Technically accomplished and extremely insightful
North Star Design is an Italian company but there is little evidence in the USB dac32 of the flamboyant design features that often distinguish that country’s audio products. There’s no gratuitous use of wood and no eye-catching metal sculpture. On the contrary, the USB dac32 is positively staid in appearance, albeit chunkily built and surprisingly heavy at 5kg.
Operationally it’s as simple as can be.
The Danish brand continues to be as unconventional in sound as appearance
Danish company Densen has updated its top CD player, the Beat 440, to include a coaxial digital input, so that its internal D-to-A converter and output stage can be used for an external source ‘like a Sonus system, a Squeezebox or another digital source’, to quote the company’s recent announcement of this latest B-440XS model.
Despite its slim profile and svelte cosmetic design, the player is quite a heavyweight at 8kg. Under the brushed aluminium casing its regulated power supply employs a 300VA transformer alongside substantial reservoir capacitors. Densen states that the digital and analogue stages, microprocessors, and front panel dot matrix display all have individual supply arrangements designed to avoid interference.
A svelte Swede with performance to back up the looks
Replacing the CD31, this new CD32 has been designed alongside the I32 integrated Class D amplifier [HFN Jun ’11]. Sweden’s Primare company has always had an eye for handsome design and while the appearance of these latest 32 models is broadly the same as the products they supersede, each component has been enhanced by the inclusion of a white-coloured, variable-brightness organic electroluminescent display (OLED) panel that adds real finesse.
The CD32 is housed in an alloy/steel chassis and is beautifully finished; balanced outputs match the balanced inputs of its partnering amplifier. Separate PCB modules featuring SMDs are used to isolate signal paths while keeping them as short as possible, a regulated power supply employing an R-core transformer with separate windings for mechanical, analogue and digital audio circuits, while a separate switch mode supply powers the player’s microprocessor.
A sophisticated design with many likeable features
Although the most affordable player in this Canadian specialist’s Moon range of components, the CD. 5 nevertheless is a solidly built machine with a sculpted front panel and sturdy metal casework enhanced by fluted detailing in the side cheeks.
Its PCB has pure copper tracings and gold plating, and while the digital and analogue audio circuits are mounted on a single circuit board the company is at pains to point out that is in order to minimise signal path lengths – and each has its own respective ground plane to reduce interference and signal degradation. Simaudio claims its proprietary CD drive system comprises hardware and software developed in-house, while the DAC employed is a 24-bit/192kHz-capable Burr-Brown PCM1793 with 8x oversampling digital filter.
Well thought out and far more than simply a 'budget' product
Designed by The Audio Partnership in central London and manufactured in large volumes in the Far East for distribution worldwide (including an exclusive deal with Richer Sounds in the UK), Cambridge Audio products have become synonymous with good performance at a competitive price.
The Azur component range was revamped substantially a couple of years ago. Soon after its introduction we featured this Azur 650C player alongside its partnering 650A integrated amplifier in our Nov ’09 Group Test.
To recap, while a bit more expensive than the 640 models they replaced, they featured a fresh-up and wholly improved design with wrap-around casework and substantial alloy fascias that belied their (still modest) price tags.
If the Platinum Series was designed to enhance Monitor Audio’s ‘street cred’ among audio purists in the 21st century, it certainly hit the mark, the compact PL100 standmount and fl oorstanding PL300 having garnered numerous awards and accolades around the world.
In photographs the ’200 might look identical to the PL300 but sit them side by side and immediately you’ll notice that it is unquestionably better suited to cramped living spaces, being 155mm slimmer, 85mm shallower and standing 115mm shorter at 998mm (39in) in height.
The ribbon tweeter employed is formed of a material that Monitor Audio calls C-CAM: Ceramic- Coated Aluminium/Magnesium, the company claiming an output approaching as high as 100kHz. The ribbon was developed to work in a two-way speaker so it had to be able to operate from 2.
As soon as B&W introduced diamond tweeters to some of its 800 series speakers in 2005, people began asking for a diamond tweeter to be fi tted to the smallest model in the range, the 805. Well, the wait is over – the offi cial 805 Diamond is here – though its price has more than doubled over the old 805S.
The good news is that this isn’t a mere swap job: B&W has taken the opportunity to re-engineer the 805 thoroughly. For instance, the input terminals are more than chrome plated, with metal ‘nuts’ replacing the previous plastic items.
In 1955 Wireless World published articles by Quad’s Peter Walker on the practical and theoretical aspects of making a full range electrostatic speaker. That year, he demonstrated two different prototypes developing one for the first public demonstration at the 1956 Audio Fair. Due credit must be given to Walker for the huge amount of pioneering work involved and the brave decision to make it a commercial product.
When first introduced, a single ESL would have set you back £52, yet demand was far greater than supply.
With the introduction of stereo LPs in 1958, Leak wasted no time in bringing stereo equipment to market. The fi rst public demonstration of the Stereo 20 amp and matching preamp took place in April 1958 at the Audio Fair in London. This must have been quite a coupe for Leak as most rival manufacturers at the show were demonstrating mono equipment.
The price of the Stereo 20 was 29 Guineas with its partnering Point One stereo preamp costing 20 Guineas.
The Pyxis is a sturdy, handsomely-styled preamp which, in the best modern fashion, can be used with all manner of amplifi ers despite a plethora of Leema-only features. Pyxis provides both fully-balanced and single-ended analogue operation, with extensive custominstall/ home cinema-friendly settings and sockets. Its price is further ameliorated by the inclusion of digital ins and outs, including USB and S/PDIF in both directions, so the Pyxis is able to accommodate all of your digital sources and feed a computer for archiving.
For another £500, the Pyxis can be supplied with an onboard phono section (based on Leema’s £3k Agena).
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