Grado SR325x Review

November 8, 2022 Comments Off on Grado SR325x Review

https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/grado-sr325x

The SR325x’s open-backed design means that they’re wonderfully expressive dynamically, and lows are agile and tuneful, but there’s still not the outright weight and low-end punch of closed headphone designs. The SR325x can sound a little bass-light in comparison to such products, though we’re happy to make that sacrifice given the many benefits of the open-design approach.

We switch to Lana Del Rey’s Chemtrails Over The Country Club set and love the Grados’ ability to convey the texture and attitude in her voice. The excellent insight generates a lovely sense of atmosphere and we find ourselves getting lost in the music rather than focusing on analysing the SR325x’s performance. The newfound sense of refinement makes it easier to relax when listening too.

HIFIMAN EF400 DAC/HEADPHONE AMPLIFIER REVIEW

November 8, 2022 Comments Off on HIFIMAN EF400 DAC/HEADPHONE AMPLIFIER REVIEW

The HIFIMAN EF400 is a DAC/headphone amplifier that provides great sound quality and will power a wide variety of headphones. Its $599USD selling price delivers quite a bit of versatility and it should be easy to implement within any computer or portable device with USB output. Without fail, it impressed me with every set of headphones I powered with it. It’s the kind of headphone amplifier and DAC that will reward you when it’s paired with high-quality headphones.

BLOWN AWAY: $215,000 Wilson Audio, Dan D’Agostino, Spectral System

November 8, 2022 Comments Off on BLOWN AWAY: $215,000 Wilson Audio, Dan D’Agostino, Spectral System

Wilson Audio LōKē Subwoofer $8750 REVIEW

November 6, 2022 Comments Off on Wilson Audio LōKē Subwoofer $8750 REVIEW

The LoKe has become a valued part of my audio arsenal. Put bluntly, I’m smitten. The most important attribute that it has for my system is to create an enveloping sense of music in my listening room. It suffuses it with music. When I listen without the LoKe, the system simply sounds more two-dimensional. It lacks that sense of oozing sound emanating throughout the room. There are times when I’ll listen to my speakers with no subs at all. (I like to listen to different setups.) But for the ultimate listening pleasure, there’s no substitute for a quad of subs. This is a more than worthy successor to the older Wilson WATCH Dog subwoofer, which was no slouch itself. Daryl Wilson, who has succeeded to the helm of Wilson, deserves a lot of credit for successfully steering the company into a new era. If you have a big system and are hankering for more, then the LoKe may well offer it. The old audio rule holds: There is no replacement for displacement.

MATRIX AUDIO ELEMENT X2 MUSIC STREAMER REVIEW

November 6, 2022 Comments Off on MATRIX AUDIO ELEMENT X2 MUSIC STREAMER REVIEW

, solid imaging, and above all musicality, with the power to drive any headphone (I performed all of my tests other than noise tests in low gain), as well as being a superior front end for a loudspeaker system, the fact that it also contains the necessary computer parts to complete the job and function as a full music server, eliminating the need for an external source while streamlining the data chain is just icing on the cake. It is one of a handful of headphone amplifiers that I would recommend for the Dan Clark Audio EXPANSE or the HIFIMAN HE6se for that matter, in fact, at this point, I would recommend it for use with the SUSVARA or ABYSS headphones unheard. And as mentioned above, the same applies to IEMs which makes the element X2 a rare puppy indeed

Astell&Kern Odyssey IEMs Review

November 6, 2022 Comments Off on Astell&Kern Odyssey IEMs Review

Music Hall Stealth record player $1649 Review

November 5, 2022 Comments Off on Music Hall Stealth record player $1649 Review

https://www.stereophile.com/content/music-hall-stealth-record-player

The Stealth’s 4lb, viscous-elastomer–damped, die-cast aluminum platter is topped by a 1/16″-thick, slightly hard, slightly sticky rubber platter mat, which bugged me due to its propensity to attract and hold dust. For comparison, the mat on the original Technics SL-1200 (which I still have and now use on my PLX-1000) is 3/16″ thick, much softer, and doesn’t collect dust. The Stealth’s S-shaped aluminum tonearm sports a light, detachable headshell that does not allow for azimuth adjustment. The arm is specified to accept cartridges weighing 6–10gm—more when the included subweight is installed. Its thick cylindrical arm-pillar housing features a “window” for viewing the movements of the arm’s calibrated (in mm) arm pillar. At the top of this housing is a knurled, 1.5″-diameter knob that allows adjustment of VTA even while a record is playing. A thick, side-mounted lock nut secures the arm in place.

KEF LSX II Wireless Speaker System Review$1,400 Review

November 5, 2022 Comments Off on KEF LSX II Wireless Speaker System Review$1,400 Review

https://www.soundandvision.com/content/kef-lsx-ii-wireless-speaker-system-review

Otherwise, day-to-day operation of the LSX II speaker system was a snap, whether streaming from the KEF Connect app or directly from the “native” Qobuz or Tidal apps on my iPad mini. (Though I confess this can get a bit confusing—which app is this, anyway?) Most users will be perfectly happy using KEF’s app. It has all of the expected music-streaming features—playlists, “favorites,” and the like—and is about as simple and intuitive as one can expect in this decidedly un-simple age. That said, I must observe that there are no physical controls on the LSX II speakers themselves apart from the pairing and reset buttons on the rear of the main speaker. So if the KEF remote—which provides volume, input, and play/pause/skip controls—is lost in the sofa cushions and your phone or tablet was forgotten at the office…

Lastly, the Connect app lacks any tone controls, per se. If you choose the “Expert” setup mode you can effectively adjust treble, midrange, and bass by a few dB each, but you must first dig deep into the 104-page PDF owner’s manual to learn how these correlate to “Desk Mode,” “Wall Mode,” treble Trim, and Bass Extension; this is probably done by design to discourage ham-thumbed users from screwing up the LSX II’s carefully created native balance.

FiiO BTR7 Bluetooth DAC/amp 

November 5, 2022 Comments Off on FiiO BTR7 Bluetooth DAC/amp 

ATC SCM50 Passive/Active Loudspeaker $25,999 Review

November 3, 2022 Comments Off on ATC SCM50 Passive/Active Loudspeaker $25,999 Review

https://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/equipment-menu/1135-atc-scm50-passive-active-loudspeaker

This pair of ATC SCM50s was quite simply one of the most breathtakingly revealing sets of loudspeakers I have ever heard. According to my definition of what constitutes high-end sound, these loudspeakers utterly excelled across all parameters, and I believe this is no coincidence. The SCM50 was designed from the outset as a recording engineer’s scalpel; its task was to reveal every unwanted creak of a chair or surplus open microphone channel, and to permit forensic analysis of a singer’s performance or technique. In Making Rumours, Caillat describes how they chose which microphone to use for Nicks’s lead vocals on “Dreams.” He set up around eight top-class vocal microphones on a long line of booms in the live room of the Record Plant studio in Sausalito, California, and asked her to sing into each one in turn. It was quickly apparent to both of them that the Sennheiser 441 best suited Nicks’s voice, and it became her microphone of choice. It’s the incredible transparency and openness of studio monitors that allows such differences to be discerned, and I believe it is the combination of ATC’s studio heritage and superlative engineering that makes the SCM50 such an exceptional loudspeaker for the home.

Where Am I?

You are currently viewing the archives for November, 2022 at Audiophilepure.