Hi-Fi Choice March 2021

We used to say that sorry was the hardest word, but it seems like everyone’s saying it these days. Sorry your Valentine’s day card didn’t arrive – the post’s been a ‘mare. Sorry there are no bananas in the supermarket, darn those Brexit teething problems. Sorry you can’t go out for a pint… If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em so here’s a quick apology if you’ve been missing some of your HFC favourites recently. We’ve been unable to run any Dealer Visits lately for obvious reasons, and it hardly seems appropriate to publish Destinations when all the bricks-and-mortar record shops are unable to open. Both of these perennials will, of course, be reinstated as soon as we can but, in the meantime, it allows us more pages to attend to HFC’s…

We used to say that sorry was the hardest word, but it seems like everyone’s saying it these days. Sorry your Valentine’s day card didn’t arrive – the post’s been a ‘mare. Sorry there are no bananas in the supermarket, darn those Brexit teething problems. Sorry you can’t go out for a pint… If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em so here’s a quick apology if you’ve been missing some of your HFC favourites recently. We’ve been unable to run any Dealer Visits lately for obvious reasons, and it hardly seems appropriate to publish Destinations when all the bricks-and-mortar record shops are unable to open. Both of these perennials will, of course, be reinstated as soon as we can but, in the meantime, it allows us more pages to attend…

PRICE: £590-£1,980 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: PIEGA.CH/EN/ WITH AN AESTHETIC conjured up by designer Stephan Hürlemann and acoustics developed at Piega’s Lake Zurich factory, the Ace series marks the Swiss company’s most affordable aluminium cabinet speakers to date. Drawing on technology and acoustic development trickled down from its Master, Coax and Premium models, the Ace replaces the Tmicro series. All of the Ace cabinets boast a 14cm-wide and 16cm-deep oval aluminium profile, with no visible seams, angles or fixings specially developed and optimised for the 120mm MDS mid/bass drivers that are utilised in all three models. Similarly, Piega’s AMT-1 Air Motion Transformer is employed across the range. A light, large surface area ribbon tweeter, it’s driven by a neodymium motor assembly. The new series consists of the Ace 30, a bookshelf speaker which is the…

PRICE: £590-£1,980 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: PIEGA.CH/EN/ WITH AN AESTHETIC conjured up by designer Stephan Hürlemann and acoustics developed at Piega’s Lake Zurich factory, the Ace series marks the Swiss company’s most affordable aluminium cabinet speakers to date. Drawing on technology and acoustic development trickled down from its Master, Coax and Premium models, the Ace replaces the Tmicro series. All of the Ace cabinets boast a 14cm-wide and 16cm-deep oval aluminium profile, with no visible seams, angles or fixings specially developed and optimised for the 120mm MDS mid/bass drivers that are utilised in all three models. Similarly, Piega’s AMT-1 Air Motion Transformer is employed across the range. A light, large surface area ribbon tweeter, it’s driven by a neodymium motor assembly. The new series consists of the Ace 30, a bookshelf…

PRICE: £900 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: IFI-AUDIO.COM IFI AUDIO HAS launched the iDSD Diablo, its top-of-the-range battery-powered DAC/headphone amplifier. Measuring 166 x 72 x 25mm and finished in ‘fiery red’, the company explains the iDSD Diablo: “sets aside some facilities offered by other iFi DAC/amps – sonic tailoring options and Bluetooth connectivity – to focus on pure sonic power, featuring ultra-high-quality circuit components and the ability to drive any headphones on the planet with aplomb.” The iDSD Diablo’s digital stage incorporates a pair of Burr-Brown DAC chips installed in a custom ‘interleaved’ configuration enabling four pairs of differential signals (two pairs per channel). The XMOS chip that processes the audio data received via the USB and S/PDIF digital inputs is a new low-latency XMOS microcontroller with: “greatly enhanced processing power –…

PRICE: £900 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: IFI-AUDIO.COM IFI AUDIO HAS launched the iDSD Diablo, its top-of-the-range battery-powered DAC/headphone amplifier. Measuring 166 x 72 x 25mm and finished in ‘fiery red’, the company explains the iDSD Diablo: “sets aside some facilities offered by other iFi DAC/amps – sonic tailoring options and Bluetooth connectivity – to focus on pure sonic power, featuring ultra-high-quality circuit components and the ability to drive any headphones on the planet with aplomb.” The iDSD Diablo’s digital stage incorporates a pair of Burr-Brown DAC chips installed in a custom ‘interleaved’ configuration enabling four pairs of differential signals (two pairs per channel). The XMOS chip that processes the audio data received via the USB and S/PDIF digital inputs is a new low-latency XMOS microcontroller with: “greatly enhanced processing power – compared with the…