dCS • Rossini 2.0 Digital Playback System $24,000 Review
November 3, 2019 Comments Off on dCS • Rossini 2.0 Digital Playback System $24,000 Review
“What this truthfulness emphatically does not mean, however, is that nothing stands out in Rossini 2.0’s intrinsic sound. It displays impressive speed, bass depth and power, midrange color and heft, and an inherently natural way with tone and transients. It’s more transparent, and less obtrusive, than any collection of digital electronics I’ve heard, other than the Vivaldi 2.0, that is. It’s just that, on the one hand, it revels in the fireworks of Keith Richards’ Main Offender [Virgin V2-86499] as readily as the gentle, lilting instruments lines of Thelonious Monk’s Plays Duke Ellington, so nailing it down to a base signature is difficult, if not impossible. Yet, the resolution is so high that discerning the differences between the JVC K2 remaster of the Monk album [Riverside RCD-201-2] and the earlier regular issue [Riverside OJCCD-024-2] is a cinch, with the remaster displaying meatier individual notes — a virtue with Monk’s playing — and a more up-front and vivid presentation.”
Luxman MQ-88uC Stereo Power Amplifier $5995 Review
November 3, 2019 Comments Off on Luxman MQ-88uC Stereo Power Amplifier $5995 Review
“The Luxman performed extremely well driving my Quad-57 ESLs (refurbished and upgraded by Electrostatic Solutions), and that’s something worth writing home about. The Quad is all about midrange satisfaction, and even after all these years, it still holds its own against all comers. Granted, there are problems at the frequency extremes. There’s not much that can be done about the recessed upper treble, other than adding a super tweeter. But the upper bass, when controlled by a suitable amp, can sound phenomenal. My favorite performance and recording of the Bach suites for solo cello is Jean-Guihen Queyras on the Harmonia Mundi label, and it never sounded any better—no doubt a function of the Luxman’s excellent damping factor and bandwidth extension. The majesty of the cello was on full display with superb harmonic bloom and image focus. However, in the context of orchestral recordings, the one soundstaging aspect I would have to downgrade the Luxman on was its reproduction of a recording’s depth perspective. Relative to Linear Tube Audio’s ZOTL Ultralinear amp, orchestral soundstage depth was somewhat compressed front-to-back and lacked the layering afforded by the Berning design. ”
FIIO M5
November 2, 2019 Comments Off on FIIO M5
https://www.headfonia.com/fiio-m5-picture-sunday/
You’ll have to be extra careful when choosing a pair of headphones/earphones for your FiiO M5. With my Onyko IE-C3, the sound was too dry, missing the usual fun that drives me to the day. When paired with the Fearless S6 Rui, it tamed the warm, heavy bass mutating them into the S6 Pro.
On the other hand, you get a very precise sound, much more accurate than your classic phone could get. If you ever owned a Dragonfly Red from Audioquest, you might be surprised by how close this little DAP comes to
Olympica Nova from Sonus Faber | Review
November 2, 2019 Comments Off on Olympica Nova from Sonus Faber | Review
“My first impression revolves around the huge and particularly well-defined soundstage the Olympica Novas offered. We’re not just talking about wide and deep. The Novas did a wonderful thing—they replicated the size of my own listening room on the other side of the wall. The illusion was clear. I could easily imagine a stage of equal size beyond the speakers where the performers stood and played. The wall boundaries were clearly fixed in space on both sides of the mirror.
That sounds strange, right? But that’s what I found most intriguing about that sound, the projection of a known finite space that was perfectly natural. Do we really expect a lone note played in the middle of the Mojave? Those boundaries I sensed replicated the feeling of being in a room where music is played. It was a distinctive sound, one that seemed perfectly logical and natural.”
HyperFocal: 0
CAYIN N5IIS DIGITAL AUDIO PLAYER $499 REVIEW
November 1, 2019 Comments Off on CAYIN N5IIS DIGITAL AUDIO PLAYER $499 REVIEW
“Using my two reference earphones with the N5iiS, I listened carefully to ‘For Turiya’ from Charlie Haden and Antonio Forcione’s Heartplay [Naim, 16/44.1] and just drank in the timbres of the instruments at play. Several things stood out for me. First, the deep sonorous ‘woodiness’ of Haden’s bass sounded spot on, while the sweet yet also highly articulate voice of Forcione’s guitar sounded positively luminous and three dimensional. Next, the attack and decay characteristics of both the bass and guitar were deftly rendered with precision, finesse, and a high degree of musical sensitivity. The Cayin invited me to become caught up in the launches of individual notes and then to follow them as they bloomed and gradually faded back into silence. Finally, the N5iiS enabled my high-res earphones to dig way down deep into the recording to reproduce subtle interactions between the instruments voices and the acoustics of the recording space. Put all these factors together and you have a DAP that not only sounds powerful, articulate, and refined, but also helps to bring the music alive.”
Paradigm’s Premier 800F $1998 Review
November 1, 2019 Comments Off on Paradigm’s Premier 800F $1998 Review
“Paradigm’s Premier 800F offers incredible sound quality, with a superclear midrange that made voices sound stunning, and enough well-integrated low frequencies to satisfy bass lovers — nor does driving it require a ton of power. For the price, it’s about as perfect as a speaker can be. It benefited from being driven by a high-quality amplifier, but as I found out, it also sounds superb with more modest amplification. It combines excellent dynamics and transparency, while its natural, pleasing sound quality throughout the audioband will suit all types of music without a misstep. Best of all, it’s a slim, relatively compact speaker that plays surprisingly loudly when required — and again, it does all this for only $1998/pair. The Premier 800F is the loudspeaker I’d buy today if I had $2000 to spend — and I’d even consider it at twice that price.”
Schiit Audio Bifrost 2 DAC Review
November 1, 2019 Comments Off on Schiit Audio Bifrost 2 DAC Review
Audiophilepure 
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