HIFI ROSE RS520 STREAMING AMPLIFIER $3,695 REVIEW
March 31, 2024 Comments Off on HIFI ROSE RS520 STREAMING AMPLIFIER $3,695 REVIEW
It has been a while since I reviewed a fun product. The RS520 is not only a solidly built audio component, but a versatile music player that is designed to be easy to use, customizable, and full of fun-to-explore features. If I were looking for a single component to showcase my full range speakers, the RS520 checked off almost all the boxes I have… and some boxes I didn’t know I had! All other amplifier streamers I review in the future will be measured against the benchmark of the HiFi Rose RS520.
What Price Perfection?
March 31, 2024 Comments Off on What Price Perfection?
https://www.stereophile.com/content/what-price-perfection
Years later, after the ALS diagnosis, Kurt and Ken had a horrible falling out, the Post article said. It focused on a couple of relatively modest family possessions Kurt wanted, including an old Rek-O-Kut turntable. The son also took offense at his dad’s reluctance to share the fruits of their collective labor with him when he visited the magnificent room and stereo. Kurt thought Ken was being selfish and miserly. Ken felt Kurt acted arrogant and entitled. After a few drinks, Kurt said something from which neither man could recover. According to the Post, he told his father, “I need you to die slow, motherfucker. Die slow.”
Ken called his lawyer and disinherited his son. Four years later, his daughter Betsy pleaded with her dying father to take a phone call from Kurt that might have eased the men’s mutual guilt. Stubborn till the end, Ken refused.
In the 3500+ comments appended to the Post story, many went beyond pointing out that Fritz’s passion came at the expense of his family. Some commenters went so far as to claim that Fritz wasted his life. That’s a judgment he probably didn’t deserve, as we’ll see.
Is a 3-Way DIY Speaker Kit on Amazon for $300
March 31, 2024 Comments Off on Is a 3-Way DIY Speaker Kit on Amazon for $300
Auralic Vega G2.1 Review
March 29, 2024 Comments Off on Auralic Vega G2.1 Review
https://www.hifichoice.com/content/auralic-vega-g21
Less of a lowly DAC preamp and more of musical Swiss army knife, Auralic’s Vega G2.1 is seriously classy product. It does an awful lot very well indeed and offers a painless upgrade route out from the £2,500 DACs that many folk run – all the way up to the high-end where five-figure sums tend to change hands. It does so much so very well that it offers up seriously stiff competition for those, mostly British companies who have made this section of the market their own. As such, an audition is strongly recommended if you’re in the market for updating your system.
DALI Epikore 11 Loudspeaker $60,000 Review
March 29, 2024 Comments Off on DALI Epikore 11 Loudspeaker $60,000 Review
https://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/equipment-menu/1225-dali-epikore-11-loudspeaker
The Epikore 11 is near-as-dammit the same price as the Estelon, but these are wildly different speakers. Both are wonderful in their own way, and visually it’s no contest—the Estelon is a Jaguar E-type while the Epikore 11 is an AMG G-Class wagon. You want to sit and stare at it? The Estelon melts the soul. But if you need to get stuff done, call on the DALI.
I loved the Epikore 11s and was very sad to see them go.
Here’s my hope: Given that DALI has leveraged the Kore’s technologies into a smaller, more affordable package, and given that the Epikore has a suffix of 11, I’m thinking that there may be more Epikore speakers yet to come down the pike. If there’s gonna be, say, an Epikore 7 that has two 8″ woofers per speaker, and employs the same midrange, tweeter, and ancillary infrastructure, I think it would make an honest man of me.
B&W 805 D4 Signature Loudspeaker £10,000 Review
March 28, 2024 Comments Off on B&W 805 D4 Signature Loudspeaker £10,000 Review
https://www.hifinews.com/content/bw-805-d4-signature-loudspeaker
Through the 805 D4 Signatures, the well-recorded (and blissfully short) jazz/blues fusion songs of Dominique Fils-Aimé’s new Our Roots Run Deep release [Ensoul Records; 44.1kHz/16-bit download] appeared grandiose but lost none of their authenticity. Layering Fils-Aimé’s smooth voice with background vocals during the title track, the speakers proved adept at handling complex compositions, keeping the trumpet clean and non-sibilant when it appeared. Furthermore, as with the Zelmani and Anna B Savage pieces, ‘Just Let Me Go’ really demonstrated that Bowers & Wilkins has mastered the art of uncovering the finest sonic detail without losing track of the musical picture as a whole.
If this Signature upgrade of the company’s 805 D4 does something well, it’s getting you closer than ever to the artist’s intent.
Sennheiser IE 900 Review
March 28, 2024 Comments Off on Sennheiser IE 900 Review
https://www.hifichoice.com/content/sennheiser-ie-900
I’m confident that Sennheiser’s new arrangements will turn out to be fruitful, but if the IE 900 is to be the end of an era it should be seen as the company going out on a high. This is a staggeringly talented in-ear and asks very little of you or the partnering equipment to sound sublime. It isn’t cheap, but the level of engineering means this is one of the very finest earphones anywhere near the price
Krell KMA-i800 monoblock power amplifier $73,000/pair Review
March 27, 2024 Comments Off on Krell KMA-i800 monoblock power amplifier $73,000/pair Review
https://www.stereophile.com/content/krell-kma-i800-monoblock-power-amplifier
Given the KMA-i800’s huge power output—Krell says it can output 800W RMS into 8 ohms, doubling twice to 1600W into 4 ohms and 3200W into 2 ohms, and can drive speakers of 1 ohm impedance—I wondered whom Dave and Rondi envisioned as buyers. “There are plenty of people out there who have rather large rooms and want commensurately large speakers they can play loudly,” Dave replied. “No one is going to use this much power, but it makes average listening levels, which may go up to 100W, sound much better because that’s a small percentage of the total possible power output. It’s more linear than an amp that tops out at 100W, because as you approach the limit, your distortion goes up dramatically. A high-power amp gives you much more quality than an amp whose power exactly meets your needs.” As someone acutely aware of the arbitrary and frequently over-exaggerated divide between the two viewpoints commonly labeled “subjectivist” and “objectivist,” I asked Dave, “When you developed the KMA-i800, were you looking at measurements or at sound? What was the final arbiter that led you to declare, ‘It’s done!’?”
JDS LABS ATOM 2 STACK REVIEW
March 27, 2024 Comments Off on JDS LABS ATOM 2 STACK REVIEW
I will try to describe the DAC’s signature without the Atom AMP 2. For this test, I am pairing the DAC directly with my active reference monitors. Let’s start with the signature. Just like all the other Atoms, the Atom DAC 2 sounds transparent and uncolored. It is immensely clean and perfectly reflects the gear you pair it with, as-is, without any saturation. I am actually quite amazed at how JDS is able to achieve this level of performance with the old, reliable 9018K2M DAC from ESS. Of course, their precisely tuned trans-impedance stage utilizes six OPA1692 opamps, but still, it is one hell of an achievement and makes you question the must-have-latest-dac-chip race among Chinese manufacturers. JDS is once again showing off its expertise, a powerful reminder that implementation and execution reign supreme in audio design.
Audiophilepure 
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