ELAC Navis ARB-51 Review
February 1, 2020 Comments Off on ELAC Navis ARB-51 Review
https://www.hifichoice.com/content/elac-navis-arb-51
The way it is able to communicate such a dizzying amount of detail and yet hold on to a thunderous bass line is quite a revelation – I suspect being both active and a true three-way is key to this. It certainly comes into its own with Randy Crawford’s You Might Need Somebody. This is a thumping late-seventies soul ballad with some fantastic session playing by some of the best in the business. Here the ELAC’s subtlety comes into play and it’s able to drill down right into the spaces between the notes and show the players’ superb syncopation. Crawford’s powerful vocals dance around the slick rhythm, bass guitar work and laid back Fender Rhodes playing, and the result is magic. Once again, I find myself forgetting that I’m listening to a pretty diminutive cabinet, and an inexpensive one considering the price includes power amplification.”
HELM AUDIO TRUE WIRELESS 5.0 TWS – WIRELESS Review
February 1, 2020 Comments Off on HELM AUDIO TRUE WIRELESS 5.0 TWS – WIRELESS Review
https://headfonics.com/2020/01/helm-audio-true-wireless-5-0-tws-wireless-weekend/
This is where the TW5.0 absolutely excels. Both driver units are capable of 6-8 hours playback time and I did get just over 6 hours during testing. The EW1 from Jade Audio is its closest competitor at 6-7 hours but I did get a few minutes more than the EW1 so this is number 1 in our TWS reviewed to date for battery life.
The charging case at 40 hours probably explains why it has a bit of girth beyond driver size. 40 hours is fairly chunky and the chunkiest numbers we have encountered thus far. The closest we have tested it the MPOW M5 at 35 hours. With an average of around 7 hours and 30-40 hours in the tank that’s a pleasing 4-5 recharges. More importantly, a long time before you have to slip them into the cradle which I like.
ZMF Verite Headphones Review
January 31, 2020 Comments Off on ZMF Verite Headphones Review
https://positive-feedback.com/reviews/hardware-reviews/zmf-verite-headphones/
“Tight, punchy, and definitive are few of many words that can be used to describe the Vérité’s low-end tuning. Slightly ahead of neutral, the bass is perfectly done with the right amounts of heft and slam to really make the listening experience a pleasurable one. The dynamic driver really does come into play with a great texture and weight that many planar models and electrostatic fail to recreate. It is nice to see (or rather hear) that the bass levels are not unrealistically elevated, but instead have such a natural timbre and depth that depict the realism of tracks. Compared to HiFiMAN Susvara and HE-1000 V2, the Vérité Open renders heftier slam and physical presence of bass, while the former two headphones have a more agile and intelligible bass line. The Meze Empyrean, on the other hand, is closer to the Vérité’s tonality with a linear and gently upward sloping sub- to mid-bass region. Both the Empyrean and Vérité have a pleasant low-end with the Empyreans sounding slightly more boosted and leaning more towards the smoother and warmer musical tonality. In “NICE” by The Carters, the low-end on the Vérité is represented with no bloom or bloating, but bass that stops on the dime with outstanding texturing.”
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.”
Audiophilepure 
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