LATEST ADDITIONS

Hi-Fi News Staff | Nov 13, 2014

Yes, those valves – made in-house – really are a foot tall! And they radiate substantial heat once the SXI has been powered up for a few minutes, but KR Audio’s amplifiers are beautifully engineered. The company is based in Prague, founded by electronics engineer the late Dr Ricardo Kron in 1992. It’s a boutique firm of only a dozen or so people – skilled artisans who blow the glass and hand-craft the tubes. Such is the transparency of KR Audio’s Kronzilla amplifiers that at least of couple of German recording studios use them in mastering suites.

Pre/Power Amplifiers

Mcintosh Mc275 Mkvi (£5500)

Hi-Fi News Staff | Nov 13, 2014

McIntosh’s original MC275 featured as an ‘Audio Milestone’ [HFN Dec ’10], but what’s reviewed here is the current production version of this most famous power amplifier. It’s the same as the 2011 Anniversary Edition but with stainless steel rather than a gold chassis. Its most spectacular outward feature, described in staid McIntosh tech-speak as ‘small tube illumination for amplifier status operation’, comprises LEDs indicating status or output tube failure. This is a part of a protection circuit system which will also shut the amp down if speaker wires are shorted or there is a gross impedance mismatch.

Pre/Power Amplifiers

Musical Fidelity M8pre/ M8700m (m8pre, £3500; M8700m, £4000 Each)

Hi-Fi News Staff | Nov 13, 2014

Enter Musical Fidelity’s latest ultra-high-power creation, described as ‘a true heir to the [2008] Titan, delivering near-identical sound’. It’s a monoblock design that’s considerably more bank-balance friendly, rated at 700W/8ohm, although this transpired to be conservative. It is part of a new series of high-end components, also including the M8PRE preamplifier. The sturdy casework has a finely-textured black finish and thick aluminium fascias while the M8700m’s heatsinks are smoothly finished.

Disc Players

Roksan Oxygene (£2500/£2800)

Hi-Fi News Staff | Nov 13, 2014

These are just the first two models in Roksan’s new Oxygene series. In the amplifier, the use of Class Dor switching-amplifier technology provides high power and excellent performance from a physically compact package. There’s very little heat dissipation, so the amplifier doesn’t require big heatsinks or a lot of ventilation. The designers have chosen one of the well-known range of Hypex UcD modules, which have a high reputation for sound quality.

Pre/Power Amplifiers

Siltech Saga C1, V1 And P1 (£85,000)

Hi-Fi News Staff | Nov 13, 2014

On seeing Siltech’s pre/power combo you might think it incorporates a separate power supply. In fact, this unusual design splits the power amplifier into separate interstage (voltage gain) and current amplifier sections. The combo’s C1 tube preamplifier (pictured) features a rechargeable battery power supply as does the V1 voltage stage of the two-box power amplifier. Of course, running the complete V1/P1 amplifier from a battery would be wholly impractical, so the P1 is mains powered.

Pre/Power Amplifiers

Simaudio Moon 380d & 330a (380d, £4600; 330a, £2800)

Hi-Fi News Staff | Nov 13, 2014

At the heart of Simaudio’s 380D DAC/preamp is its M-AJiC32 processing (Moon Asynchronous Jitter Control in 32-bit mode) and at the core of this is an eight-channel ES9016S Sabre DAC from ESS. Simaudio claims to have further improved jitter performance with its own ‘Alpha Clocking System’. The 380D has separate power supplies, each with a toroidal transformer and 11 stages of voltage regulation, for its digital and analogue sections. The analogue stage is a fully differential circuit and balanced XLR connections are strongly recommended, although RCAs are also provided.

Pre/Power Amplifiers

Tad C600/m600 (c600, £27,000; M600, £26,000 Each)

Hi-Fi News Staff | Nov 13, 2014

This lavishly-built C600 preamplifier and unusual looking partnering M600 monoblocks [not shown] are TAD Labs’ ‘Reference’ amplifiers. The C600 preamp’s aluminium subchassis is 33mm thick and weighs 15kg alone, designed to resist acoustic vibration and provide a ‘low and stable ground potential’, says the company. Removing the preamp’s top plate reveals its dual mono construction and all-discrete signal path; it’s a fully balanced design. The power supply, with its massive transformer, is a separate ‘hideaway’ unit.

Pre/Power Amplifiers

Nagra Jazz/msa ( Jazz, £8750; Msa, £6450)

Hi-Fi News Staff | Nov 13, 2014

Yes, they’re expensive – but Nagra’s electronic jewels are gloriously timeless and beautifully engineered. The new Jazz preamplifier maintains the compact form factor and familiar brushed aluminium casework synonymous with the marque – it’s a Nagra through-and-through. And Nagra says the preamp’s circuitry – which employs 2x12AX7/ECC83s and 1x12AT7/ECC81 dual-triode valves – has been completely rethought to improve stability and reduce noise to the point where its engineers no longer consider a battery power supply a necessity. The Jazz is powered by a hideaway PSU that delivers DC to the main unit via a cable terminated with a Lemo connector.

Disc Players

Burmester 111 Musiccenter (£26,800)

Hi-Fi News Staff | Nov 11, 2014

The 111 is Burmester’s take on what a 21st century music centre might comprise, albeit with an eye-watering price tag. It is a high-end analogue preamplifier with a built-in DAC and a slot-in CD drive for playing CDs; it can rip CDs to its HDD, and since it has both Wi-Fi and Ethernet network connectivity it has internet radio functionality built in. Once music is stored as a ‘digital library’ on its internal 3TB HDD, the 111 can further function as a music server to distribute music around a networked home. It’s driven via an iPad that is included in the price (Burmester’s iPad app is attractive and works well).

Outboard DACs

Chord Dsx1000 (£7500)

Hi-Fi News Staff | Nov 11, 2014

This is Chord’s first network player. What it has done, in effect, is to marry its top-of-the-range QBD76 HDSD DAC with StreamUnlimited’s Stream700 audio streaming client – an off-the-shelf hardware solution for network audio which includes a 3. 5in, 320x240 pixel colour display, supports up to 24-bit/192kHz FLAC or WAV files via wired Ethernet (24-bit/96kHz via a wireless connection), provides for internet radio and offers remote control via a smartphone app. There are just two rear inputs –a BNC socket for S/PDIF connection and, of course, the Ethernet socket – and just two pairs of phono and XLR outputs: one at fixed level and one a variable output, adjusted by an analogue volume control within the DSX1000, which allows for direct connection to a power amp.

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