LATEST ADDITIONS

All good things come to an end, although in the world of digital hi-fi sometimes that end comes around pretty quickly. Obsolescence isn't as 'built-in' here as it is in the smartphone market, for example, but technological evolutions, be they around chipsets, connection standards or format types, mean 'MK2' iterations of DACs and streaming hardware are a common sight. PS Audio's DirectStream DAC MK2, however, is rather more than a mere second-generation product.

By all accounts Hegel has been very busy over the last few years, which is a notion that might raise some eyebrows because – understandably – the Norwegian company went a little quiet during and after 2020. In fact, the V10 phono preamplifier [HFN Mar '21] has been about the only piece of hardware to escape the drawing board of Hegel's owner and master engineer Bent Holter since Covid. However, as industry insiders and the company's user base well knew, Hegel was battling the angry gods of software development to make its major integrated amplifiers Roon Ready.