This month we review and test releases from: Octave Records, Steven Isserlis, Connie Shih, Enrico Rava, Fred Hersch, Machaut/The Orlando Consort and Edward Hart/Charleston SO.
Built into the same chassis as the NEO iDSD, with the same DAC onboard, this new version loses the headphone amp in favour of a bespoke, app-driven streaming platform
To say iFi Audio is an industrious producer of compact hi-fi solutions would be an understatement. More recently the brand has been on a steep upward path of technical evolution, employing designers as accomplished as the marketing department is imaginative. The result? IFi Audio is successful because it has identified new hi-fi hotspots that appeal to both younger and older music lovers alike.
Martin Colloms | Apr 25, 2023 | First Published: Aug 01, 1991
Martin Colloms hears the FET nine/e and SA/3.9e from Threshold – a company that can lay claim to being one of the founders of the high-end...
Threshold has been making high-quality amps for many years, its preamps showing early use of FET circuitry and the power amps distinguished by an output stage design which Threshold calls 'Stasis', a kind of active Class A operation. Company founder and chief designer, Nelson Pass, remains fully involved and his signature appears on the circuit diagrams included in the excellently documented operating manuals supplied with the units.
Sweden's Supra brand was in the vanguard of the cable revolution in the late '70s so its new and vibrant Excalibur flagship is no mere stab in the dark.
With its blue-tinged foil screen positively glowing through a tight, translucent PVC jacket, Supra's flagship speaker cable, priced at £1700 for a 3m terminated set (£300 per additional stereo metre), makes for a vivid statement. It's a world away from the speaker cables that helped Tommy Jenving launch his Swedish Supra brand in 1976. Its Supra Cable 4 and 2.5 used bunches of very fine copper strands in a standard figure-of-eight geometry. Its later 10mm2 Supra Cable 10, with 2562x0.07mm 4N copper strands, still has the lowest series resistance that I've measured (3.1mohm/m) when tested nearly 30 years ago [Hi-Fi Choice Aug '94].
With its rack-mount 'ears' and 2U chassis, Mac's MI502 amplifier has its sights set on the custom install market. But is this Class D powerhouse also a treat for purist stereophiles?
It's not unusual to find consumer hi-fi hardware making some concessions to the custom installation (CI) space – typically connectivity, such as RS232 and Ethernet – that enables a CI professional to integrate and control the product in a wider system. Yet there are also items, such as McIntosh's MI502, that are more deliberately aimed at the CI market. A slimline two-channel power amplifier, it looks a world away from some of the Binghamton, New York-based company's heavy-hitters. Should it be given a swerve by the dedicated audiophile? Or might it be just what the doctor ordered?