From the Vault

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Christopher Breunig, Steve Harris  |  Oct 08, 2024
hfnvintageNaim Audio at last offers a CD player, but how does the CDS compare with its rival from Linn, wonder Christopher Breunig and Steve Harris

Apr 1992

My patience was put to the test with the Naim CDS. As I unpacked the two units and coupled them together I experienced a flush of old 'brand loyalty'. Since the days of the original 12S preamp and NAP160 power amp, my meetings with company founder Julian Vereker had been cordial and I had spent several pleasurable years with my NAP250. My frustration came with the waiting time for the player to warm up before listening began.

Peter J Comeau  |  Sep 11, 2024
hfnvintageWhat could match a Lumley Stratosphere turntable better than Lumley’s LM2 speakers and PS2/M250 pre/power amps, says Peter J Comeau

It was back in the March 1996 issue of Hi-Fi News that I took my first look at the £6250 Stratosphere ST1 – a turntable that proved out of this world in sound quality as well as name. Now John Jeffries of Reference International (the name behind both the Strat and Lumley) has delivered a complete system including the £4500 LM2 loudspeakers.

Ken Kessler  |  Jul 29, 2024
Apogee follows the Stage with the hybrid Centaurus Major and Minor but has it made its ribbon technology more accessible

Feeling a bit like the boy who cried ‘Wolf!’, I still can’t help but regard this new range of speakers from Apogee as ‘ribbons for the masses’. But unlike the last models that inspired this sort of reaction – the Stages [p129]and Calipers – the new Centaurs really do make Apogees accessible to a wide range of consumers. And not only by virtue of their cost.

Ken Kessler  |  Oct 20, 2023
hfnvintageAt last, an output transformerless tube amplifier that needn't play second fiddle to transistors, says Ken Kessler, as he hears the GM 200

Given that few people will defend tube/transistor hybrids, how do you go about satisfying the valve-oriented consumer who wants his or her amp to have everything under one cage? And without simply adding to the buttonry? Italian company GRAAF (Gruppo Richerche Audio Alta Fidelta) has as its slogan 'II Suono Fatto A Mano', which I think translates into 'Hand-Made Sound'. This is about as cool a way of saying 'Lunatic purism' as I can imagine.

Ken Kessler  |  Aug 19, 2022
hfnvintageKen Kessler explains why he believes Audio Research's Reference 1 preamp and Reference 600 power amplifiers are in a class of their own

Whatever your response to once-in-a-generation revelations, the Audio Research Reference 600 monoblock amplifiers and the matching Reference 1 preamp will render all who hear them something akin to 'gob-smacked'.

Martin Colloms  |  Jun 03, 2022
hfnvintageAt last, Krell Digital presents its CD player system, the MD-1 transport plus SBP-64X, and the less costly SBP-16X DAC. Martin Colloms listens

Krell has determined that digital audio should form part of its future, and has created a separately financed division called Krell Digital Inc. The MD-1 digital transport was shown last year together with the SBP-64X processor/decoder – an amazing combination at a price which left the industry breathless, being around £15,000 the pair.

Martin Colloms  |  Jan 25, 2022
hfnvintageMartin Colloms hears a power amp setting the pace for the 21st century

The development of this completely new power amplifier has been a major undertaking for Naim. Up to now, its designs have been variants on the late Julian Vereker's founding concept, which led to the first NAP 250 stereo chassis some 25 years ago. Even now, the company's biggest current model, the NAP 135, is a monoblock variant of the '250, with more generous power supplies allocated to the separated channels.

John Atkinson  |  Feb 23, 2021
hfnvintageJohn Atkinson lives with the KEF R107, its new range-topping contender

An understated revolution in loudspeaker design has been taking place in Kent. KEF's Technical Director Laurie Fincham has put together a team of engineers who have been quietly but thoroughly examining the fundamentals of moving-coil, box loudspeaker behaviour, spinning off a regular series of products, starting with the original R105 nearly a decade ago.

Martin Colloms  |  Aug 21, 2023  |  First Published: Aug 01, 2003
hfnvintageAfter years of development, the US company has come of age with a design that's a landmark in speaker engineering, says Martin Colloms

It was a thought-provoking discussion with Avalon president Neil Patel on the virtues of absolute tonal accuracy in a speaker, and how to achieve it, that led to an opportunity to evaluate the Eidolon. It was to prove illuminating to discover just how closely his objectives had been realised in this design.

Ken Kessler  |  Feb 14, 2023  |  First Published: Jul 01, 2003
hfnvintageThese purist valve amps from France are still something special, reckons Ken Kessler, but first it's time to put your expectations to one side...

Here beginneth a lesson in audio prejudices – mine and yours. Jadis has created a truly 'high-end' pre/power combination of so narrow a focus that we as audiophiles have to search deep into our hearts before even considering reading about them, let alone owning them. In other words, go no further if you refuse to accept that a manufacturer can (and maybe even should) impose restrictive behavioural practices upon the end user. Forget universality, market savvy commercial appeal, user-friendliness or post-remote control era ergonomics – the JPS8 is aimed at out-of-the-closet masochists.

Ken Kessler  |  Jan 06, 2023  |  First Published: Apr 01, 2002
hfnvintageHere's an amplifier that doesn't just look different, it's different through and through. Ken Kessler hears a potent powerhouse from Down Under

There are two piles of magazines, some 150cm tall, sitting in my lounge. They consist mainly of hi-fi titles that I can't read until they're 'out of date'. Why? Because I don't want to be influenced by the reviews, and I don't always know whether or not I'll be reviewing a component I've just seen slammed or praised. Thus it was that I tried to avoid whispers about the Halcro amplifiers from Australia. Even so, I kept hearing about these 'amazing amps' from all and sundry.

Ken Kessler  |  Sep 16, 2022  |  First Published: Dec 01, 2001
hfnvintageLooks like valves, smells like valves, uses transistors – Ken Kessler hears 100W of single-ended MOSFET power from the pen of Tim de Paravicini

Statement amps are nothing new to Tim de Paravicini, his original EAR 509s and 549s hardly being minor projects. Neither were the first amps to bear the Yoshino names, a pair of designs showing that single-ended topology could be applied to both valves and transistors. But the latter, while Tim was able to voice it to ape the tubes, ran just as hot as the valves, and proved just as inefficient as all single-ended designs are known to be, so why bother? Damned if I know, for Tim's latest is a huge mutha of a single-ended amp... and it's solid-state.

Ken Kessler  |  Jun 20, 2023  |  First Published: Nov 01, 2000
hfnvintageKen Kessler brings you an exclusive subjective review of a legend reborn: the Quad ll-forty mono power amplifiers and QC-twentyfour preamp

Goodness me! Two Quad scoops in one season! OK, so it's not like waking up with Kim Basinger, but I am fully aware of the privilege. When I kicked off the Quad 989 loudspeaker review [HFN Jul '00]

Ivor Humphreys  |  Mar 17, 2023  |  First Published: Apr 01, 2000
hfnvintageThe arrival of a new British hi-fi brand is a major event. Ivor Humphreys hears Samuel Johnson's 50W-rated pca100/ppa100 pre/power amplifiers

Abrand new company, Samuel Johnson was founded by a group of enthusiasts, most of whom had met through their work with a Scottish-based manufacturer of control systems for industrial applications and who discovered further common ground in a consuming interest in hi-fi.

Martin Colloms  |  Mar 22, 2024  |  First Published: Mar 01, 2000
hfnvintageMartin Colloms wonders if this all-tube line preamplifier can re-establish Audio Research's supremacy in the exalted reaches of the high-end

As an increasing number of digital source components come equipped with variable output level one might think that line controllers – preamps without a phono cartridge input facility – are an endangered species. This will make sense to those embarking on an all-digital system, mixing a variety of digital sources and prepared to convert from the analogue disc domain to digital via an A/D converter function. Indeed, some digital control units are digital-only and cannot handle analogue signals at all.

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