Time to disregard all the French felonies that form my antipathy towards our neighbour across the Channel: the revived Micromega has returned to the market with a family of new products offering build quality, style, functionality and, above all, prices belying manufacture in Europe. The brand will be a cat among UK pigeons, despite arriving when the economy suggests that this is not the time to launch, or re-launch a brand. Perhaps new owner Didier Hamdi knows something we don’t. Maybe tough times are just made for bargains.
Outstanding hi-fi products have never been designed by committee. They nearly always originate in the mind of one very gifted individual, like the late Dr Noboru Tominari.
Dr Tominari was a professor of engineering at Tokyo State University when he launched the Dynavector company in 1975. He developed the first successful high-output moving-coil, which did not need a special step-up device but worked with the moving-magnet phono input that was then standard on every hi-fi amplifier.
In our September 2006 MC cartridge group test, the Zyx R1000 Airy 3 emerged well and I ended up buying the review sample. I’ve lived very happily with it since. However, now Mr Nakatsuka has produced a flagship MC, which he describes as built ‘like the Parthenon’.
He’s referring to its skeletal acrylic body, designed to eliminate panel resonances, which results in a net weight of only 4g.
Blown away by MartinLogan’s Spire earlier this year [see HFN, Apr ’09], I assumed that it would replace the Summit. Before the ink was dry, the Summit X was announced, and at a higher price point to ensure that the gap would prevent customer confusion. But in order to justify the cost difference, for a speaker not that much larger, its performance would have to be instantly, audibly superior. Luckily for ML, the Summit X may be the best hybrid the company has delivered to date.
Not having had a Tannoy sub for review before, I was surprised to learn that the new, inexpensive TS range – of which this is the top model – is the first from this famous marque to include high-level inputs, which allow connection to the speaker terminals of a power amplifier. Of course, line-level inputs are also provided for direct connection to processors or multichannel disc players.
What this means is that Tannoy’s latest trouser flappers – the 801 with an 8in driver, 1001 with a 10in driver and, you guessed it, 1201 with a 12in driver – are easier to dovetail into a wide variety of audio systems. In a home theatre context you will generally use the LFE output from the AV amplifier or processor, whereas in a conventional music replay system, where line-level outputs downstream of the volume control are often not available, the speaker-level inputs will be a boon.
Not many audio companies, to my recollection, have made the transition from manufacturing speaker stands to making the boxes atop them, but that’s the journey undergone by Kudos Audio. Its stands are still winning awards but today the marque is as well known for the five-model range of Cardea loudspeakers, ranging from the compact C1 – joint winner of our group test last year (HFN Nov ’08) – to the recently introduced, top-of-the-range C30.
Slotted beneath the latter and previous alpha male is the C20, a two-way floorstander that uses the same cabinet and bass-mid driver as the lesser C2 but is equipped with a superior SEAS Crescendo tweeter and higher-grade crossover components. Included in the latter are the bespoke silver-wired capacitors that also feature in the C10 – the cut-above version of the C1.
If Pro-Ject could squeeze one of its fine turntables into the form factor of its burgeoning Box Series I’m rather sure it would. After all, it already offers TT power supplies, phono amps, pre and power amps, tuners and a USB DAC in this pocket-sized casework. Ok, so the turntable idea is a bit impractical, but another DAC well. .
While there’s little that’s grand looking about RCM Audio’s Sensor Prelude phono amplifier, despite it costing considerably in excess of a grand, close inspection reveals that it has been purposefully designed.
A substantial brushed alloy fascia disguises what is otherwise a rather utilitarian metal case. But there’s little to complain about its construction quality, other than the cheapness of the stuck-on rubber feet. A separate power supply box connects via an umbilical cable of fixed length and locking DIN connector while the cable is generous in length to allow remote placement.
You could have knocked me down with a feather when, late last year, I received an e-mail from Adrian Walker, one half of the dynamic duo behind the original Deltec Precision Audio. I had used DPA’s 100S pre/power combination for the best part of a decade in my own system, and reviewed the inaugural product in HFN Oct ’87, but the company had dropped off our collective radar by the late 1990s. Rob Watts, the pioneering engineer behind the outfit, had moved on to other projects including a now longstanding relationship with Chord Electronics. Yes, Rob Watts ex- of DPA is the same Watts behind the WTA digital filter used in Chord’s Red Reference CD player.
© 2024 Hi-Fi News
