Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 1 - 2024 i Audio Esoterica

Innuos has released two new music servers/streamers that Nuno Vitorino, Co-founder and R&D Director, describes as “the most dramatic step forward in sound realism and versatility” in the three generations of the award-winning Zen Series. Expanding the company’s most awarded product line and sitting above the current three Mk3 generation models, the all-new Zen NG and Zenith NG (‘NG’ stands for ‘next-gen’) feature higher-end engineering and trickledown technology from the flagship Statement NG model. Innuos has dedicated three years of R&D to improving the server-grade mainboard and regulation stage. The PreciseAudio board has been extensively customised and tuned for low processor latency and to minimise operating noise, while the NGaN regulation module that powers it has been designed to significantly reduce power supply impedance and heat inside the newly designed,…

You’re greeted with a visual testament to the designer’s meticulous effort and investment before even removing the grilles from these high-end loudspeakers. The array of physical features isn’t just for show; they represent sophisticated engineering aimed at achieving unparalleled fidelity. For those less acquainted with the intricacies of multi-way speaker design, it is essential to understand the challenges and objectives involved. The goal is to create a multi-source audio reproduction system that harmonizes tonal quality, timing, accuracy, imagery, resolution and the listening environment. Whether or not you’re familiar with technical terms like ‘linear phase’, ‘phase distortion’, ‘power response’, ‘transient reproduction’ or ‘Hilbert transform’, it’s crucial to recognise the dedication of experts such as Nick Ataliotis and his peers, who have devoted their lives to perfecting these qualities and bringing their…

Denon may be best known — and acclaimed — these days for its formidable home cinema amplifiers, but its stereo lineup is just as versatile as its surround one. The revered Japanese company has released a string of two-channel amplifiers in recent years (some integrating streaming smarts and thus typically known as‘streaming amplifiers’) that accommodate enthusiasts of all ages with various disposable income levels. The PMA-3000NE we have here is its flagship integrated amplifier, and what could nowadays even be considered a purist affair considering it goes without network streaming. Indeed, this is a performance-first model whose sole purpose is to make your music sound its absolute best. We wonder if Denon’s product and engineering teams considered long and hard about whether to make the PMA-3000NE a strictly analogue (the…

Ideon Audio fits firmly into the Audio Esoterica camp. At $27,900, this IΩN DAC is far from the Greek company’s flagship model. Indeed, the Athens-based brand notes that the IΩN benefits from “trickle-down technologies and R&D gained” from working on its top-of-the-range Epsilon DAC. DAC MAGIC After lugging the significant weight of the carton-ensconced DAC up the stairs, we were surprised at how compact the extracted unit was. While a little wider than a standard component at 46cm, it’s only 8cm tall and 30cm deep. Even so, it weighs a very hefty 13kg. This is one sturdily built device. One reason why the carton was so heavy was that underneath the cardboard, the DAC was packed within a nice sock within a sturdy metal travel case. Ideon Audio’s Australian distributor,…

Despite their esteemed performance and revered reputation, Stax’s electrostatic headphones (or ‘earspeakers’, as the Japanese brand refers to them) needn’t cost the earth. Case in point: the headphone legend has developed a new bundle, designed to be the ultimate entry point into electrostatics, comprising the $1,100 SR-X1 headphones and accompanying $960 SRM-270S amplifier (otherwise known as a ‘driver’ or ‘energiser’). Together, the $2,060 duo replaces Stax’s long-running and successful SRS-3100, building on that affordable system’s legacy with across-the-board upgrades. Douglas Ip, Sales & Marketing Manager at Stax, says: “We’ve redefined what users can expect from an entrylevel audio system. The SR-X1 earspeaker is not just about superior sound quality; it’s about an immersive experience tailored for endurance and comfort.” To that end, the SR-X1 boasts a newly engineered, circular sound…

It would be more than fair to say that Dutch & Dutch’s 8c loudspeakers have, ever since their release, been sensations the like of which the audio world has not before seen. We certainly can’t remember another product that has captured the hearts, minds and ears of the hi-fi world as completely. Reviewers are raving about their sound quality and technical performance, and their ability to acoustically integrate into any room, not to mention that they are the world’s first loudspeakers to offer commercial third-party software plug-ins, including the BACCH crosstalk cancellation (XTC) filters developed at Princeton University to allow 3D audio reproduction from a single stereo pair. DIGITAL-SAVVY DESIGN The 8c are more than just ‘loudspeakers’, as the word‘active’ in the title of this review suggests. These active standmounts…

Despite sitting between Bowers & Wilkins’ popular entry-level 600 Series and iconic flagship 800 Series Diamond, its 700 Series has avoided middle-child syndrome. In fact, it has long been the loudspeaker range upon which many of the British brand’s customers have settled; the sweet spot, if you like, in its esteemed lineup. The logic of its appeal is clear: the 700 models pack much of the cutting-edge Diamond technology into a more affordable (okay, less prohibitively expensive) and smaller (alright, not quite so massive) package, while also delivering a significant step up from the 600 models. The third and latest generation of the 700 family has been on this earth for two years now, having arrived as a very welcome update not only because the range hadn’t been refreshed since…

Power-to-weight ratio defines performance in many fields. It’s how a Hennessey Venom F5 supercar can get from 0 to 60mph in less than three seconds, and how Tadej Pogačar managed one of the greatest climbing efforts in cycling history at this year’s Tour de France. It is also a crucial factor in how Avantgarde Acoustic has managed to produce the ultimate audio performance from its all-new Colibri C2 passive loudspeaker. For those who haven’t put two and two together yet, the latest creation from the German horn speaker and amplifier company has been fittingly named after another master of the power-to-weight ratio: mother nature’s hummingbird, or “Colibri” (/”Kolibri”) as it is known in the brand’s homeland (and too in Russia, Spain, Italy and France). After all, the hummingbird is the…

The Reference 1 Meta are not lone wolves, of course, but belong to a pack whose other four members are two threeway floorstanders (Reference 3 Meta and 5 Meta) and two three-way centre speakers (Reference 2 Meta and 4 Meta). Each model gets the all-important MAT technology and 12th-generation Uni-Q driver, which KEF says represents one of the most significant driver updates over the last 30 years and 50+ Uni-Q iterations. This latest generation began with the R Series in 2018, the new defining technology being the Tweeter Gap Damper for improved resonance control. Its implementation in the LS50 Meta soon followed, adding MAT, but for the new Reference series (and Blade models), KEF took the opportunity to rework the driver and, in its words, “provide a flagship technological example…

at the UK Hi-Fi Show LIVE, Ascot, UK, 20 September 2024 Vivid Audio started in 2004; our first show was at the Heathrow Renaissance, where we showed the B1, the K1 and the C1. And in a sense the company goes back further than that, because I was with Bowers & Wilkins, where we produced a funny snail-shaped speaker named Nautilus, and that loudspeaker was the first product to use an exponentially tapered absorber… of which more later. Nautilus was, in fact, rather quiet for a loudspeaker. I left Bowers with the intention of starting a professional monitor company. So for a couple of years, whilst out in the wilderness eating locusts and wild honey, I developed two new domed loudspeaker drivers, which actually are pretty much fundamentally unchanged, and…

You have to feel for those who live in the idiomatic shadow of others basking in the spotlight — Robin, Hollywood stuntmen, introverted kids of celebrity parents, Yamaha’s HA-L7A headphone amplifier… When Yamaha released its landmark and extravagantly high-end YH-5000SE headphones just shy of two years ago, it did so to pretty huge fanfare. Kudos to the company’s marketing team; hi-fi reviewers and head-fi enthusiasts far and wide wanted a listen. But in the wake of that launch, and sensibly timed we must say, came the Japanese brand’s first-ever high-end headphone amplifier, with comparatively modest pageantry. You may remember that the announcement was covered in the last issue of Audio Esoterica magazine, but since that ink dried we have spent weeks with the amplifier to form this very review. So…