Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2025 i Hi Fi News

Publishing schedules being what they are, this February coverdate issue will most likely land on your doormat in the early New Year. So let me take this opportunity to wish all our readers a happy and healthy 2025, and hope that you’ll continue to join us on our journey, discovering new music alongside the most innovative, top-flight gear. At the time of writing, Big Ben has not yet seen out 2024 (it’s Xmas day morning, in fact…) but we are certainly ringing in the quarter century with a landmark product – the Varèse streamer/DAC from dCS. Many of you would have caught sight of this five-box behemoth at our Hi-Fi Show Live last year, and perhaps had the chance to meet one of dCS’s longstanding engineers – Chris Hales and…

MAKING A STAND The Reference loudspeaker range of US manufacturer Klipsch has gained a new standmount. The R-60M (£425) is the largest two-way model in the series, and features an aluminium tweeter with a 90o x 90o Tractrix horn, plus a reflex-loaded 165mm ribbed-cone polymer woofer. Klipsch promises a ‘seriously big sound’ from this affordable design, aided by a claimed 93.5dB sensitivity and amp-friendly 8ohm (nominal) impedance. www.klipsch.com LEYLINE THEORY The Chord Company has released a new RCA interconnect aimed at audiophile beginners. Finished in ‘stealth grey’, the Leyline is offered in lengths from 0.5m-3m, priced £28.75-£45, and features gold-plated RCA plugs, over-moulded plug surrounds and polyethylene insulation. The British brand has also launched USB-C iterations of its C Line and Clearway USB cables, with A-C, C-B and C-C terminations…

Review: Andrew Everard & Paul Miller Lab: Paul Miller The French/American composer Edgard Varèse, from whom this latest dCS digital product takes its name, described his music as ‘organised sound’, challenging reactionary critics who likened his compositions to ‘no more than noise’ by saying ‘what is music but organised noises?’. Well, clearly dCS feels those noises need quite a bit of organising, for its latest digital music front-end comprises no fewer than five units, for a total price of £217,500, and a further ‘box’, an SACD/CD transport, to come this year to swell the stack again. Somewhat understandably, the company says the Varèse set-up will only be made in limited quantities. STANDING ORDER Five boxes, just to perform the functions of network playback and DAC? We’re a long way from…

Review: Jamie Biesemans Lab: Paul Miller Instantly recognisable, Switzerland’s Piega has produced its ‘ribbon’ loudspeakers for nearly four decades. Building on the company founded by Leo Greiner (the other founder, Kurt Scheuch, brought technical chops to the table), it’s a manufacturer that takes pride in its family ownership. Greiner’s sons Alex and Manuel still manage the business from Horgen on the shores of Lake Zurich, where production is situated. Leaving the dedicated Center 211 Gen2 aside, the three-way Coax 411 Gen2 standmount, from £7900, is the smallest speaker in the range, with the Coax 611 Gen2 and Coax 811 Gen2 offered as floorstanding alternatives. In all instances, the two crucial words are ‘Coax’ and ‘Gen2’, the first referring to the speakers’ proprietary coaxial design, which features a ribbon tweeter mounted…

Review: Ken Kessler Lab: Paul Miller After ten faultless years of duty, my trusty reference phono stage, the EAT E-Glo, has been superseded by the E-Glo 2 (£7999). The changes turn out to be more than merely cosmetic, as I was first led to believe in a hasty conversation with EAT (European Audio Team) founder and CEO Jozefina Lichtenegger. She matter-of-factly explained that, due to customer demand, the company redesigned the look of the E-Glo in a number of ways. Not least was giving the external power supply the exact same look – the same slim alloy chassis – as the phono preamplifier itself. You can position them side-by-side or stacked, and I prefer the latter because it saves space. What inspired the update was how the original E-Glo came…

Rush’s eighth studio album, Moving Pictures, is the one that finally bridged the ‘Goldilocks’ gap – as in, it landed in the ‘just right’ position between the Canadian trio’s uber-progressive 1970s heyday and their more accessible approach to the shifting sound tides of the ensuing new decade. Released in February 1981, its seven songs clocking in at 40 seamless minutes, the album catapulted Rush from a cult-favourite concert draw with a number of radio hits to a householdname headlining act. Rush’s combined axis of bassist/vocalist/keyboardist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer/lyricist Neil Peart (whose passing in January 2020 effectively ended the band as a performing/recording entity) carried the torch for bringing complex, time-signature-shifting music to the masses for over 40 years. But it was Moving Pictures that put the…

AUDIOPHILE: VINYL ART PEPPER QUINTET “Smack Up” Craft/Contemporary CR00706 (180g vinyl) By 1960, recording in stereo had evolved past the early days of 2-channel sound and had grown less gimmicky. This magnificent reissue is an archetypal session from that year, comprising a quintet of sax, trumpet, piano, bass and drums, but it’s as if the producer (Lester Koenig) and engineer (Roy DuNann) were over the novelty of spreading stereo too wide. Instead, it’s more coherent and thus a more convincing sound, rather than a show-off piece for early hi-fi systems. Saxophonist and leader Pepper plus Jack Sheldon, Pete Jolly, Jimmy Bond and Frank Butler shine through six numbers penned by other saxophonists. It’s not for everyone, but if sax is your thing, grab a copy. KK Sound Quality: 90% GEORGE…

A few decades ago the UK’s FM/VHF radio broadcasts from the BBC were regarded as an excellent source for listening to music. Particularly if your ‘taste’ preferred the kinds of music broadcast on Radio 3, and you were happy to sit down and listen to concerts like The Proms. As a result some superb ‘super tuners’ were developed and bought to provide the best possible results. QUANTITY OVER QUALITY Sadly, over the decades, audio quality standards on FM radio have tended to decline – albeit Radio 3 can still do pretty well – and there has been a shift to streaming over the Internet. In principle, digital broadcasting could have provided even higher quality than FM/VHF, but alas, the bean counters decided that we should have ‘width’ of choice with low…

ROY AYERS: KING OF VIBES IN PRAISE OF THE ‘GROOVE AND FUNK’ MASTER It was a pleasant surprise to see Jamie Biesemans spin some Roy Ayers while reviewing the Epos ES-7N speakers [HFN Nov ’24]. Admittedly, Everybody Loves The Sunshine was Roy’s big seller before he, like many others, hit the disco trail. I also think some of his best work came before it. Ayers’ earlier albums, including Mystic Voyage and A Tear To A Smiley (both 1975), stay thick within groove and funk, with more band-lead tunes. In this period he plays his ‘acoustic’ set-up, which gives an open, expansive sound. Later, like others, Ayers moved to midi-based synthesised vibes. The electronic vibes made touring easier, plus the dB capacity increased to keep up with the rest of the…

Review: Andrew Everard Lab: Paul Miller With not just so many ranges in its catalogue, but also many models in those ranges, it’s hardly surprising that Danish speaker company DALI is no stranger to the concept of trickle-down technology. After all, once the development cost of a new component, or an entire loudspeaker, has been spent, why not spread the love by finding ways of carrying over that thinking to other products? That’s definitely the case with DALI’s latest range, Epikore. As the name suggests it moves on from the previous Epicon lineup with technology derived from the mighty KORE flagship model [HFN Dec ’22], yours for £85,000 a pair. When launched back in 2022 the KORE was described by company CEO Lars Worre as ‘a design, electroacoustic, engineering, manufacturing…

Review: Mark Craven Lab: Paul Miller When a manufacturer announces a new model, it’s tempting to compare it to what’s come before, looking for where upgrades have been made. And, yes, the MS-1 from China’s Matrix Audio does carry on technology and design features from the company’s earlier network players, including the Element X2 and X2 Pure [HFN Oct ’22 and Dec ’23] and entry-level X-Sabre 3 [HFN Apr ’22]. That said, you only need lay eyes on the MS-1, with its full-width chassis, large, colourful front-panel display and £9600 price tag, to realise it’s also something different. What we have here is one of three new flagship components from Matrix Audio. A networked streamer/DAC, the MS-1 has launched alongside the MA-1 (£8000), a Class AB stereo power amplifier promising…

It was when I was grovelling on the floor, under a cupboard and looking for a faulty connection, that I was reminded there is a lot about home electronics we should be force-taught early in life. Such as? Pull on the plug, and never on the cable. Soldered joints corrode and crack (remember DIN and SCART?), which is why audio plugs are often crimped. But both soldering and crimping need the right tools and experience, just as small sealed plugs can’t be repaired. TOOL’S GOLD On the subject of cables, I’ve previously recommended that everyone buys an Ethernet cable continuity test tool that flashes okay, or not, for each core. There’s a similar tool that tests HDMI cable cores. Coaxial cable can fail when kinked, eg, when a loose loop…

There is no question that traditional symphony orchestras are finding life tough, especially in a post-Covid world. Audiences are down, funding is down, rehearsal time cut to the bone. The fight is not so much for relevance as prominence. In London, I regularly attend concerts which would have packed out the Barbican or the Royal Festival Hall a decade ago. Now they close the balcony so that the rest of the venue paints a rosier picture. If you look through new-release lists, the picture is complicated by the fragmentation of what used to be a defined scene. It’s like trying to make sense of a Mondrian when your eye is trained to look at Rembrandt. PRESTIGE PLAYERS When international-standard orchestras make recordings, especially of standard repertoire, they do so mostly…

HEY, BIG SPENDOR Martin Colloms assesses the three-way Spendor 9, top model in the brand’s new lineup. SONUS FABER GRAND PIANO Can these speakers impress with hi-fi as well as home cinema? Alvin Gold tests a 5.1 package. CYMBOL CA1, CA3 & CDP12 Ivor Humphreys auditions two integrated amplifiers and a CD player from the British electronics brand. AUDIO RESEARCH CD3 Ken Kessler on Audio Research’s return to the ‘two-channel only’ CD arena… is it all too late? RUSS ANDREWS PURIFIERS ‘Cleaner’ mains for a ‘cleaner’ sound. Is there a downside? Martin Colloms reports. TRANSFIGURATION SPIRIT 3 Jimmy Hughes gets into the spirit of vinyl with an uplifting new moving-coil cartridge. UNISON RESEARCH S2K Steve Harris on a civilised yet sensual valve amplifier that’s also superb value for money. PRO-JECT…

Said to ‘lean more into the feature set’ of Musical Fidelity’s flagship NuVista Vinyl 2 phono stage [HFN Feb ’24] while offering a clear upgrade over its M6x Vinyl, the Austrian manufacturer’s M8x Vinyl is available now, priced £3599 in black or silver. Fully balanced, and incorporating new power filtering and DC blocking technologies, the unit caters to a wide range of MM/MCs with its three-stage gain trim (+3/+6/+9dB), comprehensive loading options, and RIAA, Decca and Columbia EQ curves. Balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA inputs facilitate the use of multiple tonearms/turntables, while the preamp’s XLR and RCA outputs can be used simultaneously. Subsonic filter selection is also onboard. Musical Fidelity (Audio Tuning Vertriebs), Austria, 01235 511166; www.musicalfidelity.com…

21-23 FEB Florida International Audio Expo 2025, Sheraton Tampa Brandon, Florida; https://floridaaudioexpo.com 21-23 FEB Bristol Hi-Fi Show, Marriott City Centre Hotel, Bristol; www.bristolshow.co.uk 02 MAR Spring Audio Jumble 2025; www.audiojumble.co.uk 11-14 APR AXPONA Audio Expo North America 2025, Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Centre Hotel; www.axpona.com 15-18 MAY High End, Event Center Messe München (Munich), Germany; www.highendsociety.de/high-end…

You hold in your hands the world’s oldest and most respected hi-fi magazine – Hi-Fi News – where heavyweight audio engineering is our stock in trade. All our review products are typically subject to a one-month test process from shipping, unpacking, installation, photography, lab work, extended listening, disassembly/packing and collection. This practice was maintained right through the pandemic period, with full Covid biosecurity adding to the logistical complexity of our four-week issue schedule. But we did it… never missing one issue of the magazine or compromising the ‘Hi-Fi News Pledge’: 1. Our hardware reviews are never brief ‘hands on’ experiences of a product from a press conference, brand-led demonstration or distributor’s back room spun up into a four or five page article. 2. Products reviewed in Hi-Fi News already have…

Review: Ken Kessler Lab: Paul Miller Baffled by its name, I assumed Polish manufacturer ‘Fezz’ took it from its distinctive toroidal transformer covers, which reflect the shape of the famous Moroccan hat if not the city itself. Here was a valve amplifier with the full complement of toroidal transformers – not all that common with tubes – but there’s even more novelty to the Sagita Prestige preamplifier (£3499) and Titania power amplifier (£3495). Eastern European price advantages are just the start. Which is not to say that Fezz Audio was new to me. I have seen it every year that I’ve attended the wonderful audio show in Warsaw [p26] and marvelled at how so much was delivered for so little. The products of a company which specialises in transformers, it…

Review: Mark Craven Lab: Paul Miller If you have a preconceived notion of System Audio, chances are it’s been formed by its Silverback range of active, wireless loudspeakers. Occupying the top tier in the Danish manufacturer’s catalogue, models including the Silverback 60.2 and Silverback 40.2 [HFN May ’21 and Aug ’21] combine DSP-based crossovers, DACs and integrated amplification, with cable-free transmission via the WiSA standard. Add in the app control and room EQ and there is, to put it bluntly, a lot going on in the Silverbacks – something which can’t be said of System Audio’s new Signature series. This five-strong family, of which the £999 Signature 5 auditioned here is the junior model, marks the first passive speaker design from the company since 2018. This is quite a gap…

For more than two decades, I attended several hi-fi shows annually, including – until high-performance audio was sidelined – the Consumer Electronics Show, where someone was usually hyping a new technology. Such assertions were often stretching the truth, but not always: one year I wandered into a Texas Instruments demo where a placard next to a bowl of microchips, each the size of a postage stamp, stated: ‘These are 100W amplifiers’. The same year, Boulder rolled out an amplifier as big as a commercial truck engine and probably twice its weight. The contradiction could not have been more comical. SO LONG, SILICON I love progress – such as the fact that current automobiles can go 400,000 miles with simple basic maintenance. Thus, an earlier Jim Lesurf opinion piece [HFN Aug…

Ever wanted to cut your own vinyl discs? Well, it’s always been possible, one way or another. From the 1930s on, there were plenty of portable disc recorders, recording on special blanks with a paper or metal backing. US brands included Presto, Recordio and Rek-O-Kut. But by the end of the 1950s, tape recording offered so many advantages that no one still wanted a home disc recorder. And after this, apart from some machines made by Hara of Japan in the 1970s, disc-cutting was pretty much strictly for the professionals. STAYING ALIVE When CD came along, dance music kept cutting studios and vinyl production alive into the 1990s. By then the rise of DJ culture had brought the vogue for dubplates – one-off test cuts on ‘acetates’ (actually lacquer on…

SCAN TO SUBSCRIBE IN EVERY ISSUE Exclusive high-end equipment reviews, vinyl, CD and hi-res downloads rated, show reports, your letters, in-depth investigations, vintage tests and so much more… DIGITAL ONLY SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE ONLINE SUBSCRIBE TODAY SUBSCRIBE SECURELY ONLINE https://checkout.avtechmedia.co.uk/offers/hifinews TERMS & CONDITIONS: Offer ends 31st December 2025. *This digital discount is only available when you subscribe to the print + digital package. You can still get a great discount on the digital package, please visit the URL stated above for more information. Please see www.hifinews.co.uk/terms for full terms & conditions. Save 25% PRINT + DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION £58.29 PRINT + DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION 13 issues a year delivered to your door before it hits the shops Free P&P Great savings on the shop price Digital access to your magazine on multiple devices…