| HDD System – Sony HAP-S1 Review In-depth (Part 3) |
| Auditioning starts via its analogue and digital line inputs, to gauge the amplifier section. This proves to have a smooth, detailed sound that is nicely animated. There is also some splashiness to the treble and some lack of air and space, although it is pleasant enough. |
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| HDD System – Sony HAP-S1 Review In-depth (Part 2) |
| Being a hard disk-based system, it gives instant access – there’s no lag between the track you choose and when it starts playing. Also, you don’t get dropouts as it isn’t subject to network glitches, and your computer can remain switched off while you’re playing music. |
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| HDD System – Sony HAP-S1 Review In-depth (Part 1) |
| It can be difficult to predict format trends, and even consumer electronics giants can be caught off guard, but a new range of hi-res music machines sees Sony make a welcome return to the hi-fi arena. Things got difficult back in the late nineties, when MP3 fi les began to replace Compact Disc. |
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| Brodmann Acoustics JB 155 Speaker (Part 2) |
| The JB155 delivers a sumptuously smooth and inviting sound. High frequencies are sweet and refined, with notable absence of ‘splash’ or graininess other than with truly raucous pop/rock recordings. Rather than projecting vivid images, the big Brodmann paints a broad and slightly diffuse sound picture across the end of a listening room. |
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| Brodmann Acoustics JB 155 Speaker (Part 1) |
| Viennese piano marque Brodmann put its brand name on a range of loudspeakers in 2009. We’ve been listening to Brodmann Acoustics’ ultra-luxurious JB155, a 1400mm-tall monolith whose 480mm-deep enclosure is trimmed handsomely in glossily lacquered burr walnut veneer befitting a finely-crafted piano. |
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| Cambridge Audio Aero 6 Review (Part 2) |
| Often, moving from a small standmount to a big floorstander creates more problems than it solves, but the Aero 6 emerges as the better of the two speakers in my view. Cleverly, you get all the benefits of having two woofers pumping away shifting air, but none of the pitfalls of having a bigger cabinet to keep in check. |
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| Cambridge Audio Aero 6 Review (Part 1) |
| Many will expect the Aero 6 to be better, then; after all, it’s nearly twice the price and has far more air inside its capacious cabinet. Trouble is, in doing a floorstanding version of a smaller standmount speaker, you open yourself up to a problem that’s never easily solved, especially in budget designs, which is how to keep the cabinet under control. |
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| Tivoli Audio Music System all-in-one system |
| There is a DAB/DAB+ tuner and the slot-loading CD drive will spin regular CDs as well as CD-R and CD-RW discs, offering playback of MP3 and WMA. I also discover by chance it will play 16-bit/44.1kHz AIFF files. |
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| Tall story: Cambridge Audio Aero 6 loudspeaker (Part 3) |
| Camel’s Three Wishesis a suitably expansive soundtrack to this, the Aeros firing wide to the extremities of my large listening room, seemingly untroubled by any lack of headroom, even at high levels. The texture of the shimmering backing synths and crisp guitar come over convincingly, and are played together in perfect time. |
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| Tall story: Cambridge Audio Aero 6 loudspeaker (Part 2) |
| Those twin bass units both feature paper cones. Having experimented for years with cone materials, designer Dominic Baker is now a fan of certain types of paper pulp in speaker cones; he says these have a great combination of stiffness and lightness that other materials can’t match. |
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| Simple Audio Listen desktop speakers |
| Set up in 2008 by Peter Murphy, a former MD of Linn, the Glasgow-based Simple Audio has so far concentrated on multi-room audio, competing with Sonos rather than the high-end sector in which Linn operates. |
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| Sony HAP-S1 HDD System - Hard time (Part 3) |
| Five years or so ago, the brave new world of computer audio grew up into hi-fiseparates with hard-disk drives inside. Products from companies like Brennan, Cambridge Audio and Yamaha offered instant playback of computer files from standalone boxes. Then streamers appeared, and the whole industry began to rally around this model. |
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| Sony HAP-S1 HDD System - Hard time (Part 2) |
| Being a hard disk-based system, it gives instant access – there’s no lag between the track you choose and when it starts playing. Also, you don’t get dropouts as it isn’t subject to network glitches, and your computer can remain switched off while you’re playing music. |
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| Sony HAP-S1 HDD System - Hard time (Part 1) |
| It can be difficult to predict format trends, and even consumer electronics giants can be caught off guard, but a new range of hi-res music machines sees Sony make a welcome return to the hi-fi arena. Things got difficult back in the late nineties, when MP3 files began to replace Compact Disc. |
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| Oyaide BR-12 turntable mat high precision |
| Perhaps the most amazing thing about turntables is that you can literally hear every part of them. They are ultra-sensitive, high precision, analogue measuring instruments designed to trace a groove in a vinyl disc down to microscopic tolerances. |
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| Review FiiO X3 – Digital Audio Player (Part 2) |
| This makes it best suited to compressed modern pop. Using Chloroformby Phoenix from Qobuz as an example, it is hard not to feel swamped by the massive synth sounds, but the X3 gives a satisfying sense of the midrange being able to cut through the ponderous bass pads. |
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| Keith Monks discOveryOne record cleaning machine |
| There are precious few brands that have scaled the high walls of the hi-fi industry, only to emerge blinking into the daylight of the wider world outside. Tannoy is the obvious example – it’s even reserved itself a place in the dictionary – and then you’re talking Linn and Quad, both of which seem to have seeped out into some civilian circles. |
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| Marantz Melody Stream M-CR510 - Melody maker (Part 2) |
| As with all recent Denon and Marantz wi-fi network systems and wireless speakers you have to press the Wi-Fi Connect button very briefly. Any longer than a quick press and the unit goes into WPS search mode as if you had pressed and held the button for the full three seconds. |
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| Marantz Melody Stream M-Cr510 - Melody maker (Part 1) |
| If you were one of the few people who bought a style system during the last decade you probably risked derision from your cleaner, never mind your tech-savvy mates unable to fathom why you’d accept all of the compromises of such a purchase. |
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| Azur’s full compliment with three new components |
| Adding to its hi-fi separates range, Cambridge Audio has announced the introduction of three new components. Swelling the ranks to five, the flagship Azur 851 Series now includes the Azur 851E preamplifier, Azur 851W power amplifier and Azur 851D digital-to analogue converter. |
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| Cambridge Audio DacMagic XS DAC |
| Increasingly, many of us are enjoying hi-res music stored on a computer having been downloaded from an HD audio website such as Linn Downloads or the Nordic Sound. |
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| Dynaudio Excite X34 $3290 - Reasons to be cheerful |
| Eagle-eyed readers will no doubt have spotted that an almost identical looking Dynaudio floorstander graced these pages back in the October 2013 issue and earned itself a prestigious Recommended badge. That speaker was the Xeo 5, an active design with a wireless receiver. |
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| Nexus 10 - still a class ace |
| The Nexus 10 been around for a year, but you wouldn’t know it from a quick glance as its specifications. It was a groundbreaking tablet when it first appeared, sporting the highest pixel count of any tablet display, and no other manufacturer has matched its Retina-beating resolution of 2560 x 1600 since then |
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| Microsoft Windows 8.1 - Fast fixes |
| You may find that certain programs in Windows 8.1 suffer from blurry or hard-to-read text This is caused by something called DPI Scaling and is due to Windows making a bad guess at how certain fonts should be displayed , casing them to appear fuzzy. |
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| AKG K545 - big and bold in shape and performance |
| Like their predecessors – the K550s – the newly unleashed K545s are behemoths, with a 3.5cm wide headband that doesn’t narrow its entire length. Maybe they have very large heads in Austria where these cans are designed, as even at their smallest size they can accommodate a head with ears 20cm apart. |
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| Sony MDR-10RC easy to adjust and slide into place on your head |
| Both cords are reasonably thick and have gold-plated L-shaped plugs, which are less prone to damage than straight plugs. Overall, although made of plastic they have a high-quality finish. Sony has used dynamic 40mm neodymium drivers with a closed-back design and claims the MDR-10RCs have a dynamic range that spreads as low as 5Hz up to a canine-compatible 40kHz. |
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