Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2023 i Hi Fi News

Earlier this year the BPI published an in-depth document describing ‘The New Music Democracy’, subtitled (or) ‘How more artists are succeeding from streaming’. By all accounts 2022 was a record-breaking year with 160 billion audio streams representing 86% of our music consumption in the UK. That’s a big increase on the 36% reported in 2016, the uplift clearly accelerated by the surge in on-demand listening that occurred during the extended pandemic period. The report reveals that over 2000 artists achieved in excess of 10 million streaming requests with 10% of these amassing a staggering 100 million streams. Just a dozen achieved over a half billion streams each, among them superstars like Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Eminem and, of course, Ed Sheeran. The ‘democracy’ stems from the number of streams being…

They’re a fanatical bunch, Naim enthusiasts, and they got riled – yes, again – when the highly-developed Naim app for Android and iOS was updated with selected products from the company’s French stablemate. Now dubbed the Focal & Naim app, and opening splash screen aside, nothing much has changed [see screenshots]. Once in ‘Naim mode’ the app offers configuration and control of the company’s Uniti, Muso and ND-/NS-network products, also bringing several of them together to form a complete multiroom system with extended control (including global or individual volume adjustment). In this guise, it offers complete synchronisation between all the connected devices, so you can walk from room to room without missing anything. The app also reflects the range of inputs on the device(s) being controlled and notifies the user…

Elliptical drivers? Not quite… Look closely at our pictures of the R80 and while the mid/bass unit’s dust cap and two-layer voice coil are clearly elliptical in shape, the pulp cone is very traditionally circular. Ironically, the true elliptical drivers of hi-fi history – such as that seen in B&W’s DM3 from 1968 – combined oval cones with traditional circular/cylindrical caps, formers and coils. Scan-Speak freely admits that the idea of using an elliptical driver coil to moderate break-up modes in a speaker cone was advanced almost as a throw-away remark by Scan-Speak’s late senior engineer Birger Jørgensen. Nevertheless, on closer examination, Scan-Speak’s design team saw technical advantages not only in a bass/mid application but also for a tweeter where a larger dome could be employed for improved low-frequency extension,…

By Copland’s own reckoning, its noughties-era CTA405 integrated amplifier [HFN Aug ’07] was an ‘object of desire for audiophiles worldwide’. Now, some 16 years later, it has taken the idea of that model and considerably overhauled it – the £6500 CTA407 is both recognisably a descendant of the ’405 and also markedly different. How so? Well, the 40 LEDs along the front are a clue, as these give a visual indication of the operational status of the amplifier’s quartet of power tubes. They’re related to a new automatic tube biasing and diagnostic system – the CTA405 offered manual biasing only – and Copland says this platform, while compromising the simplicity of its typical approach, yields the CTA407 an impressive degree of flexibility. LET’S ROLL Successor model to the CTA405 it…

The Auralic Vega G2.2, selling for £6899 in best basic black, comes in at just £100 more than the previous G2.1 [HFN Oct ’22], and appears to offer evolutionary changes rather than anything truly radical. One thing’s for sure, however – the brand has come a long way since it launched its original Vega model, which was basically a USB-input DAC, getting on for a decade ago [HFN Jan ’14]. Yes, there are similarities between the first Vega unit and this latest version – the USB-B input is retained, for example, as is the ability to work straight into a power amplifier or active loudspeakers thanks to its built-in preamp. Otherwise the Vega G2.2 is a complete network streaming solution as well as a DAC, able to play music from…

One of my secret loves has long been transmission line speakers. I miss IMF (named after the designer, Irving M. Fried), the doyen of the genre, although the technology has been used by other brands – most notably PMC. You can therefore imagine my delight when the prodigy1 arrived at a mere £1250. I’d been hearing about it for months, as the prodigy1 (with lowercase ‘p’) was a talked-about launch at the 2023 Munich High-End Show. While the same PMC-made drivers – the 133mm natural fibre long-throw woofer and 27mm soft dome tweeter – feature in the prodigy5 floorstander [see p23], I was especially keen to experience the prodigy1 as I have been on the prowl for a small speaker which fits in price-wise between the ‘ribbon’ tweeter-equipped Quad S1…

In the quest for a universal phono stage, designers have to accommodate all manner of cartridges, but for most of us they fall into just two categories: moving-coil (MC) and moving-magnet (MM). Even within those types, however, there are plenty of variants such as moving-iron, moving-flux, whatever you call Deccas, both high- and low-output MCs and even low-output MMs. The list is endless, but Soulnote’s E-2 phono amplifier handles all of the above configurations plus DS Audio optical cartridges via a built-in energiser and equaliser. That’s not all. Add to this package the legacy of the various equalisations needed to play 78rpm records and you have one of the closest-to-all-embracing phono stages on the market. Indeed, the only cartridge type I can think of which the E-2 cannot accommodate is…

Canton is not only Germany’s largest loudspeaker manufacturer, it might also be one of the most prolific speaker builders in the world. Yet within an extensive range that includes everything from on-wall and in-ceiling speakers to soundbars and subwoofers, its Vento series has long been a main ‘pillar’ of the brand, in production for nearly two decades. And now, as part of a recent refresh of the Canton catalogue overseen by technical director Frank Göbl, it’s been comprehensively upgraded. The Vento 100, the large three-way floorstander that headlines the new series, replaces the previous Vento 896.2 DC. Positioned one step below Canton’s flagship Reference K range [HFN May ’22 & Aug ’22], and selling from £5000, it would appear aggressively priced when pitted against some notable rivals, such as Bowers…

COMPACT DISC SUPERAUDIO DVD BLU-RAY VINYL DOWNLOAD AUDIOPHILE: VINYL TITO PUENTE AND HIS LATIN ENSEMBLE Mambo Diablo Craft Recordings/Concord Jazz Picante CR00643 (180g vinyl) Marking Puente’s centenary, this magnificent reissue from 1985 is a particular delight if you’re partial to Latin rhythms and the sound of vibes and timbales. It is not, however, a purist, ‘world music’ torture-fest but a cool, almost loungecore experience, enhanced by no less than George Shearing on piano on ‘Lullaby Of Birdland’. Puente, of course, did as much as anyone – with nods to pioneers Cugat, Arnaz, Prado, et al – to spread the joys of Latin music beyond Spanish, Mexican, Cuban and other inherently Hispanic audiences. The fun here is that only two of the tracks are Tito’s compositions and one other a bolero,…

Jim Lesurf has spent a lifetime in audio, both as an engineer at UK hi-fi company Armstrong and reader in Physics and Electronics at St Andrew’s University Being somewhat old fashioned (OK, I admit that’s code for ‘old’) I still regard Shure’s V15 cartridge series as the best that was ever made. And back in the days when they were on sale I had a habit of buying a new replacement stylus every two years or so. This was to avoid the risk of continuing to use one that had a worn tip, which might have resulted in less than optimal performance or even damaged LPs. My personal favourite turntable became a Technics direct-drive design, simply because when I tried it and its tonearm with the Shure V15, the results…

When they weren’t playing, I found the appearance of these loudspeakers to be disconcerting because their normally exposed electrostatic elements are shrouded in a black cloth hood to keep out the dust. But when the cloth is removed, and the elements are exposed for use, their silvery perforated stator elements are presented in striking full view. BELLE CURVE In a curved format, which is reminiscent of the famous B&W DM70 hybrid electrostatic of the early 1970s, the electrostatic section of the Cadence Arca is an open dipole structure mounted on a substantial box enclosure that contains a powerful woofer. Cadence is backed by a major industrial group and is located in Pune, India, and its designer has brought a modern idiom to the Arca, with the dense 50mm to 90mm-thick…

Leading light of Living Voice, Kevin Scott, looked back at the origins of the brand. ‘35 years ago I was setting up and optimising systems from a very strict portfolio of equipment’, he recalls, ‘but the biggest impediment to success was always the loudspeaker – surely the most editorial and blunt instrument in any system. This is why I started designing speakers… needs must. ‘In the early ’90s I collaborated with Vitavox to evolve its historic designs into what became the Air series of horns. The Air Scout and Air Partner were big three-way systems suited to SET amps. These led to the Vox Series – uber exotic five-way fully horn-loaded systems consisting of the Vox Olympian, Vox Elysian, Vox Palladian and Palladian Basso’. Kevin has also been designing reflex-loaded…

Almost all valve amps employ a transformer to step-down the high voltage/high impedance output of their power tubes – 6550s in this instance – to better match the lower impedance and higher current demand of the attached loudspeaker. Copland offers 8ohm and 4ohm output taps conceived to ‘match’ nominal 8 and 4ohm loudspeaker loads, respectively, even though almost no speakers provide such a ‘flat’ impedance. Instead the load swings up and down with frequency as the various reactive components of crossover and drivers come into play – the system response rising with increasing speaker impedance and falling with decreasing impedance. I mention ARC’s recently reviewed I/50 integrated in my Lab Report [see p59] as it shares the same tube and 50W specification as the CTA407, but differences in the output…

Speakers with ports or other apertures in their cabinets are typically ‘reflex’ designs that exploit the Helmholtz resonance of the port air mass to boost their low-frequency output. Transmission line bass loading is a variant of this technique seen some 90 years ago but formally proposed in 1965 by Arthur Bailey in Wireless World. Bailey’s solution utilises the Helmholtz resonance, albeit within a far longer, and typically folded and tapered acoustic channel. The overall length of this pipe determines its quarter-wavelength tuning (ie, 4.3m for 20Hz), while foam or wool damping within the channel is used to attenuate the rear output and any reflections or resonances within the enclosed air space [see inset picture]. Ideally, transmission lines should be closed – as seen in B&W’s Nautilus [HFN Jan ’13] –…

As soon as I heard that Soulnote, based in Kanagawa, Japan, was set up in 2004 by ex-Marantz Japan employees, my expectations soared. In practice, Soulnote is the in-house high-end audio brand of CSR Inc, founded in 1991 and run by Mr Norinaga Nakazawa, president and managing director. CSR’s design and manufacturing footprint extends to radio comms equipment (for the Japanese fire and rescue service), wireless microphones and amplifiers (for karaoke), plus electronics for the education sector. CSR is also the Japanese distributor of UK speaker brand PMC, which it sees as a good fit for its range of hi-fi electronics. CSR/Soulnote employs around 50 people, the Chief Sound Manager since 2016 being Hideki Kato, who has been in the hi-fi industry since the 1980s and has experience in both…

ORIGINAL LP Down By The Jetty was released in the UK in Jan ’75 on United Artists [UAS 29727] with black record labels and silver lettering. Most releases in other European territories shared this catalogue number but arrived with cream labels and a brown UA logo [pictured below]. The Japanese version came with a black and brown obi strip and an insert in Japanese [United Artists GXH 1060]. For its Argentine release the album title was translated into Por El Espigón and came with a red sticker proclaiming it as ‘rock ’n’ roll’, with track titles also translated into Spanish. The inner sleeve featured a monochrome line drawing based on the cover photo [United Artists, UAS 29727]. In 1980 the album was reissued – allegedly – in stereo in Spain…

Barry Fox trained in electronics with the RAF and worked as a patent agent, but he gave that up to enter journalism. He is one of the world’s top technology writers Remember the old days when buying leads, plugs and bits of audio kit involved a trip down to London’s Tottenham Court or Edgware Roads? We’d browse through the racks and bins at Proops, Laskys, Henry’s, Maplin or Tandy in the hope of finding the part we needed. Then the Gods invented the Internet, and along came Covid. Buying online became pretty much the only way to obtain bits of kit. It’s all very convenient. Most of the time. But a recent sobering experience exposed a practical pitfall and the best and worst ways of handling it. I’ll pass on…

Peter Quantrill has been writing about music for magazines and record labels for 30 years. When not hunched over a CD player, he’ll be at a concert, or the cricket In his study of Arnold Schoenberg, Harvey Sachs takes almost malicious delight in pointing out how much people have hated the composer’s music ever since it was first performed. An early critic of Pelleas und Melisande called it ‘an assassination of sound, a crime against nature’. Even usually sympathetic ears are sought not for their praise but their reservations. What’s odd in this context is that the book sets out its stall with the title of Schoenberg: Why He Matters. By the end, it is less clear than ever why Harvey Sachs in particular believes Schoenberg matters, or even whether…

In recent Vintage Reviews we have looked at some of the more affordable CD players that arrived during 1986 and 1987. Taking advantage of new technology in order to popularise the format among the wider public, machines such as the Toshiba XR-J9 [HFN Jun ’23] and Sony CDP-7F showed that the rigorous rationalisation of every aspect of a CD player’s design could yield an attractively priced package that still gave consumers all the perceived benefits of digital audio. TOP SHOT Philips was at the forefront of the race to produce cheaper players, its CDCD (Compact Disc Cost Down) project having already resulted in simplified machines of conventional appearance. However, the public had demonstrated its willingness to buy top-loading players, provided the price was right, which meant the expense and complexity…

At times of late, it seems Salisbury’s Naim Audio is wilfully courting controversy. It’s been causing ripples with the brand’s faithful fans ever since it launched its all-in-one Mu-so systems and second-generation Uniti products. It wasn’t that these arrivals were on a mission to make hi-fi simpler for all, eschewing the tweakery and ‘black magic’ once suggested as a prerequisite for realising its true potential – no, what broke the usually calm surface was the fact the Naim logo, for decades lit in green, had turned white. Cue Naim aficionados fanning themselves like Edwardian grandes dames with a fit of the vapours. Now the ‘New Classics’ products have taken a very substantial boulder and hurled it into the millpond, for not only are the logos white, there’s a new take…

Drop in on Derbyshire-based speaker company Living Voice at any hi-fi show, and it’s hard not to be mesmerised by its Vox Olympian flagships. With styling somewhere between the brass section of an orchestra of several centuries ago, and a steam-powered Victorian imagination of a Dalek from Doctor Who, these £200,000+ models – £435,000 with the optional Vox Elysian subwoofers – are a riot of horns, tubes and ‘trumpets’. Even in a high-end arena not known for its understated looks, they stand out. Moreover, once experienced, they are never forgotten. By contrast, the R25A, launched in 2019 to mark the 25th anniversary of Living Voice’s Auditorium model, seems not only traditional but also modestly priced (at least in the grand scheme of things) at £6350-£6650, depending on the finish. Now,…

Dr. Feelgood grew out of a 1960s teenage skiffle band who played in Canvey Island, Essex, at the edge of the Thames estuary. The members included John ‘Sparko’ Sparkes on guitar, while Lee Collinson – who later became Lee Brilleaux – was originally on banjo but became the band’s vocalist by default. The reason? He was the only member who could remember the words to the songs. Their friend John Wilkinson – later Wilko Johnson – would occasionally join in on paper and comb, and they would busk outside the Bingo Hall on the seafront. Performing under numerous names, including the Razzmatazz Washboard Band, they grew into an R&B combo and in 1971 decided to make a proper go of it. They settled on the name Dr. Feelgood, after the…

While his main interest is high-end audio, Barry Willis also writes about the culinary industry, visual art and theatre for a huge variety of US newspapers and magazines It’s the third week of May as I write this and California’s biggest audio festival, The Home Entertainment Show (THE Show), is just two weeks away. I’m not attending, but several friends are, including two longtime fans of high-performance audio who have never been to such an event. I’ve tried to give them some idea of what to expect – the crowds, the array of gear on display. Most of all I’ve warned my neophyte friends to be doubtful about anyone claiming special possession of master tapes or first-generation analogue copies of master tapes, or hinting at inside connections to the music…

Steve Harris edited Hi-Fi News between 1986 and 2005. He loves jazz, blues music, vinyl and vintage hi-fi and anything that makes good music come to life It was the dream product of its day, a machine to play LPs with no danger of wear or damage. Instead of a stylus, the Finial turntable read the contours of the groove by laser. In 1989, the Finial’s already long-delayed launch was cancelled. Intended to sell at $3786, it would now have to sell for $20,000 or more and was said to be no longer viable. But it was reborn in the same year in Japan as the ELP, or ‘Edison Laser Player’, when the technology was acquired by Sanju Chiba, formerly a senior executive with General Electric. Since then, Chiba’s ELP…