Aavik Acoustics I-280 Integrated Amplifier €10,000 Review
July 3, 2023 Comments Off on Aavik Acoustics I-280 Integrated Amplifier €10,000 Review
https://www.audiophilia.com/reviews/2023/1/3/aavik-acoustics-i-280-integrated-amplifier
As usual, manufacturers are pretty well spot on (for the most part!) with costing out high-end audiophile components. €10,000 will get you a cracker of an integrated. I have not heard the 280’s lower and upper siblings, and I can only imagine what a €10,000 premium over the I-280 gets you with the I-580. I will be able to tell you what an extra €50,000 buys you with the new I-880, which is a completely different animal to the 180, 280, 580. Shipping to the island soon. In the here and now, and if you can stretch to the I-280’s price, your pre/power needs will be set for a long time no matter your speaker choice. Highly recommended.
HiFiMAN Ananda Nano vs. MoonDrop Venus: Best Headphones for $600
July 3, 2023 Comments Off on HiFiMAN Ananda Nano vs. MoonDrop Venus: Best Headphones for $600
VTL • TP-6.5 Series II Signature Phono Stage $15,000 Review
July 2, 2023 Comments Off on VTL • TP-6.5 Series II Signature Phono Stage $15,000 Review
https://www.theaudiobeat.com/equipment/vtl_tp65_ii_signature.htm
At its best, the TP-6.5 II has that rare ability to shrug off its technological baggage, sounding neither overtly tubelike, nor dryly etched and solid-statey. Instead, it cleaves to the musical character of the recording, burrowing into its musical core and then giving it a healthy shove in the right direction. There’s more than one way to skin a musical cat, and allowed to do so, this phono stage can perform the task with such sleight-of-hand you don’t even notice it happening — and that’s the mark of a product that will deliver not just great performance but long-term satisfaction. Party tricks and the sonically spectacular will quickly pall. The TP-6.5 II’s core musical virtues are made of sterner stuff. If you’ve ever wondered how VTL gets all those Best Sound at Show accolades, now you know: they play records and they play them through a genuinely excellent phono stage. Time and again, in public and throughout this review, VTL’s TP-6.5 Series II Signature phono stage has demonstrated that it is more than capable of producing (and reproducing) performances that are both musically powerful and compelling, the very essence of what vinyl replay should be about
Mission 770 Loudspeaker $5000 Review
July 2, 2023 Comments Off on Mission 770 Loudspeaker $5000 Review
https://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/equipment-reviews/1773-mission-770-loudspeaker
From its deep bass to its extended highs, the 770 proved commendably neutral, which is quite an achievement if it was truly designed more by ear than by measurements. But perhaps the ear-tuning is what instilled the performance aspects I liked most—the rich, powerful bass combined with a midrange that blossomed with realism with all the music I played, yet still provided detail akin to the best speakers I’ve heard. I was also surprised how well the 770 gets the sound out into the room, without those telltale big-box colorations that can make old-school speakers sound muffled rather than open and spacious. That sort of thing is tough to suss out with measurements, so maybe that’s what Comeau and crew used their ears for. That could be a lesson for those who rely more on charts than their ears.
Woo Audio WA22 Balanced Headphone Tube Amplifier and Pre Amplifier Review
July 1, 2023 Comments Off on Woo Audio WA22 Balanced Headphone Tube Amplifier and Pre Amplifier Review
HiFi Rose RS520 streaming integrated amplifier $3695 Review
July 1, 2023 Comments Off on HiFi Rose RS520 streaming integrated amplifier $3695 Review
https://www.stereophile.com/content/hifi-rose-rs520-streaming-integrated-amplifier
Because HiFi Rose is an engineering-centric company (footnote 8), niceties like translation and spelling sometimes seem to get short shrift. On the RS520, linguistic quirks were never particularly enigmatic, but perfection is a ways off. When connecting to Bluetooth, the message you get is the slightly off-kilter “Execute [Bluetooth] to search for available devices.” The screen that lets you choose among three font sizes for streaming music says, by way of instruction, “Enlarge a Playback information.” Even the company’s official English-language website (footnote 9) states, “Before the sudden change, the tool until yesterday is meaningless.” Jon Derda says HiFi Rose has been “making small changes with each iteration of [the RS520’s] firmware (footnote 10), to Americanize the product further.” Importantly, the 64-page product manual is written in rock-solid English, no complaints.
HIFIMAN ARYA ORGANIC $1,300 REVIEW
July 1, 2023 Comments Off on HIFIMAN ARYA ORGANIC $1,300 REVIEW
What we like about Hifiman is that they are an innovative company, and they continue to R&D new goodies for us Audiophiles. More importantly, they let trickle-down high-end technologies to their lower-range units, and that results in a very impressive headphone line-up.
Another thing I appreciate is the fact that they have great gear in all segments of the market. No matter what budget you have to spend, Hifiman has you covered with something good.
Naiu Laboratory Ella Mark 3 Class ND Stereo Amplifier Review
June 30, 2023 Comments Off on Naiu Laboratory Ella Mark 3 Class ND Stereo Amplifier Review
If you click on my name in the header, you can see the equipment I used throughout the review process. I recently acquired the excellent Topping E70 Velvet DAC, which features a pair of the latest top-of-the-line AKM AK4499EX DAC chips (AKM’s production came back online mid-2022). The E70 Velvet presents digital music (especially DSD files) with an exciting level of transparency and musicality in combination with the already outstanding Euphony gear. And I’ve had the Ella Mark 3 amp set up in my larger listening room for several months now, connected to the Magneplanar LRS+ loudspeakers. I used an AudioQuest Blizzard w/DBS AC cable to provide power to the Ella Mark 3, and the entire system used balanced connections throughout. Since the origins of this review came from Robert Devcic’s interest in my impressions of the Ella with my Magneplanars, this was the logical place to start. A word of note: while the Ella Mark 3 doesn’t generate the kind of heat an amp that’s biased into pure Class A does, it gets somewhat warm to the touch with extended listening. In my experience with Ella, it sounds a bit cold from startup, and needs time to reach its normal operating temperature to achieve the ultimate in sound quality.
Klaudio Magnezar Turntable Review
June 30, 2023 Comments Off on Klaudio Magnezar Turntable Review
https://www.analogplanet.com/content/klaudio-magnezar-turntable
Features for the Magnezar ’table include a magnetically levitated platter, an ultra-quiet direct-drive motor, enhanced liquid stabilization and lighting, automatic spindle and peripheral clamping, aluminum construction, a dual tonearm support that includes the aforementioned Klaudio tangential tonearm and laser pod, and adjustable platter speeds of 33, 45, and 78rpm.
The SRP for the Klaudio Magnezar turntable has yet to be announced, but as soon as the company confirms it with us directly, we will update that information here accordingly.
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