Review: Andrew Everard

Review: Andrew Everard, | Sep 21, 2023 | 0 comments

With an impressive back-story, impeccable engineering and glorious finishes, these imposing '5th generation' Italian speakers promise much – so do they deliver? Certo!

The Amati G5 sits at the top of a four-strong new 'fifth generation' range of the company's Homage speakers, so-called because they pay tribute to the tradition of musical instrument manufacturing in Cremona, Italy. And they do so not just in name, but in the way they're made, with extensive use of selected woods, handcrafting based on the work of traditional luthiers of the past, and even a lute-shaped profile, which first saw the light of day in the previous Homage series [HFN Oct '17].

Integrated Amplifiers

Edwards Audio IA1 Integrated Amplifier

Review: Andrew Everard, | Aug 18, 2023 | 0 comments

The high-value Edwards Audio range from Talk Electronics now includes no fewer than four integrated amps, the IA1 also equipped with motorised volume and remote control

While there is a drive to bring (hi-fi) manufacturing back home to Blighty, some brands never left. One such stalwart is Edwards Audio, a sub-brand of the longstanding Talk Electronics range of full-width components. The Edwards Audio IA1 integrated amplifier on these pages is handmade in the UK – yes, designed, engineered and assembled here – and yet costs just £430. Still not convinced? Well, you can have a simpler version of the same amp, shorn of remote control, for £60 less, and you can even buy both versions in red, white or blue – but not all three at once – as part of a range of six acrylic colours in which Edwards Audio offers its full stable of products.

Network Audio Players/Servers

Aurender N30SA Network Audio Library

Review: Andrew Everard, | Aug 17, 2023 | 0 comments

Aurender's flagship two-box network music library isn't the traditional PSU/player you might expect. Instead, the functionality is elegantly split between data in and data out

Look at any multi-box component and you can usually work out what's going on: CD transport and DAC, preamp and power amp(s), for example. But just as often those two boxes are an 'audio product' – phono preamp, headphone amp, DAC or even a digital audio transport – plus an outboard power supply. The rationale for these latter two-boxers is clear, for by isolating the electrically noisy parts of the system away from delicate audio signals, interference is minimised and signal purity maximised.

Loudspeakers

KEF Reference 5 Meta Loudspeaker

Review: Andrew Everard, | Jul 24, 2023 | 0 comments

The 'Blade' models fly the flag for KEF's speaker tech, but its Reference 5 offers a more accessible route to 'high-end Uni-Q'

Fortunately, the Reference 5 Meta is the £17,500 flagship of KEF's 'conventional' speaker range, bettered only by the striking-looking Blade designs [HFN May '22]. Fortunately? Well, yes, because this is an imposingly huge design, standing just over 1.4m tall, even if some of that impression of scale is minimised by the slenderness of the cabinets. Indeed, if the enclosures were any narrower than their 205mm, there wouldn't be room on the front baffle for the quartet of 165mm aluminium-coned bass drivers, arranged in pairs above and below the company's 12th-generation Uni-Q treble/midrange unit.

Loudspeakers

Monitor Audio Hyphn Loudspeaker

Review: Andrew Everard, | Jul 13, 2023 | 0 comments

They started out as a Concept, and have become a reality combining a skeletal form and novel engineering solutions – but do they sound as other-worldly as they look?

As safe bets go, that you've never seen anything quite like the £70k Monitor Audio Hyphn speaker is pretty much a dead cert. Yet look closer and there's actually a lot of 'form following function' going on here in those two columns with a gap between them, linked by a central belt. And while to unsympathetic eyes they may look like two huge clothes pegs, it won't take long for audiophiles to understand the thinking behind the configuration, however unusual the speakers look by comparison with traditional 'box, domes and cones' designs.

Network Audio Players/Servers

Auralic Aries G1.1 Music Library/Server

Review: Andrew Everard, | Jul 10, 2023 | 0 comments

Based on the Tesla G2 platform used in Auralic's premier G2.1 range, but lacking the box-in-box build and some circuit detailing, the Aries G1.1 remains a top-flight streamer

Yes, the £2699 Aries G1.1 is another one of those similar-looking Auralic components that will blend seamlessly with its brand partners, even if we're never immediately sure what box does what... In this case, we have a network player without onboard digital-to-analogue conversion, designed to be used straight into an external DAC. In this guise, it brings the niceties of Auralic's Lightning Streaming Platform, and its Lightning DS control app, to owners of third-party DACs. This also includes amps or preamps with digital inputs, which can be fed via USB or optical, coax or AES.

Outboard DACs

SPL Diamond USB DAC

Review: Andrew Everard, | Jun 22, 2023 | 0 comments

From Germany's SPL (Sound Performance Laboratory) comes this multicolour USB DAC designed for both 'legacy' and computer connection. There's a volume control too...

Given that most of today's digital components seem to be multifunctional – streamer DACs, DAC/headphone amps and the like – it's unusual to find a product as simple in its operation as its design. Yet that describes the latest arrival from German manufacturer SPL, the £2499 Diamond DAC, available in silver, black or red like all the company's products. A back-to-basics DAC? Well, almost...

Pre/Power Amplifiers

Halcro Eclipse Stereo Power Amplifier

Review: Andrew Everard, | Jun 08, 2023 | 0 comments

The original Halcro amp starred in a recent HFN Vault feature but, some 20 years on, the marque is back in the same iconic shape and with the same high tech claims...

Working out the brand behind the Eclipse Stereo power amplifier isn't hard: not only is the design a modern take on the iconic Australian Halcro amps of the past [see 'From the Vault', HFN Dec '22], but the product itself, with the power supply and amplifier suspended between two solid uprights, forms the letter 'H' – not a trick we've seen other manufacturers attempting!

Loudspeakers

Klipsch Klipschorn AK6 Loudspeaker

Review: Andrew Everard, | Jun 05, 2023 | 0 comments

From crude prototype in 1938 to its initial production run in 1947, the Klipschorn was founder Paul W Klipsch's 'cornerstone' horn loudspeaker. How does it fare today?

Viewed from a modern perspective, there's more than an element of 'forget everything you know' about the latest incarnation of the Klipsch Klipschorn AK6, a classic now heading for its 80th birthday. It was designed in 1946 from earlier prototypes by company founder Paul W Klipsch – officially described by the US brand as 'genius, madman and maverick' – in an Arkansas tin shed, and it's been continuously made and refined ever since.

Network Audio Players/Servers Outboard DACs

dCS Bartók APEX Network-Attached DAC

Review: Andrew Everard, | May 18, 2023 | 0 comments

Debuted in the flagship Vivaldi, and now trickled down to the Bartók, dCS's APEX upgrade brings enhancements to the PSU, Ring DAC clocking and analogue output

Maybe it's a sign of the times, or the state of the specialist high-end audio market, but this latest version of dCS's Bartók streaming DAC, often referred to as the company's 'entry-level' model, is now almost twice the price of the original [HFN May '19]. Then, the Bartók was £9999, or £11,999 when fitted with the optional headphone amplifier; now the Bartók APEX, taking on board the company's latest package of enhancements, first seen in the Vivaldi APEX [HFN Jun '22], is £19,000, rising to £21,500 if you choose to take the headphone option.

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Review: Andrew Everard

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