Rega iO Integrated Amplifier REVIEW
September 16, 2020 Comments Off on Rega iO Integrated Amplifier REVIEW
AUDIO TECHNICA ATH-WP900 REVIEW
September 16, 2020 Comments Off on AUDIO TECHNICA ATH-WP900 REVIEW
” The ATH-WP900 is intended to deliver a fun and engaging listening experience, no question. These babies are made to entertain, rather than analyse. These are the sort of headphones that you can hand over to someone completely uninterested in audiophilia, and they would plant an immediate smile on their face – they make music come alive in a visceral, exciting, and crowd-pleasing way. And you know what? I absolutely dig it. You only need to listen to four bars of Outkast’s ‘Behold a Lady’ to know that you’re in for a Good Time with the ATH-WP900. The WP900 is equally at home playing well-mastered and recorded audiophile material as it is churning out Top-40 ‘guilty pleasures’. Let’s just say that I went to town on both Phil Collins and Taylor Swift for the purposes of this review. You’re welcome. ”
AGD ANDANTE PREAMPLIFIER AND VIVACE MONOBLOCKS $15,000 REVIEW
September 15, 2020 Comments Off on AGD ANDANTE PREAMPLIFIER AND VIVACE MONOBLOCKS $15,000 REVIEW
“Comparing the two, the music, like the amps themselves, is lighter weight with the Audion. (6.5 pounds for each Audion versus 22 pounds for each Vivace.) The soundscape is equally broad, but the musicians seem more firmly anchored in place with the Vivace and there is a greater sense of physicality, not only in the musicians and the music, but of the space among the players — more room tone, if you will. The atmosphere of the venue becomes more prominent in live performances, whether rock ‘n roll, jazz, or classical. With the larger power supply, there is also greater control of power passages, whether crescendos in rock, classical or deep organ. Sustained notes extend without wavering. The similarity to tube amplifiers is uncanny with smooth, three-dimensional notes, particularly when used with a tube preamp.
What this adds up to is greater involvement with the music. It takes less mental energy to convince yourself that you are listening to live music and the music reaches out to you and pulls you in with realism that I have rarely heard before — and only in much more expensive systems, or with music that was not complex. This is not the pull of romantic musicality such as you get with a high-efficiency speaker driven by a 2A3 SET amp, but the pull of seemingly live music being performed in front of you right at home. This was my response to the Vivace driven by my Coincident Statement Line Preamplifier and Statement Phono Preamplifier. But read on. The story gets even better, and perhaps even worse.”
Acora Acoustics SRC-1 Loudspeaker $28,000 Review
September 15, 2020 Comments Off on Acora Acoustics SRC-1 Loudspeaker $28,000 Review
“My listening notes abound with specific examples addressing the rest of what TAS reviewer Anthony Cordesman has called “The Sonic Checklist,” but just one recording will suffice to underscore how consistently the Acora SRC-1s deliver more than a taste of the real thing. For several years now, Bernard Haitink’s 2010 recording of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15 with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, specifically the first movement Allegretto, has been among the first selections I put on when I’m at the critical listening stage with a component. The Acoras met all the challenges this recording presented. The glockenspiel notes that open the piece were focused and precisely localized. Solo woodwinds were correctly scaled and timbrally believable. Each note of the two trumpets’ unison triple-tongued triplets registered with clarity, and the ominous-sounding bass drum thuds underlying nervously chattering strings were presented with a sense of the instrument’s volume and the kind of mallet used to strike it. The full orchestra climax five minutes into the movement crested majestically, and there was a superb sense of the Amsterdam hall, one of the finest places on earth to make a recording or, better yet, hear a performance. The Acoras did all that, without exaggeration or artifice.”
Jazz & Cafe SlowBoat KENRICK SOUND JBL 4331 Newly Open in Tokyo
September 15, 2020 Comments Off on Jazz & Cafe SlowBoat KENRICK SOUND JBL 4331 Newly Open in Tokyo
Olympica Nova V Floor Standing Speakers $16,500 Review
September 14, 2020 Comments Off on Olympica Nova V Floor Standing Speakers $16,500 Review
“Downsides? Very few if any really. Entry into this game is no small chunk of change. The lack of truly protective grills will cause some to hesitate, especially if they have animals and little humans around. Needing help to set them up could be seen as a concern, but once they are set minor adjustments are not difficult and who doesn’t have a friend that can give you a hand? I have truly enjoyed the speakers during their stay here. If and when I am in the market for a new set of speakers these will be on a very, very short list of candidates. (That list is no more than five so that is saying quite a bit). I would opt for the wenge finish, but that is just a visual issue and has nothing to do with the overall elegance and beauty. I could live just as well with these walnut ones. Perhaps one day the speaker fairy will drop a set in my audio room.”
Ayre Acoustics K-3 preamplifier $3250 Review
September 14, 2020 Comments Off on Ayre Acoustics K-3 preamplifier $3250 Review
“The low-noise phono section uses essentially the same topology as the line stage. It has enough gain for any cartridge currently available, and includes a totally passive, zero-feedback RIAA circuit, which allows the high and low parts of the equalizer to be split into two independent sections instead of being tied together in the usual feedback loop. There are two gain blocks: high-frequency EQ is accomplished in one, low-frequency EQ in the other. The result is, according to Hansen, “ruler-flat, dead flat response from 100Hz to 20k.” We’ll see what Technical J. Norton’s measurements show. The remote control circuit does not use a microprocessor, so there’s no high-frequency garbage bouncing around inside the chassis. This innovation clearly required lots of work by Hansen, but since he’d already done it for the K-1, passing it on to the K-3 was no sweat—unless you ask his accountant.”
Echophone EC-1 Tube Radio Restoration with Alignment Procedure
September 14, 2020 Comments Off on Echophone EC-1 Tube Radio Restoration with Alignment Procedure
Hegel Music Systems H95 Integrated Amplifier-DAC $2000 Review
September 13, 2020 Comments Off on Hegel Music Systems H95 Integrated Amplifier-DAC $2000 Review
Next up was “I Can’t Tell You Why,” from the Eagles’ The Long Run (LP, Asylum X5E-508). I was taken aback by how clean and smooth Tim Schmit’s lead vocal and Glenn Frey’s lead guitar sounded, and by how starkly they stood out from the rest of the mix. In “Heartache Tonight,” though the weight of Don Henley’s drums was absent, I was floored by how clearly those drums and the space around them were reproduced, and by how powerful they sounded. These cuts from this LP played on the Pro-Ject X1 had never sounded so good.
I’d expected to knock the H95 a little for its lack of a built-in phono stage — after all, these days, so many entry-level integrated-DACs have one. That was all changed by the superdetailed, super-refined sound of the Pro-Ject X1 turntable and Bellari VP549 phono stage plugged into the H95’s analog input with inexpensive interconnects. The convenience of having a built-in phono stage not withstanding, I think those who value great sound and play LPs might be better off getting an H95 anyway and then finding their own phono stage — and a good one doesn’t have ”
Audiophilepure 
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