Fyne Audio ousts Q REVIEW
March 23, 2025 Comments Off on Fyne Audio ousts Q REVIEW
Okay, the D20R aren’t the newest speakers on the planet – they launched back in 2014 – but we have to get through a lot of products from across the hi-fi and headphones gamut. We’re glad we finally got hold of a pair of the D20R, though, because they are, to quote from our review, “charmers of the highest order”. Beautifully made and with a sonic character that appeals as much to the heart as it does to the head, they’re a nuanced and expressive set of floorstanders that we could have enjoyed for days on end. If you’re after something a little more premium than the Fyne towers above, the ProAc are capable of giving the high-end Spendor A7 speakers a run for their money.
Three LUXURY EXTRAS for your TECHNICS turntable
March 23, 2025 Comments Off on Three LUXURY EXTRAS for your TECHNICS turntable
Bowers & Wilkins DB2D Subwoofers Review
March 21, 2025 Comments Off on Bowers & Wilkins DB2D Subwoofers Review
Simply put: this is the best bass I’ve yet had in my room. Not the most. Not merely the tightest. No, it’s more than that. It’s like the juicy, whip-crack tight bass of the 801s, sure, but add in a sense of natural integration combined with a feeling of realism that I’ve not experienced before.
Back to the original premise of this project: creating a half-price 801 D4 Signature. I haven’t listened yet to the DB2Ds fronted by the 805 D4 Signatures. That’s going to have to wait until I get back from the Florida International Audio Expo in late February. And that means it’s time to get my passport and Metamucil ready for international travel from my home in Toronto, Canada.
Kinera Thorking $2,499 Review
March 21, 2025 Comments Off on Kinera Thorking $2,499 Review
The Kinera Thorking surprised me when I first put them in my ears. Given the brand’s recent track record, I expected a slightly fun, warm, or somewhat coloured sound. I listened to Loki in Canjam 2023 and wasn’t impressed much. But the Thorking is different, and I mean, very different.
The new Thorking has a reference-style tuning with a flat response from start to finish. This is a fascinating new tuning direction from Kinera, and it works perfectly with classical music. I would never believe a Kinera IEM for classical music until I heard it in person. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s not an all-rounder. On the contrary, ThorKing can blend in with many genres. I agree with Kinera’s claim that the ThorKing is a mildly v-shaped IEM, as it prioritizes the treble a bit, and the mid-range is not pushed forward.
Focal Diva Utopia Wireless Streaming Active Loudspeaker $39,999 Review
March 20, 2025 Comments Off on Focal Diva Utopia Wireless Streaming Active Loudspeaker $39,999 Review
https://www.stereophile.com/content/focal-diva-utopia-wireless-streaming-active-loudspeaker
I ended up with the speakers about a quarter of the way out into my large living room. Their rears were about 4½’ from the back wall, their centers about 80″ apart. My ears were about 90″ from the center point between the fronts of the speakers. I toed them in a bit, but not so much that they fired directly at my ears. In that configuration, they presented a balanced if somewhat bass-forward sound and threw a wide, tall, 3D stereo image.
Listening to each speaker in turn, I was struck with how alike they sounded, indicating not just excellent frequency-response matching but also that their placement in the room wasn’t messing with the sound much. Also striking: True mono content sat dead center, not spread unnaturally wide and flat (footnote 7).
These speakers put out a lot of sound. They’ll do best in a large room, allowing for some distance to the listening seat. Given the somewhat omnidirectional projection of bass (the radiation pattern is actually more wide-cardioid, since there are no ports or radiators on the backs of the speakers, but the woofers fire to the side and true bass is everywhere once the room is energized; footnote 8), I’d keep them some distance away from the back and sidewalls.
HumminGuru NOVA HG05
March 20, 2025 Comments Off on HumminGuru NOVA HG05
https://www.stereophile.com/content/spin-doctor-22-cleaning-lps-and-humminguru-nova-hg05
With any type of cleaning process, whether it’s for dishes, cars, or records, it’s always important to ask yourself where the dirt is going. The problem with my childhood blue cleaning fluid and brush method was that the dirt mixed with the fluid to create a kind of slurry, which I then pushed around the record with the brush until the fluid evaporated, leaving most of the dirt behind. A vacuum-type cleaning machine suspends the dirt in the fluid, then sucks the fluid away, taking the dissolved gunk with it and leaving the record dry and clean. This is the basic principle behind all vacuum-type record cleaners, whether they’re the string-and-nozzle type like the Keith Monks or the slot-and-tube type still made today by VPI, Nitty Gritty, and now a host of other companies.
SVS Ultra Evolution Tower Loudspeakers | REVIEW
March 19, 2025 Comments Off on SVS Ultra Evolution Tower Loudspeakers | REVIEW
https://pt.audio/2025/02/09/svs-ultra-evolution-loudspeakers-review/
Next up on the “SVS Testing” playlist was a great track that my sons put me onto, “Monsters” by All Time Low and Demi Lovato. Somehow this song was released four years ago but I’m just now hearing it, primarily because it has explicit lyrics and when I heard my kids listening to it, I had a bit of a conniption fit until I realized it was quite good. The vocals and slamming guitar intro turn into a fantastic hook that played very well on the Ultra Evolution towers. I was particularly impressed with how the sound engineers were able to blend Lovato’s and Alex Gaskarth’s voice on the second verse, and this was reproduced flawlessly by the SVS Ultra speakers. Lovato has shown that there is real talent to be had coming out of a Disney Channel child-star meat grinder, and I for one am very happy to see her overcome her earlier personal struggles and continue to be so successful in the notoriously ruthless music business. On “Monsters,” which was co-written by Lovato, the edginess of the track is combined with the somewhat dark lyrics that invariably impart an autobiographical slant on the song. This is of course typical of any songwriter, but it doesn’t always land well with audiences. This one was a real success in my humble opinion, and I was left jamming to the track on the SVS Ultra Evolution Towers on repeat for a while, both giving the speakers their run-through as well as just enjoying the music as it was meant to be heard.
Audia Flight FLS10 integrated amplifier Review
March 19, 2025 Comments Off on Audia Flight FLS10 integrated amplifier Review
https://www.stereophile.com/content/audia-flight-fls10-integrated-amplifier
With a slightly mellow midbass and a potent, agile bottom end, the Audia Flight isn’t warm in a bloated, nostalgic way, but its sensuous shimmer keeps pulling you in. More than once, I perceived phantom tubes in the system, although my ears also told me that second-order harmonic distortion is reassuringly low.
The FLS10 sounded even more commanding than it looked in my room and on paper (200Wpc into 8 ohms, almost double that into 4). Basswise, the amplifier doesn’t produce slam as brutally visceral as my beloved Krell reference does, but for the first time I’m considering that the Krell may be overly prodigious, and that the Audia Flight has it beat for musicality.
I enjoyed every minute I spent with the FLS10, and every recording I played through it. Its departure will leave a bittersweet void
Audiophilepure 
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