LATEST ADDITIONS

Audiophile Digital
Audiophile: Digital, July 2020
Ken Kessler  |  Jul 30, 2020
This month, we review: The Flying Burrito Brothers, Blood Sweat & Tears, Marillion and Elvis Presley.
Continue Reading »
Rock
Rock, July 2020
Mike Barnes  |  Jul 30, 2020
This month we review: Jarv Is, Sparks, Kavus Torabi, and Throwing Muses.
Continue Reading »
Jazz
Jazz, July 2020
Steve Harris  |  Jul 29, 2020
This month we review: Tom Green Septet, Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, Erroll Garner and Tony Kofi.
Continue Reading »
Classical
Classical, July 2020
Christopher Breunig  |  Jul 29, 2020
This month we review: Schubert, Beethoven, Bartók and Schubert.
Continue Reading »
Hi-Res Downloads
Hi-Res Downloads, July 2020
Hi-Fi News Staff  |  Jul 27, 2020
This month we review and test releases from: Roger Eno & Brian Eno, VPO/Herbert Von Karajan, Tony Allen & Hugh Masekela, Malia and Mona Asuka.
Continue Reading »
Outboard DACs
PrimaLuna EVO 100 Tube DAC USB Tube DAC
Review: Ken Kessler,  |  Jul 24, 2020
hfnoutstandingPrimaLuna's minimalist, valve-equipped EVO 100 DAC may seem a throwback to the time when digital only meant CD, but the sonic performance is truly 21st century

Two words spring to mind when examining PrimaLuna's EvoLution series EVO 100 DAC: 'old school'. Yes, a genre as seemingly new as digital has been around long enough to qualify for that mode of thinking. This unit is, I have been told emphatically, 'a DAC for purists', so £2888 gets you no wireless connections, no pandering to streaming, no headphone output, no level control. It is strictly a DAC in the original sense – a D/A converter-only and not one that doubles as a preamp or headphone amp.

Continue Reading »
Disc PlayersNetwork Audio Players/Servers
Arcam CDS50 CD/SACD Network Player
Review: James Parker,  |  Jul 23, 2020
hfncommendedBased on Arcam's 'FMJ' CDS27 CD/SACD disc spinner and network audio player, is the more affordable CDS50, complete with new DAC, the brand's best kept secret?

CD players, along with integrated amps, have long been such a mainstay of the Arcam product catalogue that it comes as something of a surprise that the CDS50 we have here, selling for £699, is now the sole silver disc spinner in its lineup. This, after all, was the company responsible, in 1986, for the first CD player both designed and manufactured in the UK, just four years after the format hit the shops and at a time when Linn and Naim were both sticking to their 'no good will come of this' guns.

Continue Reading »
Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Sumiko Pearwood Celebration II Cartridge
Review: Jonathan Gorse,  |  Jul 22, 2020
hfnoutstandingWith nearly a half century of MC experience under its corporate belt, Sumiko knows how to optimise pick-up performance: enter the Pearwood, an MC that tracks like an MM

Since it was founded in 1972 by noted audio designer David Fletcher, the US-based Sumiko Corporation has been making some of the world's most desirable pick-ups at its production facility in Japan. What's more, not only has it become one of the leading agents for audio equipment in North America but its UK presence has recently been boosted by distributor Henley Audio.

Continue Reading »
Vinyl Release
The Bar-Kays: Soul Finger
Steve Sutherland  |  Jul 20, 2020
Steve Sutherland relives the fateful night when four of The Bar-Kays flew with Otis Redding in 1967, the plane diving into icy Lake Monona. The album is on 180g vinyl

The next thing he knew he was floating. Freezing cold and floating. His head hurt. There was blood. He heard a noise. Then another. Cries in the distance. Cries for help. He began to go under and he splashed around, found a seat cushion and desperately clutched it to his chest to help stay afloat – he'd never learned to swim.

Continue Reading »
From the VaultTurntables, Arms & Cartridges
Going For Gold
Ken Kessler  |  Jul 17, 2020  |  First Published: Jan 01, 1984
hfnvintageOrtofon's SPU cartridge has reappeared. Ken Kessler gives it a whirl

Paranoia is not a condition to which I subscribed prior to entering the brotherhood of audio writers. Ignorant of my near-leper status, it came as something of a shock to find myself the only valve-loving, moving-magnet cartridge supporter in the immediate vicinity. Thankfully, editor John Atkinson tends to offer advice and make suggestions, rather than threaten my physical well-being for failing to embrace the solid-state, and so decided that a review of a moving-coil cartridge would be a subtle way of sowing the seeds for my conversion. And he knows my weaknesses well: anachrophilia.

Continue Reading »

Pages

X