Sound + Image

At last, our Awards issue is published. Our regular readers will know that this usually comes out just before Christmas, but the world is not the same as it was before, and all manner of things conspired to persuade us to give it a few extra months. The Australian Hi-Fi Show at the end of April was a key consideration, but also we knew that a great many products over the last couple of years have been delayed by component shortages and the cumulative distractions of the epidemic. Products only make it into our Awards if we’ve had them in for review, so a few extra months of testing would ensure we caught all possible candidates, to be sure of bringing you our usual ‘Best of the Best’ collection. It…

NEWSLETTER NO.264 Recent arrivals at Len Wallis Audio: Most of the action during the last month revolved around speakers, with some awe-inspiring new models hitting our floor. We now have the Sonus Faber Serafino G2 speakers on demonstration. This is a brand that continues to attract new followers and with good reason. In terms of performance, Sonus Faber is one of the finest loudspeaker brands available and is undoubtedly one of the best-looking. Strangely not many companies can get that combination right. The Serafino G2 sell for $42,995 a pair. Another company that appears to do no wrong is the French speaker brand Revival Audio. It would be an understatement to say that their initial offerings - the Atalante 3 and 5 - were a hit. When they announced they…

news KEF ◆ MQA Five years after its last refresh, KEF has updated its R Series speaker range with various improvements, led by the company’s performance-enhancing MAT (Metamaterial Absorption Technology). The sevenstrong range sits in the middle of KEF’s line-up, between the Q and Reference series. The latter was given the MAT treatment just over a year ago alongside the Blade, following the debut of the technology in the LS50 Meta and LS50 Wireless II in 2020, so it was somewhat inevitable that a refreshed R Series would also feature it. Essentially the circular ‘Westworld’ maze-like structure of the MAT disc sits behind the tweeter, with KEF claiming the disc’s multiple channels of different sizes together absorb ‘99%’ of unwanted rear radiation from the dome. That tweeter is part of a…

We’ve been querying the need for MQA for years now: why use clever-but-opaque compression for high-res audio when we have the bandwidth to stream it uncompressed? Two pieces of news point to significant change: Tidal’s CEO Jesse Dorogusker hasannounced that while existing MQA tracks will remain available on Tidal, the company is moving to larger high-res FLAC files for HiFi Plus subscribers, with the ability to dial quality up or down depending on reception. Second is MQA Ltd announcing it is entering into administration (comparable to Chapter 11 in the US), saying its main financial backer, Reinet Investments S.C.A., has withdrawn; it is continuing to trade, even though its last financial report described MQA as a “lossmaking start-up”. But MQA Ltd also describes the move as “restructuring”, saying: “Following the…

JBL Tour PRO 2 gets smart JBL has beaten Apple to market with the idea of a smart charging case: one has arrived with its new $329.95 Tour Pro 2 true wireless earbuds. Instead of reaching for your phone and its control app, an LED touch display built into the case can manage music and control/receive calls, messages and social media notifications. Meanwhile the buds themselves use four microphones for noisecancelling and an app-based Ear Canal Test to maximise its effect, while call-making utilises the full six mikes for JBL’s ‘crystal call’ algorithm in which you can tweak the level of your own voice. There’s JBL’s version of Spatial Sound, with up to 40 hours of battery charge available including the case (32 hours with ANC). More info: www.jbl.com.au Denon…

news dCS • Apple • NAD You’ll find the CD-equipped dCS Rossini Apex in our awards this year (p22); the company also has a new streamer in the dCS Bartók Apex. It works with the excellent dCS Mosaic Control app to access Tidal, Qobuz, Deezer and internet radio, while also having AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect and UPnP, and being Roon Ready. Technically the main news is that it includes dCS’s latest Ring DAC Apex technology, introduced on Vivaldi and Rossini products last year; it also gains some of the electronics straight from its higher-end brethren, such as the clocking architecture and digital processing for the Ring DAC Apex platform. As with all dCS components, the Bartók Apex is designed and handassembled in Cambridge, England. It comes in two variants: the…