into ‘hi-tech’ materials particularly for tweeters which undergo the most rapid of movements. The expense of laboratory-grown diamond prized for its ultimate hardness thus far limits it to mostly tweeters. But in the costliest of speakers, diamond has begun to appear in larger midranges. For drivers with increased breakup/deformation challenges from larger surfaces and excursions, clever engineers exploit dissimilar material bonding. For woofers, this could be carbon skins over foam, vapour-deposited metal on paper, harder oxide layers over softer cores or similar variations on the theme. With Fostex, these transducers are 99.9% pure Magnesium, not an alloy or multi-lam.”
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