Is a 3-Way DIY Speaker Kit on Amazon for $300
March 31, 2024 Comments Off on Is a 3-Way DIY Speaker Kit on Amazon for $300
Auralic Vega G2.1 Review
March 29, 2024 Comments Off on Auralic Vega G2.1 Review
https://www.hifichoice.com/content/auralic-vega-g21
Less of a lowly DAC preamp and more of musical Swiss army knife, Auralic’s Vega G2.1 is seriously classy product. It does an awful lot very well indeed and offers a painless upgrade route out from the £2,500 DACs that many folk run – all the way up to the high-end where five-figure sums tend to change hands. It does so much so very well that it offers up seriously stiff competition for those, mostly British companies who have made this section of the market their own. As such, an audition is strongly recommended if you’re in the market for updating your system.
DALI Epikore 11 Loudspeaker $60,000 Review
March 29, 2024 Comments Off on DALI Epikore 11 Loudspeaker $60,000 Review
https://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/equipment-menu/1225-dali-epikore-11-loudspeaker
The Epikore 11 is near-as-dammit the same price as the Estelon, but these are wildly different speakers. Both are wonderful in their own way, and visually it’s no contest—the Estelon is a Jaguar E-type while the Epikore 11 is an AMG G-Class wagon. You want to sit and stare at it? The Estelon melts the soul. But if you need to get stuff done, call on the DALI.
I loved the Epikore 11s and was very sad to see them go.
Here’s my hope: Given that DALI has leveraged the Kore’s technologies into a smaller, more affordable package, and given that the Epikore has a suffix of 11, I’m thinking that there may be more Epikore speakers yet to come down the pike. If there’s gonna be, say, an Epikore 7 that has two 8″ woofers per speaker, and employs the same midrange, tweeter, and ancillary infrastructure, I think it would make an honest man of me.
B&W 805 D4 Signature Loudspeaker £10,000 Review
March 28, 2024 Comments Off on B&W 805 D4 Signature Loudspeaker £10,000 Review
https://www.hifinews.com/content/bw-805-d4-signature-loudspeaker
Through the 805 D4 Signatures, the well-recorded (and blissfully short) jazz/blues fusion songs of Dominique Fils-Aimé’s new Our Roots Run Deep release [Ensoul Records; 44.1kHz/16-bit download] appeared grandiose but lost none of their authenticity. Layering Fils-Aimé’s smooth voice with background vocals during the title track, the speakers proved adept at handling complex compositions, keeping the trumpet clean and non-sibilant when it appeared. Furthermore, as with the Zelmani and Anna B Savage pieces, ‘Just Let Me Go’ really demonstrated that Bowers & Wilkins has mastered the art of uncovering the finest sonic detail without losing track of the musical picture as a whole.
If this Signature upgrade of the company’s 805 D4 does something well, it’s getting you closer than ever to the artist’s intent.
Sennheiser IE 900 Review
March 28, 2024 Comments Off on Sennheiser IE 900 Review
https://www.hifichoice.com/content/sennheiser-ie-900
I’m confident that Sennheiser’s new arrangements will turn out to be fruitful, but if the IE 900 is to be the end of an era it should be seen as the company going out on a high. This is a staggeringly talented in-ear and asks very little of you or the partnering equipment to sound sublime. It isn’t cheap, but the level of engineering means this is one of the very finest earphones anywhere near the price
Krell KMA-i800 monoblock power amplifier $73,000/pair Review
March 27, 2024 Comments Off on Krell KMA-i800 monoblock power amplifier $73,000/pair Review
https://www.stereophile.com/content/krell-kma-i800-monoblock-power-amplifier
Given the KMA-i800’s huge power output—Krell says it can output 800W RMS into 8 ohms, doubling twice to 1600W into 4 ohms and 3200W into 2 ohms, and can drive speakers of 1 ohm impedance—I wondered whom Dave and Rondi envisioned as buyers. “There are plenty of people out there who have rather large rooms and want commensurately large speakers they can play loudly,” Dave replied. “No one is going to use this much power, but it makes average listening levels, which may go up to 100W, sound much better because that’s a small percentage of the total possible power output. It’s more linear than an amp that tops out at 100W, because as you approach the limit, your distortion goes up dramatically. A high-power amp gives you much more quality than an amp whose power exactly meets your needs.” As someone acutely aware of the arbitrary and frequently over-exaggerated divide between the two viewpoints commonly labeled “subjectivist” and “objectivist,” I asked Dave, “When you developed the KMA-i800, were you looking at measurements or at sound? What was the final arbiter that led you to declare, ‘It’s done!’?”
JDS LABS ATOM 2 STACK REVIEW
March 27, 2024 Comments Off on JDS LABS ATOM 2 STACK REVIEW
I will try to describe the DAC’s signature without the Atom AMP 2. For this test, I am pairing the DAC directly with my active reference monitors. Let’s start with the signature. Just like all the other Atoms, the Atom DAC 2 sounds transparent and uncolored. It is immensely clean and perfectly reflects the gear you pair it with, as-is, without any saturation. I am actually quite amazed at how JDS is able to achieve this level of performance with the old, reliable 9018K2M DAC from ESS. Of course, their precisely tuned trans-impedance stage utilizes six OPA1692 opamps, but still, it is one hell of an achievement and makes you question the must-have-latest-dac-chip race among Chinese manufacturers. JDS is once again showing off its expertise, a powerful reminder that implementation and execution reign supreme in audio design.
Antipodes K50 Music Server $19,000 Review
March 26, 2024 Comments Off on Antipodes K50 Music Server $19,000 Review
https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/antipodes-k50-music-server-review-r1252
The plethora of other server and playback options are laudable. Antipodes supplies the hardware foundation and software platform that don’t need to be swapped out when the music lover switches applications. It’s a great system, designed for a marathon of use, not a sprint to the next upgrade.
Sound quality through the K50 was as expected, excellent. The team at Antipodes leaves little to chance, and it shows, or should I say sounds. I fell in love with the sound of my favorites from Tsuyoshi Yamamoto, Pearl Jam, and dare I say Beyonce. The K50 isn’t a one trick pony, it reproduces everything with high fidelity. This resulted in many hours of enjoyment for me and a rekindled love for my two channel system.
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