CHORD & MAJOR EARPHONES REVIEW
February 5, 2016 Comments Off on CHORD & MAJOR EARPHONES REVIEW
” A clever little ergonomic touch is the strain-relief connector on the rear of the earphone, which extends beyond the earphone itself. This not only keeps the cable in place, and is a useful place for a fairly obvious Left and Right indicator, but it is also a natural place for your thumb when inserting or removing the earphone. Additionally, it helps positioning the cable for the earphone if you want to use them in over-ear ‘sport’ mode. The cable itself is a 1.2m long ‘no-tangle’ rubber finish, although in the long-held tradition of all things ‘no tangle’, I immediately created some kind of Gordian Knot out of the cables. The little plastic card and the pouch do help.”
OPTOMA NUFORCE PRIMO 8 EARBUDS REVIEW
February 5, 2016 Comments Off on OPTOMA NUFORCE PRIMO 8 EARBUDS REVIEW
“Turning to the “instruments” themselves, the Primo 8’s exterior design is something visually different, resembling a pair of tiny blue pineapples or modestly sized sea shells. Each drive housing is attached to its cord via an integrated over-ear loop wire. The loop wires attach and detach from the drive housings by way of little black connectors allowing easy wire replacement and ear tip changes. The wire itself uses a combination of both fine quality silver and copper conductors wound around a Kevlar/silk core. It is also equipped with a smartphone compatible in-line microphone/control pod for portable use. A separate cable without mic and controls is available for additional cost.”
ULTRASONE EDITION 5 UNLIMITED REVIEW
February 4, 2016 Comments Off on ULTRASONE EDITION 5 UNLIMITED REVIEW
” The Edition 5 Unlimited is a very good sounding headphone, so don’t let anyone tell you different. The original Edition 5 sounded marvelous as well, but both models are severely overpriced to astronomical degrees. Yes, there is a difference between the $5000 Edition 5 and the $2750 Edition 5 Unlimited, but it is very small to my ears. What exactly is causing that difference, I’ve not a clue for certain, but I can speculate. I’ve heard the Edition 5 numerous times and on the same gear that I own, so I can safely say the Unlimited version is 95% the same and the likely causes of the differences between them are caused by the lack of a wooden plate on the Unlimited version. With that in mind, the Edition 5 Unlimited is easily one of the most overpriced headphones to be released recently and fits in with the similarly overpriced units such as the AK series, the Abyss and Sennheiser’s new Orpheus $50,000 monstrosity.”
TriangleART Symphony Turntable Review
February 3, 2016 Comments Off on TriangleART Symphony Turntable Review
“The TriangleART Symphony produced deep, rich, powerful, bass without any overhang and at the same time the music came across as being lively with plenty of swing and presence that make listening to music a lot of fun. These are rare traits in any source component. Yes, there are some that do some of the things better, and a rare few that do both better, but I don’t know of any without spending far more money.”
Lumïn M1 Streaming Amplifier/Player
February 3, 2016 Comments Off on Lumïn M1 Streaming Amplifier/Player
” Obviously it is relatively inexpensive system so one can’t really expect the same level of performance as from high end system consisting of separate components. But when I listened to it I never really thought about advantages of much more expensive systems. M1 delivers good enough performance to make it truly interesting. It is capable of differentiating different recordings and I think its owners won’t really have any reasons to complain about M1’s performance. Especially considering that in many respects what they will get will be so refined that many even more expensive systems won’t be able to match (in these respects) this level of performance.”
The Ruby Stoner Acoustics
February 3, 2016 Comments Off on The Ruby Stoner Acoustics
“The Ruby by Stoner Acoustics is one of the stranger yet undeniably cute audio offerings out there and though it is basically a portable analog amp it’s size and shape is very eye catching. Throw in a quality if rather large pot, superb low noise levels and excellent efficiency and you have a nice little budget IEM analog amp with good, if not ground breaking musical sound quality.”
Naim Audio Statement NAC S1 Preamplifier and NAP S1 Mono Amplifiers NAC S1 $88,000 NAP S1 $76,000 each Review
February 2, 2016 Comments Off on Naim Audio Statement NAC S1 Preamplifier and NAP S1 Mono Amplifiers NAC S1 $88,000 NAP S1 $76,000 each Review
” So, incredibly agile, responsive and rhythmically articulate, musically fluid and temporally explicit, what is it that the big Naims don’t do? Their solid-state nature is betrayed in the balance they strike between images and the acoustic as a whole, the dimensionality and the depth of the soundstage. Instrumental spread is excellent, as is layering and height, which creates exceptionally natural perspectives, but there are electronics (especially tube electronics) that deliver a greater sense of the overall acoustic space, more depth, more dimensionality and, partly as a result, more intimacy and immediacy. As remarkable as the bass generated from the Sasha 2s was,”
Amps & Sound Kenzie $1500 Review
February 2, 2016 Comments Off on Amps & Sound Kenzie $1500 Review
” This is a very hard line to straddle and some amplifiers are good at one or the other, but not both. The Woo Audio WA22 is a very euphonic amplifier and pairs quite nicely with the HD800s, but over time and with recordings, its euphonic nature really does creep into the experience and smooths instruments too close together and rounds off the edges to a point where some of the realism is sacrificed. The Kenzie however manages to straddle this line of being true to the recording and still offers a very musical and pleasing presentation with these finicky headphones.”
Pure Audio Project Trio10 MundorfAMT Loudspeakers Review
February 2, 2016 Comments Off on Pure Audio Project Trio10 MundorfAMT Loudspeakers Review
“One shortcoming of OB designs is poor low frequency response. In fairness, many box speakers also fail to deliver low bass response or do it so poorly it would be better left absent. This is especially true in the price range of (and considerably above) the Trio10s. I believe a well-executed OB can have superior definition in low bass for instruments like an upright bass, guitars, and piano. I found this to be true with the Trio10s. I frequently wished for more bass from the Trio10s at the same time I admired the detail. This was a situation of quality over quantity.”
Triangle Art Concerto Turntable Review
February 1, 2016 Comments Off on Triangle Art Concerto Turntable Review
” In the end we found much to appreciate musically with the Concerto system. Yeah, it is a $12,000 package and for sure one could save money by simply going for the basic set-up sans the platform, speed control, and record clamp. I would be surprised if one experienced much of a drop off in musical pleasure and performance by omitting these from the system—the basic Concerto and Zeus cartridge are the centerpieces and these ancillaries are simply upping the ante. And such a wonderful centerpiece the Concerto is within this analog system. Sure, a turntable is nothing more than just a motor spinning a platter riding on a bearing with an arm and cartridge traveling in the groove of a record—sounds simple enough- but Tom did his homework and has a winner here. Well done! Highly recommended.”
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