SONY IER-Z1R SIGNATURE SERIES UNIVERSAL-FIT EARPHONE $1,999 REVIEW
January 31, 2020 Comments Off on SONY IER-Z1R SIGNATURE SERIES UNIVERSAL-FIT EARPHONE $1,999 REVIEW
http://www.hifiplus.com/articles/sony-ier-z1r-signature-series-universal-fit-earphone/
The third characteristic is masterful rendition of reverberant information and spatial cues in recordings, which enables the IER-Z1R to produce huge, ‘outside-the-head’ soundstages. This quality proved stunning on Elvis Presley’s ‘Fever’ from Elvis Is Back [Sony Legacy, 16/44.1]. Specifically, the earphones neatly exposed the amounts and types of reverb applied to Elvis’ vocals throughout the song, while showing how widely spaced percussion instruments define the boundaries of the soundstage through sounds that reverberate and linger on the air.
AUDEZE LCD-I4 REVIEW
January 30, 2020 Comments Off on AUDEZE LCD-I4 REVIEW
https://www.headfonia.com/audeze-lcd-i4-review/
“The sound stage stretches wide and deep with an open feeling. You get extremely good resolution and micro detailing. The Element M fires in a ton of information, which the LCD-i4 reproduces without a sweat. Imaging is right about perfect, with sharply separated instruments. The LCD-i4 paints a beautiful picture right in front of you, where you can imagine the band and performers very well.”
Monitor Audio Gold 300 Loudspeaker $7000 Review
January 30, 2020 Comments Off on Monitor Audio Gold 300 Loudspeaker $7000 Review
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/monitor-audio-gold-300-loudspeaker-1/
“
These Gold 300s really grew on me over time, thanks to their powerful presence and substantial sound output. There’s a really pleasing solidity here—courtesy of the cabinet construction and other technologies—that won me over across more and more source material. Especially if you appreciate or collect well-recorded material, the Monitor Gold 300s can enable you to reap its rewards. If want a deeper dive into your music collection and you’re in the market for a solid speaker in this price tier, go for the gold and give the new 300 an audition. “
Sonus Faber Heritage Collection Electa Amator III Loudspeakers
January 29, 2020 Comments Off on Sonus Faber Heritage Collection Electa Amator III Loudspeakers
“My presentiments went unfulfilled. While the EAIII’s sound wasn’t strictly neutral, it was clear that its frequency response had been skillfully tailored. Consider “Take My Hand,” the final track of Dido’s No Angel (16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC, Arista/Tidal). The recording itself leans toward the hot side of neutral, Dido’s voice marked by a tetchily digital edge that highly resolving audio gear only exacerbates. The EAIII revealed the recording’s warts as well as I expected it to, with some low-level white noise audible right away, drifting in and out of audibility as the music’s focus shifted from Dido’s voice to her simple guitar chords and back again. And yet what should have been a more trebly, wince-worthy sound seemed to have been subtly glossed over. The bottom end of Dido’s voice was unusually robust. When she reached for the top of her range, I heard plenty of energy and drive, but it was delivered more smoothly than I’d expect from this track when listened to through dead-neutral speakers. Sonus Faber’s DAD tweeter was interesting, both for its performance envelope and its voicing in the EAIII. It sounded tilted up a decibel or two from what I would normally expect to hear. And while it never sounded dark, neither did this silk dome sound remotely harsh or bright.:”
Hifiman Ananda-BT Bluetooth Headphones $999 Review
January 28, 2020 Comments Off on Hifiman Ananda-BT Bluetooth Headphones $999 Review
“The Ananda-BT gives you everything you expect from a world class pair of open back planar magnetic headphones with none of the drawbacks, no cables, and no headphone amp or DAC to worry about, you simply connect them via Bluetooth and start enjoying your music in all its high resolution glory. A molded plastic carrying case and USB mic are included for portability, phone calls, and gaming.
The Ananda-BT aren’t finicky, pray at the audiophile altar headphones, they go where you go! You’ll quickly fall in love their fabulous sound, untethered freedom of movement, and absence of sacrifices. I’ve used them for critical listening (god I hate that term), danced around my living room listening to Billie Eilish, made a fabulous red sauce streaming Pavarotti, and drifted off to a peaceful late night slumber with Windham Hill. These aren’t your father’s headphones, they’re easy breezy carefree sonic showstoppers you’ll be fighting to get back from your significant other. Recommended without reservation.”
MBL 101 X-treme Omnidirectional Loudspeaker $263,000 the pair Review
January 27, 2020 Comments Off on MBL 101 X-treme Omnidirectional Loudspeaker $263,000 the pair Review
“Auditioning the 101 X’s was a virtual replay of their original sojourn in my room. Then as now I can’t stop listening to the things. Then as now visitors—friends, colleagues, and manufacturers—think they are the best transducers they’ve ever heard (as do I), and eachof them has had the same slack-jawed initial reaction to hearing them, expressed in almost exactly the same words: “Where are the speakers?”
Despite any shortcomings (and I will come to these), the MBL 101 X’s (properly situated and adjusted) sound less like loudspeakers than any other system I’ve heard. As I wrote the first time around, “all of the various ways in which conventional transducers betray that their sound is being projected in narrower or broader dispersion patterns by individual drivers in resonant enclosures simply aren’t present.” What you hear, instead, as I’ve already repeatedly noted, is a soundfield that seems to have been magically imported in toto from some other place—from a concert hall or a studio—and plopped down in your listening room with all three of its dimensions intact. To quote again from my first review, “where other transducers sound the way a film looks—like a two-dimensional medium imitating a three-dimensional reality—the 101 X-tremes sound the way a theatrical play looks—no ersatz third dimension, but actual people on an actual stage right there in front of you.
Totem Acoustic Tribe Tower Loudspeakers $5300 Review
January 27, 2020 Comments Off on Totem Acoustic Tribe Tower Loudspeakers $5300 Review
“
By most standards, the Totem Tribe Tower would be considered a relatively tiny floorstander, but the pair of them sounded big in my mid-size room. Having heard what their similar sibling, the Sky Tower, could do here less than a year before, I wasn’t completely surprised, but unsuspecting listeners might be at first caught off guard, then quite pleased — this speaker should be of interest to anyone who wants room-filling sound but who doesn’t have the space for a pair of big boxes.
At first I thought I’d prefer setting up the Tribe Towers closer to the front of the room, to make better use of the front and sidewalls to help reinforce the bass — indeed, Totem recommends placing them as little as 4” from the front wall. While I was never going to do that — I’ve never been happy with the sound of speakers from that close to the wall behind them — I did try pulling them out just over 12” from the front wall. Unsurprisingly, the Tribes benefited from room gain — the bass was fuller, the overall output greater. However, even with 2’ between the wall and the speakers’ rear panels, I was still more than satisfied with their low-end performance, while preferring the greater three-dimensionality of soundstage I experienced with them farther out from the wall. Ultimately, they ended up very near the positions where most speakers tend to work best in my room.”
Parasound Flagship Halo JC 1+ 450-Watt Monoblock Power Amplifier
January 26, 2020 Comments Off on Parasound Flagship Halo JC 1+ 450-Watt Monoblock Power Amplifier
https://novo.press/parasound-flagship-halo-jc-1-450-watt-monoblock-power-amplifier/
The Parasound Halo JC 1+ is remarkably quiet and is the first commercially built product to employ active high-frequency noise filtering with Bybee Music Rails, eliminating input stage noise that compromises sound quality. Curl’s newly-designed driver stage employs a cascode circuit with greater open-loop bandwidth and increased linearity. In another first for the JC 1+, the input and driver stages reside on FR-408 printed circuit board material. Until now FR408 was used in super-computer and aerospace applications. The input-stage power supply is totally independent from the main power supply. Its R-core transformer isolates sensitive circuitry from high-frequency power line noise. This input stage power supply employs quiet high speed/soft recovery diodes and 22,400 uF filter capacitance, to deliver +/- 112 VDC rail voltage, virtually eliminating distortion. Premium Wilson Audio REL capacitors use a proprietary design, which resists micro vibrations that typically degrade the sound quality of other caps. The addition of an XLR Loop Out as well as a 12V-trigger/delayed-turn-on improve the connectivity and utility when multiple JC 1+s are used in bi, tri, and quad amp configurations.
Dan D’Agostino Master Audio Systems Progression Stereo Amplifier and Preamplifier $22,000 Review
January 25, 2020 Comments Off on Dan D’Agostino Master Audio Systems Progression Stereo Amplifier and Preamplifier $22,000 Review
“The power amplifier is, well, a power amplifier. Aside from a large front-panel meter, with some fun color options, it has no special controls. The only practical feature I’d flag is that the amp has XLR inputs only, but few audiophiles today are going to use RCA cables in any case. Like all good power amps, you put it in place, hook it up, turn it on, and forget about it, although you will want to run a mini-cable between the preamp’s 12V trigger output and the power amp’s trigger input so that the amplifier turns on automatically with your preamp.
This is not just an ordinary power amp, however. When D’Agostino uses the word “power,” he is not kidding. The Progression stereo power amp is a 125-pound unit that can deliver 300 watts into 8 ohms and 600 watts into 4 ohms. Its gee-whiz technical features include 42 output transistors, a nearly 3000VA power-supply transformer, and 400,000 microfarads of power-supply storage capacitance, and it can optionally be hooked up to a 240V AC socket.”
WILSON AUDIO SASHA DAW FLOORSTANDING LOUDSPEAKER £39,998 REVIEW
January 23, 2020 Comments Off on WILSON AUDIO SASHA DAW FLOORSTANDING LOUDSPEAKER £39,998 REVIEW
http://www.hifiplus.com/articles/wilson-audio-sasha-daw-floorstanding-loudspeaker/?page=3
“In fact, the Sasha DAW’s only real weakness is possibly also its greatest strength. This is not a loudspeaker that ever sounds bad (its greatest strength), but it also has the potential to sound truly soul-shakingly good. There will be some pairs of Sasha DAWs where that potential remains untapped. This is a loudspeaker where going to the extra place is not simply an exercise in navel-gazing but returns the kind of performance that can stop you in your tracks. Here’s a perfect test of the Sasha DAW’s true power; play something evocative like Jacqueline du Pré’s remarkable rendition of the Elgar Cello Concerto [Barbirolli, LSO, EMI]. Unless the system has been set-up with a pick-axe, you will get goose-bumps. When the system is fully on song and at its very best, you find yourself in tears. It’s an uncontrollable, almost atavistic, reaction to the music that happens when the system pulls the music into focus. You can find this in very well set-up systems, but usually in very well set-up systems that cost so much they could depth-charge the economy of a small island nation.
Audiophilepure 
You must be logged in to post a comment.