Hi Fi News January 2023

While we always go the extra mile to ensure your favourite hi-fi magazine is the first to bring you in-depth reviews of the latest high-end gear, neither should we forget that the very best back-to-basics separates often have competitive lifespans that extend beyond a decade. The Nagaoka cartridge and Simaudio integrated amp featured opposite are perfect examples of long-lived success. So while we double-down on Wilson Audio’s new Alexia V – previewed to the general press en masse before being setup by brand ambassador Peter McGrath in HFN’s listening room for our exclusive review [see p40] – we’re also getting reacquainted with these two stalwarts of the hi-fi scene [see p66 and p70]. SME is another brand deservedly famous for the longevity of its products, so new SME turntables are…

Nagra REF MC DEBUT CARTRIDGE DESTINED FOR BRAND’S FLAGSHIP TURNTABLE Swiss marque Nagra has entered the phono cartridge market with the Reference MC. Priced £16,000 and primarily designed as a partner for the £145,000 70th Anniversary Reference turntable, it’s available in both 4ohm and 6ohm variants – the former offering a 0.30mV output, the latter rated at 0.45mV. Nagra’s cartridge features a ruby cantilever bonded to a titanium housing with diamond-like carbon (DLC) coating, and is fitted with a Fritz Gyger S stylus. Its multi-layer transducer gets a double-layer coil wound with ‘hyper-pure’ silver, while the main chassis is made from a proprietary magnesium alloy. For the ‘critical interface between cartridge generator and cartridge body’, Nagra engineers have added an inlay of ‘Exium AM’ – a non-ferrous aerospace-grade alloy partly…

Following a two-year hiatus due to the Covid pandemic the annual Warsaw Audio Video Show welcomed visitors once more, hosting a younger and more family-orientated audience than is typical for international hi-fi gatherings. Held over the weekend of the 28th-30th of Oct ’22 at three locations – the Radisson Blu Sobieski and Golden Tulip hotels, plus the PGE Narodowy football stadium – some 160 exhibitor rooms were packed with superior-sounding tube amps, spectacular turntables and rip-roaring loudspeakers – many from brands not yet known on UK shores. Returning to claim its position as the second largest hi-fi show in Europe after Munich High End, the Warsaw event will surely now go from strength to strength. Polk Audio unveiled the 50th anniversary edition of its Reserve R200 loudspeaker with upgraded crossover…

There’s a lot to be said for economy of expression. Since the advent of the CD, artists have enjoyed the ability to release collections of new songs lasting way past the 40 minutes of music that could be accommodated on two sides of vinyl without sound quality starting to suffer. All of which has seen the average length of an album slowly increase over the past 30 years or so, without artists having to classify their work as a ‘double’ album, the pick of which we recently covered in these pages [HFN Nov ’22]. Many great albums have clocked in around the half-hour mark (think Kinda Kinks, 27:37; A Hard Day’s Night, 30:10; Prince’s Dirty Mind, 30:14; Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, 28:22), but there have been artists that have opted…

You hold in your hands the world’s oldest and most respected hi-fi magazine – Hi-Fi News – where heavyweight audio engineering is our stock in trade. All our review products are typically subject to a one-month test process from shipping, unpacking, installation, photography, lab work, extended listening, disassembly/packing and collection. This practice was maintained right through the pandemic period, with full Covid biosecurity adding to the logistical complexity of our four-week issue schedule. But we did it… never missing one issue of the magazine or compromising the ‘Hi-Fi News Pledge’: 1. Our hardware reviews are never brief ‘hands on’ experiences of a product from a press conference, brand-led demo or distributor’s back room spun up into a four or five page article [see pic, right]. 2. Products reviewed in Hi-Fi…

Ah, the sweet spot! Positioned in the exact middle of a seven-model range of Wilson Audio floorstanders, between the Sasha DAW [HFN Mar ’19] and Alexx V [HFN Jan ’22], the new Alexia V – by accident or design – now occupies that most coveted of spaces. One of hi-fi’s inexplicable phenomena, a ‘sweet spot’ seems to exist in pretty much every hi-fi model range, from turntables to amps to speakers, when a stand-out in performance relative to size and cost just happens. Yes, the new Alexia V is that special. Starting at £79,998 per pair, the Alexia V is priced at roughly double that of the Sasha DAW below it at £44,998, but half that of the £158,000 Alexx V. As with all Wilson Audio’s speakers, pricing depends on…