Hi Fi News June 2017

Some hi-fiproducts are born great, benefiting from the favourable genes of a longstanding brand. Others achieve greatness despite humble origins by dint of their fine performance. Then there are the very, very few that have greatness thrust upon them. These are those rare components, conferred the status of an audiophile icon by successive generations of hi-fienthusiasts. We know them by sight – the Linn Sondek turntable, the SME Series V tonearm, Quad’s original electrostatic, the first Philips CD player and, arguably, the most famous moving-coil loudspeaker of the last 40 years, the Yamaha NS1000. Its fame is at least partially reinforced by its longevity, for there are enthusiasts and recording studios all over the world who still swear by the ’M version of this beryllium-domed monitor. Too large to be a ‘bookshelf’…

Unveiled at Axpona (Audio Expo North America) in late April, D’Agostino Master Audio Systems demonstrated a singlechassis stereo stablemate for the Progression Monoblock amplifiers reviewed in this issue of Hi-FiNews [see p32]. It leverages off the design of the Progression Mono with its high voltage ‘Super Rail’ [see p103] but uses 24 pairs of high current output transistors across both channels, instead of per channel in the Mono. The power supply is nearly double sized, however, with a massive toroidal transformer specified at 2800VA combined with some 400,000uF of reservoir capacitance. Power output is rated at 300W, 600W and 1.2kW into 8, 4 and 2ohm loads, respectively, while a fully exposed version of D’Agostino’s now-iconic ‘watchface’ meter now features one needle per channel, each with a 90o swing. The substantial chassis…

Organising a hi-fishow is no easy task and to keep the same event alive for almost 30 years means there’s no room for complacency. Of course, there was more than one reason why almost 4000 people chose to spend the first weekend in March this year at the Lisbon Audioshow. Firstly, the location is breathtaking, the event taking place in a luxury hotel that was once a palace. But perhaps more importantly was the ceaseless work that went on behind the scenes by organisers and exhibitors alike – some staying up all night to tune and decorate the rooms – to ensure that each and every system was heard at its best. So whether it was a pair of aspirational headphones or one of the many super-systems made up of components…

Walk through the factory front door, into the tiny reception area, and little has changed. But you can’t miss the carpet, with its big SME logo newly augmented to read ‘since 1946’. It’s a touch that symbolises the determination of the company’s new owners to build on its invaluable heritage. Stuart McNeilis, appointed chief executive officer late last year, comes to SME with an engineering background and more than 30 years in the aerospace industry. He’s made changes and there will be more to come but, as he puts it: It’s not change for something to do. It’s change which is value added for SME. And the change will be in tooling, equipment and people, in practice, process and procedure. We’ll introduce the best known practices that are in industry today to…

Monoblock power amplifier. Rated at 500W/8ohm Made by: D’Agostino LLC, Connecticut, USA Supplied by: Absolute Sounds Ltd Telephone: 0208 971 3909 Web: www.dagostinoinc.com; www.absolutesounds.com Price: £22,500 (each) ‘It has ’90s Krell grunt and wallop with Momentum grace and finesse’ Dan D’Agostino’s original Momentum amplifiers, now style icons in their own right, had barely touched the ground before audiophiles began demanding something bigger, something even more powerful... Thus the original Momentum [HFN Jul ’11] eventually grew into the Momentum Mono [HFN Oct ’16] which, in turn, inspired the more affordable Progression Mono we have here. Says D’Agostino ‘this is the largest and most powerful amp we’ve made to date, delivering 500W/8ohm, doubling to 1000W/4ohm and doubling again to 2000W/2ohm’. Editor PM discusses this in his Lab report on p35. The watchface power meter is…

Three-way reflex-loaded standmount loudspeaker Made by: Yamaha Corporation, Japan Supplied by: Yamaha Music Europe GmbH (UK) Telephone: 0844 811 1116 Web: www.yamaha.com; https://uk.yamaha.com Price: £15,000 (inc stands) Had the new NS-5000 been a quick dusting off of the legendary NS-1000 and its siblings, we might all have been left with the feeling that Yamaha was somewhat cynically cashing in on its illustrious loudspeaker history. But the NS-5000 is not an exercise in nostalgia, for all the nostalgic feelings that might well up in you – as they did me – when you clap eyes on it for the first time. Yes, the NS-5000 evokes the NS-1000 visually, particularly in its use of a midrange dome and mirror-image driver layout. But much more significantly the NS-5000 evokes the spirit of the NS-1000,…