Grado GT220 Bluetooth Wireless IEM Review
March 22, 2021 Comments Off on Grado GT220 Bluetooth Wireless IEM Review
Next up, modern pop with “Shallow” by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper from the 2018 standout film “A Star Is Born”. I found the GT 220s to have a slight recession in the vocals but remarkable stability and range extending into the upper-midrange. Bradley’s voice was deep and gritty while Stefani’s produced stunning detail as she hit into the upper notes. I would consider the naturalness to be a hair-pin offset from neutral mainly due to the darker tendency of the unit. One area I was hoping for more in would be the energy of the midrange which fell flatter than I was hoping compared to say the Ananda (open back planar). Which speaks volumes to the GT 220 that I’m even bringing up this comparison.
Piega Premium Wireless 701 £5,000 Review
March 22, 2021 Comments Off on Piega Premium Wireless 701 £5,000 Review
https://www.hifichoice.com/content/piega-premium-wireless-701
Going wireless with the Piega Connect box (and using its built-in DAC rather than the Chord) perhaps inevitably robs the sound of some immediacy and resolving power (and takes a further quality hit when streaming with Bluetooth), but the slightly softer and warmer presentation – while less hardcore audiophilic – retains a good measure of the wired setup’s precise, organised and punctual character, underpinned by a reassuring sense of coherence and imaging focus. Enough, certainly, to appreciate the inclusion of a Rega Planar 6 turntable with Ania MC cartridge (HFC 453) and Chord Electronics’ Huei phono stage. There’s plenty going on with Beverley Knight’s BK25 outing with the Leo Green Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall on vinyl, especially the frenetic opener Made It Back. It’s not the greatest recording, but taking its cue from the Rega/Huei combo, the 701 doesn’t labour that but instead expertly mines passion and emotion from Knight’s soulful vocal while portraying the orchestral backing with effortless zeal and crisply defined timbral contrasts.
Anthem STR Integrated Amplifier £5,500 Review
March 21, 2021 Comments Off on Anthem STR Integrated Amplifier £5,500 Review
https://www.hifichoice.com/content/anthem-str-integrated-amplifier
Anthem’s STR Integrated Amplifier is generous yet refreshingly understated. It does exactly what you want, combining plenty of power and connectivity with a completely even-handed and neutral performance. Phono inputs are excellent and the DAC is extremely natural. Straight out of the box it sounds like a pedigree performer, but dive into the advanced Anthem Room Correction measurement and adjustment and you can fine tune the sound qualities to exactly fit your listening space. Anthem’s deft touch on improving real-world listening is seriously impressive and although I thoroughly enjoy playing with the DSP sophistication, make no mistake, the beating heart of this amp is its superb analogue signal handling.
Schiit Audio Sol turntable$955 Review
March 21, 2021 Comments Off on Schiit Audio Sol turntable$955 Review
https://www.stereophile.com/content/schiit-audio-sol-turntable
I’m not going to go into much detail here—just watch the videos—but here’s how the setup process works, in a nutshell. Unpack the box and put the plinth on a level surface. Locate the platter and the bearing shaft and gently press the latter into the center well of the former; twist it slightly to secure. Now lower the platter/shaft assembly so that the inverted bearing goes down over the spindle; make sure that the ball bearing is in place. Attach the two power cables (“in” from the wall wart and “out” to the motor unit). Place the motor about an inch away from the platter then loop the rubber belt around the motor pulley; hold the belt against the edge of the platter and rotate to thread the belt onto the platter.
JL Audio Dominion d110 Subwoofer $3000 Review
March 19, 2021 Comments Off on JL Audio Dominion d110 Subwoofer $3000 Review
The CR-1 crossover/Dominion d110 system made a major difference in the way my room interacted with the ELAC AF-61s, and that difference was even more sonically impactful to the overall sound than the additional headroom and reduced physical stress on the loudspeakers and power amplifier. Shunting the mid- and low bass away from the mains and into the Dominion subwoofer removed a noticeable amount of excess midbass bloat and huffiness coming from interactions between the room and the AF-61s, when ELACs were responsible for generating frequencies below 60Hz. The audible effect was an increase in overall bass clarity and definition and a reduction of overhang and midbass bloat. It was a real surprise to hear the whole room become a better listening environment as a result of the addition of the CR-1/Dominion system.
Boulder Amplifiers 508 Phonostage $5000 Review
March 18, 2021 Comments Off on Boulder Amplifiers 508 Phonostage $5000 Review
Nonetheless, the linearity of the Boulder and its prowess in the bass region should not be underestimated. This came home to me in listening to the 45-rpm reissue of the South African musician Hugh Masekela’s “Stimela,” which is probably one of the most overplayed cuts at audio shows, but, heck, I like it. And it reveals a lot. What it revealed to me in this instance was the profound bass definition that the 508 delivers. The drum crescendos in “Stimela” were cleanly defined and propulsively powerful. I also noticed how clearly the 508 captured not only the huskiness of Masekela’s voice, but also how beautifully it rendered his enunciation of the song’s lyrics. It was as though they were etched in stone. Ditto for his playing on the flugelhorn. The way Masekela soared into the treble region, then issued plaintive wails was profoundly moving to listen to on my system. Boulder often gets knocked for delivering a sterile sound, but it’s a bum rap. This went right to the emotional essence of the music. Ditto for a Sackville label recording that I recently acquired called Three Is Company that features the jazz soprano saxophonist Jim Galloway, a remarkable musician who teamed up with the pianist Dick Wellstood for this album. This is traditional straight-ahead jazz and on lively numbers like “Minor Drag,” the 508 viscerally delivered the fast-paced excitement of the music. The 508 nailed the sometimes nasally and keening quality of Galloway’s soprano sax, while Pete Magadini serenely mans the drums, gently accompanying his peers.
GRADO GT 220 REVIEW
March 16, 2021 Comments Off on GRADO GT 220 REVIEW
Listening to one of my favorite test tracks, “Parce Mihi Domine” by Jan Garbarek, the GT 220s amaze out of the box with their clarity in the upper mid to high range. Although the GT 220s do lean lower on the octave (in terms of reproduction) on my first few tests, I found the upper midrange to actually come through. When the horns came in, the headphones were able to hit well into the 5-7 KH range and remained stable through the duration. The background was mostly quiet albeit the slight noise emanating from the GT 220s amplifier was audible at times. Soundstage isn’t the forte of the GT 220s compared to the rest of Grado’s iconic lineup, but considering this is the smallest driver size they have perhaps ever worked with, in a closed earphone, it was to be expected.
Icon Audio PS3 MkII Signature Pure Valve Phono Pre-Amplifier Review
March 16, 2021 Comments Off on Icon Audio PS3 MkII Signature Pure Valve Phono Pre-Amplifier Review
https://www.audiophilia.com/reviews/2020/11/30/icon-audio-ps-3-phono-stage
The opening of the Reiner Pictures is always first on the turntable for phono tests. Bud Herseth’s famous trumpet sound perfectly placed in barrel shaped Orchestra Hall, back right, then as the full brass chorale enters, the balance is, like the players’ intonation, flawless. The PS3’s bloom and magical tonal qualities ensured listening was a continuous musical delight. As heard via the very best, I could hear the ppp 4th horn wobble on his muted low Db in bar 4 of ‘Gnomus’. Many phono stages miss that X-ray. Reiner missed it, too. The Allnic, Sutherland and both Icons do not. Quality.
Esoteric Grandioso K1X SACD/CD Player-DAC and Grandioso PS1 Power Supply $36,000 Review
March 15, 2021 Comments Off on Esoteric Grandioso K1X SACD/CD Player-DAC and Grandioso PS1 Power Supply $36,000 Review
Mezzo-soprano Marianne Beate Kielland and pianist Sergei Osadchuck’s performance of the Gerald Finzi song “Come Away, Death,” from the album of that title (SACD/CD, 2L 2L-064-SACD), is haunting, with superb sound. However, its wide dynamic range can wreak havoc with a stereo system, particularly at high volumes. Even more than the K1, the K1X nailed the utter transparency, close miking, and subtle ringing of this mostly dry recording. Further, Kielland’s most pronounced vocal peaks, which sound a bit rough through the K1, were now tamed.
In most tracks on Come Away, Death, the same change was evident in the top notes of Osadchuck’s piano, which were now much more polished and crystalline than I’d heard before. As this album begs to be played loudly, I turned the volume high, even though my YG Acoustics Kipod II Signature speakers don’t really do well at sky-high volumes. Nonetheless, the K1X’s ultra-low noise floor became even more apparent—it was now a lot harder to get these speakers to misbehave.
JL Audio Dominion d110 Subwoofer $1000 REVIEW
March 13, 2021 Comments Off on JL Audio Dominion d110 Subwoofer $1000 REVIEW
The trick to getting better sound with subwoofers than you can get without them is to set up and configure them optimally for both your room and the loudspeakers they are paired with. I was very pleasantly surprised by the many ways in which the addition of the CR-1 and the stereo Dominion d110 subwoofers improved the overall sound of my system. The first and most obvious improvement was bass extension. Listening to the song “Heaven” by Meshell Ndegeocello, which combines her luscious voice with a real piano and synthetic bass, it was hard not to be wowed with the Dominion’s low-frequency performance. The bass was powerfully big—phat but also controlled, with well-defined textures and detail. Oh, and clean, too.
Audiophilepure 
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