LATEST ADDITIONS

Ken Kessler | Dec 22, 2020 | First Published: Nov 01, 1993

Cited as the best Mac ever built, the MC275 returns. Ken Kessler listens

Reissue, reincarnation, replica – call it what you will but just thank the audio gods that someone at McIntosh has a sense of history. Unlike other manufacturers who have either squandered their heritage or merely milked it as it suited them, McIntosh has – with the Gordon J Gow Commemorative MC275 power amplifier – performed an act of such 'correctness', such aptness, that it brings a tear to this anachrophile's eye.

Integrated Amplifiers

D'Agostino Progression Integrated Integrated Amplifier

Review: Ken Kessler, | Dec 21, 2020

By extreme high-end standards, it's almost an 'entry level' product – so is Dan D'Agostino's Progression Integrated amplifier the perfect introduction to the brand?

After nearly four decades' worth of using Dan D'Agostino's designs, from Krells in the 1980s through to his more recent, eponymous models (I use a Momentum Stereo as my solid-state reference and love it to bits), I thought I knew what to expect. Silly me: surprise No 1 provided by the D'Agostino Progression Integrated was that I could lift it without any assistance. Surprise No 2 was a price under £20k.

Classical Companion

Sir Malcolm Sargent: Conductor

Christopher Breunig | Dec 18, 2020

The most urbane of English podium figures, he delighted audiences as much as he antagonised orchestral players. Christopher Breunig ponders his relevance today

Herbert von Karajan? A sort of musical Malcolm Sargent.' It was a typical Beecham putdown, even though he admired his younger colleague's skill with choral forces, and was assisted by him in 1932 when Beecham was creating his London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Pre/Power Amplifiers

Bricasti M20/M25 Pre/Power Amplifier

Review: Andrew Everard, | Dec 17, 2020

With a rich heritage in the pro audio field, US brand Bricasti is paying closer attention to the high-end consumer market with this new, dual-mono pre/power combination

Few products passing through the HFN review process elicit quite as much discussion as has this Bricasti pairing – or at least one half of it. Our initial listening results were slightly puzzling, with a sound clearly doing many things right when interposed between editor PM's dCS Vivaldi One/Melco front-end [HFN Feb '18] and Bowers & Wilkins 800 D3 speakers [HFN Oct '16], and yet our musical souls were not entirely stirred. Was this an example of unpredictable system matching? Some judicious high-end separates swapping revealed the £19,500 M25 power amp was certainly able to deliver the goods in no uncertain fashion. But did the £13,500 M20 preamp sound just a little too smooth?

Meet the Producers

Allen Toussaint

Steve Sutherland | Dec 15, 2020

His ability to mix funky rhythms with sophisticated arrangements saw this US-born producer create a string of magical smash hit singles. Steve Sutherland looks at the legacy of Allen Toussaint, whose work epitomised the sound of 1960s New Orleans R&B

You'll be aware, no doubt, of the phenomenon known as Cancel Culture – a state of mind in which those celebrities deemed to have diverged from what today passes for socially acceptable behaviour are called upon to renounce their past and present sins or be damned and ditched forever. To some, this impulse to blame and shame, while born of the best intentions, seems to have tipped into the absurd.

Headphones

iFi Audio ZEN CAN Headphone Amp

Review: Mark Craven, | Dec 14, 2020

The giants of small-scale audio solutions have just expanded the ZEN range of BT and USB DACs with a beefier, all-analogue 'drive anything' headphone amp. A bargain?

There's an air of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' about iFi Audio's ZEN CAN. The third model in the Merseyside-based company's affordable range of (non-portable) desktop devices, it shares the physical chassis design of the earlier £129 ZEN DAC and ZEN Blue models [HFN Jul '20] and promises the same mix of 'high-performance audio' and value for money. Yet there's arguably more to this cost-conscious headphone amplifier than meets the eye.

Turntables, Arms & Cartridges

AVID Reference Ruby Cartridge

Review: Ken Kessler, | Dec 11, 2020

Synonymous with top-end turntables for two decades, AVID has extended its 'Very Interesting Design' portfolio to include MC pick-ups. Here's its open-bodied flagship

Irrespective of having installed what must be thousands of cartridges in my life, AVID's Reference Ruby moving-coil brought me out in a cold sweat. The top model in a trio that also includes the £4000 Boron and the £2000 Ionic, its £6000 sticker price, allied to a completely exposed cantilever, reminded me of the first cartridge I ever destroyed. The irony was not lost on me: that honour goes to the Dynavector 23R, the first-ever cartridge with a ruby cantilever. But unlike AVID's ruby rod, it was also one of the shortest at just 2.3mm.

Vinyl Icons

Bob Marley: Natty Dread

Mike Barnes | Dec 10, 2020

Released in October 1974, this was the first Island Records LP with the re-formed Wailers and its all-female backing group, The I-Threes. It sold over 100,000 copies and prompted interest in the States, many critics now citing it as the greatest reggae album of all time

By the mid-1970s the UK had already enjoyed a lengthy relationship with Caribbean music, from the gentle exotica of calypso to its more syncopated cousin, reggae and the upbeat ska.

Outboard DACs

Audio Analogue AAdac USB DAC

Review: Andrew Everard, | Dec 08, 2020

Part of the Italian company's stripped-down AA line, which is all about simplicity of design, this compact DAC offers more features than initially meet the eye

Italian manufacturer Audio Analogue's 'PureAA' line was spun out of the 20th anniversary models the company launched back in 2016. The range now runs to three models, of which the AAdac is the latest arrival, bringing digital capability to a range that was otherwise purely 'analogue'. Like the other PureAA models and Anniversary amplifiers, the AAdac is a co-operation between Audio Analogue and stablemate AirTech, and is very much Realizzato è Costruito in Italia. There's certainly none of that offshoring the entry-level line here.

Vinyl Release

CC Revival: Cosmo's Factory

Steve Sutherland | Dec 07, 2020

Packed with tracks that would become staples of rock radio, this 1970 LP from Creedence Clearwater Revival is now released on 180g vinyl. Steve Sutherland listens...

Let's talk 'covers'. Surely everyone knows the rule by now: a cover version is only acceptable if it takes the original and does something different with it, which at least equals or at best improves it. There. It's not exactly rocket science is it? So how come there are still so very few classic cover versions after all these many years?

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