GoldNote are a well known for their very high end products but here Janine Elliot takes a listen to their €195 and €350 moving magnet cartridges.

Gol Note is well known for their distinctive turntables, particularly the €65,000 Bellagio Conquest Black King featuring a massive 270mm spindle. However, the company are also making phono stages, speakers, amplifiers, a CD player, a DSD streamer, cables and stands. They also make a variety of moving coil and moving magnet cartridges. I loved moving magnets in the 1970’s and my favourite Stanton 681 EE, Decca London Gold, Ortofon VMS20E and Shure V15iv cartridges still play well on my various old turntables. When everything turned Moving Coil we saw Moving Magnets consigned to the lower-end of the market as the sound from the new MC’s generally got faster and more detailed. In recent years new design MM’s and MI’s are back, showing that the format still has a place at the end of your arm. I recently reviewed the entry point Valore (meaning ‘value’) turntable and used their entry point Vasari Red cartridge, finding it sounding refreshingly musical and detailed.

Gold and Red seem to be common names in the GoldNote portfolio. Their Donatello, Machiavelli and Tuscany series of MC cartridges are epic products offering Gold and Red versions with equally epic specifications; the Tuscany offers 5-55,000Hz, 35db channel separation, silver wire and Samarium Cobalt magnet, boron cantilever and micro-ridge diamond. Those cartridges retail at 4.800 – 7,300 Euros for the Red and Gold respectively. So to be offered moving magnet Vasari Red and Gold cartridges that retail at a mere €195 and €350 I was rather apprehensive. However, the Red performed admirably in my Valore turntable review, so I wanted to put it together with the Gold to see how they both performed.  I asked Tommaso Dolfi, Marketing Manager of Gold Note why he chose “Gold” and “Red” as model variants, as opposed to “Gold” and “Silver”, and he told me the colours are related to the high-end and luxury world, something broader than hifi. He told me “…many brands usually define with gold the elegance/premium line and with red the “sportier” line”. He is currently considering the possibility of a silver range.

The Vasari replaces the earlier Babele moving magnet cartridge that retailed around €95, and comes in two levels of performance and design. Whilst both have similar looks it is clear that the Gold is a higher quality product being two grams heavier and formed from a solid block what Gold Note call “Duraluminium”.The Red is made of Delrin, otherwise known as Polyoxymethylene, a thermoplastic that has very high strength, hardness and rigidity. Both are very well made, as one would expect from Gold Note. Both have a rigid aluminium cantilever with copper wire and Alnico magnet, and both track at 2 grams. The Gold has a 7.5 x 15.5μm elliptical diamond whereas the Red is a 15.5μm conical shape. Unlike MM cartridges of old the cantilever is securely and directly installed into the metal body in order to ensure good rigidity and trackability, and ultimately so that all the information from the record groove makes its way to the magnet. And, if it does go blunt, as diamonds will eventually do, Tommaso Dolfi will re-tip a new diamond just as we have got accustomed to on our favourite MC cartridges.  The variance between the two cartridges isn’t just simply the diamond tip and housing material, as Tommaso I told me;

“The difference in the material used for the body also means that the Gold requires more precise and strictly matching internal coils”

The Vasari RED gave for me a full-bodied and detailed sound, surprising me with its ability at such low cost.  Stravinsky’s Symphony in C, written between 1938 and 1940, is one of my favourite works from the Russian-born composer, pianist, and conductor; a work commissioned by an American philanthropist Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss.  The 30 minute four movement work was written during his neoclassical period allowing it to be favoured by many traditionalists who might be less enamoured by his earlier more-distinctive rhythmical and less tonal style of writing, and the Vasari cartridges allow a very musical and clear picture of what is going on in the composer’s head, even if perhaps he denied it at the time;  The Second World War was already under way and Stravinsky was still mourning the death of his wife and daughters from tuberculosis, something the composer himself had just been diagnosed with in 1937. Stravinsky denied that his own personal woes had anything to do with the work’s rather laid back style and its retreat into more traditional writing, though it is easy to see some connections in the music. An extremely vivid placement of instruments, especially the depth of clarity in the cellos, was immediately apparent, though with the Gold this was slightly improved; enabling a finer degree of involvement in the orchestration and instrument positioning, particularly the brass “bursts” to interrupt the quaver repeating patterns of the strings. The cello is the closest instrument to the human voice, ranging from a bass singer bottom “C” to above top “A” in the soprano’s high end. The Red had previously shown me an almost human character to the instrument, as of course with violins and violas. The Gold communicated even better allowing me to get even closer to the music. That elliptical stylus would help get more detail from the groove. The two models do have identical specifications, both with an impedance of 1kΩ, an output level of 4.0mV and a claimed frequency range of 15Hz to 25kHz, but that stylus and solid aluminium frame do set this model as the clearer and more detailed, and ultimately better of the two, though at almost doubling of the price. That might seem a lot, but at €350 is a small price to pay for such improvement.

Turning to a 160g Rush live Kiel Auditorium album recorded in Missouri in1980, the Gold gave a more detailed and warmer sound with good attack and excellent spread of detail across the sound stage, particularly in the lower frequencies. The cartridge is a warm sounding product, but not in a bad way. It made me think of the warm sunshine in Montespertoli near Florence, Italy, where it is made or perhaps St Louis, Missouri, where the album was recorded. It also still sounded transparent, which worked well with the rock album just as much as I expected it would, of course, with classical music. Detail and ambience were excellent for such a modestly priced product. Turning to the Schubert Trout Quintet (EMI ASD 4032) showed yet again how good this cartridge is allowing clear positioning of instruments, particularly the piano, with a good detail of the individual musical lines.  Rick Wakeman’s “The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table” has a degree of orchestration that is as long as the album title, and often can sound congested and confused when not played on the very best cartridges. The Vasari Gold cartridge gave a very forward sound that was slightly more open than on the Red, and whilst not quite as good as my usual array of much more expensive cartridges, was still very acceptable. Indeed, my time with the Vasari Gold and Red showed me just why moving magnets shouldn’t be put cast to the annals of history just yet. Bearing in mind unless it is a high output Moving Coil it can be 1/100 of the sensitivity of a moving magnet so you need a really good MC phono-stage to compete. Another reason why you shouldn’t give up on moving magnets just yet. For those with a good 47KΩ load phono-stage or those with limited availability of cash, you should make the most of moving magnets, and both the Red and Gold are excellent contenders.

Conclusion

Whether coming in Red or Gold, this new cartridge from Gold Note was a surprisingly good sounding product at €195 and €350 respectively.  The Vasari takes the best parts of the best MM’s of old and put them all together in a single package.

There was an excellent musicality, especially in the low and mid frequencies, and an almost human sensitivity to the music making it very enjoyable. There is a definite improvement in detail and clarity from the Gold; an elliptical diamond is also a very important move in reducing any harmonic or intermodulation distortion, and the stricter matching of internal coils really does make a difference.

So, if cash allows that extra price is worth considering for the extra performance, and so would be the preferable choice, but don’t be fooled at either’s cheap price; these are both high achieving products that wouldn’t feel out of place in a £3000+ turntable.

Pros:

Good value
Excellent bass and midrange, especially on voices and strings
Can choose between two versions to fit your wallet

Cons:

Just slight lack of detail and speed when compared to much more expensive Moving Coil cartridges

GOLD

Typology: MM Phono Cartridge
Output level: 4.0mV
Frequency response: 15-25000Hz
Impedance: 1000Ω
Suggested load: 47KΩ
Inductance: 500mH
Compliance: 10×10-6cm/dyne
Channel separation: > 22dB
Channel balance: < 2dB
Suggested tracking weight: 2.0g
Cantilever: Aluminum
Diamond: Elliptical
Diamond size: 7.5*15.5μm
Weight: 9g
Coil Wire: Copper
Magnet: Alnico
Mounting hole diamond distance: 9mm

RED

Typology: MM Phono Cartridge
Output level: 4.0mV
Frequency response: 15-25000Hz
Impedance: 1000Ω
Suggested load: 47KΩ
Inductance: 500mH
Compliance: 10×10-6cm/dyne
Channel separation: > 20dB
Channel balance: < 2dB
Suggested tracking weight: 2.0g
Cantilever: Aluminum
Diamond: Conical
Diamond size: 15.5μm
Weight: 7g
Coil Wire: Copper
Magnet: Alnico
Mounting hole diamond distance: 9mm

British brand Onix will be a familiar name to many and has a strong heritage. Here Dominic Marsh puts their DNA-50 amplifier costing £1979 through its paces for Hifi Pig. 

The brand Onix is a wholly owned British concern that has been around for a good few years now (approximately 35 years no less) and for reasons I still cannot fathom out, they have not really reached into mainstream hifi territory and become well known amongst audiophiles as other brands have become during the same period.  Except of course they do have a small loyal band of followers and I shall touch upon this group of people in this review and the influence they have on the current product.  Maybe ONIX don’t bang their drum loud enough, or they want to maintain the key core values they are not prepared to sacrifice for the sake of vanity, fashion, or following the herd.  This review then is about their latest model the DNA-50 integrated amplifier offering, so kindly read on.

Construction

If ever was a minimalist front panel layout then this is it.  A mere 45mm in height, it is claimed to be the thinnest integrated amplifier on the market, so without scouring the entire world’s supply of integrated amplifiers to check that assertion, it remains unchallenged by me.  Two sizeable rotary controls dealing with volume control and source selection only, so beyond that there is nothing else to excite the knob twiddlers or switch pressers, then there a series of six multi coloured miniature LEDs arranged horizontally to denote which source has been selected, then zilch, nothing, nada to play with or look at.  Well not strictly true, because the ONIX logo has been milled into the bottom right hand corner of the faceplate.  You can watch a video of the faceplate being manufactured on the ONIX DNA website.

No matter which way you rotate the source selector knob, it increments only from left to right sequentially.

Around the back it’s equally as complex, with six pairs of RCA line level sockets, 2 output RCA sockets, a set of four BFA type speaker terminals, an earth tag, an IEC power inlet and an on/off power switch.  The input sockets are labelled “O, G, W, R, Y, B” and I thought at first glance I thought I had a drop too much homebrew the night before, until I realised that sequence corresponds with the different miniature coloured LEDs on the front panel and it doesn’t need a genius to realise the letters are the first letters of the coloured LEDs of course (Blue, Green, Yellow, etc.), but to save confusion and befuddling nitwits like me, ONIX have labelled them inputs 1 to 6 below the sockets.  The left hand OUTPUT socket can be used to feed a separate power amplifier and the right hand OUTPUT socket pair has another function which is to allow use of the amplifier with the last chosen input to remain active while in standby, enabling a selected source input fed into the amp having an output while it is in standby, to something like a multi-room installation while the main sound/entertainment system is not active.

If your speaker cables are fitted with spade connectors or they are bare wire ended, then you need a different set of speaker cables (or connectors) to fit the DNA-50 as these BFA terminals accept neither one of those.  As a handy tip, “Z” banana plugs fit if you don’t have BFA plugs available.

The amplifier’s chassis is a good strong rigid affair made from aluminium and a nice touch is the recessed stainless steel screws which won’t rust or distort the first time you need to take the lid off (not that you would).  Talking of chassis and lids, note there are no ventilation holes or slots, as the chassis itself also performs the role of heat sink for the electronics within.  It works very well too, as after 3 hours of solid listening the lid isn’t even warm to the touch.

Finally, you get a very well made metal remote control unit, again fashioned in minimalist style with only three buttons to play with.  One is underlined with three dots for source selection which also doubles up as the standby button.  A quick press on this button advances the source sequentially from left to right, or pressing and holding for four seconds sets the amplifier into standby mode, with a quick press to bring it out of standby with the last selected source stored.  Below that button are two others for up/down volume selection setting.

Well, for a minimalist amplifier design that took some explaining I must say.

I am informed there will be a phono stage and a DAC in the pipeline as extra cost options.  Contact ONIX DNA for more details.

Sound Quality

BANG! Right from the off I was impressed with how clean and crisp this amplifier sounded and that was fresh out of the box.  ONIX informed me it had been soak tested but not fully run in yet, so I carried on listening regardless to that and if there was any improvement in sound quality, it was not noticeably manifested during the evaluation.

This is a good old fashioned Class AB amplifier with a lot of experience behind the design and for good measure, someone with a very good listening ear has honed it into a pure music making machine without any gimmicks.  From the lowest bass to the highest treble everything is evenly balanced, so while you are listening no part of the sound spectrum dominates and that is a GOOD THING in my book.  At the same time its presentation is effortless so you can forget the specifications as almost irrelevant and it takes complex music into its stride with absolute ease.

However, (he’s softening us up for something I sense you thinking) there is one thing I ought to draw your attention to before I go any further.  The motorised volume control has a very narrow usable range starting from 7 o’clock (fully off) to only 10 o’clock  after which it is rather loud, so by the 11o’clock position it is getting a bit raucous.  ONIX explained this to me by saying a good number of their existing customers have legacy and vintage products which produce around 750mV outputs rather than the standardised 2 volt outputs we have become accustomed to these days, so that lower input voltage is reflected in the volume control having a wider operating window range when used with these units.  Now that makes sense to me, but setting the volume I was happy with using the remote control was a series of up/down jerky steps until I found the exact level I wanted.  I found it easier to walk across and manually set it with the volume knob but even that required a deftness of touch at times.  If that is my one and only gripe with the ONIX DNA-50, then put this comment into context with the remainder of the review.

The DNA-50 performed faultlessly with my resident speakers and also a number of other speakers that come and go, ranging from book shelf to floorstanders that had submitted for review purposes and it handled them all equally well.  Bass in particular was very deep and very well controlled with not the slightest hint of bloom or overhang.  Dynamics as fast, lithe and crisp as you could wish for and when the going got tough with some really complex music the DNA-50 was almost saying to you “Is that the best you can do to wrong foot me? Ha!”   The DNA-50 amplifier has a real solidity and assuredness that you don’t even bother to seek out its purported strengths or weaknesses, you simply sit back, relax, spin your favourite tunes and be comprehensively drawn right in by the clarity, power and emotion of the music.  In other words, you really are not listening to the ONIX DNA-50 at all per se.

At this point in the review I would generally try and relate those statements to some music I put through this amplifier during the evaluation, but on this occasion I am going to refrain from doing that, so instead I will summarise this amplifier’s traits for you.

Treble is crisp and sweet, free from sting, splashiness, or tizz.  It picks up ambience and reverberation cues with complete unflinching accuracy.  I was impressed by the way it made drum cymbals very real and tangible, so you were left in no doubt it was wood striking metal.  And there was a moment or two of “not heard that before” from many very familiar recordings.

Midrange was also free from any colouration, haze or chestiness.  Female vocals a delight especially.

Bass, strong, articulate and powerful, as well as communicative.  Kick drum had the gut thumping power I adore.  Bass guitar in particular had a real growl to it rather than just low bass notes and each pluck stood out as a separate entity.  I’m sure some of you out there know exactly what I mean by that.

Conclusion

As you have probably gathered by now from reading this review is that the ONIX DNA-50 is all about the music, nothing more and nothing less.  It has no embellishments, no bling, no gimmicks, no tricks up it’s sleeves, it does not masquerade as something it isn’t, it is simply well designed, well built and it’s true forte is beguiling you entirely with the way it plays music.  I’m going to add a rider to that, because I see so many components described as being “musical” which I interpret as a euphemism for something else;  as a poor and entirely subjective way of not being able to categorise a component’s characteristics and that is the last thing I could accuse the DNA-50 of and my use of the word “music” is what I say it is.

So I am asking, no pleading, that you to give this amplifier a serious audition.  It might captivate you like it did me and I highly recommend it accordingly.

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality:  Simple design well executed

Sound Quality:  I couldn’t quibble at all about the musical abilities of this amplifier

Value For Money:  You could pay more than the asking price and still be good value in sound terms

Pros: Stunning sound quality sufficient enough to silence the one gripe I found

Cons:  Volume control is rather sensitive, more so with the remote control

Price: £1979.00

Dominic Marsh

Specification

British brand Onix will be a familiar name to many and has a strong heritage. Here Dominic Marsh puts their DNA–50 amplifier costing £1979 through its paces.

The brand Onix is a wholly owned British concern that has been around for a good few years now (approximately 35 years no less) and for reasons I still cannot fathom out, they have not really reached into mainstream hifi territory and become well known amongst audiophiles as other brands have become during the same period.  Except of course they do have a small loyal band of followers and I shall touch upon this group of people in this review and the influence they have on the current product.  Maybe ONIX don’t bang their drum loud enough, or they want to maintain the key core values they are not prepared to sacrifice for the sake of vanity, fashion, or following the herd.  This review then is about their latest model the DNA-50 integrated amplifier offering, so kindly read on.

Construction

If ever there was a minimalist front panel layout then this is it.  A mere 45mm in height, it is claimed to be the thinnest integrated amplifier on the market, so without scouring the entire world’s supply of integrated amplifiers to check that assertion, it remains unchallenged by me.  Two sizeable rotary controls dealing with volume control and source selection only, so beyond that there is nothing else to excite the knob twiddlers or button pressers, then there a series of six multi coloured miniature LEDs arranged horizontally to denote which source has been selected, then zilch, nothing, nada, to play with or look at.  Well not strictly true, because the ONIX logo has been milled into the bottom right hand corner of the faceplate.  You can watch a video of the faceplate being manufactured on the ONIX DNA website.

Around the back it’s equally as complex, with six pairs of RCA line level sockets, 2 output RCA sockets, a set of four BFA type speaker terminals, an earth tag, an IEC power inlet and an on/off power switch.  The input sockets are labelled “O, G, W, R, Y, B” and I thought at first glance I thought I had a drop too much home brew the night before, until I realised that sequence corresponds with the different miniature coloured LEDs on the front panel and it doesn’t need a genius to realise the letters are the first letters of the coloured LEDs of course (Blue, Green, Yellow, etc.), but to save confusion and befuddling nitwits like me, ONIX have labelled them inputs 1 to 6 below the sockets.  The left hand OUTPUT socket can be used to feed a separate power amplifier and the right hand OUTPUT socket pair has another function which is to allow use of the amplifier with the last chosen input to remain active while in standby, enabling a selected source input fed into the amp having an output while it is in standby, to something like a multi-room installation while the main sound/entertainment system is not active.

If your speaker cables are fitted with spade connectors or they are bare wire ended, then you need a different set of speaker cables (or connectors) to fit the DNA-50 as these BFA terminals accept neither one of those.  As a handy tip, “Z” banana plugs fit if you don’t have BFA plugs available.

The amplifier’s chassis is a good strong rigid affair made from aluminium and a nice touch is the recessed stainless steel screws which won’t rust or distort the first time you need to take the lid off (not that you would).  Talking of chassis and lids, note there are no ventilation holes or slots in same, as the chassis itself also performs the role of heat sink for the electronics within.  It works very well too, as after 3 hours of solid listening the lid isn’t even warm to the touch.

Finally, you get a very well made metal remote control unit, again fashioned in minimalist style with only three buttons to play with.  One is underlined with three dots for source selection which also doubles up as the standby button.  A quick press on this button advances the source sequentially from left to right, or pressing and holding for four seconds sets the amplifier into standby mode, with a quick press to bring it out of standby with the last selected source stored.  Below that button are two others for up/down volume selection setting.

Well, for a minimalist amplifier design that took some explaining I must say.

I am informed there will be a phono stage and a DAC in the pipeline as extra cost options.

Sound Quality

BANG! Right from the off I was impressed with how clean and crisp this amplifier sounded and that was fresh out of the box.  ONIX informed me it had been soak tested but not fully run in yet, so I carried on listening regardless to that and if there was any improvement in sound quality, it was not noticeably manifested during the evaluation.

This is a good old fashioned Class AB amplifier with a lot of experience behind the design and for good measure, someone with a very good listening ear has honed it into a pure music making machine without any gimmicks.  From the lowest bass to the highest treble everything is evenly balanced, so while you are listening no part of the sound spectrum dominates and that is a GOOD THING in my book.  At the same time its presentation is effortless so you can forget the specifications as almost irrelevant and it takes complex music into it’s stride with absolute ease.

However, (he’s softening us up for something I sense you thinking) there is one thing I ought to draw your attention to before I go any further.  The motorised volume control has a very narrow usable range starting from 7 o’clock (fully off) to only 10 o’clock  after which it is rather loud, so by the 11o’clock position it is getting a bit raucous.  ONIX explained this to me by saying a good number of their existing customers have legacy and vintage products which produce around 750mV outputs rather than the standardised 2 volt outputs we have become accustomed to these days, so that lower input voltage is reflected in the volume control having a wider operating window range when used with these units.  Now that makes sense to me, but setting the volume I was happy with using the remote control was a series of up/down jerky steps until I found the exact level I wanted.  I found it easier to walk across and manually set it with the volume knob but even that required a deftness of touch at times.  If that is my one and only gripe with the ONIX DNA-50, then put this comment into context with the remainder of the review.

The DNA-50 performed faultlessly with my resident speakers and also a number of other speakers that were submitted for review purposes and it handled them all equally well.  Bass in particular was very deep and very well controlled with not the slightest hint of bloom or overhang.  Dynamics as fast, lithe and crisp as you could wish for and when the going got tough with some really complex music the DNA-50 was almost saying to you “Is that the best you can do to wrong foot me? Ha!”   The DNA-50 amplifier has a real solidity and assuredness that you don’t even bother to seek out its purported strengths or weaknesses, you simply sit back, relax, spin your favourite tunes and be comprehensively drawn right in by the clarity, power and emotion of the music.  In other words, you really are not listening to the ONIX DNA-50 at all per se.

At this point in the review I would generally try and relate those statements to some music I put through this amplifier during the evaluation, but on this occasion I am going to refrain from doing that, so instead I will summarise this amplifier’s traits for you.

Treble is crisp and sweet, free from sting, splashiness, or tizz.  It picks up ambience and reverberation cues with complete unflinching accuracy.  I was impressed by the way it made drum cymbals very real and tangible, so you were left in no doubt it was wood striking metal.  And there was a moment or two of “not heard that before” from many very familiar recordings.

Midrange was also free from any colouration, haze or chestiness.  Female vocals were a delight especially.

Bass was strong, articulate and powerful, as well as communicative.  Kick drum had the gut thumping power I adore.  Bass guitar in particular had a real growl to it rather than just low bass notes and each pluck stood out as a separate entity.  I’m sure some of you out there know exactly what I mean by that.

Conclusion

As you have probably gathered by now from reading this review is that the ONIX DNA-50 is all about the music, nothing more and nothing less.  It has no embellishments, no bling, no gimmicks, no tricks up it’s sleeves, it does not masquerade as something it isn’t, it is simply well designed, well built and it’s true forte is beguiling you entirely with the way it plays music.  I’m going to add a rider to that, because I see so many components described as being “musical” which I interpret as a euphemism for something else;  as a poor and entirely subjective way of not being able to categorise a component’s characteristics and that is the last thing I could accuse the DNA-50 of and my use of the word “music” is what I say it is.

So I am asking, no pleading, that you to give this amplifier a serious audition.  It might captivate you like it did me and I highly recommend it accordingly.

Build Quality:  Simple design well executed

Sound Quality:  I couldn’t quibble at all about the musical abilities of this amplifier

Value For Money:  You could pay more than the asking price and this amp still be good value in sound terms

Pros: Stunning sound quality sufficient enough to silence the one gripe I found

Cons:  Volume control is rather sensitive, more so with the remote control

Price: £1979

Dominic Marsh

SPECIFICATION

Audiovector are based in Denmark and produce a wide range of loudspeakers? Here Dominic March takes a listen to their £750 QR1 standmount with ribbon tweeter. 

“For those of you that are not familiar with the Audiovector brand, they are in fact one of Denmark’s leading speaker manufacturers, up there with the likes of Dali, Dynaudio and B&O, headquartered in Copenhagen.

Audiovector also provide what I think is a rare and rather unique service for it’s customer base and that is to offer a full upgrade service for your existing base level speakers to the higher specified version of the same model…”

Read the full review here

Many of us of a certain age will remember the radiogram, now Ruark bring it bang up to date with their R7 Radiogram costing £2000. John Scott gets a bit nostalgic in what is a bit of a departure for Hifi Pig.

I have been fascinated by music and the things that make music for literally as long as I can remember.  My earliest musical memories centre around a 1950s HMV radiogram that took pride of place  in the corner of our living room.  At this point, readers born after 1970 may require some explanation as to what a radiogram actually is.  The radiogram combined a record player – we didn’t call them turntables back then – with a radio (we didn’t call those tuners yet either).  The record player and radio were housed in a solid wooden cabinet containing a speaker, or if you were lucky a pair of speakers, and usually a little built in cupboard to store your record collection.  The radiogram was as much a piece of furniture as a functional item and was built for the ages – ours still lives in my mother’s house.

That radiogram entertained and educated me.  I moved from Pinky and Perky records (if you don’t know, look them up) and a series of orange vinyl 7 inch records that played at 78 rpm and contained nursery rhymes and children’s stories, to cherry picking from my elder sister’s record collection.  She was principally a Cliff Richard fan and I didn’t share that enthusiasm but The Last Time by The Rolling Stones, Yeah, Yeah by Georgie Fame, Here Comes The Night by Lulu and Cathy’s Clown by The Everley Brothers were given regular plays. The radio was something to be played with rather than played; the 4 bandwidths of VHF, Long Wave, Medium Wave and Short Wave could individually be coaxed into making a variety of interesting noises by twiddling the tuning knob but musically speaking there was little there to interest me.  That would all change in 1967 through, when BBC Radio 1 took to the airwaves.

The radiogram fell out of fashion by the end of the 1960s; replaced by the music centre, which typically added a cassette deck to the turntable/radio combo, and the increasing popularity of separate systems for those who really took their hifi seriously.  Tons of teak, mahogany, valves and Garrard turntables were consigned to the scrap heap – just not in our house.  Fashions often come full circle and if you have visited the furniture department of your local department store recently you will have noticed that 1950s furniture is bang on trend; all sexily-curved sofas and spindly-legged tables.  And if your local department store is the same as mine, a Ruark R7 radiogram sitting prettily in amongst them and looking perfectly at home.

Unboxing and Appearance 

Like the radiograms of yore, the R7 is very much a piece of furniture and is also solidly built; the unit’s 30 kg weight is testament to the quality of its walnut, aluminium and glass construction.  The unit arrived well packet inside a sturdy cardboard container.  A cardboard box is a cardboard box but the external design featuring the Ruark logo and a breakdown of the R7s features give a sense of the quality of the quality of the product within. Opening the box, the R7 and its component parts were so well packed that I was already dreading the repacking that I would have to do when the time came to return the product.  Luckily when the time came, that actually turned out to be pretty straightforward.

The R7 itself is cozily snuggled in a large cotton drawstring bag – very useful for protecting the walnut cabinet work if you need to put the unit into temporary storage.  A second box contains the power supply and a third the legs, remote control, FM aerial and various other accoutrements.  Slipping the R7 out of its little sleeping bag, I was immediately struck by the quality of its cabinet work – it really is superb, not just on the obvious visible surfaces but also on the base of the unit where the subwoofer lives.  The R7 can be used as a freestanding unit on its elegant spindle legs.  Alternatively, is can sit on top of a sideboard or AV cabinet supported on 4 screw-in “pucks”.  Aesthetically, my preference was for the freestanding spindly-legged option but the presence of a Christmas tree in the room meant that space was at a premium so, after a short test period using the legs, the sideboard option was the one I went for.

Setup,  Operation and Sound 

You would expect an all-in-one unit like a radiogram to be simplicity itself to set up and the R7 does not disappoint on that account. The circular, almost hemispherical, remote control is intuitive to use and in combination with the bright and clear front panel display, I very quickly entered my wifi password and connected the R7 to the audio files on my NAS and to Internet radio via my router.  It is possible to scroll through your network audio library using the remote and the display but if you gave a large library this quickly becomes tedious.  This is not a particular criticism of the R7 however – this process on the R7 is no more or less tedious than on any other product that offers on-screen library navigation.  Fortunately, as the R7 is  UPnP compliant, I was able to use my NAS’s library management app on my iPad to more easily navigate my collection.

Safe in the knowledge that my digital library was under control, I decided to start my R7 listening experience with the FM/DAB radio options.  I have never owned a radio that relied on a ribbon aerial and found the results to be anywhere near satisfactory.  Unsurprisingly, the R7 was no different. I went through the usual farce ballet of positioning the ribbon in unlikely and impractical configurations in order to get a signal that was as stable and static-free as possible.  Why anyone would want to do this when there is a perfectly acceptable substitute available in the form of Internet radio is beyond me.   I can say that because radio is not a particularly important source for me.  If it is for you, however, then connecting the R7 to an external FM/DAB aerial ought to see you right in that department.

Moving on to the CD player, I mirrored the R7’s retro-but-modern feel with Don’t Be Afraid, the recent album from country singer Tami Neilson, which also has a Fifties style with an up to date twist.  The R7 suited the album’s production perfectly; twangy baritone guitars were detailed and resonant; Tami’s vocals were rendered with clarity but with a degree of warmth.  The overall sound just made me want to settle down with a glass of red wine and wallow in the album from start to finish.

The R7 retained these qualities when I moved on to some choices from my digital library.  The R7 can be warm and comfortable like an old pair of slippers but it is also adaptable.   When asked to summon up the crisp, cold air and glacially-sculpted landscapes of Sibilius’ second symphony, it was still capable of painting an appropriate sonic picture.  Once again I found myself simply settling back and letting the music take me away. It would be unrealistic to expect the R7 to have a massive soundstage and it doesn’t, but it does do okay for its size.  I threw a lot of different styles of music at the R7; given the time of year, a lot of different styles of Christmas music in particular, and time and again the word I kept coming back to was comfortable.  The R7 isn’t the last word in tonal accuracy, it won’t knock you off your feet in the way that it coveys pace, detail and rhythm but it does offer an easy and seductive listen.  Playing Haitian Divorce from Steely Dan’s album The Royal Scam, I still got caught up in the intricacies of the instrumentation but I wasn’t able to pull the music apart and follow Dean Parks’ guitar lines or Bernard Purdie’s hi hat throughout the song in quite the same way as I normally can with my usual hifi set up.

I have not previously had any use for Bluetooth in an audio system but I discovered that the R7’s USB port was capable of powering my Amazon Dot and once I had paired that to the R7 via Bluetooth, there was great fun to be had by asking Alexa to play Radio 2 or a 1960’s Christmas playlist.  She even came up with the goods when I asked her to: “play the song that goes ‘Poor old Johnny Ray’”.  Okay, so this was straying away from hifi quality but for a bit of casual listening and a bit of fun it was perfectly acceptable.

Conclusion 

The Ruark R7 is a versatile, stylish and very well-built unit bringing together a CD player, network player, FM/DAB and Internet radio and Bluetooth connectivity.  It is never going to outperform a well-matched set of separate components but that’s not really the point and so if you feel this is the kind of thing for you it comes highly recommended. The R7 brings something unique to your home.  If you decide that you need one in your life then nothing else will do.

AT A GLANCE 

Build Quality: First-class craftsmanship, oozing quality

Sound Quality: Not the last word in Hifi at the price but a highly engaging and enjoyable listen

Value For Money: Purely in sound terms you can make £2000 go a lot further, but the R7 is much more than just a piece of audio equipment

Pros: 

Versatile and easy to use

Killer looks (if Fifties-inspired design is your thing)

Exceptional build quality

Cons:

Fifties-inspired design is not for everyone

If sound quality is your top priority, you can do better for the money

Price:  £2000

John Scott

Specifications

DAB, DAB+ and FM Tuner with RDS

Ultra black, high contrast fluorescent display

Dual aerial inputs allow for separate DAB and FM aerial feeds

Comprehensive Internet Radio functionality

Slot loading CD player plays CD-Audio and MP3 music disks

Full Wi-Fi capability allows wireless networking and music streaming

Bluetooth with aptX allows CD quality direct streaming with compatible devices

Charge-port for charging smartphones and tablet computers

2 × 5.5” dual concentric stereo drive

1 × 8” long throw subwoofer drive

160 watts nominal power output

Switchable digital and analogue auxiliary inputs

Adjustable treble and bass settings

Enhanced 3D sound processing

Stereo headphone output

Dimensions (without legs): H175 × W1000 × D400mm

Dimensions (on legs): H650 × W1000 × D400mm

Weight: 30kg

Supplied with spindle legs for free standing mode or puck feet for mounting R7 on existing sideboard or AV cabinet

Optional TV mount

Rich walnut veneer cabinet and black lacquer legs

Dan Worth takes a look at an interesting tweak from IsoAcoustics in the form of their GAIA III isolation footers costing £199.

This years Bristol Sound and Vision Show has been covered extensively here on Hifi Pig, so take a look at the articles. There were a great number of exhibitors with some really interesting new equipment for 2017.

Among the manufacturers and distributors present I found one of the better sounds and demos to be in the SCV Distribution room, comprising of a range of brands and platforms. For me my interest was directed towards their main show system, which comprised of a Benchmark DAC3 HGC (reviewed here), paired with a Benchmark AHB2 stereo power amplifier and Aria 936 loudspeakers. The characteristics of the sound in this room suited my own personal tastes very well, with a greatly open, full bodied and detailed sound that excels on transparency and insight.

The system demo was very much orientated around what IsoAcoustics GAIA feet, particularly the GAIA III due to its support in weight relation of the Arias, with a 32kg max load capacity. IsoAcoustics also produce two other sizes and weight bearing load versions of the Gaia – the GAIA I which can handle speaker or rack loads up to 100kgs, GAIA II 54kgs and then the Gaia III 32kgs, each rating is per set of four not the individual footer. 

Design wise, aesthetically they are very nice with a high grade stainless steel body which is dark chrome plated and looks fantastic and in combination with the rubberised internal structure which is formed to stabilise internal reflections and also forms as the stable base to the footer in one moulded piece; a tactile suction type force for a hard surface, minimising vibrations and ringing from cabinet to floor and vice versa, allowing the supported speaker to be in a more “floaty” position. Carpet spike adapters are also available for under this system and are not a replacement to the rubberised bottoms which are intrinsically part of the overall vibration control system.

Note: The IsoAcoustic logo on the GAIA needs to be facing forward when the footers are installed due to the lateral movement of the system, alternatively they can be rotated to 180 degrees for a logo-less look.

A standard spike fitted to the bottom of a loudspeaker will transfer energy into any floor, but whether concrete or floating there is still a bounce and a ringing effect. These vibrations will also travel up through the equipment rack and harm the performance of those delicate electronics. Bass energy in a room is also detrimental to speaker performance and the transfer of this energy to the floor and room will reflect back into the speaker causing a smearing effect, especially of the bass leading to overblown and bloaty bass notes. The construction of the GAIA feet disperses and minimises this reaction through the combination of their materials and the movement of the devices to compensate for driver movements during playback, in relation to Newton’s third law.

Installation is a breeze and IsoAcoustics, instead of selling the customer a designated size for their requirements, include 8mm, 6mm and 1/4″ threaded inserts as standard which all fit the GAIA without adapters. Also included is a small wrench for a groove on the threaded inserts for fine adjustments, along with different sized knurled ring fasteners/washers for the underside of the speaker and top of the foot (covering the adjustment groove for complete anal aesthetics) for secure and stable fixing. When installed the speaker becomes flexible to the floor and I spent quite a few childish moments flexing the speaker backwards and forwards like a skyscraper during an earthquake.

The Sound

Personally I’ve been working my way through a bunch of speaker isolators over the past year or so, finding many to either suck out the bass, muddy the midrange or make the sound hard, I was considering trying some Townsend Podiums next but they are really quite expensive. After hearing the GAIAs at Bristol on a system that suited my tastes very well and the A/Bing between two sets of the same speakers, one with the GAIA III and the other pair with standard spikes I thought, now these seem worth investigating further and I’m very glad I did. 

The first most noticeable difference for me when I finished installing the GAIA III was how much more “freer” the sound was from the speakers, the bass especially instantly stood out, far more insight and detailed. Bass extension was far better controlled and tighter with the upper regions being more defined and natural in presentation. My system is hardly lumpy or bloated, but a more explorative and musical nature came with seemingly more weight as the bass was almost able to breath more and felt so much less restrictive in how it interacted with me and my room. Even the nasty node I get in one corner by an alcove disappeared considerably.

Midrange sounds gained a little fluidity and the vocalists had better air and space around them allowing for finer venue acoustics to come through from the recorded material. The overall transparency of the midrange was wonderful with more perceived structure to depth and overall three dimensionality front to back. A particularly welcomed aspect of the speaker being isolated so well was how much grunt and body a male vocalist delivered, with a real throaty and or chesty nature to some artists which is conveyed well here already, but just not quite as good as with the GAIA III in place.

Top end frequencies were also very pleased to receive some GAIA treatment; again the overall air and perceivable bandwidth was extended further to convey more realism and welcomed spatial awareness. Micro details were dynamically stronger and there was a more holographic presentation to boot. Leading edges were also more precise and the cleaner edges were coupled with great tonality and timbre – there is NO loss of body to the upper frequencies although the characteristics were of a cleaner nature. Everything was just more natural, precise and ultimately timed far better.

Overall soundstage presence was more accurate, transparent and spatial, very cohesive and exploratory. One very important factor I will note that has been a bug bearer for me in my listening room is slightly behind me in the upper right part of my room I have always noticed a small null. I can hear harmonics all around my room (and it’s not perfect by any means but what it is is realistic to many domestic setups), apart from this one small area where sound seems to fall into a black hole, after listening to my speakers on the GAIAs I actually was amazed that there was actually sounds in this area and whatever room/speaker/frequency interactions had disturbed things was cured!

Conclusion

If I had to describe the IsoAcoustics GAIA III in one sentence it would be that they allow the speakers to sound more tactile, resolute, spacious and natural, adding tone and timbre and increasing timing performance.

The aesthetically pleasing design, full fixture kit for any speaker (including B&W 800 and Nautilus adapters – optional) and the fact that they stabilise the speakers to the floor so much better than anything else I’ve tried, gives complete peace of mind, especially for the domestic family room, where other anomalies cannot be treated and the speakers are also protected from little fellas who bump into them with their fire engines, they simply flex rather than fall on the micro Firefighters.

I will be buying these two sets for my Ayons and consider these one of the better tweaks I’ve made to the system, I can see the IsoAcoustics GAIA isolation feet doing incredibly well over this side of the pond and I’d like to give credit to SCV Distribution for focusing so intently on their implementation in the demo room at the Bristol Show this year, as they are one of the cheaper products they support and usually it’s the most expensive pieces that are given the limelight at such events.

Build Quality: Superb!

Sound Quality: superb!

Value For Money: Superb! 

Pros:

Beautifully constructed, super supportive and allow for the speaker to present itself with far more tactile  freedom in bandwidth and allowing the frequencies to really breath, giving more insight, timbre and timing. 

Cons:

Absolutely nothing!

Price: 

GAIA III (Tested here) – £199

GAIA II – £299

GAIA I – £599

Dan Worth

A month or so ago we published a review of the RDacoustic Evolution speaker, a back loaded, single driver horn loudspeaker. Here we have the latest model from the Czech company in the form of the €8790 Euphoria.

The Euphoria is an interesting looking speaker as it combines an eight inch full range driver with a fifteen inch ported woofer. The woofer has a knob for both sensitivity and bass so you can tailor it to your room and your preferences and whilst this Beymer unit is crossed over (obviously), the full range driver is run fully open. Essentially this is a two box design with the cabinets for each driver being separate.

Physically the speakers stand 93cm in height with a width of 51 cm and a depth of 48cm with each weighing a substantial 45Kg. You can get the Euphoria in a choice of four woods (Oak, Ash, cherry and American Nut) and a choice of colours of artificial leather that goes round the top and sides of the speakers. The front and back of the speakers is made from a rounded off 40mm piece of wood, whilst the body of the speaker is made of Ultra-HDF.  Instead of using spikes the Euphorias use wooden spheres which I thought was pretty cool. Round back there’s a very well finished round brass plate with two pairs of binding posts and knobs for controlling sensitivity (pure, balance and defined) and bass (+1, +2 and +3 dB) which after much messing about I found I preferred Pure and Plus 3dB – folk who know me and read my reviews know I like to feel bass). Overall the look of the speakers isn’t going to suit everyone, but personally I really loved the unusual design, though Edvard Munch’s The Scream did get mentioned by a couple of visitors, but no one is going to question how well put together these speakers are.

The technical design is of course unusual too and in my notes I have written “has the world gone mad” but thinking about it this design it’s actually pretty sensible and potentially gives you the benefit of a single driver loudspeaker and all the speed and openness that the best implementations afford, along with the bass oomph you just don’t get with even large single driver loudspeakers like the aforementioned Evolution speaker from RDacoustics.

Sound 

As soon as I plumbed these speakers into the system and started playing music I knew that I was going to enjoy them a great deal; I just sat back and listened to Hawkwind’s Hall Of The Mountain Grill (great record by the way) without really taking much notice, but the immediate thing that hits home when compared to the Evolution speakers is that they don’t have the sheer sense of scale of their bigger brother, but what they lack in scale they more than make up for by having more of that all important, for me, bottom end. The speakers pass our Smoke On The Water (Made In Japan) test with aplomb in the bass department but they just don’t have the same level of detail and micro-detail in the mids and tops as the bigger RD Acoustic speakers.  Bass guitar is growly and tangible which is how this should sound.

Playing Doug MacLeod’s My In Laws Are Outlaws at low volume there is a really nice intimate feeling with the bass bouncing along nicely and guitar having a good sense of the recording space and microphone position. Soundstaging at these low volumes is “small scale realistic” by which I mean they’ve not got the scale that the best (and usually bigger) speakers can produce, but everything is there in the right places – sort of as if you are looking down on the performance a little. Guitar tone is properly metallic and vocals project nicely forward in the mix/stage.

On the opening lines (it’s an arpeggiated synth line) on Fat Freddy’s Drop’s Big BW  there is a sense that the synth is coming from FAR beyond the speakers boundaries before it then  pans left…eerie and a real sit up and take notice moment. Really, that one sound appeared to be three feet to the right and three feet forward of the three dimensional sound space, which is, I know, contrary to what I said earlier about these being small scale realistic. On first listen I got the feeling that these speakers lacked scale, but the more I listen to them the more I’m of the mind that they do scale really well, despite their relatively squat nature…it’s just a different kind of presentation. Jerry that used to review for Hifi Pig used to talk a lot about where in the concert hall he felt he was sat when listening to speakers and with these you get the sense you are sat right at the front centre of the dress circle.

As with the Volya Bouquet speakers we had in previously there is a feeling of the music being presented in a sphere before you…it’s not as dramatic as with the Volyas and you are looking down on it a tad, but it is there and that’s a good thing.

Sound effects on the very dubby Fat Freddy’s Drop album just fly about with these speakers as they should. It’s not a monitor type sound in any way and there isn’t the analytical quality you get with monitors, but it is very enjoyable, musical and whilst not having the organic, natural feel of the bigger horns, or our Avantgarde Duo XDs, they feel more rounded overall than the Evolutions…or perhaps just more to my taste in that they do bass, but then I do like a lot of front ported designs.

John Martyn’s Solid Air shows these speakers are a versatile performer in that the mids and tops have good detail and resolution, but bass is also nice tight and tuneful. The mix is laid out before me and there is that three dimensional feel too, though I’m not suggesting that these speakers disappear by any stretch. Guitar sounds very much like a guitar with good amounts of information coming through and the contrabass likewise with the twang of the strings and movement on the fret-board coming through well.

These are a nicely balanced speaker that I think will appeal to many with a wide taste in music. They do rock, they do jazz, they do techno and in many ways they do remind me of the hORNS Mummy loudspeakers that we lived with for a couple of years before getting the Duo XDs, though being taller the Mummys’ cast a “more in the stalls” image. For those of you looking for a good allrounder these certainly deserve your attention, though there are of course compromises. Time and time again I forgot I was supposed to be writing a review of them and just enjoyed listening to the music…again a good sign. One of the criticisms of single driver speakers in the main is that they are fabulous with simple, uncomplicated music but tend to lose the plot when things get more complicated and hectic. Yes, these speakers are at their best with pretty “simple” tunes like Solid Air, but they don’t get hugely flustered when you pop on a bit of Motorhead either.

Natalie Merchant’s Lady Bird sounds absolutely wonderful and has me in tears. And this is important! Music and the equipment we play it on is there to connect us emotionally with the music, be that making us want to dance, cry, sing or laugh and these speakers do just that. Sometimes it is not the most resolving or expensive bit of kit that connects us though and that is the case here.  Nick Drake’s Northern Sky has me utterly connected with the music. Yes there is some colouration and yes there is not the resolving power of some speakers we’ve recently had the pleasure of using, but there is something I love about these. I am a fan of good single driver loudspeakers, I love their speed and their point source nature, but often find that I am disappointed in their bass performance and the volumes I can get them to and this is a deal killer. What RD Acoustics have managed to pull off is a speaker that has many of the qualities of a good widebander, combined with the oomph of a big bass driver, and the bass is nicely integrated too. Purists may think this is heresy, but here it works pretty well.

Conclusion

The Euphoria speakers take up where the bigger and more expensive Evolution speakers left off and, in my opinion do a better all round job of getting you closer to the music in a more complete sense, ie they go lower. They don’t have the resolving power or scale of their bigger brothers and in that sense they are actually more compromised, but they are great fun.
Fit and finish is impeccable and my only criticism in this regard is that they are not a little taller, which would bring the wide-band driver to ear height, which in turn would, again in my opinion, improve the sense of scale these speakers have.

Was it not that I own the Avantgarde Duos these would certainly be on my short list. I thoroughly enjoyed them and despite not being as resolving as their bigger brothers they still represent a good loudspeaker if only for the fact that they are more versatile and cope well with everything you throw at them.

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality: Very good indeed, though some will find the aesthetics of the speakers challenging

Sound Quality: Not as accurate in the mids and tops as some single driver speakers I’ve enjoyed, but the lower octaves being present make these a good compromise. Having the full range driver below ear level creates a stereo image that is from the dress circle rather than the stalls. At their best with relatively simple music but cope well with other stuff where other wideband designs struggle

Value For Money: These aren’t an impulse buy and you need to hear them before buying as they are not cheap

Pros: Many of the attributes of a good full range driver system but with more bass and can cope with more complex material. Very engaging!

Cons: Can get a little flustered at really high volume with difficult material. Not as tonally correct in the mids and tops as some other full range loudspeakers

Price: €8790

Stuart Smith

Chris Sommovigo is an American based relocated to Japan where he makes finished audio cables and the wires inside them by hand. Here Dominic Marsh takes a listen to his Ghostwire Silverheart speaker cables costing $239.95 for 1.5m pair and $349.95 for 2.5m pair.

When I was assigned to carry out this particular evaluation, I took it upon myself to read fellow Hifi Pig reviewer Dave Robson’s review of other Chris Sommovigo cables to get a handle of what performance I am likely to find with this Silverheart speaker cable.  Dave’s verdict is that they are fine cables and awarded them a recommended result, which may or may not translate here to the Silverheart cables under review.

These cables are hand built by Chris Sommovigo who upped sticks from the USA and moved to Yugawara in Japan and because all his cables are hand built in his own workshop, you won’t be able to buy reels of finished cable by the kilometer, or indeed beyond lengths that his expertise, available time and winding machines can muster.  He is also fairly prolific with his new ideas and just when you think you have mastered his product range he creates even more!  From what I have read about this person he is very passionate in what he does and takes immense pride in the product he builds and ships worldwide.

The Silverheart loudspeaker cable is sold under the “Ghostwire” brand name and has it’s own dedicated website.

Construction

It is constructed in the following manner:

• 3.0mm Japanese cotton-based cord
• Silver-Plated Copper woven tube (sums to ca: 15awg)
• Nylon Multifilament woven insulator (32 x 1680 denier) BLUE AND BLACK
• Bare Copper woven tube (sums to ca: 14awg)
• Nylon Multifilament woven insulator (32 x 1680 denier) WHITE AND BLACK

The “positive” line is the internal blue-black line (silver-plated copper), which is carefully extracted from inside the center of the cable.

The “negative” line is the white-black line, which is formed by the outer (bare copper) conductor.

This concentric, or “coaxial” construction lends itself particularly well to the requirements of a speaker cable, being quite naturally low-inductance (due to the proximity of the conductors to one another inside the cable). It is also less susceptible to issues related to skin-effect (the AC resistance and DC resistance of the thin-walled woven tubes are essentially equivalent to roughly 700KHz), and also less susceptible to issues related to proximity effect (the coaxial construction means that the conductors are always an equal proximity to one another for their full circumferences, unlike twisted pairs).

Chris will be making, on a limited basis (as time permits, monthly), Ghostwire Silverheart loudspeaker cables. Each month he will be making between 10 and 20 pieces, mostly 2.5m lengths, as this is the most popular length. He will also be making fewer pairs of 1.5m sets for those with monoblocks or more closely-spaced speakers.

The review pair arrived ready terminated with gold plated 4mm banana plugs. They are surprisingly flexible, easily routed and the banana plugs have ample grip too, which is surprising to me given that they have a simple splined construction which I am no great fan of, given that the cheap ones seem to lose springiness in the splines over time.

The MSRP for the cable are $55 per running (linear) meter unterminated, while the completed speaker cables, terminated with XOX direct-gold-plated copper bananas, are $239.95 and $349.95 for 1.5m pair and 2.5m pair respectively, exclusive of shipping costs ($25 flat shipping fee).

I am unable to confirm if other lengths or terminations are available.

Sound Quality

When I first connected the Silverheart speaker cable to my resident system, they sounded, well how can I phrase this yet remain diplomatic?  Horrible, yes that word will do very nicely.  Bass was decidedly foggy and muffled, midband wet and limp, treble had receded into the midband and was waving a white flag and going down for the third time.  I cannot recall a cable that was in this much distress fresh out of the packaging.  Oh dear.  Well, start the bedding in process while Dominic goes away and does other things to amuse himself.  Suitably refreshed after a cup or three of coffee and a slice or two of cake and the cables had livened up enough after just one hour for me to discern some treble, a cleaner midband, but still a very sluggish bass.  It was close on 10 hours before the “horrible” disappeared and was starting to sound half decent.  These things usually resolve themselves exponentially, so at around 30 hours they had improved sufficiently for me to start putting them through their paces, even though I knew there were still some hours to go yet before they would give of their best.   After that I lost track of how many running hours had elapsed, as it’s a case of multiple plate spinning tricks as you have to fit in other evaluations into your busy reviewer’s schedule and it’s all too easy to lose track of what components have had what running times when everything you receive to review is all factory fresh.

I have recently expanded my music collection in the search for finding another reference recording, as by now those of you who regularly read my reviews must surely be a bit jaded by now with my constant references to Fink’s “Wheels Beneath My Feet” album.  Haven’t found one yet folks, so here we go again.

Yes of course I listened to other music genres during the evaluation, but this album is an essential tool to use during my extensive listening sessions to see if it could meet all my benchmark sound quality expectations.   The drummer’s cymbal strikes in the intro to “Biscuits” were very satisfying and without complaint, which in reality is commendable.  Bass kick drum was propulsive and solid, the timing being spot on.  The acid test for me is listening out for the drummer’s rim shots on the snare drum.  Very difficult to put into words that you dear readers can relate to easily, so the closest I can get is to say that they have to sound “real” as if you are sat next to the actual instrument being played.  The strikes must not sound at all thin, you can note the different energy put into each strike and you should be able to hear the shell of the drum for sure and if you cannot, then something is amiss.  Given these are live recordings the venue’s ambience should also capture these snare drum rim shots.  Most hifi components struggle with recreating the sounds an audience makes during a performance and it usually gets conveyed sounding like frying pan cooking bacon, with sizzling and sloshing sounds that really annoys me.  The Ghostwire Silverheart allowed me to hear the clapping, whistling and cat-calling very clearly as if I was sat in amongst the audience.

The album’s true forte though is the instruments, with some stunning well recorded drum playing and bass guitar.    When the drummer hits the Floor Tom in the track “Sort Of Revolution” it should penetrate to the centre of your being with it’s power and slam, the bass guitar just has to have a throaty growl to it and the audience claps along too, giving the entire track a propulsive, dare I say infectious element to the performance.  Listen carefully to Fink’s voice and it has to have an edgy throaty rasp to it, even though his diction is sometimes unintelligible, but that is all part of the charm this album holds for me.

The Silverheart speaker cables sailed through all of these benchmarks with ease and if you had said to me the cable would do so when I first connected them up, I would have stared at you in disbelief.

The biggest shock of all was when I reconnected my resident speaker cables after the evaluation which cost three times more than the Silverheart cables and suddenly I realised which cables I preferred listening to.  Not a huge amount of difference granted, but it is those tiny minute subtleties that we all hunger for, were there to be heard.

Conclusion

From an inauspicious start to a big surprise at the ending, the story of the Ugly Duckling came to mind as I write this.  At first hearing I described the sound as “horrible”, then as the cables were run in their true colours finally shone through, pretty much like a Swan with the beautiful pristine white plumage the adult bird carries.

For your money then, you get a unique hand built, good sounding cable that you would probably have to spend a good deal more to better, plus you get the satisfaction of knowing this cable was never chopped off a huge reel of standard wire with some cheap plugs soldered on and covered in camouflage to hide its true origins.  On that basis I simply must give it a highly recommended award and to do otherwise would be a travesty.

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality:  Very flexible and easy to route.  It isn’t just a fancy jacket on the outside either, it is part of the construction 

Sound Quality:  Great bang for the buck, but be patient from the start, it will get there 

Value For Money:  Cannot think of anything that would class it otherwise than good value for money 

Pros:  Nicely built, hand crafted, good sounding. 

Cons:  Give it plenty of running hours before passing any judgment. 

Price: $239.95 for 1.5m pair and $349.95 for 2.5m pair

Dominic Marsh

British brand Onix will be a familiar name to many and has a strong heritage. Here Dominic Marsh puts their DNA–50 amplifier costing £1979 through its paces.

“The brand Onix is a wholly owned British concern that has been around for a good few years now (approximately 35 years no less) and for reasons I still cannot fathom out, they have not really reached into mainstream hifi territory and become well known amongst audiophiles as other brands have become during the same period.  Except of course they do have a small loyal band of followers and I shall touch upon this group of people in this review and the influence they have on the current product.  Maybe ONIX don’t bang their drum loud enough, or they want to maintain the key core values they are not prepared to sacrifice for the sake of vanity, fashion, or following the herd.  This review then is about their latest model the DNA-50 integrated amplifier offering, so kindly read on….”

Read the full review here

Many of us of a certain age will remember the radiogram, now Ruark bring it bang up to date with their R7 Radiogram costing £2000. John Scott gets a bit nostalgic in what is a bit of a departure for Hifi Pig.

“I have been fascinated by music and the things that make music for literally as long as I can remember.  My earliest musical memories centre around a 1950s HMV radiogram that took pride of place  in the corner of our living room.  At this point, readers born after 1970 may require some explanation as to what a radiogram actually is.  The radiogram combined a record player – we didn’t call them turntables back then – with a radio (we didn’t call those tuners yet either).  The record player and radio were housed in a solid wooden cabinet containing a speaker, or if you were lucky a pair of speakers, and usually a little built in cupboard to store your record collection.  The radiogram was as much a piece of furniture as a functional item and was built for the ages – ours still lives in my mother’s house…”

Read the full review here!

What does the month of May mean if you are an audiophile and hifi lover? Of course, Munich! We, along with the whole hifi universe by the look of it, made the annual pilgrimage to Bavaria, Germany and the High End Munich Show. High End Munich 2017 was our fifth and the most incredible show yet.If you weren’t able to make it then you can capture the vibe of this truly amazing hifi show in our dedicated High End Munich 2017 section here, plus the main section gives you access to previous years too. If you were there have a look and see if your impressions were the same as ours…plus there is bound to be something that you missed.

We are still posting the final parts of our coverage, plus there will be our free to download e-mag featuring everything from High End Munich 2017 in one convenient package…plus find out who is the winner of the Hifi pig loves You award! You can also catch up with what our ‘Great British Brands At Munich’ had to say in our special promotion.

But, believe it or not, there was still plenty going on elsewhere, including loads in our Music News section, so if you missed it in the Munich madness, here’s what else happened in hifi this May:

Sennheiser Introduces HDV 820 Headphone Amplifier

Acoustic Energy AE100 Range Announced

Wilson Audio Alexia Series 2

Hifi Pig Promotion – Qualiton – A Young Brand With a Long History

Rois Acoustics Launch Minoas Open Baffle Loudspeaker

XT-7 New Loudspeaker From Goldnote

More Beatles Inspired Special Editions From Pro-Ject

Burson Announce Impedance Matching Interconnects

Densen B-250CAST Preamp Supports Google Cast

The McIntosh Group Appoint New CPDO

Elly Audio: A New Italian Loudspeaker

Audio MusiKraft Customisable Phono Shells

Audionet’s Stern Pre Wins National Design Award

Western Electric Appoints Scull Communications

Headphone Show CanJam Europe Moves To Berlin, Germany

HIFI EVENT – Moon, Avantgarde and Loud & Clear

Studio Connections Launches Black Star Cable Range

Digital Amp Co Maraschino Module And Development Platform

Melodika Back In Black Invisible In Wall/Ceiling Speakers

Dan Worth takes a look at an interesting tweak from IsoAcoustics in the form of their GAIA III isolation footers costing £199.

“This years Bristol Sound and Vision Show has been covered extensively here on Hifi Pig, so take a look at the articles. There were a great number of exhibitors with some really interesting new equipment for 2017.

Among the manufacturers and distributors present I found one of the better sounds and demos to be in the SCV Distribution room, comprising of a range of brands and platforms. For me my interest was directed towards their main show system, which comprised of a Benchmark DAC3 HGC (reviewed here), paired with a Benchmark AHB2 stereo power amplifier and Aria 936 loudspeakers. The characteristics of the sound in this room suited my own personal tastes very well, with a greatly open, full bodied and detailed sound that excels on transparency and insight.

The system demo was very much orientated around what IsoAcoustics GAIA feet, particularly the GAIA III due to its support in weight relation of the Arias, with a 32kg max load capacity. IsoAcoustics also produce two other sizes and weight bearing load versions of the Gaia – the GAIA I which can handle speaker or rack loads up to 100kgs, GAIA II 54kgs and then the Gaia III 32kgs, each rating is per set of four not the individual footer…”

Read the full review here

Max Townshend is unmissable at pretty much any Hifi show you care to attend. He’s a larger than life character and his team are likewise always knowledgeable but down to earth and fun. His demonstration of the seismic bars and platforms is one not to miss. Daniel Worth pops a pair of the company’s Seismic Isolation Bars costing between £999 – £1299 under his speakers to feel their effects. 

Townshend Audio Engineering have been established for almost five decades now. They are renowned for applying strict engineering policies to audio applications. Common sense and creative know how has allowed Max Townshend – the leader of the pack – to apply his experience and expertise to reducing some of the most detrimental anomalies affecting our audio setups.

Within the range of products inspired by Townshend’s topology are the Seismic Isolation Bars. Geared toward mechanical isolation between speaker and floor but in theory can be used under equipment, although Townshend produces some very nice looking isolation Platforms specifically for that role, the Speaker Bars can be designated in various sizes and supportive weights dependant on the speaker. Townshend also offer a bespoke service for customers who would like a more specific, size and/or weight compliment on each of their Seismic products.

I had initially wanted to try a pair of Podiums but unfortunately when placing underneath my speaker the shallow elliptical design didn’t suit the styling of the Podiums (which I have heard work wonders in other systems), so without the need to go back to the drawing board a very helpful Mrs Sue Townshend sent out the bars swiftly. (I chose the smallest of the sizes for my speakers, as I wanted the Pods to be as close to the underside of my speaker as possible, rather than being far away on each corner due to the odd shape of my loudspeakers and the Podiums design having them fixed to the outer corners) which unlike the first incarceration of the product is extendable and can accommodate speakers with a footprint up to 200% larger than my Ayons. The Load Cells on each end of the bars were the type C, this means that they will comfortably support speakers from 32kgs up to 64kgs. 

Installing these was a very straight forward process, I simply removed the current spiked outriggers on my speakers, placed the Speaker Bars on the floor where the speakers usually lived in a parallel front to back formation and dropped the speakers into place on the felt pads fitted to the Bars.

Some fettling and a few minutes later after very brief listening tests I found that using these with the Load Cells at the front and the back of my speakers, with the two rear Cells pushed almost together at the centre rear and the two front angled outwards on the front diagonals gave me maximum stability for my speaker’s shape and weight distribution which led to the most enjoyable sonic results.

The Sound

So how do these Speaker Bars from the Seismic Isolation range by Townshend affect the sound? Well in a nutshell extremely positively.

The first notable aspect was a change in the way that bass notes were presented to me. I initially thought that I was hearing a slight boxy-ness from the Ayons during the first few notes of Nils Logren’s ‘Keith Don’t Go’ but it was almost simultaneously evident that what I was hearing was a more natural rendition of the body of his guitar. This led on to my attention being drawn toward the acoustic temperament conveyed into my listening space which was large and full of normally more muted details of reverbs and crowd interactions. During the guitar solo I appreciated the pace of the music very much and decays seemed to last for a considerable time longer than usual, obviously due to the cleaning up of detrimental vibrations caused by coupling the speakers previously to a floor that was giving vibrational feedback as well as drawing it down from the speakers, almost oscilating. I urge everyone to watch the video on YouTube produced by Max Townshend which clearly demonstrates how the Seismic Cells work and how the reduction in impact ringing can be proven measured.

I delved into listening to bass notes much further, finding that a continuous lack of bloat, a cleaner and more defined upper bass with far greater weighted extension was apparent. ‘Blanket’ by Urban Species is victim of bass bloat in virtually every system I’ve ever heard it in and over the years, various equipment and tweaks either enhance it or reduce the decibel level of it but never anything I’ve tried under my speakers has ever been able to remove the bloat and just leave the deep bass note itself. The Speaker Bars did, the bass notes were now textured and in fact seemed louder and larger than before, louder I thought, surely not, not after removing the added bloom. So again and again I went backwards and forwards over the coming week, spikes, Bars, spikes, Bars and every time with each and every piece of music I listened too I felt that I was actually receiving more bass, more extension as well a more natural and enjoyable presentation, along with less shake, rattle and roll in the living room. 

I moved around the house, listening for the nasty nodes that everybody has – collected in certain areas of their homes and can honestly report that they had subsided all but completely and that actual mechanical vibration in walls, floors, shelves and other fixtures was non-existent. So I retiring the two young maidens of good strong stock that usually hold my speakers in the air during my critical listening tests, allowing them to snuggle up on the sofa with me instead and enjoy the music.

Looking more into the midrange, initially and as before with the bass notes, the sound presented to me was ‘different’. I needed to play some good vocals to get a grasp on exactly what was happening here. Never even from the first concentration on vocals was the sound ever ‘wrong’. From listening to a few of my normal vocalists that I like such as Norah Jones, Loreena Mckennit, Vanessa Fernandez I found their vocal to be projected still in a wonderfully clean manner with plenty of power but from a slightly deeper position, which in fact was very welcomed. I never had any issues to my mind from what and where vocals stood previously in my system but hearing the same music with Townshend Seismic Isolation in, I felt that the entire picture was more correct and palpable.

A wonderful amount of tone came from human voices and instead of each vocal whether male or female, had a system enhanced quality to them I felt that they were just that much more individual and bespoke to my system, as if I had walked from one studio to the next. I’ve spent a lot of time reworking my crossovers in the Ayons to get the all ceramic compliment of drivers to excel on transparency and speed which was the easy part but to get fantastic tone and midrange to upper midrange balance was more difficult and it ultimately became a system wide task. The Speaker Bars just added a calmness, an air of ease and stability that again I didn’t realise I needed until it was there, I had been meaning to go ‘Seismic’ with these for some time and as the opportunity arose recently and came at a time where I had just finished the latest mods within the speakers I felt that fate had a little hand in the timing of this whole scenario.

Fleshing out a top end unless your speaker is of particular pedigree can be a nightmare! I have had huge problems over the years making treble sound more dense, thick and tonally plush. Most of us get so used to an overview of what treble is and as long as we can obtain air and detail our attention wonders off elsewhere. Treble has so much more in undertones and body than what we are used to hearing that it’s only when we’re presented with something new we can understand what we have been missing. This has been another task of mine to achieve over recent years and especially more so since I decided to walk away from from all valve systems and concentrate on integrating good valve preamps with strong transistor amps. My current pre is a hybrid, basically a valve linestage feeding into a TVC made by Audio Music (the Reference 1). I find the combination with this and my Gamut D200mk3 power amp a great combination but it does lack the body in the upper regions of a good all valve setup, even if in reality being a second harmonic distortion, valve amps have an undeniable flavour which adds a certain beauty to the music.

Crossover components, cabling and isolation  are all ingredients in the right recipe and all require particular attention and without this particular attention my main speakers would not be where they are soundwise today. The Seismic Speaker Bars, gave a relaxed and controlled top end that flows with more ease and more confidence, whilst retaining the air and transparency I’ve worked so hard to achieve. As well as the Speaker Bars I’ve also just added the Townshend Maximus Supertweeters REVIEW HERE the combination of these two products has given me a certain personality to my speakers that I would never have been able to achieve with just crossover and cable modifications alone. It’s like going from a great digital system to an awesome analogue system.

As mentioned earlier the lack of injection into the structure of the room and the surrounding building was most noticeable here and less interaction with the framework of the structure equals less interaction back into the speakers and the oh so delicate equipment in our racks, doing nothing but damage to the delicate audio signal. In turn a complete lack of smear reveals how much more information can be obtained from the electronics and released through the transducers.

This culminates in a soundstage that is more holographic and three dimensional, bringing out more muted details in the soundtrack that we often would believe were recorded at the levels we were used to hearing them, if we can even hear them at all in some cases, here in fact they were meant to be more prominent from the outset. The old sayings ‘you don’t miss what you never had’ and ‘you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone’ are both very true in this case. Removing the Seismic Speaker Bars from the system, has a shrinking effect, a smearing effect and a connection to the music that diminishes the will to even listen to music anymore. A lot of us have had this sensation and it’s always wise when demoing anything to leave it in a system for a while and then see how you feel once it’s removed, if it’s missed then you know it’s a keeper. Well these Bars are definitely keepers and I’m very glad I had the foresight to pursue these after the Podiums didn’t work for me, but then in all honesty it really was just due to my speakers size and shape and not the technology employed here as all – Seismic products from Townshend are based on the same principles.

Conclusion

For somebody who works intently on all areas of his system and who has spent a lot of time and effort on crossovers and other modification within the electronics etc to gain a presentation which is more tonally mature and emotionally connective, at the same time as preserving pace, transparency and rhythm I was bowled over by the Townshend Seismic Speaker Bars. They became the piece of the puzzle that I never knew I was missing.

With an all ceramic driver compliment in my Ayons, I never felt that cleanliness and smear was ever an issue in my setup. My how wrong I was! The benefits of a Townshend a Seismic product works to stop all negative mechanical effects of a room charged with vibrations and micro vibrations, leaving the listener with a natural, clean, more tonally accurate sound. An absolute must for any music lovers wishing to obtain a more intimate relationship with their music, plus they keep the neighbours happy also!

 AT A GLANCE

Build a Quality – Very solid, very smart good looking design

Sound Quality – Natural Analogue presentation, tighter, cleaner and more textured

Value For Money – Very reflective of performance gains – great value 

Pros:

An unexpected Analogue type conversion

Micro detailed more prevalent

Bass is more natural

Enhanced rhythm with less bloat and smear

Soundstage increases in all directions

Less interaction with the building which I great for neighbours

Many sizes available for weight and length 

Cons:

None what so ever 

Price: £999 – £1299

Daniel Worth

Supertweers get a mixed reaction whenever they are brought up in polite audiophile conversation. Daniel Worth tries out a pair of the Townshend Audio Engineering Maximus Supertweeters costing £899.

A supertweeter is often considered as an unnecessary addition to any loudspeaker design, but these comments are often put forward by the same people who have very strong feelings on the benefits of expensive cabling. However, there is a logical argument to be made – the human ear can only hear up to a maximum of 20khz and even this is at a push and infrequently measured, with most testing of healthy adults actually coming out at 18khz max.

In my opnion both supertweeters and cables can be very beneficial to a high-end rig and it’s down to their implementation and construction as to how their benefits can really be appreciated. Unfortunately like many other products in the world of high fidelity, one needs to trawl through the crap and snake-oil and rely on well regarded and established companies for a truly well produced product, that is actually worth its weight in currency and Townshend Audio have long since established themselves as a brand one can trust.

I’ve personally used many supertweeters in my years of audio and have really only ever heard results which have made me appreciate their worth in integrated designs – where the designer has took them into consideration with the entire build in mind. Adding a supertweeter thereafter often accentuates the lower treble frequencies too much giving an overpowering doubling of the db levels of the existing tweeter, rather than extending its abilities due to mismatching in crossover points.

The extension of the 20khz potential maximum audible by the human ear is what is often debated by many as unnecessary. Why would we even require a tweeter to reach beyond this threshold of measurable human hearing limits? And if it isn’t measurable by the human ear then what’s the point?

What we actually hear varies significantly, the younger we are the more we can hear in and around 20khz, the older we get the more these higher frequencies are rolled off (many of us also suffer significantly from peaks and drops right across the frequency range. A good friend of mine has a terrible peak at 8khz and he has to tune this into his system for complete pleasure). However our brain can still recognise these higher frequencies, often referred to as ‘spatial awareness’. Spatial awareness is a quality that any audiophile strives to achieve from his or her system.

Being able to ascertain events, acoustic cues, reverbs, along with instrument and vocal placement is so important in creating a more realistic performance from our home setups. Granted, a substantial amount of the information presented to us isn’t contained in the upper regions of frequency reproduction but the atmospheric noise, decays and interactions within the acoustic arena is. These frequencies are just as important to the overall complexion of the music as they add that last layer of realism and that ‘being there’ feeling, just like sub sonic bass from a subwoofer recreating the feel of an organ as opposed to what can be heard from an organ.

Correct implementation comes down to many key factors. The topology of the tweeter itself, whether a soft dome, ribbon, planar, diamond etc etc, but most often a well regarded supertweeter will be of the ribbon type. They can lack a little less dispersion than a dome but their sonic signature  being a little sweeter and incredibly articulate tends to integrate very well with more integrated tweeters. Quality of internal components just like any crossover is crucial for transparency. Chassis cooling and db level controls to integrate to the main speaker are also essential for an after market design.

The Maximum from Townshend has six db levels simply numbered from 1-6 which I appreciate, it takes out any preconceived ideas of what sensitivity and level the tweeter should be set at in conjunction with the associated loudspeakers. I myself didn’t expect a 1-6 level and was already considering options on leveling them to my Ayons, taking this away simply allowed me to trust my ears and integrate the Maximum Supertweeters in the most sensible way – by playing music!

Presentation, Fit and Finish 

Packed very well in a suitably snug box and in outer sleeved styled box with nice graphics, the Maximum Supertweeters are presented nicely to the customer. Inside each tweeter has its own pocket of foam to sit in during transit, with a nice thick plastic wrap over each. Included also is a 1.5m copper cable for each supertweeter. The cable has bananas on both ends, personally spades at one end would probably make more sense for connecting to existing binding posts as I’d assume the majority of people would be using bananas on a single set of binding posts already fitted to the main speaker. If bi- wired, spades would still work. On the other hand, the fact that a starter cable is included is a thoughtful touch.

The supertweeters themselves came in a Matt black finish which was ideal to match my speakers and quality of the finish couldn’t be better. To the rear there are two flush mounted 4mm binding posts, the type that Naim, Exposure and Cyrus use, although I hate this style as it limits the type of connectivity so much, on the Maximums it makes absolute sense and keeps a nice clean overall look to the supertweeters.

To the front is a sturdy and stylish metal grill to protect the ribbon and just to the sides are cooling vents. The underside has four small and shallow rubber feet, which I was again pleased with as they are massively grippy, allowing for some weightier cables to be installed.

Installation 

Simply put – a breeze.

There are two main options in connecting these to the speakers. The most obvious is to piggyback them off the main speaker’s binding posts, the other, which I chose was to run another set of speaker cables back to the amplifier. I opted for this configuration as I use Studio Connections Black Star speaker cables and having a same length pair of their Reference Plus model, which essentially is a lesser amount of conductor version of the latter, plus, there are less connections in the chain driving amplifier direct.

The Sound 

Firstly I only connected the left Maximum Supertweeter and set the level to ‘3’, recommended by Max Townshend as a suitable starting point before dialling in. I went over and sat down…for about three seconds, noticed a real lean to the left hand side of the soundstage and instantly connected the right supertweeter and sat down this time for a proper listen.

I played Bliss’ ‘Quiet Letters’ album first through the Melco and an instant further layer of detail filled the soundstage, allowing for extra perception of air and space. I even felt that I had more midrange depth as the three dimensionality of the top end carved more structure to the presentation leading down into the upper mids. Triangles had a longer lasting and more discernible decay with plenty less smearing as the music got busier.

The lower cross-in point of the Maximums is around 6khz, something I was a little wary about before installation as I didn’t want to double up on what my tweeters already give, but I couldn’t say that I was hearing any overblown lower treble frequencies at level ‘3’.

I played some Joss Stone and Jeff Beck next, which can sound a little tragic through lossless Tidal with the direct rip sounding far better. I didn’t notice any peaks or nasties in Joss’ tones and Beck’s guitar really made use of what the supertweeters were able to add down into the midrange by supporting better separation between the instruments, vocals and venue – until I had the audacity to turn the supertweeters up to level ‘4’. Then I could hear exactly what the Maximums were adding to the entire picture and that the level was too great for overall balance.

The Townshend Maximum Supertweeters being so well constructed and doing what they are supposed to do so well, will feed back to the listener when he/she adjusts to an unsuitable level.

They need to be treated like adding a subwoofer to a 2-channel system, they need to be dialled in so that the listener cannot hear them singularly, you don’t need to hear the individuality of the addition, just how the additional abilities integrate gently with the whole. I went backwards and forwards many times throughout many different genres of music and although every now and then level ‘4’ would be better if I was absolutely critical, level ‘3’ was on the money at least 95% of the time with my 90db speakers.

I especially love how the Maximums invite the listener into the recording arena or venue more. For instance when listening to Fink’s live albums a real sense of being there is located by the inclusion of the supertweeters, everything sounds larger and more lifelike and at night time with the lights down or off, it’s very easy to be transported into the audience when their applause can be ascertained as bouncing off the walls and the airiness of the venue becoming more lifelike.

Micro details and micro dynamics also receive a helping hand. Intricate tempo driven micro details flow wonderfully well and there is that cliché of being able to re-explore your music collection in more detail. Pleasantly so, with the correct level dialed in, there is no adverse brightness to be reported by correctly installing the Maximums, rather, an extension of what the main speaker is capable of is clearly delivered and not just only within the top end, the frequency extension also aids lower frequencies within the midrange especially to enhance image separation and layering whilst remaining completely musical and palpable.

There’s no doubt in my mind that frequencies past the 20khz human threshold of hearing make a perceived difference to the overall presentation of the music and what can’t be heard can be understood and appreciated.

Conclusion

If you have any doubts in whether a supertweeter can make a difference to the sound of your hifi system and all the reading you undertake leaves you with mixed opinions as to whether it’s even humanly possible to be able to cognitively notice differences, i’ll just say one thing – stop reading people’s opinions and make your own mind up by demoing a pair.

Every dealer of Townshends Maximus Supertweeters, should have a demo set in constant use for customers to hear and also a loan set on a sale or return basis to allow customers to be able to try on a risk free basis.

My biggest concern was the overlap of frequencies between my tweeter and the supertweeter.

I would have liked the ability to dial in my own crossover point as well as db levels or sensitivity as the Townshend Maximus’ are so worthwhile that I feel I could in fact obtain even more performance by being able to fettle them even further. As a consumer unit they work as they are but for any hardcore audiophile the shred of doubt in their mind as to how much better could these even be will show its ugly head.

All in all I consider these an asset which would be dearly missed if it wasn’t for the fact that they now have a permanent home with me and Townshend are a little richer!

Adding a Townshend Maximum Supertweeter, along with some of their Seismic Isolation to the speakers REVIEW HERE will transform any listening experience considerably by adding more resolution, better control, added layers of musical bliss and a natural tonality that many of us strive for but without the correct guidance leaves pursuers of audio satisfaction spending pockets full of cash in the completely wrong areas as opposed to a single calculated purchase which promises great things and proves to be worth every penny.

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality – very nice construction and finish, great looking

Sound Quality – exceptional, a real extension to any quality loudspeaker

Value For Money – again, to compliment a high-end loudspeaker worth every penny

Pros 

Fantastic ability to integrate with main speakers

Lovely build quality

Well packaged and presented

Great anti-slip feet

Adds a new dimension to the sound

Cons 

No shiny finishes available

No dial for crossover frequency

Price: £899

Daniel Worth

A month or so ago we published a review of the RDacoustic Evolution speaker, a back loaded, single driver horn loudspeaker. Here we have the latest model from the Czech company in the form of the €8790 Euphoria.

“The Euphoria is an interesting looking speaker as it combines an eight inch full range driver with a fifteen inch ported woofer. The woofer has a knob for both sensitivity and bass so you can tailor it to your room and your preferences and whilst this Beymer unit is crossed over (obviously), the full range driver is run fully open. Essentially this is a two box design with the cabinets for each driver being separate…”

Read the full review here!

Chris Sommovigo is an American relocated to Japan where he makes finished audio cables and the wires inside them by hand. Here Dominic Marsh takes a listen to his Ghostwire Silverheart speaker cables costing $239.95 for 1.5m pair and $349.95 for 2.5m pair.

“When I was assigned to carry out this particular evaluation, I took it upon myself to read fellow Hifi Pig reviewer Dave Robson’s review of other Chris Sommovigo cables to get a handle of what performance I am likely to find with this Silverheart speaker cable.  Dave’s verdict is that they are fine cables and awarded them a recommended result, which may or may not translate here to the Silverheart cables under review….”

Read the full review here!

TAGA Harmony are based in Poland and offer a wide range of loudspeakers and other products to suit all pockets. Here Ian Ringstead tries out their TAV 616F SE floorstanders costing €735.

This is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to listen to a pair of TAGA loudspeakers at home and are a relatively new name to me. They are a Polish company offering high quality products for the hifi and audio-video market. The main types of products are: high-end, hifi and home theatre speakers, in-wall/in-ceiling and outdoor speakers, multimedia speakers, hifi electronics and accessories for speakers. Started in the early nineties the company is run by enthusiasts who felt that a lot of high end equipment was expensive and didn’t always offer the sound quality it should have for the money. They wanted to do something about this and so formed TAGA Harmony – “To Achieve Glorious Acoustics”.

The model I was sent is an improved version of their popular TAV-616F and 606 models in SE form finished in a superb piano white gloss paint of which seven layers are applied. Not cheap to do and normally only offered by competitors at a much higher price point. The cabinets are very heavy being made of thick 15mm walls and a 21mm front baffle composed of high density MDF. I can vouch for the solidity as they came boxed in one carton that was a dead weight to carry through my front door. I’m used to large floorstanders coming and going, but these certainly felt substantial at nearly 35 Kg a pair.

The tweeters used are 2^nd generation TPTTD-1 Taga Pure Titanium Tweeter Dome which has a differently shaped and lighter titanium dome to previous models. A double magnet assembly is used which allows higher SPL’s and far better detailing and speed. Below the tweeter is a glass fibre midrange unit at 6.5” and then two 6.5” polypropylene bass units that are very light in weight to allow for fast response and dynamic definition. The tweeter has a faceplate made of aluminium to enhance the sound dispersion and the mid and bass have aluminium rings as well to aid sound dispersion and look very smart.

Around the back are a set of bi -wire,high quality binding posts and the internal wiring is OFC as used in the dearer Coral series. The front firing bass reflex port below the bass units and the terminal box are rubber coated and the speakers come with a set of high quality polished spikes to isolate them from the floor. The reflex port is also contoured and the surface of the rubber is dimpled to assist air flow and cut down on turbulence. It proved effective in listening.

The speaker binding posts come with the usual gold plated metal linking plates, but I replaced them with my own wire links. A smart black grille fits on the front baffle with the usual peg and socket arrangement. The grille sockets are thoughtfully finished in white as well so that when you use them without the grilles, as I did, the usual black fittings don’t stand out.

Given the high specification of build and finish you’d expect a commensurately high asking price. Well you’d be wrong! 735 Euros or £660 approximately at time of writing. Wow I was shocked! I haven’t seen such quality at this price and TAGA live up to their ethos of providing superb quality at real world prices. Well done.

The Sound 

Straight out of the box I was expecting the usual break in time allowance as I experienced just before the TAV-616 F -SE ‘s, arrival where the other speakers I had for review sounded truly dreadful. So much so that they went to another reviewer to try out and he said he had to thrash them for quite some time before they suddenly sounded sublime. This all goes to prove that breaking in time varies wildly with different products and here at Hifi Pig we try our best to give the products we review every possibility to shine. The old saying never judge a book by its cover or initial sound in this case applies.

The TAV -616 F-SE proved the least fussy speakers I have ever tried out from brand new and sounded great from the off. I always worry that any largish speaker in my listening room, particularly with four drive units will dominate and be too bass heavy. Well I was pleasantly surprised. I was greeted with a clear even handed sound from top to bottom with no bass over hang or boom. A credit then to the designers and quality of the speaker. The front firing bass port certainly was a help and the rubber coating and dimpled surface did their job well. My room is generally very good sound wise and although I have no fancy room treatments, (more about that another time), it is well damped and has solid walls and floor. After all it is our living room as well, so I must take my dear wife into consideration. She loves music, (although not a lot of what I like to listen to!!) and the look of the equipment is a bonus if she comments on it positively. Most husbands/partners know what I’m saying here.

Back to the speakers in question. They provided a tight and clean sound and could handle power with aplomb. I tried my Meridian 556 with them, a Densen B-150 and a set of Temple Audio mono blocks. They all drove the TAV -616 F-SE easily as at 91dB sensitivity and /6-ohm impedance, they aren’t a difficult load. Led Zeppelin’s classic album was a treat through them and being newly remastered and produced by Jimmy Paige on 180gm vinyl it brought back memories of when it was first released back in the seventies. With a good source and amp these speakers shone producing good stage depth and width and it was easy to hear what was going on in the mix. Tiny details and subtle effects could plainly be heard thanks to the drive units’ design and the attention to detail of the whole cabinet. As well as good deep controlled bass, the mid-range was open and uncoloured and the treble was never harsh. Overall a great sound balance which for the price is superb. I have heard a lot of speakers over the years and few achieve this quality even at high prices. I’m not saying the TAV -616 F-SE is perfect, but for the money they are very good.

All types of music worked well as they should and bass aficionados should like these as long as they appreciate tight controlled bass, not loose boomy unfocused low end. I used to try and educate customers all the time in retail about clarity in the sound of a system, and especially when choosing loudspeakers. It’s natural instinct for most people to like a lot of bass, but only if their room can handle it and it is accurate. At hifi shows it’s a pet hate of mine if a room sounds too bass heavy or one note as it totally destroys any enjoyment for me then. The TAV’s certainly couldn’t be accused of that if used with good equipment and a decent listening room.

So, in conclusion an excellent speaker to suit all tastes of music which are versatile and will work well in hifi or AV systems.

AT A GLANCE                                                                                        

Sound Quality: Excellent, easy on the ear covering top to bottom without any issues.

Build Quality: Excellent.

Value For Money: Superb, as you not only get excellent build, but also a great sound. 

Pros:

Great sonic performance

Good build and finish

Cons: 

The weight when packaged in one box makes them too heavy to handle unless there are two of you. TAGA are going to address this issue and box them individually in the future. 

The modern piano white finish will not suit everyone’s taste. (Alternative options would appeal more, although I am nit picking here)

Price:   €735 / £660

Ian Ringstead

Specifications:

Tannoy is a household name, and not just amongst audiophiles. Here Dominic Marsh takes a listen to their  £599 Revolution XT6 loudspeakers.

TANNOY.  Now there is a name many people will recognise and it’s one of the few names that are deeply embedded into the way people around the world would describe a loudspeaker system.  The name actually occupies the same lofty and unique territory in our everyday language as the name “Hoover” is used to describe vacuuming your home, as in “I’m going to Hoover the carpets”.  How many times have you read in a newspaper, book or magazine, or perhaps watched a TV programme or film containing these words:  “An announcement was/will be made over the TANNOY system for all passengers to . . . . . . . “ and is still in regular use even today?   No surprise then that Tannoy are still manufacturing Public Address systems as well as a huge range of professional studio equipment.

I was curious about where the name was derived from and I found the answer on the Tannoy website under the history heading.  The name was formed from the metals they were using in the production of their rectifiers as in Tantalum / Lead Alloy and adopted as the formal company name in 1928.

It is truly refreshing to see that the name Tannoy 90 years later still at the forefront of loudspeaker design and that I have the honoured task of reviewing the Revolution XT6 loudspeaker.

Construction

The first thing that strikes you is the trapezoidal shape of the 10.8 litre cabinet which you either warm to or you don’t.  Looking at them squarely face on means you don’t see the side walls at all anyway.  Unusually too, there is a factory fitted plinth that the speaker sits on which does two jobs no less.  Through the aperture between cabinet and plinth is the bass reflex port firing downwards and the plinth having a larger footprint than the cabinet, means it adds additional stability to the speaker as well as some additional mass. Three jobs then, for the keener eyed readers amongst you.  Nice to see real veneer on the cabinets, in this instance a pale honey Oak colour, with a choice of Dark Walnut as an alternate option.

The speakers are supplied with a dark colour fabric covered grille, attached to the cabinets by secreted magnets.

Driver complement consists of Tannoy’s “Dual Concentric” array, with a 150mm multi fibre bass cone and a centrally integrated 25mm PEI dome tweeter that Tannoy refer to as being mounted in a “Torus-Ogive waveguide”.  In other words the tweeter is set back into the driver array throat for phase and timing alignment.

To the rear of the cabinet we find a set of four biwire terminals with gold plated brass jumper strips.

All in all then it is a compact well built package built upon a long line of Revolution models that have gone before, yet enhanced even further in this latest incarnation.

Sound Quality

Fresh out of the box they are not a pleasant listen at all.  Strident treble and a woolly bass will not endear the Revolution XT6 to you at first hearing, so please be patient and if you intend to audition a pair then ensure they have some running hours on them before making any judgements.  Thankfully they mellow very quickly and are listenable within an hour or so, so I recommend you connect them up, feed them some music to work with and put the kettle on, then raid the biscuit tin to amuse yourself while the XT6’s take a chill pill. As with most speaker running in periods the XT6 speaker will follow an exponential curve whereby they quickly lose the raw edges and then gently and slowly mature to full potential, which in this instance was roughly 50 hours or so.

I placed them on 60cm stands and they looked rather ungainly to be truthful, as the plinths extend out beyond the cabinet boundaries and spoiling the otherwise sleek looks.  I don’t have a sturdy shelf to mount them on, or spare room on my desktop either, so however ungainly they looked on stands that’s where they had to stay throughout the review.  I will say that I did get used to the sight of them perched atop my speaker stands, despite the initial oddness about them.  So then, on to some real music to put the XT6 speakers through their paces.

First into the CD drawer was Hugh Masekela’s “Hope” album and those of you who also own this album will know that it has a good spoonful of dynamics and subtleties to play with.

My first impression of the sound they produced was how perky and ebullient they were, full of verve and sprightliness.  With a six inch bass driver and a ten point eight litre cabinet I wasn’t expecting gut punching bass, but much to my surprise they weren’t that lacking of weight in the lower registers, but that final octave did elude them as was expected.  No criticism from me here because similar sized rivals fare no better and if heft and power in the bass is high on your listening priorities then I would suggest you find a bigger speaker that can move more air because the laws of physics apply here, full stop.  The kick drum in the opening track of “Hope” was conveyed that it was an actual kick drum being played, while the hi hat strikes sounded very clean and metallic sounding.  It is the trumpet that defines this track and I have heard some raspy nastiness in some speakers, but glad to say the XT6 speakers were not one of them.  All of the music strands stood apart from each other with no clashing.  The immense benefit of housing the tweeter within the base cone centre in this Dual Concentric configuration is that you get a huge amount of pin sharp imaging focus from that point source. Sit bang in the middle of that sweet spot and you can positively BATHE in the imaging and sound staging these little speakers produce.  Move a foot either way though and that magic becomes a bit ordinary in the way imaging is structured and that very trait means you are going to be firmly glued in that sweet spot for as long as you possibly can.  I know I was.

Next into the CD drawer was my old favourite in the shape of Fink’s “Wheels Beneath My Feet” album which has a whole raft of benchmarks that review components have to surmount.

The verve of these speakers was amply manifested in the way they could capture the very essence of cymbal strikes.  No fizz or tizz, just good clean rendition of wood striking metal with associated harmonics and ringing decay.  Pleasure.  Once again that sweet spot revealed the venue ambience accuracy perfectly and musician placement supremely defined, plus you did get the feeling you were actually sat in the audience around two or three rows back from the stage, which was impressive.  Bass guitar and kick drum were below my benchmark ratings but not by a big margin, yet the Floor Tom strikes that the drummer really does drive down into in the track “Sort Of Revolution” still managed to shake my listening room. Go figure.

A change of pace and genre too, in the shape of Loreena McKennitt and her “An Ancient Muse” album to see how the XT6 speakers portrayed female vocals.

I cannot begin to describe any of the instruments being played in the track “The Gates of Istanbul” but my attention was focused purely on Loreena and her voice, which was beautifully airy and crisp, soaring sweetly and melodically as only her voice can, dead centre stage with the instruments wrapped around her in a shallow arc. The drums in the track didn’t have the deep thump and impact that my resident speakers demonstrate, but again no criticism given from me here.

Now this should please the classical music fans out there, because that glorious sweet spot really does unpick complex pieces with ease and orchestra placement is about as good as it gets, at least that is for my limited exposure to the genre.

Conclusion

I can sum up these loudspeakers pretty much in my first impression of them where I stated they were a perky and ebullient speaker, full of verve and sprightliness, because that was their character throughout the evaluation.  Their top end and midrange were as good as any in this class, bass output round about average for their configuration, but those powerful floor tom whacks in Fink’s album shaking my listening room somewhat tramples all over that generalisation and I could have pursued that further perhaps with playing some heavy rock music, which I don’t have in my collection.  You can keep your four chord wonder noise bands as I don’t class that as ‘music’.

OK, they looked a tad strange to me sat on speaker stands, but they would admirably suit being sited on a shelf or desktop and not look at all out of place.

In all honesty I wouldn’t pair them into a budget system, because to get the best out of them you need the best put into them and you will be amply rewarded.

That Tannoy badge on the fronts is a measurement of the quality you can expect and come resale time…that same name means you have a ready audience with less depreciation during your ownership.

Build Quality:  A cut above with real wood veneer finish, good quality terminations and above all, the superb Dual Concentric drivers.

Sound Quality:  Locate yourself into that central sweet spot and it really does open windows into the music.  If I were to be picky, then bass doesn’t have slam and power but that’s a small trade-off and look on the positives instead here.

Value For Money:  The sound and build more than balances the asking price.

Pros:  Sound and build quality.  The Tannoy badge.

Cons:  Looks ungainly on stands, bass depth isn’t in the top class league but this review hopefully pinpoints where exactly it stands.

Price: £599.00

Dominic Marsh

exaSound are a Canadian brand that make just a handful of products. Here David Blumenstein takes delivery of their $3499.00 e33 Digital to Analogue Converter. 

Five years ago I embarked upon a decision to pick up sticks and emigrate to London from New York City. This was made somewhat more concrete for me as a result of my father’s passing and my desire to get away and make a fresh start.  I knew that wherever I would call home music, more specifically my library would come with, but not all my gear and definitely not my records and CDs. The decision was to streamline as much as possible and limit gear to whatever could fit in good sized Airline approved carry-on roller bag. This meant that I had to digitise all my music and that apart from my speakers I would be taking my Mac Mini, hard drives and trusty universal, 110/220v, Bel Canto Design s300 integrated amplifier with built-in 24/96 DAC. Everything else would be purchased upon my arrival. I went through a slew of speakers before I finally felt comfortable with the Audio Physic Tempos, and it was during that time that not only did I find myself downloading and acquiring more HD, high definition files, but also  discovering something new to me called DSD, Direct Stream Digital.

As I was slowly settling into my new life abroad, I felt that I was just settling for sonic quality, so I plunged myself into the UK hifi community; joining online forums and reading all the local magazines. I had purchased a very capable and portable FOSTEX HP-A4 headphone amp/DAC to tide me over. It is powered over USB and supports DSD 128, so I thought I had it made, and then DSD 256 raised its head, but more importantly the sound was good, but not the level that I would drop everything and rush home for. Armed with all the research and queries of forum members, I listened to and demo’d the following DACs which were available to me in the UK, without extraordinary import taxes and duties: Chord Hugo, Mytek 192, M2Tech Young, Auralic Vega, Wyred4Sound and miraculously the exaSound e22. Miraculous, because apart from reading about the DAC, it was only because of advert in one of local hifi magazines that I learned there was a sole distributor up in Cambridge, outside of London.

It is now just about three years since acquiring the exaSound e22. The decision not so obvious, as it met my particular criteria:

1. Portability, it would comfortably fit in my roller bag
2. Universality, auto switching power supply, so I could plug it in anywhere.
3. Integration, using the Apple remote meant one less gadget to keep track of
4. Sonics, in a word “Glorious”, and a reason for me to run not walk from the underground station to my flat.

The exaSound e22 remains the mainstay of my digital system. Over the past few years I have auditioned other DACs, listened intently to others in the possession of friends and kind strangers, but nothing I heard so far in terms of my aforementioned criteria, price and sonic quality has turned my head, until of course George Klissarov, founder and designer of exaSound announced the new e32 DAC, not a slipstream update, but a bona fide upgrade moving on from the ESS 9108S Sabre32 chip to the new ESS 9208 Sabre32 Pro chip, which after email exchanges with ESS and a close look at the block diagram, I learned that the 9208 affords designers a slew of new technical/design possibilities and improvements, however as it relates to prospective exaSound customers here are the highlights:

• Enhanced firmware and drivers for both Mac Core and Windows
• Seamless format switching and handling of higher resolution formats when compared to the e22, the e32’s predecessor
• Inclusion of a 12 volt 1.5 amp power supply input which allows for a number of linear power supply units to be used and after listening to a few which I either had on hand or borrowed, was not convinced that the additional outlay returned an exponential increase in sonic quality.

There is renewed debate in the benefit of a Linear Power Supply over a switched one, and this will no doubt rage on.

My digital library is now just over 10TB, and while that has indeed grown and storage solutions changed over the years, I have remained consistent in my use of an Apple Mac Mini Late 2012 as my source running various software playback programs: Audirvana Plus, Signalyst HQPlayer primarily for ASIO playback, upsampling and files manipulation. ROON has just recently been added to my arsenal.

HQPlayer’s ability to manipulate files with its myriad of filters and settings can be a minefield. I had to remember to go back and listen to unaltered files when assessing the e32, and remind myself what I was listening to and the role the DAC was playing in all of this.

For reasons of transparency, I have been and continue to be a long time proponent of Damien Plisson’s Audirvana software from versions 1.x, 2.x and now 3.x. As for ROON, this was most recent, and somewhat ironic as I count the principals behind ROON and SOOLOOS as friends of mine for just about 20 years now.

ASIO Windows – Steinberg vs CORE  Apple. It should not be a competition and more of a matter what one’s hardware supports. With exaSound’s proprietary drivers Apple Macintosh users can take advantage of both Core Audio and ASIO and make up their own minds which sounds better.

There are numerous papers and posts arguing their benefits and deficiencies. I made a point of including HQ Signalyst software and ROON in my arsenal because they both support ASIO playback and I want to not just notice but hear the difference. There’s also been quite the debate over Native DSD and DOP, DSD over PCM playback and that that latter is by definition inferior in some way. After extensive listening, switching back and forth between the two it remains subjective – a matter of personal preference. Unfortunately, in the course of the review, am finding that the number who find themselves steadfast and strident in one camp or the other, stating their allegiance to me directly, not surprisingly, were found to have a horse in the race looking to sell me on a better bit of gear/piece of kit. 

Bottom line: My ears are my instruments of choice and not an oscilloscope. Having devoted an entire day to ASIO/Native DSD and CORE/DOP listening comparisons, tantamount to aural ping pong,  all i can do is wish you the best of luck in your own double-blind test.

The associated equipment for this reviews is as follows:

Source;  Apple Mac Mini – Late 2012 – running Apple OS X Sierra as its operating system. Playback software: Audirvana Plus 1.x, 2.x, 3.x, HQ Signalyst and ROON. Files are stored on hard drives connected directly via USB and over the local area network, wired and wireless – WIFI.

DACs: exaSound e32, exaSound e22, Fostex HP-A4, Audio Note DAC 1.0

Amplification: Parasound Halo 2.1, Bel Canto s300

Speakers: Audio Physic Tempo, Platinum Audio Solo

Interconnects and Speaker Cables:  Audioquest

After almost three years now, I know the exaSound e22 from stem to stern. I know how it operates, how it handles, how it sounds. It has travelled with me across continents and until the e32 I would NOT part with the unit. The e32 has taken my listening experience and enjoyment to a whole new level. The clarity, the depth and the soundstage. From my days in the darkroom, the blacks are indeed blacker.

The e32 handled them all with such aplomb. Not satisfied, I never am, it was time throw everything at the e32 in a feeble attempt to flummox. I put together a massive playlist of files of all manner of format, file type, bit depth to trigger a reaction and wanted to see it fail. Damn you exaSound, the e32 did not miss a beat.

If one is going is going to acquire a top level DSD 256 capable DAC, might as well as get a hold of proper DSD albums and tracks. I made it a point to contact friends and soon to be friends from the Blue Coast, Yarlung and Native DSD/Channel Classics DSD labels so I can put the e32 to the DSD 256 test. I listened extensively to vocals, instrumentals and symphonic pieces  and was blown away by the sheer depth of it all. DSD, Direct Stream Digital, is an acquired taste and much like everything else in this wonderful HiFi world of ours is up for debate.

Two years ago I contacted Cookie Marenco of Blue Coast to supply me with 2 sets of files PCM 24/96 and DSD 128. These files were to come from the same masters and be as identical as technologically possible. Earlier this year I received a new batch of PCM 24/96 and DSD 256. I listened to the first batch and second batch with my e22 and then again with my 32 this month. The comparisons were startling. The PCM files, upon the second hearing sounded richer and fuller from both batches and whereas in the first listening there were stark differences between them, not so much with the e32.

Having downloaded Jenna Mammina’s Closer To You from Blue Coast, not small task when you take a look at the file sizes. I was transfixed by her rendition of Elvis Costello’s Watching The Detectives  and Steely Dan’s Dirty Work. Listening to the e22 it sounded alive, natural to the point that I could trace her breaths between lyrics, but then with the e32 I blinked once at it was if I was in the studio with her. Talk is made of breaking barriers, but not like this, it’s as if the fourth wall crumbled ever so gracefully.

It doesn’t stop there. In doing this review I set out to better understand the Native DSD process and learned a great deal about what goes into recordings before it gets to the studio. I received sample classical DSD256 files of Beethoven’s 1st Symphony’s Third movement and was asked to play them on my DAC and report back not only what I heard but which I preferred.

As luck/skill/fate would have it I chose the file that not only sounded better to me but to the producer/recording engineer of the music in question. I preferred the track where there appeared to be greater depth and contrast between the sections of the orchestra. I was expecting to hear tales of daring-do in the studio but learned to my surprise that everything was exactly the same, save for the manufacture of the microphones. There was no mistaking the difference listening through the e32. I sat down time after time marvelling at how I was hearing each instrument as if each member of the orchestra was being afforded a solo. Ivan Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra never cease to amaze on the Channel Classics label.

Gary Koh, of Genesis Advanced Technology, turned me onto the Yarlung label and the Smoke and Mirrors Percussion Ensemble’s Volumes 1 and 2.

The sound is transformative. Close your eyes and it’s not your cares that disappear but your system. If this is what Native DSD 256 is all about then bring it on. I’m open to seconds and thirds of the stuff. Am not going to shun DSD, as some might like, if it is out there and my DSD supports the format. Whether or not it survives, everyone should at least listen to DSD for themselves. Closed ears are the hallmarks of closed minds.

As for PCM files, regardless of depth and bit range, the e32 revealed more detail. Marcus Miller never sounded real to me. And for those who are of the mind that Rebook, like Latin is dead, I suggest acquiring anything and everything on the Stockfisch label. It is through such recordings that we come to understand and appreciate the power and versatility of the exaSound e32.

I could have gone into endless detail about technical advancements and features which would mean precious little to a lot of people.

If nothing else such information could be used to compare a device’s cutting edge quotient, but at the end of the day that’s what the official websites and promotional literature for. In touching upon the new ESS 9208 PRO chip and exaSound’s drivers I hit on what I deem to be the most noteworthy. I am here to write for those who appreciate gear but listen to their music.

Three years is a long time to own a DAC. What with all the improvements and advancements being made, so the exaSound e22 is a marvel in that regard. The exaSound e32 took my digital library an order of magnitude further. I was listening to the familiar and it made it unfamiliar as new details in the music emerged.

The e32 may very well unseat my DAC. I was prepared for it to be different and given my experience with exaSound I should have realized that this would be far more than an update but a wholesale upgrade. exaSound owners owe it to themselves to hear the e32 and experience the progression. The rest of you in the market for a DAC and in this price range should definitely include the e32 in your shortlist to audition.

AT A GLANCE 

Build Quality:  Built to last. Ergonomically designed: economy of controls 

Sound Quality: Detailed, wide open soundstage, a clarity which not only lets your hear the music, but the layers you didn’t know were there 

Value for Money: You reach a point in your life where if you want it, here it is, come and get it. Value is subjective. If you want the aforementioned sonic quality ask no questions 

Pros: Proprietary CORE Audio and ASIO drivers developed to extract the best from the respective systems. Built on top of ESS 9208 S Pro chip. Intuitive interface and detailed online support for playback software configuration 

Cons: Apart from the price. Human condition is to want everything for less, am at a loss to list any 

Price: $3499.00

David Blumenstein 

Specifications 

• Sample Rates: ENclusiv™ comprehensive sample rate support
  • DSD: 2.8224 or 3.072 MHz
  • DSD2: 5.6448 or 6.144 MHz
  • DSD4: 11.2896 or 12.288 MHz
  • LPCM/DXD: 44.1kHz to 384kHz at 32 bits maximum sampling rate
  • Native support for 88.2, 176.4 & (DXD) 352.8kHz master files
• Converter Core: ESS Technologies 9028Pro reference monolythic 8 channel DAC configured for stereo
• USB Input: Proprietary ZeroJitter™ asynchronous USB interface with error correction on classic B–Type connector, USB cable included
• Host Support: Custom, high performance Mac OS & Windows ASIO drivers; MAC Core Audio drivers with DoP256 support
• Player Application Support: Automatic sampling rate switching, software upsampling up to 384 kHz PCM and DSD4
• Clock: FemtoMaster™ super–low jitter quad-clock architecture, with 82 femtosecond master clock and 3 auxiliary stream-control clocks
• Power Conditioning: 11 linear power filtering stages
• Host Noise Rejection: GalvanicInfinity™ – Galvanic isolation between the USB subsystem and the DAC circuitry eliminates ground loop noise and blocks computer–generated interference
• Headphone Output: Third generation headphone amplifier, 4W into 16Ω doubles the current output to drive low impedance and low sensitivity headphones
• Digital Inputs: Two S/PDIF inputs provide jitter reduction and superb D/A conversion when used with CD transports
• Analog Outputs: Simultaneously driven, gold–plated balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA line outputs
• Power Management: 12V Trigger output
• Remote Control: Included 7 button remote, the e32 can be easily programmed to work with most IR remotes

Wyred 4 Sound are based in California and produce a wide range of products from amps to music servers. Here Janine Elliot wires up their DAC 2V2 costing £2299.

I was excited to review the Wyred DAC 2v2 for two reasons. Firstly, this was yet another company who choice of name is an interesting conversation starter. “Wyred 4 Sound” reminds me of a 1981 Cliff Richard album and title song that I am embarrassed to admit I actually really liked when I was young. As the company informed me the name was really just a play on words, and a shame that there never ever was a ‘Mr Wyred’, just as there was never a ‘Mr Schiit’ at Schiit Audio.  But it certainly gets your attention. This company was set up by an E.J. Sarmento in 2007 after he left Cullen Circuits (a company producing electronic circuits and modifying others) and produces distinctive looking products that have two slanted ‘end caps’ at each end of the front panel, the whole in two-tone matt finish that fit well alongside my similarly dressed Krells.  The second reason for my excitement was the use of the ESS Sabre 9028 Pro chips in the design. I recently reviewed the Lehmann Linear D Headphone amplifier/DAC and the Copland DAC215, both using ESS Technology Sabre products, and loved the clarity and speed of sound that I heard. Similarly this unit is configured in quad differential mode meaning that with four D-A converters per channel they could achieve improved S/N ratio and output drive. For those with earlier DAC 2’s they can be updated to the v2 by sending their DAC and some dosh to Wyred 4 Sound.  There is also the higher specification DAC 2v2 SE which uses the reference 9038PRO DAC chip, plus a selection of other improved components. That doesn’t mean the machine up for review here is not qualified enough to take your digital files to a new level.  This is a very able machine, and it must be stressed the DAC is only a small ingredient in the whole product; the use of toroidal transformer, ESS Time Domain Jitter Eliminator® and W4S proprietary discrete output stages help to add up to a very exciting ‘end product’.

I first got interested in W4S when I saw their Class-D amplifiers, and as a staunch Class-A-Addict found them surprisingly good. Now their DACs are receiving equal acclaim, and their portfolio also includes preamps, music servers and cables. The new DSD 2V2 and DSD 2V2SE are based on their award-winning DAC-2 series comprising the DAC-2, DAC-2 DSD and DAC-2 DSDse.

With a mighty129db dynamic range and -120db THD+N it uses ESS Labs’ ES9028PRO Sabre 32 bit DAC chip, a successor to their ES9018S chip as used in the previous incarnation. The SE version improves on this using ESS’s flagship chip, the ES9038PRO Sabre; where it promises 140db dynamic range and -122db THD+N, though with this and other improvements adds another £1500 to the base model’s price point of £2,299. Whichever version you chose you get some impressive specification. Playing all sample rates in between the common 44.1/48/96 and 192, such as 88.2 and 176.4kHz the 2v2 will play Toslink up to 24bit/192kHz (though the instruction book states “a maximum of 174.6 has proven to be more reliable”) and S/PDIF up to 200kHz, with USB and I²S supporting PCM files up to 32bit/384kHz and up to DSD256 files, double what was possible on the DAC-2 DSD.  Each of the coax inputs are transformer coupled to isolate the source while maintaining proper loading. To ensure that the lowest input signal level will satisfy the digital conversion engine, the signals also pass through TTL buffers to maintain consistent signal integrity. The DAC 2v2 is well supplied in the socketry front too; 2 Coax, 2 Toslink, XLR AES/EBU, USB and I²S. The USB input uses what they call “galvanic isolation” to eliminate computer noise from interfering with the audio signal. Also, the ESS chip is used as the receiver chip and performs all the signal selection and routing. Automatic signal up-sampling is done internally to keep output filtering to a minimum, all helping to reduce jitter to zero. The I²S input utilises a HDMI socket (it tells you not to connect your DVD player, game console or TV to this HDMI socket!) This format is different from normal digital inputs, as information such as bit clock, word clock, master clock and audio data are all on their own dedicated pins rather than being combined on a single digital connection. By not having to get all clock information from the single data stream jitter is thereby reduced to zero. Outputs include RCA and balanced XLR, plus Home Theatre (HT) bypass and 12v trigger sockets. Just wish there was a headphone socket on the front (and associated amplifier of course), since this combo of DAC/headphone amplifier seems so common now, and also perhaps a 3.5mm jack at the front to connect direct to portable DAP player S/PDIF outputs that are becoming popular as well.  But I digress. With the HT bypass feature you can connect the pre-outs from your surround sound processor. If HT input or the trigger is initiated the HT bypass inputs will activate. I’m not a fan of surround sound, so I gave this test a miss. On the power supply side this is a well-designed unit combining an oversized toroidal transformer, more than 115,000uF of capacitance, 3 stages of filtering and 13 regulation points. The analogue output stages are powered by a separate supply to ensure isolation from the digital front-end.

In basic factory set up when switching on the unit it always resorted towards mute, so you need to increase the level using the remote to get a respectable number (61 for me). 70 is the maximum and the levels are stepped; so 1-9 are in 3dB steps and 10-24 in 2dB steps and anything above is 1dB. You can make changes to the minimum level by configuring it as you wish in Set Up by holding all three buttons in standby mode and then using the up and down buttons to get to the pages you want to modify. You can set minimum level of each input, so if you set minimum as 10, then you will have 60 steps at your disposal. You can also choose Fixed or Variable for the input level; fixed mode bypasses the internal DAC volume control, while variable mode engages it, giving you a choice of using the unit as a preamplifier or as a straight input into your preamplifier’s volume control missing out the digital volume control. You can also make changes to the filtering, bandwidth and I²S type. That remote is rather a cheap oversight and for a £2000+ product I would have expected far better, preferably metal matching the two tone metal DAC console itself. The rubbery remote is very cheap, and looks it. Sorry. Since the main unit only has these power and down/up buttons you are rather dependent on the remote for speedy operations. Interestingly this remote does have a “phase” button which is disabled and non-functional, though you can substitute a universal remote, should you wish, as W4S have added it to the Logitech Universal Remote database. The display has two levels of blue lettering which is clearly readable from your listening position,  and the unit itself is ½ the width of standard 17” width hi-fi, so you could put this and a matching server on the same shelf, for example. But bear in mind that the unit’s cooling is via holes at each side.

Listening

Turning to USB input I installed the supplied 32bit/DSD driver, with a view to playing audio via Foobar2000. The instruction manual is very good at showing how to do this if you need. It is also good that they supply their own driver, though I would expect this at the price. Playing a 32bit recording of Alan Parsons “Eye in the Sky” with its distinctive and aged electronic drum kit created a very clinical portrayal of the music; basically nothing is added or taken away from the sound, this is as honest a DAC I have ever heard. Turning to the detailed jazz and rhythmic minimalism from the duo of composer Steve Reich and Jazz guitarist Pat Metheny in their joint ‘Electronic Counterpoint’ the music was as coordinated and clear as I have heard this music. Both pride themselves on precision of timing and the W4S DAC made that even more exciting. The Pat Metheny produce excellently recorded albums with clear instrumentation, particularly from the drums, and this was a great listen, though I did miss some of that bass energy or mid warmth that some lesser conversions might present; This DAC is all about accuracy and honesty.

Turning to digital output from my X5 the latest 24/192 binaural album from Chasing the Dragon “Espana – A tribute to Spain” gave me a good chance to hear the clarity and space of sound offered by the W4S. Whilst binaural really works best on headphones, the depth of sound and positioning through loudspeakers is quite astounding. Rosie Middleton’s vocals of Bizet’s ‘Habanera’ and ‘The Gypsy Song’ from the opera ‘Carmen’ were picked up clearly by the KU-100 binaural mannequin from Neumann and presented  confidently by the W4S. The close violins and cello’s appeared as if I were sitting on the front row, and the reverb from the Air Studio’s hall was allowed to work its charm with a clarity and finesse that made the music come to life. The slightly late tambourine and triangle entries a few times in Chabrier’s Espana just assisted in making this recording as live a performance as I could get in my living room.  The national Symphony Orchestra under conductor Debbie Wiseman performed with passion and this DAC allowed that all to be clear and precise.  Bass was deep and top end pin sharp. Listening to my favourite Sibelius symphony No2 (Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir Simon Rattle), the sound gave slightly more grainy violins and more controlled dynamics than I had heard before which slightly disappointed it for me; it was getting all the detail it could out of the recording but this was like lean-beef rather than a full-fat quarter pounder with fries; the former might be better for me, but not quite so enjoyable.  The Lake Poets’ ‘Live from The Minster’ gig in Sunderland on 26th September 2015 (24/96 download from Bowers and Wilkins) was a very atmospheric performance with pin sharp accurate reproduction of man and his guitar and audience. Nothing gets past this DAC; it was like watching a film on a 4K television rather than a 1080p plasma.

Turning to jazz the Modern Jazz Quartet “Blues on Bach”, originally recorded in 1973 but available on 24/192 the close harpsichord mic’ing of John Lewis’s playing gave for a very detailed and polished performance in ‘Regret’, especially with the vibraphone playing of Milt Jackson. The slight over peaking in the recording of ‘Blues in B Flat’ did give me a surprise as I hadn’t noticed that one before. “Rise Up in the Morning” is a tune Kenny Everett used in his mime-artist comedy routines, and this gave a chance again for these artists to give a polished performance of harpsichord, vibraphone, double bass and drums including sleigh bells and triangles.  To be honest the ESS DAC plus all other components in this box gave as polished a performance as the musicians. A good test when reviewing is to play bad quality recordings to see if they sound any better. If the product is good it shouldn’t actually make the music sound better, if anything it should show up even more of the faults.  Ray Davies’s distinctive voice in title track from his album Working Men’s Club gave me a chance to hear the close drum mic’ing, distant backing vocals (including occasional lower octave interjection) and piano and organ and guitars that really aren’t as well recorded and clear as I would wish if I was engineering the album myself. The DAC gave me a chance to see how ordered all the bits could be “assembled” to make my listening experience more enjoyable.  If anything, the clarity from the 2v2 made it more painful than the last time I played it. Luckily the next track “Morphine Song” gave me less pain and made me happier, as I would expect the drug itself to do. The guitar was clearer though the thick textures and compression made it less musical.  The W4S DAC wasn’t the problem; it gave an excellent top end clarity and a weight through all the frequencies that made the music exciting and clear plus musical all at the same time.  I think you get the picture that it is hard to fault the DAC.

Turning to ELO’s ‘Alone in the Universe’, comparing my Krell CD player against the W4S, whilst the latter gave a clearer representation of the vast soundstage I felt the sound was more exciting and real for me through the KPS20i. That player’s aged DAC might not be as clever as today’s wonders but it excited me every time I played. Sometimes perfection misses out some of the magic. The bandwidth/IIR settings can be changed to allow roll-off at above 50, 60 or 70kHz for fine tuning to your personal taste, though, and using the balanced output direct to my power-amplifier gave improved soundstage and musicality, showing the unit can be successfully used in a digital-only system as a very capable preamplifier, if only that remote could excite me more.

Conclusion

This is quite some unit which I actually found hard to criticise apart from the remote. If you want pin-sharp accuracy and speed of reproduction then you cannot go wrong. This machine worked well whatever I plugged into it whether wav, FLAC or DSD.  It has an honesty that might surprise you about some of your own digital collection of music. If you can put up with hearing more of the detail and speed, and perhaps hear some of the imperfections in the recordings, then you cannot go wrong. This is one of the best DACs I have listened to, and that ESS Sabre DAC is only part of the story.  Wyred 4 Sound really do know how to put all the ingredients together to make a good DAC.

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality:  Excellent construction with distinctive ‘two-tone’ design and excellent components and connections. Just let down by a basic remote

Sound Quality:  Giving a detailed and honest conversion of the digits fed into it, with a punchy bass and clear top end.

Value For Moeny:  At £2299 this might be in upper DAC territory but it is such a good performer, catering for all main digital formats and input terminations. I really enjoyed playing with it. If you use it as a preamplifier then it is even better value.

Pros

Well controlled and precise delivery
Bass was tight, with a clear and detailed top end.

Cons

That remote.
Its aim for perfection of sound could make some music sound a little clinical

Price: £2299

Janine Elliot

Specifications

Typical Distortion THD+N     (20-20kHz A-weighted @ Vol. 55)   <0.002% THD+N

Frequency Response  (20-20kHz)  ± 0.065db

S/N Ratio > 120 db

Crosstalk > 125 db

Noise  (A-weighted)   < 7uV

Noise < 9uV

Balanced Output Level (Vol. 100%)  10.5V (20.1 db)

Unbalanced Output Level  (Vol. 100%)  5.2V (14.5 db)

Output Impedance   DAC-2v2: 100Ω   (DAC-2v2SE: 50Ω)

Channel Tracking < ± 0.50 db

Dimensions 8.5″W x 4.125″H x 13.5″D

Weight 14 lbs.