Acora Acoustics QRC 2 Floorstanding Loudspeaker $37,000 Review
June 20, 2024 Comments Off on Acora Acoustics QRC 2 Floorstanding Loudspeaker $37,000 Review
The music completely escaped the speaker and was spread over a soundstage that was as wide and deep as the Kharma. The outer edges of that soundscape, particularly toward the front corners of the stage, were even more transparent than any speaker I’ve had in-house. I found my head turning to those extremes when a musician on either side broke into a solo. Overall, it was a very fine presentation but I still felt a gnawing sense of disappointment that they didn’t sound as good as I heard them at the shows. Was it just the much more expensive rigs that achieved such greatness?
Zavalinka Records: Master Tape copies in Russian Sauce!
June 20, 2024 Comments Off on Zavalinka Records: Master Tape copies in Russian Sauce!
SPL Phonitor SE $1199 Review
June 19, 2024 Comments Off on SPL Phonitor SE $1199 Review
https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/spl-phonitor-se
As the Mahler symphony builds we note the pleasing sense of space in the Phonitor’s presentation and its ability to avoid sounding cluttered. It helps that details are crisply rendered with little in the way of blur or vagueness when it comes to defining the leading edges of notes. This is particularly praiseworthy at low frequencies where the SPL delivers exceptional grip without sacrificing tunefulness.
That same bass quality works wonderfully with Massive Attack’s Heligoland set. Here, the SPL headphone amp delivers bass with considerable conviction, thumping it out with punch and power. Move up the frequency range and you will find that the midrange is crisp and clean while retaining the natural warmth of vocals. We are pleased to report that the Phonitor SE is the kind of product that you can listen to for hours on end without issue. For all its insight and resolution, it avoids sounding hard-edged and sterile. Feed it a poor or aggressive recording, we used Bruce Springsteen’s heartfelt Terry’s Song, and the SPL refuses to make a meal of things. It is highly revealing of the recording’s shortcomings but never goes out of its way to be rude.
GrooveMaster 3 Tonearm $2598 Review
June 19, 2024 Comments Off on GrooveMaster 3 Tonearm $2598 Review
The Audio Creative GrooveMaster 3 tonearm came with a well-earned reputation for excellence for the money, and it left no doubt that inserting it in place of my stock tonearm was an excellent upgrade. Like switching from a bulky mountain bike to a svelte racing bicycle for a street rally—or loudspeakers using a pair of fast eight-inch drivers instead of a single 15″ woofer—the GrooveMaster was fleeter and more nimble, making a noticeable improvement in responsiveness, sensitivity, and detail. It’s a beautiful instrument, a versatile, universal tonearm suited for a wide variety of turntables, and one that I can’t see myself parting with anytime soon. I highly recommend it.
PureAudio open-baffle loudspeaker system $21,000 Review
June 18, 2024 Comments Off on PureAudio open-baffle loudspeaker system $21,000 Review
Assembly of the crossover board is customer’s responsibility, but no soldering is involved. There are two circuit boards to be assembled, one for the left channel and the other for the right. The first board took me well over two hours to complete amidst the trial and error learning curve, so that the second board was finished in less than an hour. For the review sample, I was sent the higher-grade, resin-soaked Mundorf VS140 inductor, plus two ClarityCap 3% tolerance CSA 250V 82 micro farad capacitors as an alternative or upgrade to the original Mundorf audiophile-grade components. The drivers are mounted on open ¾” baffles and not inside an enclosure, and the crossover is secured at the bottom of the speaker.
Manufacturers have put drivers in enclosures to boost and control bass output, and manufacturers go to extraordinary extent in scaling that goal. The fact of the matter is that the bulk of the costs of building a floorstanding, full-range loudspeaker system often lies in the construction of the enclosure cabinet. Consequently, a good number of speakers are adorned with such costly and exotic enclosures as to be their primary selling point, in turn cultivating clientele of discerning taste and spending ability on the physicality of the speakers.
Parasound JCA100 Tribute monoblock power amplifier $30,000 Review
June 18, 2024 Comments Off on Parasound JCA100 Tribute monoblock power amplifier $30,000 Review
https://www.stereophile.com/content/parasound-jca100-tribute-monoblock-power-amplifier
Darren Myers, Parasound’s new Vice President of Research and Development, explained that “the goal of this design was to create an amplifier capable of 100W of class-A operation into 8 ohms. To accomplish this, the voltage rails on the output stage were lowered, reducing the maximum voltage swing into 8 ohms compared to a stock JC 1+. This allows for a manageable amount of power dissipation on the output stage while having adequate quiescent current to achieve the 100W class-A power specification.
“To optimize this class-A operation, there are several internal modifications applied to the circuit, including transformer and component value changes. John Curl worked directly with the Parasound design team for over a year to design and optimize the modification process. John and the entire team at Parasound are so proud of what we’ve come up with. The outcome is truly something very special.”
Balanced Audio Technology REX 500 power amplifier $25,000 Review
June 15, 2024 Comments Off on Balanced Audio Technology REX 500 power amplifier $25,000 Review
https://www.stereophile.com/content/balanced-audio-technology-rex-500-power-amplifier
I decided to evaluate the amp in three ways. First, I went without a preamp, using the volume control of my main source, an Aurender A20 digital transport and server. Then I listened to the REX with the Aurender connected via the line stage of my Benchmark HPA4. Finally, I pressed the VK-90 into service, again using the A20 as a source.
While I did indeed prefer the sound with the BAT preamp in the chain by a small margin, I spent the least amount of time with that combination because I wanted to home in on the sonics of the REX without the wild card the VK-90 presented.
BAT co-founder Steve Bednarski told me he’s keen on listening with a preamp in the system. I asked him why: What’s the downside to feeding a power amp the output stage of a DAC or other digital source? “A well-designed active line stage will provide greater current delivery from its output stage than almost any source omponent,” Bednarski emailed back. “Current delivery gives a sense of liveliness and joie de vivre to the reproduction of music. For instance, a CD player that uses an op-amp–based output stage will provide weak current delivery. When such an output stage is connected directly to an amplifier, the music can sound flat and uninvolving.”
Amphion Argon7LS Loudspeaker $7000 Review
June 15, 2024 Comments Off on Amphion Argon7LS Loudspeaker $7000 Review
https://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/equipment-reviews/1862-amphion-argon7ls-loudspeaker
Unsurprisingly, given the difference in size and driver complement between the two models, the Argon7LS floorstanders could play far louder and far deeper than the MG-10 minimonitors. When the Esoteric speakers were asked to play loudly, they didn’t misbehave in any egregious way, but they did compress the signal and, more problematically, shifted the frequency balance toward the treble. The Amphions simply got louder.
The MG-10 has average bass depth for a speaker of its size, but I’ve always been impressed with the cleanliness and articulation of that bass. When driven by the NAD, however, the Amphions matched the Esoterics in bass articulation and thoroughly trounced them in both depth and impact. Bass performance was closer when driven by the Graaf, with the Argon7LS speakers still leading on depth and impact, but slightly trailing the MG-10s on articulation. When driving the speakers with either amplifier, however, the MG-10s rendered Christian McBride’s bass on “Armando’s Rhumba” with a little more tonal specificity. Both speaker models energize the same bass modes in my room—that’s just physics—but the significantly greater bass capabilities of the Amphions meant they benefited more from equalization; the Esoterics simply can’t overload a room with bass.
Audiophilepure 
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