|  Jan 28, 2015  |  0 comments
Can you imagine the seventies without Compact Cassette, or the eighties without Compact Disc? Philips was one of the great innovating consumer electronics companies of the last century, easily surpassing most of its Japanese and American rivals. It may not have had the marketing nous of Apple, but it has originated far more technology than anyone in Cupertino ever did. But what of this century? Many would say its performance has been something of a mixed bag, but more recently there have been encouraging signs. A few years ago, it came up with its new audio brand ‘Fidelio’.
 |  Jan 26, 2015  |  0 comments
It is easy to take one look at a product and jump to conclusions about what it was designed to do and the intentions and thinking behind it. One look at the science-fiction prop styling and lustrously shiny finish of the Elipson Planet and you would be forgiven for writing it off as some sort of fancy lifestyle bauble. Two spheres, the size and shape of a steampunk astronaut helmet can only have resulted from a serious need for attention surely? The reality is that, the Elipson Planet is to French broadcasting what the Rogers LS3/5 is in the UK. The Planet has appeared in various versions over the last 50 years.
 |  Jan 26, 2015  |  0 comments
Driven a new car lately? They’re very good, aren’t they? Even a relatively anonymous, middle priced Eurobox like a Ford Focus is now capable of safe, comfortable long distance travel, and is no slouch around country lanes. It’s economical, nippy and practical, so what’s not to like? Loudspeakers are getting this way too. Having started reviewing them in the mid-nineties, I come across fewer downright bad ones now. Perhaps it’s because we’re a bit further down the road, or up the learning curve, to know how best to design a loudspeaker.
 |  Jan 26, 2015  |  0 comments
No sooner had A&K started selling its flagship AK240 portable hi-res audio player than it announcedit had also upgraded its two original portables, the AK100 and AK120 – reviewed issues 370 and 375 respectively. While the junior members of the AK club have been given new finishes and received a raft of performance enhancing measures (including Cirrus Logic CS4398 DACs) the AK240 remains the out and out leader of the gang. The defining feature of the flagship model is the presence of an extra XMOS processor, which provides native DSD support at both 2. 8MHz and 5.
 |  Jan 26, 2015  |  0 comments
Anyone who thinks of themselves as an audiophile may be more than a little dismayed to see a subwoofer review in these pages, but there’s alot to be gained from integrating a subwoofer into a two-channel hi-fi system that stretches beyond the reach of the majority of traditional loudspeakers. Subwoofers have come a long way in recent times, and with careful integration including a sub in your setup can have benefits on other elements of the sound aside from just extending its low-range performance. REL has been at the top of the subwoofer game since the Welsh company first appeared on the scene with models back in the nineties. It perfectly positioned itself for the home theatre boom, and the growth of the surround sound speaker market, with a range of dedicated subwoofer models that enabled movie fans to unleash multichannel soundtracks in their home.
 |  Jan 26, 2015  |  0 comments
Somewhere around the turn of the millennium, hi-fi started getting interesting again – with DVD-Audio and SACD arriving, MP3 going gangbusters and computer audio taking hold. Then asynchronous USB conferred hi-res capability on Macs and PCs, and now easy wireless has come of age thanks to aptX Bluetooth. Cambridge Audio’s new flagship DAC is a product of all this. Packed with most of the functionality that has popped up over the past decade, it purports to be a ‘greatest hits of digital’ in one convenient package.
 |  Jan 26, 2015  |  0 comments
Every once in a while someone does something remarkable that seems bizarre and contradictory to the received wisdom, yet sometimes they stick to their guns, resist ridicule and peer pressure and eventually turn out to be right. When Dick Fosbury jumped backwards over a high jump bar at the 1968 Olympics, many in the crowd thought he was mad. But this madness won him a gold medal as well as setting a new Olympic record. Origin Live may be better known for its highly engineered tonearms and turntables, but with the launch of its Astute speakers it’s bending over backwards to declare that there may be alternative ways to reproduce high fidelity music.
 |  Jan 26, 2015  |  0 comments
With a reputation for elegant Scandinavian design, Primare’s products are instantly recognisablefor their minimalist approach to high-end separates. At £6,500 each, the recently launched flagship 60pre/power amps ooze class fromtheir two-tone titanium and black cases housing the company’s latest UFPD (Ultra Fast Power Device)Class D technology. Below theseamps sits a selection of more modestly priced amps, CD players,a DAC and a MM/MC phono stage. The NP30 is based on the MM30 ‘media board’, a £1,300 add on that slots into dedicated ports in Primare’s I32 integrated and PRE32 preamp, turning them into fully fledged network players.
 |  Jan 23, 2015  |  0 comments
With the exception of REL and other longstanding subwoofer manufacturers, the concept of the 2. 1 system is something that has really only come into its own since the arrival of the sub/sat package in the home cinema boom at the start ofthe millennium. The concept of small speakers that take up little space and are underpinned by a subwoofer that can be tucked away out of sight had advantages for getting a home cinema system into a space that otherwise couldn’t accept one. It didn’t take a genius to see this could be applied to a hi-fi setup too.
 |  Jan 23, 2015  |  0 comments
Buyers have come to know what to expect from the £1,000 price point. Lavishing this sort of sum buys you a physically largish box that is nicely if not luxuriously finished. It gets you a decent set of drive units, and you’d expect to be looking at three per speaker at least – and that’s precisely what you get here. Here’s a three-way, four driver floorstander that’s just over a metre tall when sitting on its plinths (not shown).

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