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HiFiMAN Jade II electrostatic headphone system

I first became aware of HiFiMAN roughly eleven years ago, when I sought to review one of the firm’s earliest planar magnetic headphones. However, in the course of reaching out to the firm I learned that even earlier on HiFiMAN had once made a full-range electrostatic headphone called the Jade. At the time I discovered the Jade was no longer in production, but I soon found that it enjoyed an almost reverent cult following among high-end headphone enthusiasts. In fact, one of my happiest memories of that time period was attending a CanJam event where I met up with the great personal audio electronics pioneer Ray Samuels (of Ray Samuels Audio fame); Samuels handed me his personal pair of HiFiMAN Jades and said, with a sly smile, “Here, try these out; you need to hear them.”

Singing sweetly when driven by a Samuels designed electrostatic amp, the Jades indeed proved to be something special. They offered the transient speed and transparency for which fine electrostatic headphones are famous, but without even a trace of the subtly edgy and analytical quality that makes some electrostatic headphones a sonic mixed blessing. On the contrary, the Jades had a certain mellifluous and full-bodied character that made them wonderfully musical and easy to enjoy. The only catch was that the Jade had essentially become ‘unobtanium’; HiFiMAN wasn’t making any more Jades and the lucky few—like Ray Samuels—who owned Jades had zero interest in parting with them. Ah, well, I suppose it is human nature to yearn for things we cannot have …or can we?

Let’s fast-forward to late 2018 and to the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (RMAF) event held each Fall in Denver, Colorado. At that show, in the CanJam personal audio exhibit area, the HiFiMAN stand featured something many enthusiasts had dreamed of: namely a brand new electrostatic headphone called the Jade II and a matching electrostatic amplifier. The headphone and amplifier are potentially available as separate products, but HiFiMAN prefers to bundle the products as a specially priced, turnkey Jade II electrostatic headphone system ($2499 or £2499). The Jade II system is the subject of this review.

The Jade II is an open back electrostatic headphone that looks like an updated version of the original Jade, but with more refined finishes and a distinctive iridescent blue-green diaphragm visible behind the headphone’s open-mesh anodes (or stators). The Jade II’s teardrop-shaped ear cups are finished in satin black, as is its top headband frame. Beneath the frame there is a simple but effective height-adjustable leather headband strap. The Jade II ear pads feature leather (or leather-like?) outer coverings, but with comfortable fabric inner surfaces and touch surfaces capable of wicking away perspiration. Following recent design trends, the Jade II headphone frame allows its ear cup to swivel in the vertical axis, but not the horizontal axis. Apparently, the train of thought is there is sufficient flex in the frame to accommodate horizontal positioning adjustments, while the elimination of horizontal pivots improves that overall strength of the frame.

HiFiMAN does not go into great depth on the technologies used in the Jade II, but describes the headphone as having a, “housing (made) from ABS and a steel frame composed of a stainless-steel honeycomb mesh for the anode casing.” Expanding on this last statement, the product manual adds that, “The Honeycomb mesh can protect the headphone from airflow vibrations assuring that the sound reproduction remains true and accurate.”

On the inside, the Jade II uses an ultra low-mass diaphragm less than 0.001mm thick and that is coated with nano-particles said to provide, “an extreme high frequency response and an excellent musical reproduction ability.” Completing the picture is a nanometre-thick dust cover designed to prevent, “dust and other pollutants settling, thus avoiding ensuing distortion caused by electrostatic dust.” The overall design goal, says HiFiMAN, was to create a headphone capable of delivering “highly resolving audio” along with extremely extended high-frequency response with soundstages said to be dramatically open and expansive compared to a traditional ‘moving coil’ type headphone.

The Jade II electrostatic amplifier is a balanced output, solid-state design, which comes as a surprise given that HiFiMAN’s previous Shangri-La and Shangri-La Jr electrostatic amplifiers were both valve-powered units. Compared to those two mega-amps, however, the Jade II amplifier is considerably lighter, more compact, and sports an elegant and attractive minimalist industrial design created by HiFiMAN’s Boston, Massachusetts-based US design team. The amplifier chassis, states the manual, is formed from “aviation grade aluminium alloy” finished in satin black.

HiFiMAN says the Jade II circuit uses a Texas Instruments OPA2107AO high-precision dual op amp “for signal pre-amplification”. In turn, discrete Cascode MOSFET devices power the amplifier’s balanced output stage. HiFiMAN emphasizes that the amplifier uses a high voltage power supply that features an independent power supply regulator. What is more, HiFiMAN paid particular attention to the amplifier’s PCB layout, which was developed, says the manufacturer, with an eye toward reducing “interference hum” thus enabling “a more transparent sound”.

The amplifier provides two stereo pairs of analogue audio inputs—one single-ended (via RCA jacks) and the other balanced (via 3-pin XLR connectors). Also on the rear panel is an IEC power inlet socket and an AC 115V/230V power input selector switch. The Jade II amplifier’s front panel sports a large power switch, a bright power light, two 5-pin Stax-type electrostatic headphone output jacks, a simple push-button input selector switch, and a moderately large, 21-step rotary volume control. In practice, the amplifier proved extremely easy to use while generating a commendably modest amount of heat.

For my listening tests, I was able to compare the Jade II electrostatic headphone with the substantially more expensive MrSpeakers VOCE electrostatic headphone. I was also able to compare the Jade II electrostatic amplifier with my reference iFi Audio Pro iCAN headphone amplifier driving an iFi Pro iESL electrostatic headphone adapter. In short, I compared both electrostatic headphones as driven by both electrostatic amplifiers, which proved illuminating. Here’s what I learned.

The Jade II follows much in the sonic footsteps of the original Jade, in that it offers a carefully judged combination of transient speed, transparency, exceptional midrange purity, superb spatial characteristics, and an inviting quality of natural, organic warmth. If you were hoping for a headphone that emphasizes bleeding-edge, razor sharp transient definition and sub-microscopic levels of detail retrieval, then the Jade II might not be your cup of tea—not because it does not possess those qualities in reasonable measure, but because it does not make them the centrepieces of its musical presentation. So, the Jade II is not about creating hi-fi-centric shock and awe experiences, but more about conveying the vibrant tonal and textural richness of well-recorded music, while also capturing the always-engaging dynamic shadings that help bring music alive. Also, more so than many top-tier headphones, the Jade II provides large, spacious soundstage envelopes that help keep the music from sounding as if it is trapped inside the listener’s head. Several musical illustrations will perhaps help to show what I mean.

On ‘Zapateados’ from Pepe Romero’s Flamenco [K2HD, 16/44.1], the Jade II presents Romero’s exquisite flamenco guitar, recorded in a richly resonant natural acoustic space, juxtaposed against the striking handclaps and foot and toe taps of an expert flamenco dancer. Many transducers—loudspeakers and headphones alike—turn this track into a hi-fi-centric extravaganza, which sadly redirects the listener’s attention away from musical event and toward a narrowly focused preoccupation with sound quality. The Jade II, however, is different. Yes, it captures textural and transient sounds with exemplary clarity, yet it also captures the varied and subtle dynamic moods and the spatial cues that are so vital to conveying the ‘you-are-there’ sense of being present at the original performance.

On this same track the MrSpeakers VOCE offers superior upper midrange and treble extension on the rapid-fire guitar passages and the sounds of the reverberant recording venue. The VOCE also delivers slightly more taut and better-defined bass on the dancer’s powerful, percussive foot stamps. With this said, though, I found the Jade II able to hold its own with the far more costly VOCE in terms of conveying the overall feel of the performance. What is more, the Jade II’s natural organic warmth attracts and holds the listener’s attention in a deeply engaging way.

On Mark O’Connor’s Fanfare for the Volunteer [Mercurio, London Philharmonic, Sony Masterworks, 16/44.1], the Jade II does a fine job of capturing the gravitas and sonority of the orchestra’s instruments—especially brass instruments and low percussion. The tricky part about rendering brass instruments effectively is finding the balance point between the natural ‘bite’ of the attack of the horns and the rich, burnished, harmonic ‘glow’ of their sustained voices—a balance point the Jade II found time and again. Similarly, the difficulty with reproducing low percussion instruments is capturing their weight, depth, and dynamic power while at the same time preserving vital textural, transient, and pitch information. Again, the Jade II did a fine job of finding the right balance point, where the headphone’s slightly warmer than neutral tonal balance helped give low percussion the dynamic wallop it should have. Perhaps the best part of all involved O’Connor’s solo violin passage, where the Jade II caught both the incisiveness and the sweet, lilting tonality of the violin.

On Fanfare the MrSpeaker VOCE showed again its superior upper midrange and treble extension, its greater bass purity and power, and its admittedly superior resolution. Even so, the Jade II offered enough of those qualities to be musically competitive with the VOCE, although the more than twice as costly VOCE is undeniably the superior headphone overall.

Finally, on Anne Bisson’s rendition of Pink Floyd’s classic ‘Us and Them’ [Portraits and Perfumes, Camilio, 16/44.1] the Jade II did something wonderful with Bisson’s voice; namely, it captured Bisson’s breathy delicacy, her slightly off-kilter inflections, and her uncanny ability to underscore the dark humor implicit in the song’s lyrics. In contrast, the MrSpeakers VOCE offered greater extension and resolution, but at the expense of imparting very faint traces of glare on the edges of Bisson’s voice. Once again, the inherent musicality of the Jade II shone through.

In comparing the Jade II electrostatic amp to the iFi Pro iCAN/Pro iESL combo, I found the HiFiMAN amp nearly equaled the iFi combo on most material, though the iFi was arguably quieter, more resolving, and substantially more flexible. Given that the iFi combo is more than twice as expensive as the Jade II amplifier, though, I think all might agree the HiFiMAN amplifier offers terrific value for money.

What about caveats? Some of you will have discovered an online review declaring the Jade II system is a “dangerous” product capable of shocking its users. Frankly, I’m going to call that review erroneous to the point of almost irrational hysteria. I’ve used the Jade II system—and many other electrostatic headphone systems—for hours on end in both humid and dry conditions with zero problems. My opinion is that about the only way you could hurt yourself with the Jade II system would be to take it with you into the shower, bathtub, or swimming pool—something no music lover in his or her right mind would ever attempt. Enough said.

While the Jade II system is not in the strictest sense a ‘state of the art’ product in the way that HiFiMAN’s Shangri-La Jr or Shangri-La systems are (or in the way that MrSpeakers VOCE or Stax’s SR-009S headphones are), the Jade II package offers such heaping helps of the qualities most listeners seek in electrostatic systems that it qualifies as an unequivocal success. For many listeners, the Jade II system offers so much musical insight and enjoyment for such a sensible price that it may well represent all the electrostatic headphone system many listeners will ever need or want.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

HiFiMAN Jade II electrostatic headphone system
Jade II electrostatic headphone
Type: Open-back electrostatic headphone
Driver Complement: Single full-range electrostatic driver with <0.001mm thick diaphragm and Nano-material coatings, thin metal mesh stators, and nano-material dust covers.
Frequency Response: 7Hz–90kHz
Bias voltage: 550V–650V
Weight: 365 grams (12.9 oz.)
Price: (The Jade II electrostatic headphone is included in the Jade II system, but is also available separately for $1399 US or £1249 UK)
Jade II electrostatic amplifier
Amplifier dimensions: 116 × 270 × 276 mm (4.6″ × 10.6″ × 10.9″)
Amplifier Weight: 6.5 kg (14.3 lb.)
Price: (The Jade II electrostatic amplifier is included in the Jade II system, but is also available separately for $1599 US or £1299 UK)
Jade II bundled electrostatic headphone system price: $2499 or £2499 UK

MANUFACTURER INFORMATION

HiFiMAN Corporation

+1 (201) 443-4626

URL: www.hifiman.com

https://hifiplus.com/reviews/

Shunyata Research Alpha USB cable

If there’s one fixed point in the audio firmament, it’s that nothing stays the same for too long. Models refresh, new products come along, and benchmarks move with the times; so it is with cables. I am guilty of a little complacence and inertia here in that my range of go-to USB cables (AudioQuest, Cardas, Crystal, Kimber, Nordost) have remained more or less unchanged for a few years, so I thought the Shunyata Research Alpha USB wouldn’t shake that tree too violently.

Wrong!

If I’d thought about this carefully, Shunyata’s explorations into power line noise reduction that gave us some fine power cables and conditioners would obviously apply to the USB cable; two of the four immediately adjacent conductors within the USB cable are there to deliver a 5V, 0.5A feed from some notoriously noisy USB chipsets. Worse, due to the high-speed nature of digital audio and the performance-lottery of USB terminals (especially from host computers not set-up specifically with audio in mind), the intrusion of interference from nearby devices can play havoc with performance.

In the Alpha line Shunyata shields this cable from any external interference thanks to a complete silver-mesh shield. It also plays extremely close attention to the nature of the USB conductors and terminations. Each conductor is silver-plated continuous cast copper set in a FEP dielectric. The cable is impedance matched using what Shunyata calls its ‘Precision Matched Z (PMZ)’ concept. This means that tolerances of the conductor surface, dielectric extrusion, and the precision of the braided shield are held to minute variances. This is performed by running the extrusion machinery at one-quarter normal speed during manufacturing. The conductors are then connected by hand to custom-designed USB A and B terminations, said to reduce junction-related distortions in the cable. Shunyata also uses the company’s unique ‘Kinetic Phase Inversion Process (KPIP)’, which is said to be a cable-conditioning methodology based on Shunyata chief Caelin Gabriel’s investigations into why burn-in, directionality, and cryogenics occur. As a consequence, burn in is not required or recommended.

Plugged between a MacBook Pro and an APL DSD-S DAC, the change was remarkable. This excellent DAC had a jump in performance. Sounds that were already extremely open and natural sounding became that bit more natural and open sounding. The timing of this good, but sometimes perhaps a little laid-back DAC snapped into greater focus, the already quiet DAC just got that bit more chilled out in background noise resolution. Using it with the Melco N10 also made a big difference, but one that is relatively minor next to the huge change it makes when with off-the-shelf computer.

Those who hold out against USB-based audio because think it unfit for purpose. The Shunyata Research Alpha USB cable represents the last time that argument can be made with any validity. Put simply, it makes USB sound better!

Price and Contact Details

Shunyata Research Alpha USB cable: £1,000/1.5m

Manufactured by: Shunyata Research

URL: shunyata.com

Distributed by: The Shunyata Distribution Company

URL: shunyata-uk.com

Tel: +44(0)330 223 3769

Kuzma Stabi S turntable, 4Point 9 tonearm, and CAR‑40 MC cartridge

There’s an established hierarchy in vinyl replay that is almost inviolate. The expenditure goes from top down; spend most money on the turntable, then the arm, then cartridge, and so on. This comes from the days when the Linn LP12 held a nation of audiophiles in its thrall; I remember one magazine said (only half-jokingly) that if you were going to buy a system with limited funds, you should buy a LP12 turntable, and start saving for the amp and speakers! While this was an extreme example, the idea that the turntable should be the most significant investment in a vinyl-replay chain is still a pervasive and respected way of system building. This turntable begs to differ.

Kuzma has a substantial range of turntables, arms, and – most recently – cartridges in its portfolio, allowing for logical hierarchical systems ranging in price from the nursery slopes of high-end right up to the peaks where additional oxygen is required. And typically, that means a turntable like the entry-level Stabi S is most likely to be used with the unipivot Stogi S arm, and maybe the CAR-20 cartridge, or even an MC or MM design from Ortofon or similar. That’s the established way and it works unquestionably well.

This time, however, we paired that entry-point Stabi S with the far more up-scale 4Point 9 arm and the CAR-40 moving coil cartridge from the brand. Making the arm by far the most expensive part of the system, and the deck trailing not far behind the cost of the cartridge. OK, to facilitate this, we part-pimped up the Stabi S with its natural maple platform and optional external speed control, but this is only a couple of steps removed from the base model.

A quick refresh on all three components is in order. We first looked at the Kuzma Stabi S back in Issue 10, and since then 12” tonearm compatible versions, two arm versions, and most recently a double-height platter have been folded into the basic design. But, it’s effectively the same turn-of-the-century design; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The Stabi S is perhaps the simplest turntable on the market. It comprises two brass tubes, a bearing, a motor, an inner and outer platter, and a belt. The brass tubes have rubber O-rings at either end as an alternative to feet. The standard AC motor housing has an on-off switch, while the expensive external PSU uses a housing with a captive cable connecting to the external power supply with a locking DIN plug. This makes for an extraordinarily well-built product; other turntables might be more ornate, but the Stabi S has the kind of well-trained powerlifter solidity of build to it. You could imagine the Stogi S being air-dropped out of the back of a Hercules to bring aid to the musically starving; it wouldn’t even need a chute! It comes supplied with a dust cover as standard worldwide, but unique to the UK Audiofreaks includes the optional brass record weight and composite support as part of the package, too.

The 4Point 9 is a recent award winner of this parish, having been tested in issue 155. It too has the same uncompromising build of the Stabi S. This four-pivot arm features two points to allow vertical movement, in a manner similar to a double-unipivot design, the second pair allow horizontal movement. All four are designed to have minimal starting and moving friction, and zero play in any playing direction. The larger 4Point arms have a separate tower arrangement allowing for on-the-fly VTA adjustment; the 4Point 9 is a simpler design and the arm base is fully integrated into a single tower. This means the arm is still adjustable for VTA, but through loosening an Allen bolt rather than turning a knurled knob. Personally, I favour the ‘less is more’ approach.

The CAR-40 cartridge was also tested at the same time we looked at the 4Point 9 but was not the main focus of the review. It’s a high-mass design in an aluminium body, custom made to strict Kuzma specification by a very reputable producer in Japan The CAR range all use a similar body (with a unique aluminium stylus guard that needs to be bolted in place), varying in coil wiring, cantilever material, and stylus profile. The CAR-40 is the first model in the six-strong range to feature 4N silver coil wires, but with a boron cantilever and a microridge stylus profile (the two higher-end models move to sapphire and then diamond cantilevers). Aside from a single high-output model, all have an almost identical 0.3mV output.

In fact, we used this trio of components in testing the 4Point 9 but didn’t really express just how well they worked together, as that review focused on just one part – the arm. This time, it’s how they work as a sum of the parts.

In fact, they work better than you might expect. Better than I expected. Possibly even better than Franc Kuzma himself might have expected. The turntable has an unflustered approach to music, taking the emphasises and inconsistencies out of turntable replay, creating a neutral platform for records. Those who want some immediacy to their sound in order to impress their friends will want to look elsewhere, but if you want a right-sized, correctly-scaled musical presentation that captivates, the Stabi S is excellent. The 4Point 9 arm adds a fluidity and openness to the sound that only adds to that neutral platform of the turntable. The best way I can describe the sound of this arm is that it seems to work with the grain of the music like a fine cabinetmaker, giving everything a brilliance and elegance that is waiting to be brought out. Meanwhile, the cartridge is just sublimely musical and tonally accurate, with excellent front-to-back imagery and effortless dynamic range.

Put the three bits together, though, and the magic starts to happen. The only difficulty for a reviewer is describing that magic because you can only really make notes while you are changing records, and then you are too keen to change records. While you are listening, you are gripped by the Kuzma’s performance. The Kuzma trio here never puts a foot wrong, with bass that is as tight as it is powerful and dynamic, a midrange that disappears, a treble that soars, detail as if you are standing by the cutting lathe, and all those filigree micro-details that are so beloved by audiophiles as a sign of good performance are portrayed with complete fidelity. For all that, it also presents that music qua music; not as some experiment in soundstage height or microdynamics. Which is why you can play audiophile records back-to-back with the spiky Jane From Occupied Europe by Swell Maps [Rough Trade].

Kuzma’s whole is greater than the sum of the parts; the sound you get from the three is outstanding and so well-balanced you might be forgiven for thinking you are listening to something closer to £15,000 or more. In a world full of ‘mug’s eyeful’ style over substance products, it’s great to recommend something this well made, as you know it will last a lifetime, and always sound great. Great!

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Stabi S turntable

Platter: 4kg, 30mm thick aluminium with mat
Bearing type: 10mm diameter pointed shaft with resin/textile material
Drive: flat rubber belt
Motor: Single AC motor
Speeds: 33rpm, 45 rpm
Armboard: optional (Kuzma arms fit directly)
VTA adjustment: yes
Max. tonearm length: 10” (12” option available)
Optional extras: second arm kit, PSU, 40mm natural maple platform
Finish: brass or black
Dimensions (W×D×H): 40 × 40 × 17cm
Weight: 13kg
Price: £2,149

4Point 9 tonearm with detachable headshell

Bearing type: four pivot
Maximum cartridge mass: 35g
Effective mass: 13g
Effective length: 229mm
Arm-mount distance: 212mm
Spindle-pivot distance: 212mm
Offset angle: 23°
Armtube: conical aluminium
Bias and VTA adjustment: Yes
Arm mount: Kuzma
Wiring: Silver as standard, options available
Connections: XLR, 5pin
Total mass: 920g
Price: £3,600

CAR-40 moving-coil phono cartridge

Frequency response: 10Hz–40kHz
Output: 0.3mV
Tracking force: 2 grams
Internal impedance: 6 ohms
Weight: 7 grams
Price: £2,395

Manufactured by: Kuzma Ltd

URL: kuzma.si

Distributed by: Definitive Audio

URL: definitiveaudio.co.uk

Tel:+44(0)115 9733222

https://hifiplus.com/reviews/

Kudos Titan 505 stand‑mount loudspeaker

I’ve always wanted to say something like this, but the Kudos 505 comes from a race of Titans! It’s the smallest and lone stand-mount in a four-strong Titan range, all of which use the same basic profile; a rear-ported isobaric design, like the 606 and 707 it’s a two-way design, and all of them can be powered actively as well as basic passive operation. The Titan 505 arguably lends itself to passive drive slightly better than its bigger brothers (by virtue of not having those bigger cones to move in the two largest models), and this is the ideal model for the listener in smaller rooms.

Kudos uses SEAS drive units, custom made to Kudos specification, throughout the Titan range. They all use a 29mm K3 fabric dome tweeter (a ‘Crescendo’ K3 dome in the 808). Both the Titan 505 features two SEAS‑Kudos 180mm mid-bass units, composed of double-coated paper cones, with a 39mm voice coil that uses a copper shorting ring, and an aluminium phase plug with Kudos three-lobed racetrack logo on the visible driver.

The second of the two mid-bass units is internally mounted in an isobaric bass reflex system. Isobaric loading requires two identical bass units wired in parallel inside a common cabinet, so that the front face of one unit and the rear face of the other operates within that cabinet. Kudos adopts a back-to-back driver arrangement, with a reflex port behind the isobaric chamber.

The cabinet itself is well-finished, and the side cheeks come in a range of five finishes, including the lovely shade of walnut in which our samples were supplied. However, the front baffle, top, and rear are all in a contrasting flat black. Under the surface is some fairly powerful resonance control techniques deployed throughout the loudspeaker.

The crossover is a key feature, in part because it’s inherently defeatable. If you go passive (as we did), the loudspeaker has a minimal, low-order crossover with high-grade components from Mundorf and Clarity Caps. However, the rear panel is festooned with links and connectors, and their removal gives the listener the chance to drive the loudspeakers actively. Thus far, active crossover networks have been developed with Linn’s Exakt system, Devialet’s Expert amplifiers, and Naim’s SNAXO electronics. We relied on a single Devialet Expert instead. Naturally this means more amplifiers in the chain, but the exercise is generally considered more than worth the effort and expense.

The Titan 505 is designed to be used with an integral equipment stand, which is itself deceptively heavy when filled and features some stealthy engineering in its own right. It’s a seven-pillar stand, with six of the seven pillars designed to be filled to the end user’s requirements.

Like many loudspeakers reviewed today, the review sample was the demonstration sample and had been given many hours of use before we got it, so any discussions of the run-on process or the time it takes to come on song were long past. The loudspeaker takes a few minutes to come on song when either moved or left fallow for any length of time. Give it a quick blast of Faithless for a few minutes to wake up the bass units. You can tell when the isobaric section kicks in… in an appropriately sized room, it’s like firing the bass afterburners. The sound fills in, drops an octave, and starts swinging a few gut-punches.

The first and most obvious point of the Titan 505 is its bass. For a stand-mount loudspeaker and a loudspeaker of its size, the bass is prodigious. Not overpowering or overblown, just that ‘where did you hide the subwoofer’ bass power and drive. This comes across on almost every piece of music played, but surprisingly showed up with the exposed click-track at the end of ‘Georgio by Moroder’ from Daft Punk’s 2013 hit album Random Access Memories [Columbia]. The end of the track slowly decays to a synth bass drum and then a click track, and the heft of the drum fades almost imperceptibly, but with the Titan 505 the delineation between the two is easy to hear and you know when the fade out takes place. Other loudspeakers also do this, but all that do are invariably larger designs. It’s at once a dry, taut bass and a ‘phat’ deep bass, largely depending on source material, which means it doesn’t get in the way too much; using Trentemøller’s ‘Chameleon’ [The Last Resort, Poker Flat] as a deliberate test of a port choking up and making ‘chuff’ sounds – and overall speed of transient attack at the low end – the Titan 505 behaved admirably well, and while it didn’t exhibit the absolute lack of overhang of a sealed box, overhang and port choke-up were chuffin’ minimal. In short, bass is deep, powerful, and very well handled.

I don’t want this review to focus on bass alone; although it’s the Titan 505’s signature dish, there’s a whole musical menu to be sampled and enjoyed. The loudspeaker also has a dynamic range and shade far beyond that of most conventional two-way standmounts of similar size; just play any powerful orchestral piece, such as Mahler’s Eighth symphony [Solti, LSO, Decca], and you are met with a loudspeaker that belies its size once again when the orchestra, organ, and choir go for it in the first and last movements. It’s also a subtle performer, with sufficient detail and dynamic shading and contrast to pick out delicate string noises on a DG collection of Segovia’s guitar playing. On a Bach Partita, the string squeaks are there, but at a far lower level than the playing; they should meld into the music like surface noise on vinyl on a good replay system. In effect, they make the track sound alive, but less dynamically precise loudspeakers make these squeaks sound too up front and become a distraction. Once again, the Kudos is all about the balance.

The treble is refined and extended too, without exaggeration or strong emphasis. This can be a problem with loudspeakers that deliver good bass for their size; the designer often can’t resist adding a bit of zing to the top end. Here, the treble is both well-balanced and extremely poised, staying in the Goldilocks zone between ‘strong’ and ‘rolled off’. Granted, we have become so used to a ‘hot’ treble these days it takes a few moments to remember what accurate and honest treble sounds like, but it sounds like this. The natural examples to show here are female vocals, which also highlight the ‘do no harm’ nature of the treble reaches down into the midband, too; the purity and simplicity of Joni Mitchell’s voice on ‘Help Me’ from Court and Spark [Asylum] was left entirely untouched making the record exceptionally moving and extremely easy to follow.

Stereo imagery and separation are outstanding too, although ‘outstanding’ set in the context of an ‘excellent’ performance elsewhere. Sounds within the soundstage are exceptionally well rooted in place and image stability holds throughout. However, if you are looking for some kind of three-dimensional hologram of the stage, the Kudos Titan 505 get you about 85% of the way there. The image is wide of the speakers and has excellent depth, in the manner of good wide-baffled classic British loudspeakers, but pin-point precision to the soundstage is a little illusive. My new go-to recording here is Joyce DiDonato singing ‘Tu sola, o mia Giulietta… Deh! tu, bell’anima’ from Bellini’s Capuleti e Montecchi [Stella Di Napoli, Erato]; as the song concludes, the orchestra fades into the background just leaving her voice centre-stage and a French horn behind and slightly stage right of her voice. In the best imaging products, the two are precisely delineated in a three-dimensional space; here they blend slightly. That being said, to get a loudspeaker that improves on this without sacrifice elsewhere is only possible at nearer twice the price of the Titan 505.

The Kudos Titan 505, like the other models in the Titan range, is making a lot of friends when heard in shows but is typically heard in active mode. But not everyone who buys a Titan 505 will buy it as an active loudspeaker, because the price of entry and no small amount of audiophile inertia pushing back against active operation. Played passively however, the Titan 505 is a real star too. Whether you view it as a stepping stone to active drive of a passive loudspeaker end in its own right, the Kudos Titan 505 is one of the most impressively well-balanced loudspeakers in its price and beyond.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Type: Two-way isobaric bass reflex stand-mount loudspeaker with optional active operation
Drive units: 29mm fabric SEAS-Kudos K3 dome tweeter, 2x 180mm SEAS‑Kudos double-coated paper cone mid-bass units
Frequency range: 40Hz–30kHz
(average in-room response)
Nominal impedance: 6 ohms
Sensitivity: 87dB/W/m
Recommended amplifier power: 25W–250W
Side cheek finishes: Walnut, Tineo, Red Tineo, Black Ash, Satin White
Dimensions (H×W×D): 45 × 25.6 × 32cm
Weight: 18kg
Price: From £7,000 per pair

Manufactured by: Kudos Audio

URL: kudosaudio.com

Tel: +44 (0)845 458 6698

https://hifiplus.com/reviews/

A LOUDSPEAKER LEGEND REBORN

The new loudspeakers feature a complete upgrade in both performance and build quality to create Monitor Audio’s best Bronze Series yet.

The new cabinet design features a modern profile and a separate contrasted baffle complemented by a choice of contemporary finishes. The new drivers with Damped Concentric Mode (DCM) technology have been intricately engineered to optimise the audio experience. They also pair with the tweeter’s carefully designed Uniform Dispersion (UD) Waveguide to integrate seamlessly into the architecture of the baffle.

Since its launch in 2000, the multi award-winning Bronze Series has set the standard as a class leader and today has thousands of satisfied owners across the globe. The 6th generation builds upon a rich heritage to create a speaker set to delight with its superior build quality and powerful yet detailed performance.

The new Bronze Series features a choice of eight models, including a Dolby Atmos® enabled speaker, all of which have been designed to please any music or movie lover. With a choice of four finishes and a sleek form, each of the speakers look great wherever they are placed in a room.

Monitor Audio’s Technical Director, Michael Hedges, said, ‘I am truly proud of what we have managed to achieve with the 6th generation of our Bronze Series. The performance and build quality are beyond what one would normally expect at this price point and I am certain that our customers will love them.’

Bronze Series

6th Generation Bronze Series models

• Bronze 50 – bookshelf

• Bronze 100 – bookshelf

• Bronze 200 – floorstander

• Bronze 500 – floorstander

• Bronze C150 – centre speaker

• Bronze FX – rear speaker

• Bronze AMS – Dolby Atmos® enabled speaker

• Bronze W10 – subwoofer

Finishes

• Black – black vinyl and satin dark grey front baffle

• White – white vinyl and satin light grey front baffle

• Walnut – walnut wood vinyl and satin dark grey front baffle

• Urban Grey – grey wood vinyl and satin light grey front baffle

RRP: The range starts at £260 for a pair of Bronze 50 speakers.

Monitor Audio will be previewing the new 6th generation Bronze Series speakers at this year’s Bristol Hi-fi Show.

Where: Empire 1 Suite, ground floor, Bristol Marriott City Centre Hotel, Lower Castle Street, Bristol, BS1 3AD

When: Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd February 2020. 10:00 – 17:00

Press contact: [email protected]

Vitus MP-201 masterpiece D/A converter

Masterpiece is a huge label to hang on any component, especially by the designer and manufacturer himself. But, over the years I have listened to and reviewed many of Hans-Ole Vitus’ products and doubted that he would throw such a description around lightly. Masterpiece he named it and after hours and hours of experiencing it I would say that there is no exaggeration within that title, because a masterpiece it surely is.

The MP-201 DAC is typically Vitus. It’s heavy, impeccably constructed inside and out and features let’s say a generous deployment of metals and alloys within its semi-industrial design. Two hefty front panel side-elements house the six on-board controls while the small display sits in the middle as per usual. There are the expected set of inputs on the rear panel allowing it to be connected to just about anything digital through a 24/192 USB or S/PDIF, both RCA or XLR. Everything that comes into the MP-201 is upsampled to 24bit/792kHz. Analogue outputs are via XLR or RCA.

There is also the intriguing option of fitting a module that provides a couple of pairs of analogue inputs (RCA and XLR) and a high quality volume control allowing it to function as a DAC/preamplifier. The MP-201 has a standard on-board volume for level trimming, but the optional preamplifier in one box option is much better and uses a series of discrete resistors that don’t eat into resolution. This essentially means that you could forgo the expense of an undoubtedly expensive separate preamp and drive the power amplifier(s) from the DAC.

Vitus really knows what it is doing with volume controls and over the years we have found that volume control quality is critical to the performance of any pre-amplification. Factor in the cost of associated paraphernalia that a preamplifier brings and for the £2k that the additional board costs, the value of the MP-201 begins to look a lot better. Unfortunately for me, the review sample did not come equipped with that Analogue board but, if I was a potential customer, I would seriously look at it as an option, bearing in mind that brilliant sounding high-end preamplifiers are among the rarest and priciest components out there and that Vitus already makes some of the best.

We listen to systems, not individual components. How can we make any sort of accurate determination as to the interplay between audio electronics when there are so many of them in operation at the same time, all doing such complex jobs with music, one of the most intricate, and transient art forms around?

I streamed Tidal from a Roon Nucleus straight through the USB and listened to a high-end CD player through the digital XLR input. Amplification was a Dartzeel pre and power (a fantastic thing that I shall return to in a future issue). The electronics sat on a Stillpoints rack and the cabling was all Nordost. If you think this sounds like an interesting amalgamation then let me confirm that it certainly was that and much more. Rarely have I had such an intriguing music machine at home.

Let’s talk system resolution for a moment. I believe that the word means different things to different people and barely an audio discussion passes without its absolute desirability being dropped into the mix. For me it encompasses just about everything that comes out of the speakers. It’s not so much that you hear new details that you haven’t heard before but rather that you hear them in a new light, perhaps with a new relevance to the piece. A high-hat figure from a drummer, a vocal inflection or a phrase from an instrument might suddenly knit a rhythmic passage together or resolve and answer a question asked within the music. It may be positioned within the soundstage differently to the way you heard it before. The Vitus can and will do these things. It really doesn’t matter how complex and deep the music is, or how seemingly simple, this Vitus will get right in there between the notes to show you what is happening and not in a chilly forensic way either. Just about every facet of the way the music moves through time in a digital system, be it streamed or CD based, falls under the control of the DAC and the way it deals with the data that flows through its inputs. Having said that, I did have someone tell me recently that it’s just a stream of ones and zeros so all DACs should sound the same. Good luck with that one.

As time has passed and sensibly configured digital-based systems have become a very serious option, the possibilities have grown and grown, alongside the very real sonic improvements from subscription services like Tidal and Qobuz. It seems that we are really beginning to appreciate the absolutely vital role that the right DAC plays as the system conductor. The musical differences between them are as important as those you will find between other components and no amplifier or speakers can replace resolution that the DAC misses out on. Early DACs could be rather thin and mean-sounding devices, shimmering with unrealistic and brash detail that gave many of us a headache. They helped in no small way in giving digitally sourced music such a bad name, especially among analogue enthusiasts. As I said though, things have changed beyond all recognition and with products like this Vitus, the DAC finds itself at the heart of all top quality digital based systems by controlling everything further downstream, from timing to tone.

To say that this is a good DAC would be an understatement as it has such wonderful scope and potential for the music to develop and work its magic. The soundstage is broad, very, very deep and full of energy, ambience and pure airspace. Transparency and rhythmic movement are superb and its bass performance is epic. Rock solid stability and a feeling of tremendous power, bandwidth and sheer weight bring a real sense of involvement as do the musical complexities it unravels right in front of you. Tonality is a system thing really but the Vitus, despite its considerable and organic musical density, seems about as neutral as I have heard. It’s this connection with the system that makes it all worthwhile emotionally. A really good system is one that has the capability to talk to you personally and the MP-201 is right on message here and what it has to say is profound.

Take the seeming simplicity of a single musical phrase whether it be from an instrument or a voice. It’s all part of the story that the composition is telling. The Vitus spins the yarn explicitly. It seems to revel in showing the smallest details, joining them up and relating them to the whole, even on the simplest of songs by the most introspective of singer-songwriters. It has an almost surreal way of explaining the piece through the language of music and where the art itself is concerned the Vitus is supremely eloquent. High-end systems like this are simply wonderful at unravelling musical relationships and their place in the passing of time, or we may call it rhythm or tempo. The Vitus is brim full of nuance and subtlety but it is certainly dense where sheer musical information is concerned. From the texture and colour to the way that individual notes, whatever their source, are born, live and then fade to be replaced by something new. This is absolutely great when you listen to soloing and appreciate what a precious gift true phrasing is and how it is the very root of expression and pure musicianship.

The MP-201 is very, very quiet and the blacks are as inert as I have heard. There is no sense of a highly detailed and processed digital stream of data being reconstituted. It has the ability to adapt completely to any musical form. A simply miked recording of a singer with an acoustic guitar can literally shake you with its realistic scale, intimacy and beauty as it has this way of drawing you toward the artist by giving them shape and physical form within the soundstage. They exist as a three dimensioned feature and not just a mouth and a guitar. Depending on the quality of the recording there can be something so captivating and so emotionally powerful here. But give it bigger work to do, like an orchestra at full throttle and it digs deep and gives the amplifier a lot of dynamic work to do while maintaining levels of instrumental detail and separation that is truly special.

Like all great audio products it is endlessly dynamic but this doesn’t only mean that can go loud or soft. Instruments or voices rarely maintain level evenly, but the Vitus copes heroically with no problem. It’s the way it allows each instrument such latitude and freedom of power and expression that remains one of its most captivating charms. But, when I talk about its exceptional abilities I am also talking about getting the small and the very, very small things right. The beauty of note decay or subtle vibrato and the way that such delicacy sits very comfortably next to explosive transients bringing a real feeling of relaxation and once you have confidence in the system’s potential and you know it isn’t going to sound stressed or at its limits, it becomes so very easy to listen to.

Yes, the Vitus MP-201 is a masterpiece product as the name states but it can only work within the limitations of the system it sits at the heart of and this means that its likely destinations are high-end systems, or in other words, expensive systems assembled by those fortunate enough to be able to afford them. You are going to need to make sure that every detail has been thought through. This means from the router onwards. You really need to give the conductor the right tools and there are no short cuts. I have heard so many systems that cost more than a house that failed to deliver anything other than a loud and rather tiring facsimile of music. Brimmed full of the most outrageous detail but totally lacking in soul or humanity. Digital-based music can still be like this. It has always been that way since Digital began to show its (then) ugly face to the world through recordings on vinyl. I read the reviews and rushed out and bought this early stuff and ended up hating it, for years in fact. Early CD too was shockingly bad. But, where we are now is light years away from those days. What hasn’t changed is that realising the potential out of any system includes the painstaking business of considering the infrastructure that surrounds the electronics themselves.

Credit where it’s due. For me the Vitus MP-201 is a brilliant and notable product simply because it is so very emotionally engaging and attractive to listen to. If you are in the market for such a DAC/Pre you would be very wise to give it serious consideration by adding it to your audition list. I doubt you’ll be disappointed.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Type: Single box DAC/Pre

Inputs: USB, S/PDIF-RCA, S/PDIF-XLR with optional RCA and XLR analog inputs

Outputs: 1 × XLR, 1 × RCA

DAC: Master Clock – Vitus module – upgradeable

Sample rate: 792khz

Resolution: 24-bit

DAC: 4 × AD1955 in mono configuration

Dimensions: 135 × 435 × 430mm (H×W×D)

Weight: 25kg

Finishes: Silver or black

Price: £24,000

Manufactured by: Vitus Audio

URL: vitusaudio.com

Monolith by Monoprice Liquid Spark headphone amplifier by Alex Cavalli

After a distinguished 18-year career in audio circuit design, Dr Alex Cavalli shut down Cavalli Audio and retired as an industry heavyweight. Cavalli made it known he would rather stop short his famed run rather than sacrifice his reputation for quality, performance, and sensible prices. Recently, however, Cavalli has found the right partner in California-based Monoprice to restoke his fires and give headphone amplifier design another go, starting with the introduction of the Monolith by Monoprice Liquid Spark headphone amplifier. Cavalli Audio once planned a portable amplifier to be named the Liquid Spark, so this amp pays homage to a product that might have been. This is great news to those of us who lamented Cavall’s retirement, but even better news is that Monolith’s Spark will retail for the rock bottom price of £76. While some of you may have rolled your eyes on hearing this price (thinking good things must cost more), don’t sleep on this extremely small headphone amp as it really packs a punch and lives up to the reputation Cavalli so carefully crafted over the previous two decades.

The Liquid Spark uses a DC-coupled topology from the input to the output stage and is a fully discrete design. This approach eliminates the need for capacitors and op-amps in the signal path that might colour the overall sound. At the differential input stage the Liquid Spark uses laser-matched, low-noise audio JFETs instead of traditional bipolar transistors. JFETs are known to perform well in low-level applications, producing little noise while at the same time providing high input impedance. The output power stage employs high performance MOSFETs, which are ideal for designers looking to provide high power and very clean amplification within tight space constraints. The net result is a compact headphone amplifier that employs dual 18V filtered power supply rails that produces a convincing 1300mW RMS per channel into 50 ohms with very low distortion. With adjustable gain on the front panel, the Liquid Sparks exhibits a remarkable ability to produce a full sound that is crisp, quick, and sits quite comfortably in comparison with headphone amplifiers double or even triple its cost, as we will discuss shortly.

The affordable Liquid Spark isn’t going to wow you with an array of flashy dials or features, as this rather bare bones amplifier banks its value on what really counts: the sound. However, one exciting feature that deserves mention is found on the back panel where a user will see two sets of RCA jacks, one of which is a preamp output. The preamp outputs are controlled by the volume knob on the front of the amplifier and can be tailored to control entry-level powered speaker systems, or other power amplifiers.

I auditioned the Liquid Spark with multiple pieces of music, but for this review I selected Furry Lewis’ ‘St. Louis Blues’ [Fantasy] as a baseline. The hauntingly sparse blues guitar and vocal combination inherently would allow plenty of space to help detect just what this little pitbull of a headphone amp could sink its teeth into. The Liquid Spark picked up and polished all the micro details of Furry’s uncanny buzzing slide guitar sound that I previously thought only were audible with my reference Oppo HA-1 (10x more expensive than Liquid Spark). The Liquid Spark produced an impressively wide soundstage and a three-dimensional presentation that made the listening experience sublime. Impressed start to finish I have to truthfully say that the Liquid Spark gave me over 90% of what I was accustomed to hearing from the HA-1 in every discernable metric.

For those of us (and I think there are many) who appreciate that last sonic 10% but don’t feel driven to pay through the nose for it, let me firmly encourage you to go pick up the Monolith Liquid Spark. The Liquid Spark offers outrageously good value for money and is exactly the headphone amp you need (or some fledgling audiophile close to you needs), whether building a first headphone system, or adding headphone capabilities to an existing system.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Type: Solid-state DC coupled headphone amplifier

Inputs: One unbalanced analogue input (via RCA jacks)

Outputs: One 6.35mm headphone jack, on variable-level preamp output (via RCA jacks)

Frequency Response: 10Hz – 50kHz, +/- .05 dB

Power output: >7.6v/ 90mW (@600 ohms) Balanced, >3.8v/ 45mW (@300 ohms) S-Balanced

SNR: 108dB (ref. 1 Vrms input / 2 Vrms output @ 1kHz)

THD + N: <0.006% Balanced, <0.005% S-Balanced

Crosstalk: -83dB

Gain: +3dB or +6dB

THD + N: 1VRMS (20mW) – 0.007% THD at 1kHz both channels.

5VRMS (530mW) – 0.035% THD at 1kHz both channels

Dimensions (HxWxD): 1.5″ × 4.5’’ × 3.75’’

Weight: 252 g

Price: $99 US, £76

MANUFACTURER INFORMATION

Monoprice, Inc.

11701 6th Street, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730 USA

+1 (877) 271-2592

URL: monoprice.com

UK URL: monoprice.uk

YG Acoustics Hailey 2.2 floorstanding loudspeaker

In Hi-Fi+ Issue 145 (March 2017) Editor Alan Sircom and I decided to review loudspeakers that were contenders for state-of-the-art honours. Alan chose the Wilson Audio WAMM Master Chronosonic, while I opted for the YG Acoustics’ four-tower Sonja XV loudspeaker system. Alan and I came away from our listening experiences impressed and delighted by what we had heard and speaking purely for myself I can say without hesitation that YG’s Sonja XV was then and still remains the finest, most accomplished loudspeaker I have ever heard. With that said, however, two limiting factors about the Sonja XV do stand out: first, it’s a very large speaker system that demands a big space in order to give of its best and second, the XV is dauntingly expensive, with a price tag ($265,900) north of a quarter of a million dollars. For me, then, and probably for many of you, a key question is this: can the various technologies that make the XV the sonic wonder that it is be scaled downward to loudspeakers smaller in size and lower in price.

The unequivocal answer to that question is that yes, Sonja XV technologies can be scaled downward with excellent results—at least to a point. First came the Sonja XV Jr, which is mostly identical to the big XV, but with fewer woofer modules and an appropriately reworked crossover network, allowing for much shorter speaker towers and a concomitant price reduction. Next came the Sonja 2.2 (as reviewed in Hi-Fi+ 155), which is essentially an original Sonja 2 that has been ‘turbocharged’ with essentially all of the technologies that make the XV so special. Importantly, the Sonja 2.2 demonstrates that nearly all of the desirable sonic qualities of the XV can be distilled down into a two-loudspeaker system (rather than a four-tower system), and one priced below $80,000. Naturally, this leads to an inevitable follow-on question: can XV technologies successfully be scaled down even further?

The answer to that question is here in the form of the new Hailey 2.2 ($46,800), which is a three-way, 3-driver, modular loudspeaker fitted out with XV-inspired improvements. The Hailey 2.2 features an upper tweeter-midrange enclosure that sits atop a lower acoustic suspension-type woofer module. Early on, I had been under the impression that the Hailey 2.2’s upper and lower modules would arrive in separate crates that would eventually be stacked upon one another during installation and assembly, but this isn’t the case. Instead, the Hailey 2.2’s modules are locked together at the factory so that each Hailey 2.2 arrives as a completed loudspeaker ready to be moved into position for use.

Company founder Yoav Geva based the Hailey 2.2, like all YG Acoustics loudspeakers, on a number of essential ‘building-block’ technologies he has painstakingly developed over time. As a starting point, all cabinet enclosure panels are CNC machined from solid aircraft aluminium and are fastened together using aircraft-type “vibration-free pressurised assembly” techniques. Internally, the cabinets use YG’s proprietary FocusedElimination™ anti-resonance technology, which is said to keep “mechanical losses lower than any competing speaker, by combining the minimised turbulence of a sealed design with the low friction otherwise associated with enclosure-free concepts.” At first glance the illusion is that the Hailey 2.2 enclosures are composed of carefully joined flat metal panels, but a closer look reveals that the cabinets surfaces actually use an artfully blended combination of subtle, graceful compound curves. The cabinet sides are surface finished to a satin sheen and then anodised in jet black (although YG has occasionally experimented with other anodised colours on a very limited production basis). Interestingly, YG’s speaker enclosure designs result in part from input from Porsche Design.

Each Hailey 2.2 uses a 7.25-inch mid-bass driver and 10.25-inch woofer, both of which feature proprietary YG BilletCore™ diaphragms, which are machined out of thick cylindrical billets of aircraft-grade aluminium and given black anodised finishes. Although this might seem an unnecessarily difficult and complicated way to manufacture driver diaphragms, YG maintains that machined diaphragms allow more precise dimensional tolerances and the use of complex 3D diaphragm shapes that improve rigidity and resonance control. Further, YG says, the machining process imposes fewer stresses on the aluminium materials used and makes for greater long-term structural integrity, meaning owners can expect years of trouble-free use without any sonic degradation over time. The Hailey 2.2 woofer is housed in its own dedicated acoustic suspension enclosure, while the mid-base driver resides in a sealed upper enclosure along with the tweeter.

Importantly, the Hailey 2.2 employs the very same BilletDome™/ForgeCore™ tweeter used in the Sonja XV, which is arguably the finest piston-type tweeter on the planet. What make this tweeter special is the fact that it uses a hybrid design that combines a fabric dome (chosen for its desirable damping properties and smooth roll-off characteristics) with a precision-machined and ultra-low-mass (30 milligram) aluminium support frame that fits within the fabric dome, adding tremendous rigidity and strength. The upshot is a tweeter that offers better high-frequency extension than either a conventional fabric or metal dome tweeter could provide. Meanwhile, the term ForgeCore™ speaks to the fact that elements of the tweeter’s motor structure have been CNC-machined to receive special 3D geometries said to minimise distortion and to impart “a sense of ease to the sound”. Stated simply, the BilletDome tweeter is an essential key to the Hailey 2.2’s sound, in that it gives the speaker fast, highly detailed, and sharply focused highs, with profoundly extended high frequency response that is unfailingly smooth.

Crossover points are placed at 65Hz and 1.75kHz. YG points out that the Hailey 2.2 crossover network topology was developed through use of the firm’s proprietary DualCoherent™ CAD/CAM design software, which offers the singular ability to co-optimize the loudspeaker’s frequency response and phase coherency simultaneously (other packages can typically optimize one or the other, but not both at once). The Hailey 2.2 crossover network is fashioned from extremely high quality parts mounted on extra-thick circuit boards whose traces are milled—not photo-etched—into the surfaces of the boards. The special parts used in the crossover include YG’s custom-made ToroAir™ air-core inductors and the same types of massive, vibration-resistant ViseCoil™ bass inductors first created for the Sonja XV. These inductors use a vise-like clamping mechanism to all but eliminate audible inductor noise and hum, thus yielding low bass response that is uncommonly pure-sounding and articulate.

In a nutshell, the Hailey 2.2 represents a careful downsizing of the design concepts that worked out so well in the Sonja XV and then the Sonja 2.2. Once again, the Hailey 2.2 benefits from the two distinguishing technical features that set the Sonja XV apart; namely, use of a BilletDome™ tweeter and ViseCoil™ low-frequency inductors in the crossover network. You might expect that these changes in the Hailey 2.2 would yield an incremental improvement in sound quality vis-à-vis the original Hailey, but to my ears the change was much more profound than that.

For my listening tests YG Acoustics installed the Hailey 2.2’s in my home reference system, which consists of a Rega Osiris integrated amplifier and Isis CD player, an AURALiC Aries wireless bridge and Vega G2 DAC, Furutech cable and power conditioning equipment, and Auralex, RPG, and Vicoustic room treatments. Special thanks go to YG’s Dick Diamond, who spent the better part of a day installing and then carefully positioning the speakers in my medium sized room.

From very beginning it was easy to hear the familial ties between the Sonja XV, the Sonja 2.2, and the Hailey 2.2. All three share similar and in some respects identical positive sonic characteristic, so that in a sense to describe one model among these three is more or less to describe them all. The only really substantial differences involve absolute dynamic capabilities and sizes of the spaces for which each speaker is optimised. The Hailey 2.2 proved ideal for my medium-sized room.

Like the XV and Sonja 2.2, the Hailey 2.2 conveys a sense of extraordinary sonic transparency, meaning the speaker will show you low-level transient, textural, and spatial details in recordings that you perhaps never knew existed. At the same time, though, the Hailey 2.2 consistently sounds smooth and natural, never edgy, analytical, or harsh. This is the beauty of the BilletDome tweeter in action.

As an example, listen to ‘Vent poussière à L.S.’ from Henri Texier’s Remparts D’Argile [Label Bleu, 16/44.1] and not both the instrumental textures and timbres you are hearing, plus the spatial characteristics of the recording. The track opens with delicate, shimmering high percussion from Tony Rabeson accompanying a sweet, meditative clarinet statement from Sébastien Texier. Later, Henri Texier enters with a thoughtful and carefully restrained acoustic bass contribution that echoes the phrasing of his son Sébastien’s clarinet lines. Through this all, the YGs make the instrumental voices sound very nearly real, with dead perfect tonal colours and textures, realistic (but not overwrought) dynamics, and an uncanny sense of focus. The Hailey 2.2s also served up a masterful combination of imaging specificity (the instruments sounded reach-out-and-touch them present in the space) and believable soundstage scale. In fact, in my room the stage extended far to the left and right of the speakers with apparent stage depth that extended well beyond the back wall of my listening room.

Second, the Hailey 2.2s, like their bigger YG brethren, proved to be decidedly full-range loudspeakers that are capable of terrific extension at both high and low frequency extremes. For an example of this try Nils Frahm’s ‘Chant’ from Solo [Erased Tapes Records, 16/44.1], where you will hear Frahm performing on both acoustic and electronic keyboards, with some left hand passages presenting forceful and exceptionally low-pitched bass information. The Hailey 2.2 handled these passages, and especially the low bass elements, with rock-solid power and precise pitch definition—all while maintaining grace and composure (as if the speaker was really not having to work very hard). Yet the speaker never sounds bass heavy; on the contrary, its low frequencies offer equal measures of power, refinement, and control. This is a rare combination of virtues and a joy to hear.

Third, the Hailey 2.2’s offer energetic and expressive dynamics—subject only to the constraint that they should be used in appropriately sized spaces for best results. In my mid-sized space the Hailey 2.2’s offered dynamic agility aplenty and more sheer dynamic clout than I really needed. To hear how the YG’s dynamic agility and energy can bring a track alive, listen to ‘Ice Pick Mike (Movie Version) from Lalo Schifrin’s soundtrack to the movie Bullitt [Aleph Records, 16/44.1]. This is an oldie but goodie recording from the 1960’s, yet the YGs present it with all its power, clarity, intricacy, and dynamic drive intact. What is more, the Hailey 2.2s manage to make the track sound fresh and new, not dated or ‘worn out’. Put on the track and in seconds you’ll imagine you are prowling the streets of San Francisco in a British Racing Green 1968 Ford Mustang, looking for bad guys driving a black Dodge Charger. The YGs are that kind of vivid.

Last but not least, the Hailey 2.2’s are capable—on good material—of delivering vivid, breath-taking, wraparound 3D imaging. I first noticed this quality on Elbow’s ‘Honey Sun’ from The Take Off and Landing of Everything [Concord, 16/44.1]. This deceptively simple recording features a primary vocalist front and centre, with backing vocalists positioned far to left and right and a little behind the primary vocalist. On the song’s choruses, however, the imaging (and the all around dynamic envelope) shifts to that backing vocalists and instruments now are even farther to the left and right and positioned well ahead of the primary vocalist—almost as if they are performing from the sides of the room. Through the YGs the presentation was so eerily realistic that I found myself involuntarily looking for sound sources at the sides of the room that I knew, in an intellectual sense, were not really there. Stereo imaging just doesn’t get much better than this.

The Hailey 2.2 shares more than a few sonic characteristics with the state-of-the-art Sonja XV. It is a terrifically revealing and musically expressive loudspeaker that is scaled perfectly—UK and European readers please take note—to deliver extraordinary results in moderately sized listening spaces. To hear them is to want them.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Type: Three-way, three-driver, modular floorstanding loudspeaker with sealed acoustic suspension cabinet enclosures

Driver complement (per loudspeaker): One approximately 10.25‑inch BilletCore woofer, one approximately 7.25-inch BilletCore mid-bass driver, and one approximately 1-inch BilletDome/ForgeCore tweeter

Frequency response: 20Hz to above 40kHz, ± 1dB in the audible band, ± 5° relative phase throughout the entire overlap

Impedance: 4 Ohms nominal, 3 Ohms minimum

Sensitivity: 87dB/2.83V/1m 2 π anechoic

Dimensions (H×W×D): 122 × 33 × 54cm

Weight: 76kg per channel, unpackaged

Price: $46,800/pair or £53,000/pair

Manufacturer Information:
YG Acoustics LLC

Tel: +1 801-726-3887

URL: www.yg-acoustics.com

UK Distributor: Padood

Tel: +44 (0) 1223 653199

URL: www.padood.com

Sonus faber Electa Amator III stand-mount loudspeaker

The past is a wonderful place, a rose-tinted land where nothing bad ever happened and all hi-fi sounded wonderful. In fact, viewing past products with modern-day eyes can be an alarming reality-check, because many of those ‘wonderful sounding’ products fail to live up to their reputations. However, one of the ‘sort-of’ exceptions is the Sonus faber Electa Amator line. A core part of Sonus faber’s original DNA, models like the Electa Amator II of 1987 made a sound that enticed in a cabinet that enthralled and helped cement Sonus faber’s reputation among its many fans and followers.

Those days – sadly along with Sonus faber’s original owner and designer, Franco Serblin, who died in 2013 – are gone. But Sonus faber lives on, and to celebrate its 35th anniversary in 2018, the brand announced its new Heritage collection, thus far comprising two models; the Minima Amator II and the Electa Amator III tested here. Both are two-way stand-mount loudspeakers that echo much of the design, technology, and sound of classic Sonus faber speakers of old.

However, simply preserving the 1980s and 1990s in aspic and producing what would be effectively clones of past masterpieces would be wholly wrong. Music and design (both industrial design and what’s possible from a loudspeaker) have moved on, and to copy slavishly the past risks damaging both the present and past reputation. So, instead Sonus faber took the longer route, making a product that pays tribute to that past without pastiche, and bringing it up to date without undermining the core values of what Sonus faber stood for then, and stands for now. In other words, a complete re-evaluation from first principles.

If anything, this is one of the hardest tasks of their careers for both Sonus faber’s Chief Design Officer Livio Cucuzza and R&D Manager Paolo Tezzon. The brand now has several key lines, from value-driven models to high-performance, cost-no-object designs, and many of these products are regularly refreshed and revised. This is different. The Electa Amator – alongside the Extrema – is to many the Platonic Form of a Sonus faber loudspeaker, and unlike the Extrema, the Electa Amator was less demanding and expensive than the Extrema and therefore more widely known and experienced. Not only does it demand to be a stand-mount with a sumptuous finish of wood, leather, metal, and stone, but if you mess up a product that carries the Electa Amator name, it’s only one step removed from outright heresy among the cognoscenti. Fortunately, Cucuzza and Tezzon have good ‘form’ in terms of making great products (both visually and sonically) and they don’t put a foot wrong here.

The loudspeaker features Sonus faber’s 28mm silk fabric dome tweeter that uses the company’s ‘Arrow Point’ Damped Apex Dome technology… but this time connected to the tweeter horn by three points instead of two, to hark back to the originals. This tweeter sits in a wooden rear acoustic chamber of its own, which is just visible from the rear port (bring a torch!). The 180mm mid-woofer is unique to the design, using a cellulose pulp cone with a matching dust cap instead of a phase plug. It uses a cabinet made from 25mm thick sheets of solid walnut, with three constrained damping layers.

As with all modern Sonus faber loudspeakers, the crossover comes in for special treatment. It uses the company’s patented anti-resonant Paracross technology, which is claimed to optimise phase and amplitude response “for optimal space/time performance”. This bristles with high-grade components, such as non-polarising capacitors from Clarity Cap and low-resistance inductors from Jantzen. The two drive units cross over at 2.5kHz.

You are almost immediately aware that you are in the presence of Italianate luxury with the Electa Amator III, arguably even more so than its predecessor from the 1980s. The puffy cheeks of the side panels of the Amator II are now removed to the leather-finished front baffle, and the rear driver is replaced by a rear port, but the basic layout remains almost identical. The additional luxury touch is the 30mm thick Carrara marble base plate (which echoes the marble base plate of the Amator III stand) and this is delineated from the Walnut side and top by a thin sheet of brass (similar in colour to the Sonus faber front logo and the bi-wire rear panel). In less design-capable hands this marbled base could look tacky, but here it just drips elegance. Yes, it means the Amator III isn’t going to fit snugly into some chintzy shag-pile throwback of a home, but if you own an Eames lounge chair and it doesn’t look out of place, the Amator III fits perfectly. A convex grille is also available for those who don’t like the look of drive units.

Like its predecessors, the Electa Amator is designed to be relatively easy to drive, with an 88dB sensitivity and a nominal impedance of four ohms. This is more about quality than quantity and a good amplifier will drive these speakers well, rather than calling on a noted powerhouse. Curiously, Sonus faber recommends the speakers and the listener each sit at the vertices of an equilateral – rather than isosceles – triangle. This makes for a very near-field listening position, but in fairness it works. The more commonplace isosceles triangle (with the listener at the apex and the loudspeakers at each base vertex) works too, but in fairness to Sonus faber I tried the equilateral positioning and it worked better. This does need a room where there can be a good metre or so from the rear and side walls, and similar behind the listener’s head, but the performance is well suited here.

The loudspeaker harks back to past glories in a hint of old-school Sonus faber warmth; there’s a silken refinement to the midrange and upper registers that really brings out the richness and sublime nature of voices and acoustic instruments. Sonus faber was always really good at making a violin sound beautiful and there is no change here; Ruggiero Ricci’s violin playing on Paganiniana [Water Lily LP] is never less than sonorous and precise, but here takes on a masterful quality. In truth, I’m a bit ‘hot and cold’ on this album; it’s beautifully recorded but so close mic’d it rarely lets the musicianship shine through. Here, however, the beauty of the recording, the tonality of the instrument and the quality of the playing all meet in between the loudspeakers. This kind of sound is classic-era Sonus faber, but with more tonal accuracy and modern-day speaker honesty to keep going in today’s world, meaning that violin sounds more like a violin and less like the sonic equivalent of a masterly oil painting of a violin.

The other major Sonus faber characteristic inherited from past masters is the uncanny way this is a big loudspeaker that just happens to live in a small box. The sound it produces is extraordinarily large, almost always right-sized, with the kind of holographic image so real sounding, you could sub-let the soundstage to a young family. In this, the Sonus faber occupies the best of both worlds; a stereo image that is almost coming from a tiny point-source, coupled with the sort of scale and bass depth that makes you think of big floorstanders. ‘Congo Man’ from Ernest Ranglin’s Below the Basslinealbum [Island] highlights this well, with the underpinning of reggae bass lines and drums sounding vast and that sweet guitar sound picked out perfectly in the sound field.

There is no getting around the laws of physics; you can bend them, but you can’t break them. In this case, that big and impressive sound comes at the cost of absolute beat-precision. In truth, this probably only really manifests if you are really into techno music, where the big port helping to make the huge sound begins to make its presence felt. However, this is not so much a typical chuffing sound you might hear from an intrusive port, and certainly has no lack of energy. In other words, it’s perhaps more ZZ Top than Skrillex… which is no bad thing.

Most of all, though, Sonus faber has made a thoroughly modern time machine in the Electa Amator III. It retains much of the inviting sound of old, without showing up the limitations of the past in the present. It’s detailed, dynamic, has a beautifully-constructed soundstage, and best of all sounds bloody lovely when playing music, which is kind of the point of a pair of loudspeakers. They say beauty is only skin deep; Sonus faber’s Electa Amator III begs to differ. It’s as lovely on the inside as it is on the outside.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Type: Two-way, ported standmount loudspeaker

Drive unit complement: 1× H28 XTR-04 Damped Apex Dome 28mm silk tweeter, 1× MW18XTR-04 180mm cellulose pulp cone mid-bass driver

Frequency response: 40Hz–35kHz

Sensitivity: 88dB SPL (2.83V/1m)

Nominal Impedance: 4Ω

Amplifier power handling: 35–200W

Dimensions (H×W×D): 37.5 × 23.5 × 36cm (excl stands)

Weight: 14.6kg each (excl stands)

Price: £9,000 per pair

Manufactured by: Sonus faber SpA

URL: sonusfaber.com

Distributed in the UK by: Absolute Sounds

URL: absolutesounds.com

Tel: +44(0)20 8971 3909

THE PRETTIEST STAR: CUSTOM MOON PHONO PREAMPLIFIER

Simaudio has created a truly unique version of its MOON 810LP Phono Preamplifer to showcase its skills and creativity*. The 810LP is designed to bring vinyl recordings to life and this striking design certainly helps achieve that.

The 810LP features a CNC cut aluminium body and for this special edition the main case and sides have a custom high-gloss, ice-white finish with the face and legs treated in chrome. The iconic Aladdin Sane flash was applied using enamel paint, with 1mm steps for each layer of colour, to produce a bold, raised effect. To complete the stunning appearance, a personalised chrome plate was applied to the top.

When developing the MOON 810LP, Simaudio envisioned a design with absolutely no restrictions and this special custom model has certainly taken this desire to the next level. As with all MOON products, the ultimate goal is to transport the artist’s emotions from the recording studio to the listener.

The MOON 810LP is the ultimate phono preamplifier, it features a suspension which eliminates microphonics and provides an incredible level of input optimisation for any cartridge to ensure the best analogue sound replay. Due to its detailed analogue reproduction and unsurpassed flexibility, the 810LP has received awards and praise from both audio industry reviewers and owners across the globe.

*NB This version of the MOON 810LP could never be a commercial product unless agreed with the archive controllers of the late, great star.

To find out more about creating your very own customised MOON performance audio product, please contact Renaissance Audio: [email protected]

To find out more about the stunning MOON 810LP:

https://simaudio.com/en/product/810lp-phono-preamplifier

CH Precision L1 Dual-Mono Line Preamplifier and X1 Power Supply

This began as a kind of round two of the CH Precision/Wilson Benesch system we tested back in issue 159. The joy of both main parts of that system is the upgradability they bestow; every part of the CH Precision system can be upgraded through going monophonic and adding power supplies throughout. The WB loudspeakers can be similarly upgraded through the addition of one or more of the company’s own Torus ‘not a subwoofer’ Infrasonic Generators. Where we left the system as a result was kind of half way up the ladder, even if this vantage point put the system well above many of its rivals.

As it happens, though, the upgrade path quickly focussed in on one specific section of the whole system; both because it is fascinating in its own right, and because it shows in microcosm just how significant upgrades to a system can be. There’s also a deeper tale, the telling of which comes a little later. That section to receive ultimate focus is the L1 preamplifier.

By way of revision, the CH Precision L1 is a line-level, dual-monoaural, eight-input, Class A preamplifier that operates under and relies upon a logic control more in line with a computer than a traditional preamp. Far from overcomplicating matters, this is what might best be called ‘necessary complexity’ as it allows the CH Precision L1 a level of flexibility that is unparalleled in audio. And it is that flexibility that is the subject of this exploration… and it is an exploration.

Harking back to that original review, the rest of the system remained more or less extant. The front-end was either a Neodio Origine disc player or a Grand Prix Audio Parabolica turntable, the amplification was all CH Precision (P1 phono stage and M1.1 mono amplifiers), the loudspeakers were from Wilson Benesch (Eminence loudspeakers each with a powered Torus), the cables were all Nordost Odin 2, and the equipment supports were Wilson Benesch’s R1 Racks (for the electronics) and Grand Prix Audio (for the turntable). Roy Gregory reviewed that system originally, he re-received the system after 2019’s Munich High-End, and this was a high time to pay him a visit in his excellent new listening room in France, from which the original review was conducted.

The flexibility is core to CH Precision’s ethos in its own right. In the ten years the company has been in business, not a single product has been ‘left behind’. No product has been discontinued, any products where the original circuitry has either become unavailable (due to components being discontinued) or is too outmoded to be relevant has been upgraded and those upgrades are fully retrofittable. In addition, when it comes to upgrades, there are no ‘side-alleys’; no stepping-stone products that end up being surplus to requirements if and when you move up to the next level (the nearest to a side-alley is the recent integrated amplifier, which doesn’t have a major and obvious upgrade pathway into the pre/power electronics, although you can add in DACs and power amplifiers). So, in the case of the L1 preamplifier, there are options to add power supplies or a second L1 preamp to make it a pure monaural preamp, or even mono preamplifiers each with their own dedicated power supply. This could mean a few steps along the way that might work better or worse than others; what pathway is the right way?

But let’s start with the base L1 preamplifier. It could be easy to get the wrong idea about any product as upgradable as this one and assume all the steps along the way were just hobbled versions of the four-box top of the tree, and that every step just tantalises you to make the next upgrade. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth, as the solo L1 preamplifier already begins as one of the very few truly outstanding preamplifiers you can buy. It has that remarkably stark honesty and clarity of something like a passive preamplifier but with the drive and dynamic weight of a good active preamplifier. It lets the music do the talking, with no noticeable sins of omission or commission, just that sense of realising the almost unattainable goal of a ‘straight wire with gain’ in preamp form. In fact, the L1 is perhaps most surprising when compared to other preamplifiers, because in almost every case you want to say ‘other, lesserpreamplifiers’. The tiny group that can go toe-to-toe with the base L1 are among the best; c-j, Zanden, D’Agostino, Air Tight, Soulution, VTL… that sort of grade. And in most cases, the reason they sound so good is they do so little. Unlike many of the best, the CH Precision concept doesn’t include getting out a crucifix and holy water the moment someone utters the words ‘remote control’.

Also unlike most of these preamplifiers, the L1 can shift up a few gears thanks to upgrade options. The choice then becomes ‘which options?’ The first step gives the listener the choice of either adding a second L1 to make a pure monaural system or keeping the stereo preamplifier as is and adding the X1 power supply. There are those who argue for both, but I’m going with the majority and recommend the stereo+power supply over PSU-less mono version. Physically, the difference is the additional power supply takes over the power feed duties for almost all of the L1 (the existing power supply of the L1 simply feeds the logic circuit). Sonically, it extends the performance of the L1 in terms of solidity and accuracy of sound by no small margin. It essentially takes what the L1 is striving to do and make more of it in almost every respect. By way of contrast, the mono version takes what the L1 is striving to do and makes more of the soundstage alone. This creates something close to an emphasis on the soundstaging properties of the L1; in most other preamplifiers, this would seem like a triviality, but in a preamp as poised as the L1, the mono/no X1 route makes less sense than the L1+X1. That being said, in a system where soundstaging is a key function in and of itself, the paired L1’s might be the better prospect; if, for example, they were being used to control a pair of the best Stax earspeakers and energiser, or systems of that ilk.

The X1 is, in its standard guise, a single-output, ultra-low-noise, ultra-regulated DC power supply designed to drive almost every block in the CH Precision front end and control (except for the T1 clock generator for the digital audio side). As with all CH Precision products, it shares a similar casework, and the inherent modularity – coupled with a pair of really beefy transformers – makes it heavier than many power amplifiers. There is provision for an upgrade card allowing the X1 to drive two separate units, and the nature of the X1 circuit layout means if you have that card in a X1 and it cannot detect a component taking feed from it, the optional board is switched out of circuit.

The next step is the interesting one. At this point, you either have a single L1 preamp and X1 power supply, or a pair of L1 preamps and no power supply. Where next? Logically, it should be an extra box (either an additional L1 in the L1/X1 system, or your first X1 in a L1/L1 system), but I’d argue strongly to just make the next jump to the full quartet, rather than the intermediary that ends with two L1s being driven by a single X1. If you upgrade to two X1s, you don’t lose out here; you simply buy an ‘empty’ X1 and migrate one of the output cards.

In fact, the simplest part of the whole test was the move from two boxes, to three, to four. Because the move to three boxes is not worth the effort, unless it’s a very short jump to four. Let’s face it, three CH preamp boxes works out at £59,800 and four boxes works out at around £69,800. Curiously, if you were talking about the difference between a £7,500 and a £9,000 preamp, the increase in price might be too much to bear, but I suspect if you are already £59,800 deep down the CH preamp rabbit hole, the jump to the full four-box stack is not as unattainable in absolute terms. Another way of saying this is “no one ever saved up for a £43,800 preamp!”

OK, let’s set this in context. The three-box system improves on either version of the two-box preamp. It adds depth to the soundstage of the L1/X1 system and adds some rootedness to the deft touch of the L1/L1. But these are relatively minor improvements, more finessing the icing on the cake, where the full four box stack just adds more cake, gives the recipe to a better baker, and puts thicker icing all over. If you try the three-box, you’ll likely stay with two, but if you hear the four box, there’s no going back.

At this point an already extremely well balanced and poised preamplifier shifts up several gears. That poise becomes laser-guided, extracting every last piece of musical and physical information from the recording, making Joyce DiDonato’s voice on Stella di Napoli [Erato] stand out effortlessly. Her voice – always powerful – is practically weaponised here, and yet not too big or small, just correct. It is also perfectly delineated from the horn player on the Bellini aria from I Capuletti E I Montecchi. But, in fairness, it’s so hard to single out recordings to highlight what’s good or bad about the CH Precision, because it’s all good and none of it is bad.

The last part in this exploration is placement. As discussed previously, the stock system is to use bars and stand-offs that fit into the feet and legs of the CH Precision chassis… but we quickly discounted that. Another way is to use a single stack of L1, X1, L1, X1 on a suitably high-performance equipment stand (such as Wilson Benesch R1s). This works well, but an even better way is to adopt a layout popularised by some Naim users (who, let’s face it, know their way around a power-supply or three). They use what they call a ‘brains stack’ and a ‘brawn stack’, placing the L1/L1 on one table and the X1/X1 on an adjacent table in order to reduce interference from power supply transformers, for example. This proved an exploration worth making, as it lowered the noise floor… slightly. It wasn’t a big change to the performance, and it didn’t transform the performance of the full preamp stack, but it did help make an already almost-silent noise floor move a notch quieter. I’ve tried this on a number of power supplies (not just CH and Naim) and the improvement seems to happen across the board, so it’s a low-impact tweak that’s worth making… or at least experimenting with.

In the process of moving from one box to four, CH Precision’s L1 preamplifier moves from a dual-mono stereo preamp to a full four chassis pure monaural preamp where nothing (even down to the cables) is shared. In the process, it moves from being among the best preamps money can buy to being one of the best preamps ever made, and with no products left behind along the way. I’ve not heard all the very best preamps in the world, but I’ve heard many of them, and this is the best I’ve ever heard to date. We’re still not completely done here; does the P1 phono stage have the same steps up the ladder and is four boxes better than one here too? What about the full digital stack… all nine boxes of it? And then, this year CH Precision announced an even more up-market range – will that take CH to even new levels? Yet more sequels follow.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

CH Precision L1 Dual Monoaural Line Preamplifier

Inputs: 4x XLR, 2x RCA, 2x BNC (double this in dual-mono mode)
Maximum input level: 16V RMS (XLR), 8V RMS (RCA, BNC)
Frequency Response: DC-1MHz
THD+N: < 0.001%, 1kHz, Unity Gain
S/N ratio: 130dB
Input impedance: Balanced (XLR) 100kΩ or 600Ω, single-ended (RCA and BNC): 50kΩ or 300Ω
Dimensions (W×H×D): 44 × 44 × 13.3cm
Weight: 20kg
Price: £26,500 per unit / £43,800 as a Mono Pair

CH Precision X1 Power Supply

Connections: M23 connector for connection to L1, P1, D1, C1, C1 Mono Controller in CH Precision range. Supplied with 2m M23 connector. Optional plug-in module for second M23 connector to run two units
Dimensions (W×H×D): 44 × 44 × 13.3cm
Weight: 25kg
Price: £13,000 per unit / £16,000 with additional regulation board allowing the X1 to power two units

Manufactured by: CH Precision

URL: ch-precision.com

Distributed in the UK by: Singularity Audio
(trading name of Wilson Benesch)

URL: singularity-audio.com

Tel: +44(0)114 442 0129

https://hifiplus.com/reviews/

Naim Supernait 3 integrated amplifier

You can chart the rise and fall of source popularity by looking at the variations in the three iterations of the Naim Supernait. The original version of Naim’s largest integrated amplifier launched in 2007 with an onboard DAC. The inclusion of a DAC reflected the demand for enthusiasts at the time wanting to upgrade their CD players in what was effectively the second wave of DAC mania. The next iteration, 2013’s Supernait 2, was a line-only affair, reflecting a more purist analogue approach where digital and analogue were considered best kept apart. For the Supernait’s third coming this evergreen amp has sprouted a phono stage just in time for the second age of vinyl. At the press launch one wag pointed out that when Supernait 2 appeared without this facility, Naim said that including it would be problematic. The company claimed the sensitive nature of a phono stage would pick up hum from the transformer, and even that its inclusion could compromise the potential of the line inputs. Designer Steve Sells took this on the chin and said that now there was “a desire to do it”, which probably means a commercial imperative. Naim has found ways around the problems by careful placement of the phono stage, essentially putting it as far from the transformer as possible. Given that numerous other brands have achieved this without too much difficulty does suggest that it’s not exactly rocket science.

The Supernait 3’s phono stage supports moving magnet but not moving coil cartridges. Naim argues that a moving coil cartridge option introduces a plethora of loadings that are unwarranted given the demands of modern vinyl lovers. Those looking to combine the Supernait 3 with a moving coil cartridge have the option of using a Naim Stageline or Superline phono stage (for which a 24V output is available). You can, of course, use any other make of MC phono stage.

The MM phono stage has a standard 47kΩ impedance and 470pF of capacitive loading, again a typical figure which should work with virtually all moving magnets. Naim has chosen its own response curve for the RIAA LF EQ section, which is between the classic and IEC curves. The company described this curve as delivering “a good bass performance with enough very low frequency roll-off to protect the critical mid-band from rumble induced intermodulation.” In the Supernait, the phono stage is mounted on a separate board and uses through-hole capacitors with low microphony. This is because with 30dB of gain, a phono amp is considerably more sensitive to vibration than regular line inputs.

Only the eagle-eyed (with their gripping hands) will notice the difference in appearance between a Supernait 3 and its predecessors because the change is limited to that phono stage input. Elsewhere, the Supernait 3 has four line inputs that use both RCA phono and Naim’s preferred DIN sockets. These include an AV input that can be set for unity gain, turning the integrated into a power amp for surround duties.

There have also been some significant changes to the power amplifier based on research in Naim’s Salisbury HQ into our perception of different types of distortion. This research suggests we are more able to adjust for harmonic distortion than for timing errors: this has been Naim’s raison d’etre since the beginning, but it now has evidence to back up its claims. As a result, Naim’s electronics design director Steve Sells and his team increased second-harmonic distortion in the Supernait 3’s power amp stage, in order to create a circuit that is twice as fast as its predecessor. Specifically, the Supernait 3 removes the cascode stage used in the Supernait 2 (to protect the more delicate devices used in lower level signals) in favour of a single higher power transistor. This approach is not dissimilar to that used in the NAP DR power amplifiers and derives ultimately from the mighty Statement.

Naim continues to use Reed relay input switching with a ‘shock absorber’ capacitor and constant current supply for a smoother DC supply. It retains the Alps Blue Velvet motorised volume pot from the Supernait 2. As before, power transistors are insulated with 4mm ceramic (rather than mica) for reduced capacitance, and the PCB is specially mounted to reduce microphony as much as possible for a fixed position design – the bigger Naim products have suspended PCBs. The input sockets are wired rather than fixed directly to the board and the Powerline Lite mains cable connects to a wobbly IEC inlet and has a degree of decoupling in the 13A plug. The large toroidal transformer (as used in the Supernait 2) is aligned for the lowest radiated field in the direction of the phono stage. There is also a large toroidal mains transformer (also as used in the Supernait 2) with excellent power delivery and fast recovery. The output rating remains the same at 80W per channel. You can upgrade the Supernait with a HiCap power supply for the preamp section, but those looking for ‘more’ usually end up buying a separate pre and power amp. Naim’s well-known upgrade path is popular with Naim users because of its products impressive residual value. Headphone users will be interested to note that there is more current available from the Class A amplifier so it will drive more challenging cans.

Before the Supernait 3 arrived at chez Kennedy, I heard it compared with its predecessor in the dem room of Audience in Bath. It was only a short session, and the speakers used were Focal Sopra No.1 stand-mounts with which I’m unfamiliar. The Sopras are, however, revealing enough to show that the Supernait 3 is considerably tauter and more potent than its predecessor. In particular, the new design has a stronger three-dimensionality of image, together with a more muscular bass. I recall that my first response when hearing the Statement amplifier at its CES, Las Vegas launch was “lummy, a Naim with bass!”. This was a truth spoken in jest; Naim didn’t put much store in bass but preferred the speed and nimbleness of a relatively dry bottom end. With Statement, that ethos changed and subsequent DR upgrades to Naim’s power amps have imbued those models with bottom-end grunt. Now, the biggest integrated amp in the Naim catalogue has that grunt too. Fortunately, this doesn’t come at the expense of timing, as the Supernait 3 improves on the 2 in this crucial aspect of performance (that is especially crucial to Naim users).

This added heft was present as soon as the Supernait 3 was up and running in my system. My first notes contained words like ‘grunty’ and ‘solid’ when discussing drums and bass guitars. The amplifier provided a lot of drive for rhythm sections and an infectious groove from the speakers, which in the first instance were Bowers & Wilkins 802 D3. These proved a pricey but very revealing partner for this amp and one that it seemed quite comfortable driving. The Supernait 3 is not the last word in transparency, but it gets to leading edges with gusto, and does indeed have a sense of speed that is in another league to its predecessor. The immediacy of a drum kit first made this obvious, but that sense of speed is a factor that becomes apparent in a lot of different pieces of music. It makes listening a far more engaging experience.

Naim amps have long had a tonal character in some ways the diametric opposite of valve amps, and Naim’s products do not tend to be very open or finessed, especially at higher frequencies. The new Supernait shares these traits partly because there is a slight emphasis on the lower mid which means the type of midrange detail that valve amps excel in is lower in the mix. This emphasis doesn’t become obvious frequently and makes the amp sound a little more relaxed at higher levels without masking too much in the way of detail. I was, however, constantly drawn to the bass lines it produced. Bass lines are where speed really counts; a lot of amps do quick mids and highs but far too few can do the same at low frequencies, yet how do you expect the system to boogie without it?

We know that Naim amps boogie: what is more surprising is that they do it so well in integrated amplifier form and deliver robust imaging – another anathema to the chrome bumper brigade. I discovered as much by playing Keith Jarrett’s Quartet release of Eyes of the Heart [ECM]. This track was spacious enough to paint a vivid picture of the live event and sufficiently rhythmically coherent to make the first sax solo enjoyable. It’s not generally my favourite part, but this amp proves that if you get all your ducks to arrive at the speaker terminals simultaneously, even brass horns can sound great. When the piano came in the experience changed from entertaining to transfixing, and the next 10 minutes or so were genuinely thrilling.

The results above were achieved with a Naim NDX 2 streamer (albeit not connected with DIN cable), which is known to amp up the timing by a goodly amount on its own. To get a rounder picture I moved over to a Stack Link streamer and iFi Pro iDSD DAC which is more in line with the Supernait 3 price-wise. This iFi/Naim/B&W combo allowed more tonal colour to shine through and maintained a strong sense of pace in the context of broader imaging. However, timing wasn’t as healthy but good enough to support the magnetic power of music with this amplifier. It was at this point that I finally noticed that only about a quarter of the volume control range could be used; this isn’t a disaster, but it would be nice to have less gain. The remote volume is subtle enough to make this range usable, however, and low-level channel-tracking seems better than the previous Supernait.

Separation of detail is impressively strong with this combination of source, amp, and speakers. In this case, tracks display clear space in terms of depth, as well as width and solidity. This system is also very well focussed, which makes for a fully immersive experience that seems a lot more sophisticated than provided by the Supernait 2. This is especially obvious with live material like Frank Zappa’s Roxy by Proxy [Zappa Records], where the band play individually as they’re called out in the intro. Here you get an excellent sense of the placement of musicians on the stage and the atmosphere at the concert.

With PMC fact.8 speakers in place of the 802s the balance became more detailed with lots of presence and excellent rhythm, the bass is tighter yet also well extended. Once more, the timing reeled me in; Herbie Hancock’s ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’ [Gershwin’s World, Verve] swung with ease, delivering some fine piano playing in the process. I let the tape run (so to speak) and got into his earlier classic ‘Chameleon’ [Headhunters, CBS] where the synth is so juicy and the snap of the snare so immediate. Finally, Joni Mitchell’s ‘All I Want’ [Miles of Aisles, Asylum], which inspired a sing-a-long that fortunately no one else had to endure. This system proved to be as compelling a pairing as the Bowers & Wilkins without the same level of detail, perhaps, but effortlessly as engaging.

I also put a Goldring 1042 moving magnet onto the Rega RP10 to get a feel for the phono stage. My immediate reaction is that you’d have to spend considerably more to get the same degree of musicality out of a digital source if it were possible at all. I don’t often listen to MMs, but this one is a beauty; its doesn’t have the treble extension of a good MC, but with this phono stage, it delivers an addictive groove that reveals precisely why vinyl is still the mass market format to beat.

I have to hand it to Steve Sells and the Naim engineering team. They have taken a design that was already quite refined and bettered it. The notion that speed is more important than harmonic distortion is right on the money. This research helps explain why so many amps that measure correctly leave you underwhelmed when it comes to reproducing music. However, in the context of the Supernait 3, quite simply it improves significantly on its forebears in every respect. Given the success of the Supernait that says a lot!

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Type: Solid-state, two-channel integrated amplifier with built-in phono stage, headphone amplifier and remote control
Analogue inputs: One MM phono input (via RCA jacks), four single-ended line-level inputs (via RCA jacks and DIN sockets), power amp in (DIN socket)
Digital inputs: none
Analogue outputs: line output (DIN socket), preamp output (DIN socket), bi-amp (DIN socket), sub (via RCA sockets), variable AV (DIN socket), stream (DIN socket), powered accessory socket 24V, speaker outputs (via 4mm sockets)
Supported sample rates: N/A
Input impedance: Not specified
Output impedance (preamp): Not specified
Headphone Loads: Not specified
Power Output: 80Wpc @ 8 Ohms, 130W @ 4 Ohms
Bandwidth: Not specified
Distortion: Not specified
Signal to Noise Ratio: Not specified
Dimensions (H×W×D): 87 × 432 × 314mm
Weight: 14kg
Price: £3,499

Manufacturer: Naim Audio

Tel: +44 (0) 333 321 9923

URL: naimaudio.com

https://hifiplus.com/reviews/

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

MANUFACTURER INFORMATION

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Manufactured by: Kuzma Ltd

Distributed by: Definitive Audio

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Manufactured by: Kudos Audio

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Manufactured by: CH Precision

Distributed in the UK by: Singularity Audio (trading name of Wilson Benesch)

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Manufacturer: Naim Audio

The sound of excellence delivered your way

Distributed in the UK by: Singularity Audio
(trading name of Wilson Benesch)