Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2016 i Hi-Fi Choice

If you follow the mag on our Twitter or Facebook social media pages you will have undoubtedly taken part in our recent opinion polls asking about your favourite hi-fi sources and preferred music formats. The results have been extremely enlightening, and while physical formats are very much in demand for fellow audio fans, on-demand streaming services are also becoming increasingly popular as a way of instantaneously accessing millions of tracks and albums at the click of a touchscreen or keyboard. On-demand music streaming is a massive growth area, and with Apple Music and Google Play joining the ranks it’s rapidly becoming the preferred route for music fans to access their favorite material and artists – with each service offering its own brand of curated and exclusive content to appeal to…

TICKETS ON SALE NOW Is AKG’s N90Q headphone (HFC 405) the future of personal listening? Equipped with noise cancellation and TruNote auto calibration, it adapts its output to suit the unique ‘ear space’ of every listener. Experience this amazing, DSP-driven headphone yourself at The Hi-Fi Show Live. acclaim at last year’s Hi-Fi Show Live, the revamped version of KEF’s iconic Muon loudspeaker will partner with Chord Electronics’ flagship DAVE DAC and Reference Monoblock amplifiers as the centrepiece of our new White House exhibition space. Prepare to be truly amazed! Described as its “emphatic response” to the challenge of designing a supreme flagship floorstander, and demonstrated for the first time in the UK at The Hi-Fi Show Live, ELAC’s Concentro combines a 140kg monolithic cabinet with a 25kg stand milled from a single…

DETAILS PROVIDER Google ORIGIN USA TYPE Web browser & mobile app music streaming service and online store FEATURES ▪ Library claims 25 million tracks ▪ Format & highest bit-rate: MP3 at 320kbps ▪ 30 day free trial with free cancellation; £10/m thereafter WEBSITE play.google.com/music PLAY TIME In the same way that Apple gets to ‘pre-load’ iOS devices with Apple Music, Play Music is found lurking in the preloaded software of all Android devices. Google has additionally produced apps for Blackberry and Windows Phone, but there is no sign of one for Kindles. As you’d expect from a company the size of Google, the apps are pretty good with logical layouts and decent stability. One unique aspect of Play Music is that there is also a third-party option for an installed…

DETAILS PROVIDER Tidal ORIGIN Norway TYPE Desktop & mobile app music streaming service FEATURES ▪ Library claims 25 million tracks ▪ Format & highest bit-rate: ALAC/FLAC 16/44 at 1,411kbps ▪ 7-day free trial with opt out; £20/m thereafter WEBSITE tidalhifi.com TIDAL WAVE The most significant change for Tidal’s service between this Group Test and that carried out in HFC 396 is that there are now apps available for iOS, Android, Windows, Blackberry and Kindle. All of these have been subject to continuous and ongoing improvements and while Tidal is not quite as slick as what Spotify has to offer, it has come on a long way and the iPad app in particular is a significant improvement on the original. The other area where Tidal has an advantage over most of…

Peter Walker had it in his mind that technology really was there to be used to achieve a result – low distortion and tonal accuracy – hence the slogan, ‘the closest approach to the original sound’”, says Quad’s Peter Comeau. “He grew up in an era when a lot of people were playing at making hi-, thinking they were doing good things, but he went after all the technical flaws and found very elegant answers to them. Everything he did was clever, and moved the game along. Even in Quad now, everything we do is about good solid engineering, offering an elegant solution to the problems out there…” Peter J Walker founded SP Fidelity Sound Systems in London in 1936, but soon changed the name to the Acoustical Manufacturing Company.…

PRICE: £200 TELEPHONE: 08712 001996 WEB: uk.onkyo.com REVIEWED: HFC 409 Realising that not everyone is able to break the bank when it comes to buying an integrated, the A-9010 (UK) proves that you don’t have to make huge sonic compromises to hit an affordable price point. Onkyo’s entry-level fullsize amplifier offering ticks all the boxes when it comes to covering the basics. Consequently, four RCA inputs are accompanied by a frontpanel mini-jack input, a line output and a builtin moving-magnet phono stage for vinylistas. Onkyo’s Wide Ranging Amplification Technology (WRAT) is onhand to maintain a dynamic performance when speaker loads increase and the A-9010 (UK) has been specially tuned with European preferences in mind for a warmer and fuller sound. Sound quality Despite the performance being reportedly tuned for warmth, this isn’t…

LINDY 6-WAY MAINS CONDITIONER POWER STRIP £45 TELEPHONE: 01642 754000 WEBSITE: lindy.co.uk TESTED: HFC 405 Eliminate the clicks and pops that are generated by other electrical equipment for complete sonic satisfaction. STRING SUSPENSION CONCEPT SSC MAGICPOINT 100 ISOLATION PUCKS £60 EACH TELEPHONE: 0203 5442338 WEBSITE: nunudistribution.co.uk TESTED: HFC 411 Isolating your equipment with these pucks helps to dissipate energy so that it’s not transmitted elsewhere. HI-FI RACKS LTD GRAND STAND EQUIPMENT RACK £300 PER TIER TELEPHONE: 01752 756447 WEBSITE: hifiracks.co.uk TESTED: HFC 408 Quite aside from bringing a touch of style to any system placed upon it, the Grand Stand eliminates resonances and tightens the impact of drums, for example. AVID HIFI SIEVEKING SOUND RCA END CAPS £10 PER PAIR TELEPHONE: 01480 869900 WEBSITE: avidhifi.co.uk TESTED: HFC 405 Who’d have thought that covering up…

DETAILS PROVIDER Amazon ORIGIN USA TYPE Desktop & mobile app music streaming service and online store FEATURES ▪ Library claims “over one million” tracks ▪ Format & highest bit-rate: MP3 at 256kbps ▪ Free trial with opt out as part of Prime Trial; £80/pa thereafter WEBSITE amazon.co.uk/primemusic PRIME TIME Amazon hasn’t become the worldwide force it is today without having a decent grasp of mobile apps, and Prime Music comes geared for iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone devices. Unsurprisingly, one additional area where the service is strong is on its own Kindle tablets with its ‘walled garden’ of apps. Third-party support of the service is rather more limited, however, with Sonos about the only major supporter. Some tests on Android and iOS reveal that the app is in some…

DETAILS PROVIDER Qobuz ORIGIN France TYPE Desktop & mobile app music streaming service and online store FEATURES ▪ Library claims 20 million tracks ▪ Format & highest bit-rate: FLAC 16/44 at 1,411kbps ▪ 10-day free trial with opt out; £20/m thereafter WEBSITE qobuz.com CATCHING UP As well as the desktop app for OSX and Windows, Qobuz has options available for iOS, Android and Blackberry but there is no Windows mobile or Kindle support. The iOS and Android apps have a good sense of continuity with the desktop app, although in many ways the search facilities are actually more effective in the mobile versions as there is less recourse towards the retail side of the business. Where Qobuz has to yield ground to lossless rival Tidal is that it still lags…

WINNER Tidal offers a superior audio performance and is steadily improving its convenience compared with Spotify. This is an easy service to use and live with across multiple platforms and just about remains the best all-round package on the market. But the gap is closing... WHEN CHOOSING BETWEEN software, the implications of getting it ‘wrong’ are rather less serious than with pricier hardware – meaning you could try all six of these services for yourself at negligible cost. That said, the reasons for choosing Amazon Prime Music and Google Play Music are less compelling than the other services here. Amazon is interesting to experiment with as it incurs no additional costs for Prime users, but there are some significant limitations. The library is the smallest here and the controls and…

DETAILS PRODUCT Roksan TR-5 S2 ORIGIN UK TYPE 2-way standmount loudspeaker WEIGHT 8kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 190 x 370 x 280mm FEATURES ▪ 104 x 104mm ribbon tweeter ▪ 130mm paper cone mid/bass driver ▪ Quoted sensitivity: 88dB/1W/1m (8ohm) DISTRIBUTOR Henley Designs Ltd TELEPHONE 01235 511166 WEBSITE henleydesigns. co.uk Imaging is well in excess of what I’ve heard from speakers with ribbon tweeters Our world is full of small loudspeakers, trying to get by. Most are inevitably the same take on the medium density fibreboard box, complete with moving-coil drive units – one for the bass and midband, and the other for the treble. Make them cross over at around a kilohertz or two, add a fancy cabinet finish and Bob’s your uncle... Nothing is ever new in hi-, so it’s…

DETAILS PRODUCT Neat Iota Alpha ORIGIN UK TYPE 2.5-way floorstanding speaker WEIGHT 6kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 200 x 450 x 160mm FEATURES ▪ 50mm EMIT tweeter ▪ 100mm mid/bass driver and 134mm bass unit ▪ Quoted sensitivity: 86dB/1W/1m (4ohm) DISTRIBUTOR Neat Acoustic TELEPHONE 01833 631021 WEBSITE neat.co.uk HOW IT COMPARES  Acoustic’s Concept 40 floorstanders (HFC 385), while nowhere near as compact, offer an attractively fast and open sound for just under £1,000, but it’s not hard to find them for £700 or less – and with their easy-going nature making them simple to drive, that’s a pretty serious bargain. Similar conventional alternatives include the flagship of the Tannoy Revolution XT range, the XT 8F (HFC 404), complete with 200mm dual concentric and bass drivers, and selling for £1,299, while the similarly…

THIS MONTH DAVID PRICE EXPERTISE: REVIEWER DP two-finger typed his first hi-fi review 25 years ago. Since then he’s edited Hi-Fi World and HFC. He describes himself as an “unreconstructed analogue addict”. NEVILLE ROBERTS EXPERTISE: ENGINEER Neville has an eclectic taste for classical baroque and jazz. His wife was forced to marry his transmission line speakers in the eighties and he collects BBC test card music. JASON KENNEDY EXPERTISE: REVIEWER Editor of HFC from 1998 to 2001, Jason’s first turntable was Rega’s Planar 3 and Elvis’ 40 Greatest Hits was his first vinyl, so don’t go stepping on his blue suede shoes. DAVID VIVIAN EXPERTISE: REVIEWER David’s love of hi-fi started at an early age after a near-deaf experience with a rubbish Pye music centre and his favourite prog-rock LPs.…

ALBUM OF THE MONTH Bat For Lashes The Bride CD Parlophone AS BAT FOR Lashes, Natasha Khan earned Mercury Music Prize nominations for her 2006 debut Fur And Gold and its follow up Two Suns. Her third album, 2012’s The Haunted Man, a set of beguiling art-school pop on which her lofty soprano floated beguilingly above her characteristically dreamy soundscapes gave her a first American chart entry. Yet despite such critical and commercial success, a feeling persisted that she had more to give and we were still awaiting her first truly great album. At 36 and no longer the fluttering ingénue, The Bride is that record, destined to catapult her into the premier league. By creating a concept album in which she is playing a role rather than singing about…

PRICE: £1,700 TELEPHONE: 01273 423877 WEB: exposurehifi.com REVIEWED: HFC 397 Getting on a bit now, the 3010S2-D is worthy of inclusion in our roundup if only for the majestic way that it toppled our previous favourite integrated – the seemingly invincible Creek Destiny 2 (HFC 373) – from its pedestal as top dog. The ‘D’ suffix indicates the inclusion of an optional plug-in DAC board, which offers PCM at up to 24-bit/192kHz resolution, plus DSD64. It also comes with USB and BNC inputs between which it auto-switches and vinyl fans will be pleased to note the inclusion of a phono stage (in moving-magnet and moving-coil flavours). Power output is quoted as 110W per channel at 8ohm. Sound quality A fast-sounding design, the 3010S2-D seems to be a little more fleet of foot…

PRICE: £2,699 TELEPHONE: 01242 511133 WEB: parasound.co.uk REVIEWED: HFC 404 Fairly new to British shores, Parasound is an American company that’s very much on the up and the Halo Integrated is its do-it-all device. If ever there was a product that personifies what a modern amplifier should be like, this is it. It does everything it can reasonably be expected to, including connecting to a variety of digital and analogue sources, delivering a fair whack of power into a wide range of loads and not being too big. It’s hardly small, but when you consider it removes the need for separate preamp, power amp, DAC and phono stage boxes, it’s positively miniscule. The fascia is hewn from finely brushed aluminium and its controls turn and respond beautifully. It claims 160W RMS per…

Grand Designs Technics has made a welcome return to high-end separates, and this slick movie gets you up close and personal with its new Grand Class G30 Series, which features a hi-res server with streaming options aplenty: youtu.be/23jZVS38mq4 Home grown As my dad once told me, high-end hi-fikit doesn’t grow on trees, but if it did you’d probably want to fertilise it with sacks of this stuffshared by a familiar name to long-time HFC readers @d4ngeorge on Twitter. Rumours it makes for an earthy, more organic sound are unfounded. Digital Dilemmas Sugden Audio was leading the chat on Facebook last month on the digital audio paths its followers have gone down to bring streaming convenience into their high-end systems, with answers ranging from simple Sonos solutions to bespoke network drives:…

DETAILS PROVIDER Apple ORIGIN USA TYPE Desktop & mobile app music streaming service and online store FEATURES ▪ Library claims 25 million tracks ▪ Format & highest bit-rate: AAC at 256kbps ▪ 3 month free trial with free cancellation; £10/m thereafter WEBSITE apple.com/uk/music READY TO RUN If you own an iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad, you don’t even need to install an app to get Apple Music up and running as the pre-installed ‘Music’ app will switch over from handling your existing content library. Apple has also produced apps for Android, Blackberry and Windows mobile and Kindle. The Android app is rather less slick than its Apple counterpart and feels a little congested, but it works well enough and offline storage is simple to select. Where Apple Music is on…

DETAILS PROVIDER Spotify ORIGIN Sweden TYPE Desktop & mobile app music streaming service FEATURES ▪ Library claims 25 million tracks ▪ Format & highest bit-rate: 320kbps Ogg/Vorbis ▪ 7-day free trial with opt out; free tier with advertising £10/m thereafter WEBSITE spotify.com OPEN ALL HOURS Thanks to the development of its Spotify Connect, you are far more likely to have native Spotify support on your device than any other service here as it has done much of the legwork. What makes Connect particularly effective is that the system makes use of its own control software, which ensures a very consistent control environment. The variety of platforms that Spotify supports is also notable and includes iOS and Android apps, plus Blackberry, Windows Mobile and Kindle options. As well as there being…

DETAILS PRODUCT KEF Reference 1 ORIGIN UK/China TYPE 3-way standmount loudspeaker WEIGHT 18.2kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 205 x 440 x 430mm FEATURES ▪ 25mm Uni-Q dome tweeter with 125mm mid driver ▪ 165mm aluminium bass driver ▪ Quoted sensitivity: 85dB/1W/1m DISTRIBUTOR GP Acoustics (UK) Ltd TELEPHONE 01622 672261 WEBSITE kef.com/gb Ican’t recall ever having had a pair of standmount speakers delivered in roadie-proof flightcases, but as I unlatch the cases the reason for the extravagance of KEF’s factory-to-frontdoor transit service swiftly dawns. It isn’t just to protect the exquisite piano gloss surfaces and delicate exposed drivers from multiple extraction mishaps. It’s symbolic, too, reflecting a certain reach of ambition. In other words, the Reference 1 – KEF’s flagship standmount featuring enclosure and driver tech trickled down from the £20k Blade concept…

If you want to know just how good Jimi Hendrix was, ask Eric Clapton. When the two most eminent guitarists of the rock and roll age met for the first time in October 1966, Clapton and Cream were already in pole position to become the hottest act on Britain’s nascent psychedelic-rock scene and Hendrix was an unknown hopeful who had arrived in London from America only a week before. When he turned up to see Cream and asked if he could sit in for a couple of numbers, an intrigued Clapton agreed. “I thought he looked cool and probably knew what he was doing,” he later explained. What followed as Hendrix launched into a tour-de-force version of Howlin’ Wolf’s Killing Floor was so extraordinary that it made Clapton feel like…

PRICE: £799 TELEPHONE: N/A WEB: marantz.co.uk REVIEWED: HFC 409 A thoroughly modern integrated with styling echoing Marantz’s glorious past, the HD-AMP1 boasts fashionably compact dimensions, an asynchronous USB input capable of handling the highest resolution music files currently available and the tried and tested ESS Sabre DAC at its heart. With Class D amplification providing a quoted power output of 35W into 8ohm (70W into 4ohm) and all the connectivity you could realistically ask for at the price (that’s a USB-A port on the front, a coaxial, two optical digital and a pair of analogue inputs around the back), it packs all of the company’s know-how into its compact chassis, plus some new tricks as well. Sound quality Perhaps the most surprising thing about this little amplifier is that it sounds not…

PRICE: £2,750 TELEPHONE: 01235 511166 WEB: henleydesigns.co.uk REVIEWED: HFC 413 Traditionally Roksan has a distinctly muscular but musical character and the newly released blak does little to change the formsheet. Pushing out a claimed 150W RMS per channel and comes with a built-in moving magnet phono stage for turntable hookup and aptX Bluetooth should you wish to go wireless. More standard features include a USB input for connection to a Burr-Brown DSD1794A DAC (PCM up to 24/192kHz, DSD64 and DSD128), three RCA line ins, and a pair of analogue XLRs. Build quality is very good and the chunky brushed aluminium fascia (available in charcoal, anthracite or opium) looks thick enough to stop a bullet. Sound quality Classic Roksan characteristics are plentiful here. Powerful, punchy, feisty and tough, this quite clearly isn’t the…

DAVE’S TOP OF THE POPS “I like so many acts, the end is listless! I pretty much like something from every genre, although I listen to very little pop and rock these days. I love great songwriters from Kurt Weil to Steven Sondheim to Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell to Chris Wood. I love jazz from Louis Armstrong and Django Reinhardt through bop, through Weather Report and Chick Corea to ECM and John Zorn. I like a lot of orchestral music, late 19th and 20th Century – very little earlier than that. I love all sorts of music from around the world: tango, African music, Scandinavian folk, Cuban, South American percussion, Gaelic, Indian... all sorts. I’m not keen on country, warbly opera, anything from the eighties, or wealthy white Englishmen…

These pages are a must-read if you’re thinking about buying used kit, or if you have hi-fi you want to sell. It’s free – simply submit your ad of up to 50 words (we will edit them if not), remembering to include your email, phone number and county The simplest way to send your ad is via email to: letters@hifichoice.co.uk or mail: Reader Classified, Hi-Fi Choice, AVTech Media Ltd, Suite 25, Eden House, Enterprise Way, Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 6HF. This service is open to private advertisers only. Just one ad per household. Images are for illustration only and do not represent what is for sale FOR SALE EGGLESTON WORKS Dianne Loudspeakers. 18 months old, finished in dark metallic grey. One speaker has two small marks. Speakers come with all boxes and…