LATEST ADDITIONS

Rock, April 2022

Mike Barnes | May 03, 2022

This month we review: Animal Collective, Black Country, New Road, Cate Le Bon and Michael Rother And Vittoria Maccabruni.

Jazz

Jazz, April 2022

Steve Harris | May 03, 2022

This month we review: Immanuel Wilkins, Basil Hodge, Andrea Motis and Oscar Peterson.

Classical

Classical, April 2022

Peter Quantrill | May 03, 2022

This month we review: Dmitri Sinkovsky, La Voce Strumentale, Benjamin Alard, COE/Harnoncourt and Anna Netrebko, La Scala/Chailly.

Hi-Res Downloads

Hi-Res Downloads, April 2022

Andrew Everard | Apr 30, 2022

This month we review and test releases from: Alexander Scriabin/Andrey Gugnin, Clandestine Amigo, Dzsindzsa Band, Petra Magoni & Ilaria Fantin and Blue Violet.

Inside the Studio

Capitol Studios

Steve Sutherland | Apr 29, 2022

Synonymous with legends such as Sinatra, The Beach Boys and Nat King Cole, this studio in Hollywood has a pedigree spanning over 60 years. Steve Sutherland on Capitol...

Imagine if Jimi Hendrix had decided to release an album that wouldn't feature any guitar. Or that John Coltrane announced a long player sans any sax. Or Miles Davis did an LP on which you didn't hear one toot of horn. Madness, right? No way José.

Integrated Amplifiers Network Audio Players/Servers

Roksan Attessa Streaming Amplifier

Review: Mark Craven, | Apr 28, 2022

The most comprehensively-equipped component of Roksan's Attessa quartet combines phono, line and digital inputs with a BluOS streaming platform and beefy amplifier

So it turns out that network amplifiers built around BluOS streaming technology are like buses. No sooner had we waved goodbye to the £1299 NAD C 700 [HFN Feb '22], then up popped the Attessa Streaming Amplifier from Roksan, a little more expensive at £1495 but cut from the same just-add-speakers cloth. This joins a competitive market alongside not only NAD's device but Bluesound's £850 BluOS-based Powernode, plus other streaming integrateds including Cambridge Audio's Evo 75 and Audiolab's Omnia. Handy for Roksan, then, that it has a lot going for it.

Headphones Network Audio Players/Servers

Astell&Kern ACRO CA1000 Digital Audio Player

Review: James Parker, | Apr 26, 2022

With powerful battery pack and styling inspired by the Mars rover, the CA1000 aims to squeeze the performance of a full-sized 'digital' headphone amp into a portable player

The new Astell&Kern ACRO CA1000 desktop player/DAC/headphone amplifier, selling for £1999, has a raft of functionality built-in – and yet I'm still not quite sure who it's for… Of course, this is far from the first step beyond its core expertise in high-quality pocket music players taken by the company. After all, it's already given us the extraordinary AK500 stack system [HFN Apr '15], active speakers and the chunky ACRO L1000, its first desktop headphone amp/DAC.

Integrated Amplifiers Network Audio Players/Servers

HiFi Rose RS201 E Streaming DAC/Amplifier

Review: Andrew Everard, | Apr 25, 2022

Korea's Citech group is ploughing its considerable in-house hardware and software resource into a series of network-attached players. Here's its most compact all-in-one

One of the great advantages offered by network-capable audio hardware is that, once a platform has been designed, it can be rolled out across a number of products, re-purposed and scaled depending on the target market. We've seen the same from brands as diverse as AVM [HFN Dec '21], Cambridge Audio [HFN Nov '21] and Naim [HFN Aug '21], and now recent arrival HiFi Rose is following the same path with high-end players designed to be used in existing systems all the way through to one-box soundbar set-ups.

Vinyl Icons

De La Soul 3 Feet High...

Johnny Sharp | Apr 22, 2022

In 1989, a trio of young New York rappers turned the hip-hop world on its head with a playful, skit-filled debut that coined the term 'sampladelic'. Yet over 30 years later, legal wrangles and label fallouts mean we are still waiting for a definitive high-quality release

Given the LP's almost childlike sense of fun, inadvertent originality and youthful irreverence for genre rules, it makes sense that 3 Feet High And Rising first took shape in a suburban high school. It was 1986, and 17-year-old Kelvin Mercer (aka Posdnuous), Dave Jolicoeur (aka Trugoy The Dove) and 16-year-old Vincent Mason (aka Maseo) had been working on their own hip-hop jams, the latter already an aspiring DJ providing onstage beats for local MC Gangster B.

Loudspeakers

System Audio Legend 7.2 Loudspeaker

Review: Mark Craven, | Apr 21, 2022

Not all audiophiles have massive listening rooms... System Audio comes to the rescue with an on-wall 'LCR' loudspeaker aimed at both AV and two-channel enthusiasts

If you're looking at System Audio's Legend 7.2 and thinking 'Why would I want to hang a loudspeaker on my wall?' then it's probably not the model for you. And that would be understandable. Many hi-fi enthusiasts have the space and flexibility to accommodate floorstanding or standmount speakers, and no need to pinch real estate from any surface other than their living room floor. For those, an on-wall speaker is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

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