Sound + Image July - August 2022

Here’s a little tale of two technologies. The first is ‘high-res audio’ or, as it appears on the little gold logo which is a registered trademark of the Japan Audio Society, ‘Hi-Res Audio’. It’s not really a technology in itself, just very big audio files with loads of extra information to go beyond CD quality, much as 8K video pictures have loads more information in them than 1080p videos. With high-res audio this includes frequencies we can’t hear, above those on CDs. But the thing with high-res audio is that it is deliberately overengineered, just so we can be sure we’re not missing anything. The second technology is Bluetooth. By many yardsticks, Bluetooth has been an amazingly successful technology for wireless audio transmission. It’s available on everything, on Apple and…

Richter Richter Excalibur S6SE & the new black Australia’s Richter has been busy in the design room to celebrate its 35th anniversary, and the results are now announced — two Series 6 ‘Special Editions’, one of which is an entirely new range-topping floorstanding speaker design, the Excalibur. “We’ve had this bigger floorstanding project on the table for a number of years now, ” Richter’s Managing Director Brian Rodgers tells us. “Many times we were asked, is there going to be a larger floorstanding speaker — a Series 6 Dragon? But I wasn’t interested in a Series 6 Dragon, and nor was Martin [Dr Martin Gosnell, chief designer]. In the Mk V Series we’d had too many close floorstanding models, with a Wizard, a Harlequin and a Dragon: they cannibalised each…

In our ongoing series of Dealer Systems, we ask a hi-fi dealer to recommend a system. This issue it’s the turn of WestCoast Hifi Midland, and the Western Australian store has gone for a Roon-headed system with some serious high-end power. “To be honest this system has evolved on its own over the past year or so, ” says Midland’s Scott Stay. “It really sums up the beautiful synergy between two incredible audio companies — Audio Research and Sonus faber — the most complementary partnership in hi-fi we have seen. Together they are not a marketing statement, they are in fact musical poetry. This system will suit clients looking to enjoy all genres of music whilst avoiding listening fatigue and tricky speaker placement — which makes it a very compelling…

Epson projectors, once released, stay around for a good few years; this is not a company which brings out iterative updates every season. So when a major new model arrives, you can expect something special. The new Pro Cinema LS12000B 4K Pro-UHD laser projector certainly makes such promises, with the company calling it “possibly our best Pro Cinema Projector ever”. And after having this substantial projector running our entertainment visuals for two full weeks, we think this is not mere marketing exaggeration. Equipment This is no compact tabletop projector; it’s quite the beast, measuring 52cm across, some 20cm high, and 45cm deep plus a little more room for cables to emerge. But this physical size gives room for a number of benefits, from output strength to (despite its size) versatility…

The Zeppelin became an instant archetype upon its original launch in 2007, not only for its shape, but for its price, which unashamedly defined a new level of premium all-in-one system, first as an iPad dock, then twice as a wireless speaker, now today as simply the new Zeppelin. It still looks stunning; we initially thought it slightly smaller at 65cm wide than we remembered, but no, it’s apparently the same, except that now it ‘floats’ delightfully above its pedestal thanks to a new LED downlight that keeps the Zeppelin’s body on display like a work of modern art whenever powered up. The ‘wireless’ abilities no longer merit naming rights; of course the new Zeppelin is wireless! — entirely so, indeed, as there are no audio inputs round the back…

The design flair and speaker expertise of Italy’s Sonus faber has been fully exercised in its latest creation, the all-in-one Omnia speaker system. It’s a lovely thing, with its expansive walnut-topped laminated-wood surface split by wide strips of light, and rather bravely entirely flat, so that our first thought was that people at parties are going to put drinks and nibbles bowls down on this, at which the proud owner might rightfully scream from the other side of the room. It’s a clever design in heritage terms for the company, as it makes a definite direct reference to the limited-edition all-in-one SF16 from some six years ago (though that was larger and around five times the price), while the SF16 had itself taken cues from the legendary ‘Snail’, the first…