LATEST ADDITIONS

Musical Fidelity M3x Vinyl Phono Preamplifier

Review: Ken Kessler, | Jun 24, 2021

Joining the M3scd CD player/DAC and M3si amplifier, the new M3x Vinyl represents the brand's 'entry-level' MM/MC phono preamp. We lift the lid on a novel design

Scratching my head, I remain amazed at the plethora of affordable phono stages now on offer, as if to prophesy that the LP's return has no end in sight. Either that or it's sheer opportunism, but hey, that's all good news for hi-fi users. What these phono preamps do is ensure that LPs are accessible to a wider audience than high-end devices serve, while filling the gap between the costly stuff and those £99 USB-equipped decks which probably chew up more LPs than they actually play. Musical Fidelity's M3x Vinyl, however, begs a different sort of question.

From the Vault Loudspeakers

Wilson Audio System V Loudspeaker

Martin Colloms, | Jun 22, 2021 | First Published: Jan 01, 1995

Wilson Audio's Tiny Tot and matching Puppy subwoofer reach maturity with the new System V versions. Martin Colloms and Ken Kessler listen

During the preliminaries for this review I suffered a major blow at around 3am one morning [writes Martin Colloms]. I was woken up by a thundering roar from the listening room that sounded like a door being smashed down by men with sledgehammers and which wrote off a number of drivers in the speakers.

Turntables, Arms & Cartridges

Soundsmith SG/SG-230 Cartridge

Review: Ken Kessler, | Jun 21, 2021

Singular driving force behind the revival of the strain gauge generator system first seen in phono pick-ups from the '60-70s, Soundsmith's latest offering is nothing if not flexible

Hardly scientific, I know, but I am predisposed toward components that cause binge-listening. Not knowing what to expect of the Soundsmith Strain Gauge cartridge and the accompanying SG-230 preamp/energiser at a pound shy of £16,000, I will declare my surprise upon discovering that it was so engaging, I listened to 14 LPs in a row in their entirety. I repeat: fourteen.

Vinyl Release

Neil Young: After The Gold Rush

Steve Sutherland | Jun 18, 2021

Clutching his personally signed sleeve of this 1970 album, Steve Sutherland nonetheless welcomes the 180g vinyl reissue – it's a work of real genius, he says

'I don't wanna talk about that. I just don't know what to say. I respect the fact he's a guy who did what he did and, y'know, he did what he had to do and I don't wanna get any… I prefer to not be involved at all. I certainly don't wanna take advantage of talking about something like that for the interest of somebody else I've never met, and selling myself in a paper in the process. I'd rather you just left it out – it's just distasteful to me.'

Integrated Amplifiers

Yamaha A-S3200 Integrated Amplifier

Review: Andrew Everard, | Jun 17, 2021

Seven years after Yamaha moved into high-end price points with a flagship, all-analogue integrated we look at its latest offering and discover 'retro' with 21st century sound

Big, bold and unashamedly old-school with its silver finish – black is available as an option – polished piano black side panels and large illuminated meters, the £4999 Yamaha A-S3200 is the flagship of the brand's integrated amplifier range, which kicks off with the modest £200 A-S201.

Classical Companion

JS Bach: St John Passion

Peter Quantrill | Jun 16, 2021

A Passiontide masterpiece every generation of performers and audiences reinvents for itself... Peter Quantrill casts an ear back over more than half a century of recordings

In telling the life of Christ, the four Gospels of the New Testament all build towards his betrayal, his trial, his death on the cross and resurrection. The first three events are known together as Christ's Passion, from the Latin passio: I suffer. Church composers had treated the text with varying degrees of freedom and complexity – the season of Lent being a time for quietude and restraint in every respect of life including liturgical worship – for centuries before Bach made his first setting of the Passion, during the early months of 1724.

Investigation

Under the covers... Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon

Johnny Black | Jun 15, 2021

Johnny Black on the creation of the iconic artwork for Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon

Apiece of art that can today be found in 45m homes around the world was kick-started by a simple, none-too-detailed instruction to 'do something clean, elegant and graphic'. The instruction came from Pink Floyd keyboardist Rick Wright, and was given to Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell, the founders of Hipgnosis, a London-based art and design group whose first sleeve design had been for the Floyd's 1968 album A Saucerful Of Secrets.

Loudspeakers

System Audio Legend 60.2 Silverback Active Loudspeaker

Review: Mark Craven, | Jun 14, 2021

Danish brand's flagship floorstander really comes on song in fully active 'Silverback' guise, with room bass-tuning to boot

There's more to System Audio's flagship floorstander than meets the eye. Outwardly, the £7000 Legend 60.2 Silverback, available in satin black and satin white, appears to be an archetypal slender, tower loudspeaker. Peer around the back, however, and you'll find a metal plate – the Silverback of its title – with IEC mains inlet, XLR and USB connections, plus a bank of status LEDs below legends including 'Wireless', 'Centre' and 'Subwoofer'. So not only is this an active model, it's one with wireless and multichannel ambitions.

Integrated Amplifiers Vintage

Aurex SB-A10 amplifier

Review: Tim Jarman, | Jun 11, 2021

As Lexus is to Toyota, so was Aurex to general CE brand Toshiba. We reappraise the SB-A10 – compact but full-featured, was this miniature hi-fi at its very best?

In previous vintage reviews we have featured the Technics SL-10 turntable [HFN Apr '19] with its footprint the size of an LP sleeve, Sony's D-88 CD player [HFN Jul '16] that was so small the disc stuck out of its side, and Technics' SB-F1 speakers [HFN May '17], which individually could be held easily in the palm of one's hand. So how about a complete integrated amp about the same size as the concise edition of the Oxford English Dictionary? Meet the Aurex SB-A10 from 1981.

Outboard DACs

Merason DAC1 USB DAC

Review: James Parker, | Jun 10, 2021

Top dog in a range of just two outboard DACs from Swiss brand Merason, the DAC1 is a modern-day example of 'less is more' audiophile thinking. We lift the lid and investigate

In common with a lot of HFN readers, I have a bit of a 'thing' about overly complex digital devices. I'm not referring to input flexibility – many of us will have systems in which different flavours of digital connection are accommodated, from USB links from a computer to good old S/PDIF from a CD player or the like. No, what I really find obstructive is devices bristling with digital-domain options, from filters to dither to PLL bandwidth and the like, all of which often look like an exercise in 'because we can' – a facilities arms-race – rather than being of any real-world assistance to the user.

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