Hi Fi News January 2016

‘Rarely have so many high scorers featured in one issue of HFN’ It was a huge pleasure to meet so many longstanding and a gratifying number of new Hi-Fi News readers at our recent Hi-Fi Show Live event in Windsor. Until the next Hi-Fi Show Live on October 29-30th 2016, this was the only chance for enthusiasts to see and hear so many fabulous brands under one roof. Those who missed out can live the experience vicariously via our on-line Show Blog (also published in last month’s Hi-Fi News). Fortunately, you’ll not be waiting too long before many of our Show’s exclusive product debuts are followed up by in-depth reviews in Hi-Fi News. Indeed, the fabulous GSi75 and 625 S2 amplifiers from Audio Research and Jeff Rowland, respectively, are already to be found…

A new Classic D’AGOSTINO LAUNCHES NEW ‘BACK-TO-BASICS’ HIGH-OUTPUT MASTER POWER AMPLIFIERS We reveal the latest products and upcoming events If you’ve been tempted by Dan D’Agostino’s exotic Momentum amplifiers but deterred by the price of entry then you’ll doubtless be encouraged by this latest offering from one of the acknowledged artisans of high-end audio. D’Agostino’s new ‘Master Power’ series includes the £13,498 Classic Stereo power amp, a ‘purist’ design rated at a massive 300W/8ohm. The rugged, rack-mount casework is more than a little reminiscent of Dan’s Class A Krell amplifiers from the 1980s but its dualmono circuit design is inspired by the modern Momentums. Under the bonnet, each amplifier channel is built onto its own massive heatsink and employs no fewer than eight highcurrent power transistors. You can read our exclusive review in…

Taking place the week before the Rocky Mountain AudioFest, Tokyo’s International High End Show is the first major Hi-Fi event of the season. I was lucky to attend again as a guest presenter, playing MoFi’s latest albums – mainly the 45rpm doubles – in the TechDAS room, through Constellation’s latest electronics and Vivid speakers, with the Air Force One with SAT tonearm and TechDAS TDC01Ti moving-coil cartridge for the front end. While the show is certainly small-ish, it still hosted a number of debuts, including the first-ever showing of Audio Alchemy’s new phono stage, despite reports elsewhere that it was to be unveiled at the Rocky Mountain event. And only one thing marred the show: word that SACD drives are no longer being made. You have been warned. Now in production, the…

You can smell jet fuel from the parking lot. Within sight and earshot of San Francisco International Airport, the Westin SFO has been home to the California Audio Show for several years now. Over the weekend of August the 14th to the 16th, the well-appointed, easy-access hotel again hosted dozens of exhibitors and hundreds of visitors to an event that is the second largest audio show in the state and one of a kind in Northern California. Some major players were conspicuously absent this past summer, as they had been the previous year, leaving plenty of room for many newcomers and permitting some local enterprises, such as San Francisco’s Elite Audio Systems, to demonstrate in large ballrooms. First-time exhibitors included Pono, Arkana Physical Research and Magnetic Innovations LLC. One thing’s for…

The story of audiophile recordings goes back to times before anyone used the word ‘audiophile’ – although that term does date back further than you might think. In 1947, Ewing Dunbar Nunn started his Audiophile Records company in Saukville, Wisconsin, making 78rpm discs pressed on vinyl rather than noisy shellac, and designed to show off the capabilities of a Hi-Fi system. Nunn recorded Dixieland jazz artists who happened to be in town, most notably Red Nichols, and also recorded thunderstorms. But since the earliest days there have been particular recordings that stood out as superior to the rest. FULL FREQUENCY By the end of the 1920s, electrical recording had made it possible to capture the sounds of a large orchestra in a reasonably realistic way. In America, RCA started recording the Philadelphia Orchestra…

AUDIO FILES Belt-driven turntable with electronic speed control Made by: Pro-Ject Audio Systems, Austria Supplied by: Henley Designs Ltd, UK Telephone: 01235 511166 Web: www.project-audio.com; www.henleydesigns.co.uk Price: £2300 (inc. arm); £3300 (inc. cartridge) They said vinyl was dead, but just as its last rites were being read, the humble Long Playing Record rose Phoenix-like from the ashes. Compact Disc fans scoffed, declaring the vinyl revival merely a ‘fad’, then watched in horror as CD sales began to slide, seemingly in inverse proportion to those of LP reissues. Now, at the start of 2016, vinyl looks set to outlast the digital disc that was invented to replace it… The venerable microgroove record has rather caught the zeitgeist. From Shoreditch to San Francisco, we see cool-looking arty types carrying record bags, coffee shops selling LPs and fashion magazines photographing black…