Furutech, Japanese manufacturer of ultra-refined audio and video cable and accessories, introduces the new Project V1-S high performance speaker cable, the latest addition to the brand’s flagship Project series.
Furutech’s top-of-range Project series of cables features a host of the company’s own groundbreaking technologies and patented designs, married with the finest quality materials. Engineered with the same precision and unwavering commitment to exceptional sound quality as the Project V1 power cord, V1-L interconnect cable and V1-T tonearm cable, the new Project V1-S speaker cable promises an immersive and lifelike audio performance that caters to dedicated audiophiles and professional sound engineers alike.
At its core, the Project V1-S features a three-layer concentric combination of two of the best conductors Furutech has found for high-performance sound reproduction: the company’s own renowned silver-coated, Alpha-treated Ohno Cast Copper (OCC) conductor, along with Mitsubishi’s Ultra Crystallized High Purity Copper (DUCC) conductor, which employs one of the highest-purity oxygen-free coppers in the world.
This hybrid configuration undergoes Furutech’s unique two-stage ‘Alpha’ cryogenic and demagnetization process, designed to deliver unparalleled conductivity. The combination is then triple shielded and double insulated to ensure superb signal purity. Additionally, a specially engineered cable clamp improves grip, thus avoiding any potential distortion.
To further enhance sound reproduction, the cable incorporates Furutech’s own proprietary NCF (Nano Crystal2 Formula) technology, designed to deliver excellent damping properties and eliminate noise and interference, ensuring a remarkably quiet soundstage and an impressively transparent presentation.
Externally, the cable features a multi-layered sheath consisting of high-grade insulation and a vibration-damping layer. This construction prevents external interference, ensuring the highest quality audio transmission and minimizing signal degradation.
As you would expect, the Project V1-S includes high-performance connectors, in both spade and banana configurations. These feature non-magnetic, rhodium-plated, pure copper conductors in a one-piece construction. The connectors’ bodies and cable damping rings feature Furutech’s unique NCF Liquid Crystal Polymer Resin, which combines the company’s NCF material with high-grade nylon and fiberglass for superior damping and insulation.
With its meticulous construction and exceptional signal transmission technologies, the Project V1-S is crafted elevate your audio system to new heights and unleash the true potential of your music.
6 August 2025, Carlisle, Cumbria: Fell Audio, the disruptive British hi-fi manufacturer, is making great hi-fi even more accessible with exclusive bundle deals on its award-winning British-made Fell Amp integrated amplifier (£599). Music lovers can now pair the Fell Amp with a range of big-name loudspeakers, including KEF and Bowers & Wilkins, at significantly reduced package prices.
Fell Audio’s bundle offers, available exclusively through retail giant, Peter Tyson, online, in-store and via telesales (Peter Tyson also opened a brand new Workington shop in July), offer remarkable savings compared to purchasing components individually. Whether a newcomer to hi-fi or a seasoned enthusiast with an eye for value, Fell Audio makes building a premium quality, British-centric hi-fi system simple and affordable.
As an added bonus, all Fell Audio bundle buyers receive complimentary QED XT25 loudspeaker cables and Fell Audio RCA interconnects for a seamless, out-of-the-box setup.
To further enhance value, customers can add the acclaimed Fell Disc CD player for a special discounted price of £449 (usually £499), saving an additional £50 on the world’s most affordable British-made CD player. There’s even free next working day delivery to most regions in the UK.
Notable upgrades have been made to the fellaudio.co.uk site, too. There’s a brilliant new manufacturing page, a silver/black finish toggle switch, review badges and a ‘where to buy’ button.
Newcomers to hi-fi are reminded that Fell Audio is committed to quality, sustainability, and longevity, and backs its repairable British-made hi-fi designs with a class-leading five-year warranty.
The Fell Disc (£499) and Fell Amp (£599) are available in the UK only (Europe to follow in 2025/26) from Peter Tyson online, in-store and via telesales, and Amazon UK (bundles not on Amazon).
DALI‘s Rubikore 2 comes from the Kore. It’s been a couple of years now since DALI whipped the necessarily large covers off its flagship ‘Kore’ loudspeaker. Forward-thinking and uncompromised in its engineering, suitably stratospheric in its pricing and (to be frank) with looks only a mother could love, it served – as so many flagship designs from so many loudspeaker brands do – as a design exercise, a statement of intent, and a test-bed for new technologies. Technologies that might hopefully make their way down to loudspeakers designed to compete in the real world.
Yes, 2023’s Epikore 11 utilises some core Kore technologies. Although it’s roughly half the price of Kore, it remains witheringly expensive. Kore’s strengths are finally available to those of us who have to work for a living. With its new Rubikore range, DALI has democratised some of these technologies to the point that the Rubikore 2 – the only stand-mounter in the five-strong range – can be had for a mere £2,299 per pair.
Rubikore or Rubicon?
Visually, there’s very little to overtly separate the DALI Rubikore 2 from 2014’s Rubicon 2 stand-mounter that this model replaces. The cabinet is a very similar 350 x 195 x 335mm (HxWxD). Its front baffle and rear panel are similarly curvy. Mind you, this is not automatically a bad thing. The Rubikore 2 is relatively good-looking in a purposeful sort of way. The standard of build and finish is impeccable. Each of the four available finishes – high gloss white, high gloss black, high gloss maroon and natural walnut – has something to recommend it in aesthetic terms. The description ‘high gloss’ has never been more appropriate or deserved.
On the curved rear of the cabinet, there are four extremely hefty speaker terminals arranged for bi-wiring or bi-amping. They can accept bare wire, spade connectors, or banana plugs. A fairly assertive ‘Continuous Flare’ bass reflex port tuned to 44Hz sits above them.
The DALI Rubikore 2 front baffle, meanwhile, features a tweeter above a mid/bass driver in the long-established manner. The soft dome tweeter, at 29mm, is unusually large for a speaker of this size. It takes inspiration from the original Kore design. This is arranged to function without the magnetic oil that’s usually present in a dome tweeter design. This oil provides both cooling and resonance damping. DALI reckons it can manage without. It cites the improved speed of coil movement and enhanced dynamic response as compelling reasons why.
Fairly Sizeable
The mid/bass driver beneath it is, at 165mm, a fairly sizable unit too. DALI’s paper-and-wood-fibre cone material is the subject of continual development. Consequently, it has that customary rusty reddish-brown colour. This ‘Clarity Cone’ features five indentations that render it asymmetrical. This makes it more resistant to the resonances that symmetrical cones can be prone to. A potent double-magnet system backs the driver. DALI claims it better focuses the magnetic field and reduces losses. It also uses the company’s patented ‘SMC’ (soft magnetic compound) material in its motor system. This minimises the braking effects that the more commonly used iron can introduce to voice-coil movement.
It’s quite a dramatic-looking driver array. However, supplied cloth grilles hide the array if you want. That would be a shame, in my opinion – although the fact that DALI, unlike the majority of its competitors, doesn’t use magnetic fixings but rather three physical lugs to keep the grille in place spoils the un-grilled look just a little. Lug holes are never a beautiful thing.
Mundorf-fettled
So the DALI Rubikore 2 is a two-way design with a nominal impedance of 4 ohms and an ever-so-slightly tricky 87dB/W/m sensitivity. Frequency response, according to DALI, is 50Hz – 26kHz, with cross-over occurring at 2.8kHz. The crossover itself is fettled using Mundorf-sourced parts – but there’s no sign of the SMC-Kore crossover inductors that are fitted to the floorstanding Rubikore 6 and Rubikore 8 models.
Attached to a Naim Uniti Star using QED XT40i speaker cable, positioned on a pair of Custom Design FS 104 stands and pointing dead ahead – DALI is one of those few loudspeaker brands that doesn’t suggest you toe-in its products towards your listening position – the Rubikore 2 wastes no time in setting its stall out. And what a neat, tidy and well-stocked stall it turns out to be.
No genre refused
There’s no genre of music the DALI Rubikore 2 refuse to get on with, and no recording is too rough-and-ready to be a lost cause. No matter what you listen to – and during this test I listened to everything from Arooj Aftab’s Vulture Price [New Amsterdam] and The Smile’s Wall of Eyes [XL] to Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite (Radio Symphonie Orchester Berlin/Lorin Maazel) [Deutsche Grammophon] and Up For a Bit with the Pastels [Glass] – the Rubikore 2 are balanced, organised and non-judgemental. If you like it, they want it too.
Detail levels are high in every circumstance – and, no matter how fleeting or how deeply buried in the mix, the DALI Rubikore 2I can put the details into convincing context every time. The soundstage they create is, given the right stuff to work with, notably well-organised and considerably larger on the left/right axis than the physical boundaries of the speaker cabinets themselves. Tonality is carefully neutral. The recording is the only source of heat or suggestion of chilliness you might hear.
Carefully managed
Low-frequency impact is carefully managed – some competing designs will undoubtedly hit harder and with more substance, but no price-comparable alternative controls its low-end activity more carefully. Bass sounds are full-bodied, loaded with variation and straight-edged at the moment of attack – and consequently, the Rubikore 2 describe rhythms with absolute positivity and conviction. Momentum is such that recordings motor along in the most natural and unforced manner. And when push comes to shove, the DALI can summon proper bottom-end impact – but it’s always in the service of the recording, rather than to intimidate.
The opposite end of the frequency range has more than enough substance. It can balance out the undoubted brilliance and bite the DALI Rubikore 2 bring to treble sounds. There’s genuine shine and drive when a recording demands it. However, it never threatens to get out of hand thanks to proper handling. Even if you enjoy listening at reckless volumes.
In between, the DALI communicate midrange information in a manner quite easily described as ‘lavish’. They reveal an absolute stack of information, parse it with complete confidence, and seem to understand a vocalist’s motivations completely. They’re an eloquent and expressive listen with singers of all types. Their confidence, where soundstaging is concerned, means there’s generally a pocket of space in which a vocalist can operate. This elbow-room is never at the expense of the unity of the presentation, though. There’s nothing remote or estranged about the way the Rubikore 2 positions a voice.
Pearly Dewdrops’ Drops
The journey from the bottom of the frequency range to the top is smooth in the manner of a dewdrop – the crossover point is imperceptible and the DALI Rubikore 2 doesn’t over- or understate any area. They have the effortlessly deep-breathing dynamic potency to put significant distance between the quietest and loudest, most intense passages of a recording – always handy when Igor Stravinsky is involved. And perhaps most impressive of all is the casual, unforced and utterly direct way in which the Rubikore 2 demonstrate its command over pretty much every aspect of music-making.
Some listeners, I don’t doubt, will mistake this even-handed, poised and uncolored presentation for a lack of passion or engagement. Some listeners will want a bit more bang for their buck, quite literally. They’re by no means an undemonstrative listen, these DALI Rubikore 2. Still, they aren’t about to demean themselves with unwarranted low-frequency activity or unnecessary forcefulness. What they are about is as faithful a rendition of music, and as full an explanation as possible of the electronics that are driving them, as possible. This is, for most listeners, as much as they might realistically hope for. Or, at least, that’s how it seems to me.
Technical specifications
Type: Two-way; bass reflex port stand-mount loudspeaker
Electrical generation and distribution in the UK are generally good. However, the quality and robustness of the equipment connected to the UK supply can vary. What is needed for delicate hi-fi systems is consumer equipment made to professional standards. That’s where products like Chord Company’s PowerHAUS P6 come in.
The P6 evolved from the custom distribution boards that Chord Company has been building for its use at hi-fi shows and internal demonstration rooms since the mid-1980s. It has experimented with numerous wiring techniques, filters, shields, and conductors in various multi-stranded and solid-core wire gauges. Put another way, the P6 draws on four decades of iterative product development. The ‘real world’ problems that had to be identified and solved would, it would seem, also apply to the domestic environment.
As its name suggests, the Chord Company PowerHAUS P6 has six sockets. This number should be sufficient for most high-grade hi-fi systems. It’s enough for a pre- or power amp, turntable, phono stage, CD transport, and DAC, for example.
Faultless build
One cannot fault the Chord Company PowerHAUS P6 for build quality. If you’ve recently handled a cheap multiway plastic extension lead, here’s a product to restore your confidence in British industry. On its solidly constructed two-piece metal chassis are two sets of three 13-amp sockets. There is a version with Schuko sockets for EU users and there will likely be an Aus/NZ version, but no sign of a US version. These are separated amidships by the IEC mains input socket and a grounding post. Used sensibly, the latter can help you identify and ‘break’ the earth loops that can cause audible hum. Chord Company also told us that “some people with sprawling AV systems can benefit” from the casework earthing.
It’s pared back to basics, though. You don’t even get a master switch. Chord Company, I was told, “doesn’t like serial filters and instead, focuses on keeping impedances as low as possible”.The latter design goal helps to, for example, reduce wasteful voltage drops (and unwanted heat generation) with heavy loads – such as big, powerful amplifiers. The chances of distorting the all-important sinusoidal mains waveform are also reduced.
C13, C19… go
Instead of the C13 IEC connector (rated to 13 amps, hence the name), Chord Company has specified the larger, higher-current C19 variety (up to 20 amps, depending on voltage) for mains input. C19 connectors aren’t standard in the UK, at least not in consumer products, although I have seen them fitted to some ‘muscle amps’. Thankfully, Chord Company supplies a two-metre C19 mains lead to ‘get you going’. This can be upgraded later, possibly to a Chord Company Clearway.
The Chord Company PowerHAUS P6’s nicely finished body is capped at either end with tough plastic mouldings. These are fitted on the underside with rubber feet to prevent the P6 from sliding around. Chord Company says that it’s suitable for an assortment of surfaces, including wood, carpet, tiles and the shelves of hi-fi racks. For installation of a more permanent nature, slotted recesses for mounting have been stamped into the rear of the body. These are for wall- or stand-mounting.
A peek inside the Chord Company PowerHAUS P6 reveals neat construction. The heavy-gauge wiring looms are the product of hand assembly – no cheap brass strips here! The six ‘carefully chosen’ mains sockets that they interconnect are individual components. If one is damaged or develops a fault, replacement should be possible. This is much better than throwing away the entire unit – hardly a desirable outcome at £600 a pop! A lifetime warranty demonstrates Chord Company’s faith in its product.
Ferrites – nein danke!
In keeping with Chord Company’s philosophy, no ferrites or other RFI-reduction measures were visible, nor were there any ‘noisy neons’. Chord does, however, claim that P6 employs some of the GroundARAY and PowerARAY mains noise-reduction techniques used by some of its more expensive products. Sensibly, Chord Company recommends keeping mains cables as far away as possible from those of the signal-carrying variety.
Over an extended period, I tried the P6 with two very different systems. There was also a ‘vintage’ one, which included a Dunlop Systemdek IIXE/900 turntable with Alphason Opal tonearm and Denon DL304 MC cartridge feeding an Audiolab 8000A integrated amplifier. The first of the more modern outfits consisted of a Cambridge Edge NQ streamer/preamp, Edge W power amp and Quadral Aurum Wotan VIII floorstanders. Vinyl replay here involved the Systemdek used above, with a Pro-Ject Phono Box S2 Ultra preamp to bring the Denon’s tiny signals up to line level. Systemdek aside, all these components are CE-compliant. Despite the considerable gain needed for MC cartridges, mains-borne noise was negligible.
Also pressed into service was a highly revealing (bordering on unforgiving!) digital arrangement built around a Callia headphone DAC from the highly respected pro-audio manufacturer Prism Audio. This drove Focal Utopia headphones, while sources included a Cambridge CXN streamer and Arcam CD transport. This second system could be transported to different rooms to gauge the effects of house wiring. The P6’s six sensibly spaced mains outlets proved ample in all cases. I used multiple IEC cables, including Chord, Black Rhodium, Kimber and QED models. None gave any trouble mating with the Chord Company PowerHAUS P6’s sockets, and all such connections proved utterly reliable. Despite much plugging and unplugging of equipment, no deterioration in sound quality was noted.
Potential show-off
Both systems showed off the potential of the Chord Company PowerHAUS P6. ‘Staircase’, from Steven Wilson’s solo album The Harmony Codex, is a dense and atmospheric prog epic. It even manages to name-check chrome cassettes (remember those?)! But then again, Wilson, who came to public attention through his Porcupine Tree project, was always serious about audio. ‘Staircase’ segues into a reprise of the title track via piano and percussion parts that are easier, through the speakers of the first system and the headphones of the second, to pick out from the surrounding musical layers with the P6 in the circuit.
Indeed, the attention to detail that Wilson has lavished on the recording, despite the CD resolution through which I experienced it, became more evident with the P6. The deep bass lines, synth textures, and Gilmouresque guitar on the album are given due proportion and space. As is the heartbreaking Ninet Nati Tayeb vocal that dominates the comparatively stripped-back ‘Rock Bottom’.
Low-frequency emphasis
There’s a definite low-frequency emphasis on ‘Light as Grass’, the jazz-influenced track that opens Lucy Rose’s This Ain’t The Way You Go Out. With the Chord Company PowerHAUS P6 in my system, the bass parts were palpably better articulated than with a standard board. With the latter, they seemed more overblown and congested. Even as the album’s third track ‘Dusty Frames’ builds up, Rose’s vocal is endowed with a tad more of the breathy intimacy that is so important. Surprisingly, compressed material also benefits.
The BBC was fortunate to have secured the services of the Halle Orchestra and choirs, together with its outgoing musical director Sir Mark Elder, for this year’s Proms. The fruits of their combined labour, a spectacular performance of Mahler’s Fifth, were heard here as a 320kbps AAC stream, played from the BBC’s ‘catch up’ service. I found that the P6 better accommodated the dynamic musical forces here.
Where the juice is
Interestingly, the high-res ‘portable’ system with its state-of-the-art uber-phones demonstrated that the closer the P6 was to the house’s consumer unit – i.e., where the mains comes in from the ‘outside world’ – the better the sound that resulted. Subtle improvements in the ‘microdetails’ that help to convince, as well as the ‘space’ occupied by better recordings (Emily Palen’s solo violin, as featured in the Blue Coast audiophile DSD Light in the Fracture, being a case in point) became apparent. It also became easier to discern the differences between the various mains cable varieties used to connect equipment. The benefits of switching from a ‘bundled’ IEC cable to (for example) a QED XT5 were obvious. Using a cheap mass-market distribution board, these improvements were lost. However, switching to an ex-broadcast MDU did restore most of them.
Paying attention to mains matters, like aftermarket interconnects and sensibly chosen speaker cables, can yield audible benefits. Once you’ve considered the ‘fundamentals’—notably speaker positioning, room acoustics, and the provision of rigid platforms for your equipment—you owe it to yourself to explore the Chord Company PowerHAUS P6.
It’s been 36 years since Monitor Audio first introduced its ‘Gold’ range of passive speakers. The new ‘Gold’ range, launched last year, is the sixth generation, which means it’s averaging a refresh every six years. There are six models in this sixth-generation line-up, including the Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G. Monitor Audio, it would seem, has some sixth sense where the ‘Gold’ range of loudspeakers is concerned.
Of the six 6G models, this Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G is the largest of the two stand-mounters. And ‘stand-mounter’ it most definitely is. It’s 448 x 230 x 357mm (HxWxD) dimensions, it’s 14 kg per side weight and its gaping rear-firing bass reflex port make it about as bookshelf-unfriendly as any speaker not supplied with spikes can be. At a pinch, perhaps you could position it on a wall bracket. Port bungs are provided in the packaging (along with a couple of magnetically attached grilles per speaker).
Big box
But while there’s plenty of it, not a huge amount has gone on where ‘design’ is concerned. The Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G is, fundamentally, a big straight-edged box of almost exclusively parallel lines. Only the top of the cabinet has come in for even the most cursory ‘designing’. It’s a ‘mid-pod’ steel enclosure, positioned behind an aluminium baffle. This contains both a high-frequency transducer and a midrange driver. That driver sits just fractionally proud of the top edge of the cabinet. A substantial strip of die-cast aluminium flows backwards from the top of this ‘mid-pod’ along most of the length of the top panel. It is also home to what is the only overt branding on the cabinet. However, that branding offers just a hint of very welcome visual relief.
The way Monitor Audio builds and finishes the Gold 100 6G is excellent. It doesn’t matter if you choose the high-gloss black finish, the satin white of my review sample of the artificial Macassar wood veneer. The standard of construction is beyond reproach. This is just as it should be when you’re asking £3,000 for a pair of stand-mounting speakers. The bolt-through technology Monitor Audio has deployed here means the front baffle looks clean. There are no distraction from the suggestion of visual drama provided by the driver array.
More than striking looks
And it’s a driver array with more than just striking looks going for it. The high-frequency transducer positioned at the top of the Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G ‘mid-pod’ is the latest version of its ‘MPD III’ design. It draws inspiration from the transducer used in both the company’s range-topping ‘Platinum’ series of speakers and the flagship ‘Hyphn’ loudspeaker, which I reviewed here.
MPD III is a micro-pleated diaphragm tuned for dog-bothering treble extension (Monitor Audio reckons it’s suitable for 60kHz). It features a square radiating area intended to deliver equal response in both the vertical and horizontal planes. This should subsequently result in more open, better-defined and more convincing soundstaging. The rear volume of the MPD III arrangement has been optimised in a drive for minimal ‘ripple’ in the audible frequency range. In front is a waveguide designed for even greater control of directivity and, theoretically, even more confident soundstaging.
Mid Pod
Both the 76mm midrange driver, which is the other occupant of the ‘mid-pod’, and the 203mm bass driver positioned below it are of a new design that Monitor Audio calls ‘HDT’. This ‘hexagonal diaphragm technology’ owes plenty to the RDT III (‘rigid diaphragm technology’) Monitor Audio deployed in the Platinum and Hyphn loudspeakers, it’s true. However, it owes even more to the decades-old bee in its bonnet Monitor Audio has about metal driver technology.
Monitor Audio has been finessing its preferred ‘C-CAM’ (ceramic-coated aluminium magnesium) cone material since the early 1990s. Its Nomex/carbon fibre/aluminium sandwich construction is one of the fundamentals of the RDT III drive. For its reimaging as HDT, Monitor Audio has stamped an asymmetrical hexagonal pattern on the surface of the driver. It’s designed to thwart the breakup characteristics inherent in a symmetrical cone design. The fact that it looks pretty good, especially when (as it is here) surrounded by a quantity of high-quality brushed aluminium, doesn’t do any harm either.
Less visibly busy
And the company has been equally busy with the less visible aspects. Each of the HDT drivers benefits from a new spider design, fully optimised driver surrounds, increased voice-coil lengths and larger, more powerful motor systems. The little midrange driver has a high-strength neodymium bucking magnet for improved control and optimal power-handling. It also features increased voice-coil venting for sensitivity improvements. All of these improvements make the HDT design the strongest, most piston-like cone Monitor Audio has ever delivered.
Monitor Audio has scrutinised its crossover network, too. The company positioned the crossover points at 700Hz and 2.6kHz, where they oughtn’t be readily apparent, and fitted pricier, high-performance capacitors. The net result is a pair of three-way loudspeakers with a ‘HiVE II’ reflex port tuned to 38Hz. They claim a frequency response of 32Hz—60kHz, nominal impedance of 4 Ohms, and sensitivity of an unremarkable 86.5dB.
It certainly doesn’t present any difficulty to a Naim Uniti Star when used as an amplifier and network streamer. Attached via a couple of lengths of QED XT50 speaker cable, the Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G seems to genuinely revel in music of all styles and all degrees of complexity.
Not a dry tool
They’re certainly no dry tool for analysis. Oh, they can peer deep into a dense or complicated mix and return with all sorts of pertinent observations about the minutiae of a recording – transient occurrences don’t elude them, and they have no problem putting them into convincing context. But the Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G seem far more concerned with engaging on a purely musical level – they can do the ‘scrutiny’ thing, but it’s never at the expense of ‘entertainment’.
The fact that the frequency response is so smooth and even despite the relative number of crossover points doesn’t do any harm in this regard, and neither does tonality that’s very carefully one notch to the ‘cool’ side of neutral. Low-frequency presence is considerable, as the ample cabinet and large bass driver suggest. The Monitor Audio speakers exhibit significant variation in bass sounds. Rhythms sound confident because of that overall control. For example, the fast-moving bass-line of ‘LesAplx’ by Floating Points [Ninja Tune] sounds as lithe as can be.
Air and space
There’s air and space at the opposite end of the frequency range, as well as admirable bite and shine. Treble sounds have substance as well as brilliance. They enjoy the same sort of harmonic variation as the rest of the frequency range. And that little(ish) midrange driver does sterling work with a well-recorded vocalist. The amount of character and attitude it loads onto Syd Staw’s performance during Future 40’s (String of Pearls) [Virgin] is prodigious. If it’s a window into a singer’s emotional state, as well as the secrets of their technique, you’re after, then the Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G will delight you.
The soundstage on which all of this good stuff happens is large, properly organised and entirely convincing. Even a recording as dense and instrument-heavy as Shostakovich’s Scherzo for Orchestra in F-Sharp Minor (Guennadi Rosdhestvenski/USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra) [EMG Classical] is easy to follow. The Monitor Audio provides ample ‘elbow room’ for every participant. This means individuals are easy to isolate and examine. It should be noted, though, that there’s nothing remote or estranged about the way these speakers present this recording. Its handover is a singular occurrence. This is a performance, not a collection of discrete events.
Chink in the Armour
This recording does make one little chink in the Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G’s otherwise impregnable armour apparent, though. It’s a piece that contrives to sound quite loud and intense even during its quieter passages. When Rosdhestvenski releases the metaphorical hounds, the Monitor Audio don’t quite breathe deeply enough to make the shift through the gears explicit. The broad dynamics of ‘quiet/loud/REALLY LOUD’ are required to make the recording as vibrant and colourful as possible. The Gold 100 6G can sound slightly inhibited in this regard.
I’ll concede that this is something close to nitpicking on my part, though. In almost every regard, and to a nearly complete extent, the Monitor Audio Gold 100 6G get the job done in some style. Smaller three-way speakers are becoming a rarity these days. Monitor Audio keeps this flame burning so brightly. Congratulations to the company for doing so.
Technical specifications
Type: Three-way, three-driver, stand-mount speaker with bass reflex alignment
Our advertorial ‘Out of the Box’ Series features companies that might occasionally slip through the net. These are companies with more than just hot air —makers of loudspeakers driven by a rare passion that influences both their design and manufacturing processes.
Omega Audio Concepts is an Italian company founded in 2013, but our research started in 2001 when one of the two owners, Renato Filippini, designed his first loudspeaker.
Today, we are one of the few companies in the world that builds an entire Hi-Fi system chain from source to speaker, and our products follow three main principles.
For us music is a space-time event because every piece of information has a right space and time that has to be respected when reproducing music on a Hi-Fi system.
We also respect Ohm’s laws, so our speakers have as little resistance as possible to the passage of electricity and therefore to the information transported by it. The concept of a theoretical limit refers to the inherent limitations in our technology for reproducing music that we can’t overcome. However, we strive to get as close as possible by offering our customers products that are our state of the art.
We believe that respecting silence is essential to respecting music. To achieve this, we hold two patents: one for the wiring system and another for the crossover filter. Additionally, all our loudspeakers are made from aluminium, with panels ranging from 20 to 50 mm thick, precisely machined with CNC machines.
At the moment, we have three models available: Easy One, ESSENZIALE and MUSA. Each model has a dedicated crossover, built with our patented technology. Crossover is internal for Easy One and ESSENZIALE and external for MUSA. All three have the mid-woofers, midranges and tweeters in the front. These are spherical dome speakers made in magnesium-aluminium or titanium, and the woofer is in the back in ESSENZIALE and on the side in Easy One and MUSA. Our speakers always work in their reference bands like a rigid piston. Finally,all the cables that connect the speakers to the crossover are made with our patented technology of the wiring system.
Roxy Music guitar legend, record producer and musical collaborator, Phil Manzanera, is marking his 50-year solo career with an extensive new CD box set.
Called 50 Years In Music, it features guests such as Brian Eno, David Gilmour, Neil and Tim Finn, Andy Mackay and Robert Wyatt. It includes 10 of Manzanera’s original studio albums, plus a bonus disc called Rare Two, a collection of never-before-released demos, radio sessions, and rare European singles.
The box set serves as a companion piece to his colourful and fascinating autobiography, Revolución to Roxy, which was published at the start of this year. This could be ego-driven –Manzanera’s musical contribution is the stuff of legend – but that’s not how Phil Manzanera is in real life.
As well as his music career, the book also documents his eventful childhood – he was born in London in 1951, to a British father and Colombian mother, but grew up in Cuba, Hawaii, and Venezuela, before moving back to London in 1960.
hi-fi+ spoke to Manzanera, who was awarded an OBE for Services to Music last summer, at his studio in North West London, where five of the albums in the box set were recorded.
SH: So, you’re celebrating your 50-year solo career in music with a new box set. It follows on from your book, which came out earlier this year…
PM: That’s right – I’ve collected and collated all my thoughts in the book. I’m not only trying to make sense of my musical career, but I’ve also gone way back to 1492… (laughs). That was mostly for my cousins – I have 50 Colombian cousins, and they discovered that if you could prove you had specific lineage, you could get a Portuguese passport, so that was the main driver. They were excited by that.
The box set is putting together 50 years of my music that wasn’t from Roxy. It was never about trying to establish a solo career – it was just about trying to fit in all this other kind of music and having the opportunity to do it.
Once I was out of the grip of a multinational and had built my own studio – the first studio – having owned the means of production, like Karl Marx, said, you don’t have to ask permission. I could then just do whatever I wanted, subject to the bank manager saying: ‘If you do one more recording, I’m taking everything away from you, because you can’t just keep on doing this…’
I don’t think of myself as a songwriter – I think of myself as a musician. So, the box set is me getting together with people who can write songs. OK, I did do three albums where I wrote all the songs and sang them, but it was never intended. It was just that I knew no one else could sing those lyrics because they were too personal.
So, the box set is just me and the various musicians I’ve worked with before, during and after Roxy, and friends I’ve met. Five of the albums were done here, in this room.
It’s nice to put it all together – it’s like a life in music. It felt like the appropriate time, and I can say: ‘Right – that was then, now I can look forwards…’ I’ve got new things coming out next year.
How does it feel celebrating 50 years? Does it feel that long?
No – it’s gone by in a flash.
You were one of the early pioneers in the UK music scene to embrace what we now know as world music…
I guess that was because when I started playing guitar, I was in Havana, and what I was learning were South American songs – boleros – that you could sing along to.
I was brought up going to nightclubs where all the people who ended up at the Buena Vista Social Club were in their prime and singing. I was a six- or seven-year-old with my head on the table, probably fast asleep, but all that shit – all those rhythms – was going into my brain, and sooner or later it would come out in some shape or form somewhere.
For me, it wasn’t Bert Weedon’s Play In A Day – it was all that South American stuff to start with…
But then you got into rock ‘n’ roll when you moved to Caracas, in Venezuela – you heard it through some American kids who were on holiday there, and your dad had a Zenith radio, on which you heard The Shadows and Chuck Berry…
Yeah – and The Beach Boys… And an English boy showed me some Chuck Berry riffs – they were incredibly difficult to play because you had to stretch your fingers… It used to be called R & B in those days.
That’s how all my influences came into being in my brain and then I got to London and, wow, everything happened – The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, The Kinks, Jimi Hendrix…
When I was in Venezuela, at a British school, I begged my parents to send me to England – I was speaking half-English and half-Spanish, and it was a mumbo jumbo language.
My brother, who was eight years older than me, was at a boarding school in South London. I wanted to go there – I felt like an only child… I wanted friends…
So, aged nine, I turned up in South London, in Dulwich, in September 1960, and I was there until ’69.
I went straight into the British public school system, and I was wearing pinstripe trousers and a funny starched shirt and thinking, ‘Well, what’s this? This is weird…’
But I loved it, because it was so different – I’d been a little South American boy, but now I was a little English boy and there was fog everywhere and it was freezing cold.
It was all new and I loved the food – I was fed up with rice and beans… I wanted baked beans and spam fritters.
Lots of the boys at school played guitar and they showed me how to play this or that – so, it was a way of learning, and then I became best friends with Bill MacCormick and his brother, Ian, who went on to become the famous music journalist, Ian MacDonald.
Me and Bill were given almost a university course in pop, jazz and classical music by Ian. We were number one Soft Machine fans, and we were into early Floyd, and then all the bands, like The Who, turned up, and we were like: ‘What the f*** is this amazing destructive art thing?’ It was just so exciting.
You’ve overseen the box set and you’ve worked with Barry Grint at Alchemy Mastering, in Air Studios…
Absolutely – I originated the project about three years ago. Universal own the copyright of four of the albums – they inherited it – and I’ve got seven that I put out myself: six and the album of extras. So, I rang Universal and said: ‘Will you license me the four?’
The guy there, Johnny Chandler, said: ‘Why don’t we do it [the box set] together, Phil?’
So, I said: ‘Hmm, OK – that sounds great.’ But then it took three years… I then remembered why I’m wary of multinationals… I could’ve had it out sooner…
Originally, I wanted it to come out the same time as the book, but when you’re in the machine, that’s what happens. But it’s great that it’s coming out now.
Has it been a hard project to work on?
There was a lot of graft – I had to go through every bloody track and listen to it again with Barry, and we had to go back to the original half-inch tapes…
Technology has changed so much in 50 years – some of the tracks were on half-inch tapes, some were on DAT, ADAT, Pro Tools… It was great that Barry then unified the whole thing by sticking it through his gubbins… You can always make whatever you’ve got 10 per cent better through mastering, but it can take a long time for people to realise that – what actually happens in a mastering room…
I’ve delved into the box set and there’s so much in it – lots of different styles and genres. It’s a melting pot: Latin, pop, funk, ambient, electronica, psychedelic stuff, disco, prog, rock… It’s a sonic adventure, isn’t it?
It is – there’s a lot of music in me. You listen to all this wonderful music from the twentieth century, it goes in, and it gives you a huge palette to draw on.
Whereas some artists make an album that’s in a certain genre, you often explore lots of different ideas and styles on individual records…
It’s a mixture… I guess that’s because I love all kinds of different music. So, if I did one type of music on one album, it might be more focused and sell more, but it was never about that. It’s just about being free. It’s not designed to be in the charts – it’s designed for me to express myself, and then find other ways to make money. (Laughs).
Like getting one of your songs ‘K-scope’, sampled by Jay-Z and Kayne West on their track, No Church in the Wild?
Exactly – that came out of nowhere.
The box set starts with Diamond Head, which was your first solo album – you joined Roxy Music in 1972 and Diamond Head came out in 1975. Guests on that record include Brian Eno, Robert Wyatt, Paul Thompson and Andy Mackay, and you recorded it at the Basing Street Studios, which Island owned – Free and Bob Marley had recorded albums there…
Bob Marley was recording Exodus there either just before or just after Diamond Head. I was doing the first Split Enz album – Bob Marley was in Studio Two, which had round windows. When you looked in, it was full of smoke… There was a little football table outside and we all used to congregate there. It was great.
I knew that if I had the chance to do a solo album, I wanted Robert Wyatt… When I was 16 or 17, my heroes, whom I met, were Robert Wyatt and David Gilmour – I met David the week he joined Pink Floyd. Obviously, I wasn’t going to get David on my first solo album, but Robert was my first choice.
Robert wrote some Spanish lyrics for the track Frontera, which opens Diamond Head. It’s a colourful and joyous song – very upbeat and exotic, with a Latin-American feel…
I knew he knew some Spanish, so I asked him if he could write some lyrics – I think he just got a phrase book, picked out six phrases and sang this thing… Although it wasn’t grammatically correct, I went with it, but some Spanish people I knew said: ‘What the f***is he singing about?’
I said: ‘It’s very Dada,’ which was very Robert Wyatt… It sort of makes sense… I’ve had to explain it in South America and all over the bloody place and give it a little extra spin. But, because it’s Robert and he’s a national treasure as far as I’m concerned, I just adore it.
That track is quite trippy and mesmerising, and the big guitar break in the middle is very psychedelic and out there…
It is, and the use of echo is my sort of trademark – I had it before in my band Quiet Sun, and I brought it to Roxy as well – it was a way of trying to beef up the rhythmic side of things, and I’m still doing it.
How do you listen to music these days?
I use every combination. In our cottage in the country, I’ve developed a strange combination of an old-fashioned Sonos with a new one and I blend the two. I have a very satisfying sound.
Have you still got all your old vinyl?
Yeah – and I’ve got all the Roxy acetates and white labels going right back to ‘72, but it’s not catalogued properly.
If I had more time I’d offer you my archiving services, but I have a wife and two young kids at home…
My wife, Claire, says: ‘What the f*** is going to happen to all that stuff if you peg it?’ I say: ‘Leave it with me…’
50 Years of Music was released on November 1, 2024 (UMR).
For those of you yet to come across this exciting young talent, MJ Lenderman is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist, best known for his distinct blend of indie rock, country, and Lo-Fi. Emerging from the DIY music scene in Asheville, North Carolina, Lenderman’s music captures a raw, unpolished sound, characterised by gritty guitar riffs and emotionally resonant lyrics. His songwriting often explores themes of love, loss, and the everyday struggles of life, delivered with a straightforward, almost conversational tone that has earned him comparisons to artists like Neil Young and Jason Molina. The latter is also a guiding light to the excellent Waxahatchee, on which Lenderman contributed guitars and vocals on her excellent Tiger’s Blood album, reviewed here previously.
Lenderman gained significant attention with his 2022 album Boat Songs, which showcased his ability to meld introspective storytelling with an alt-country aesthetic. The album was well-received for its authenticity, with many praising Lenderman’s ability to evoke a sense of place and mood through his music. His work also stands out for its lo-fi production quality, which adds a layer of intimacy and immediacy to his sound.
Manning Fireworks is MJ Lenderman’s fourth solo release, and, spoiler alert, it is comfortably his best yet. Not that his previous offerings weren’t great, it’s just that on this record, both his songwriting and his ability to perform reach a whole new level.
The opening title track appears to set the album’s stall out: this is simple, country-infused Lo-Fi, and all the more beautiful for it. However, don’t be fooled, because what follows is thirty-something minutes of altogether richer, more varied material. For starters, the two tracks that follow, ‘Joker Lips’ and ‘Rudolf’,put us immediately in mind of the sadly departed Mark Linkus’s Sparklehourse. This isn’t meant in any way disparagingly – to my mind this is a VERY GOOD THING!
‘Wristwatch’ follows, and ably displays Lenderman’s ability to pen a catchy-as-heck country-rock toe tapper. It’s one of the highlights on the album, and an instant, timeless classic in waiting. ‘She’s Leaving You’ continues in the same vein, and in an album full of well-rendered, snarky lines, stands out as one of the best here lyrically – boy, it sounds bitter.
‘Rip Torn’s full-on fiddle opening cuts across the country rock comfort zone in a way reminiscent of the great Gram Parsons. It’s a fantastic song too, but the way it adds some shade to the album makes it even better in context.
‘You Don’t Know The Shape I’m In’ sees the album take another twist back into Lo-Fi, with what sounds like a dime store drum machine leading the way and perfectly delivered backing vocals from Karly Hartzman. And I know I have mentioned a few souls who are no longer with us – Linkus, Molina, Parsons – but please allow me one more, as this song puts me in mind of David Berman of the Silver Jews, which again should be taken as a compliment. Even the title could come straight off of American Water!
‘On My Knees’ takes us back to country rock, before the closer ‘Bark At The Moon’, which is a ten-minute show stopper, the last seven minutes of which are a Neil Young-like feedback fest! Unexpected, but not unwelcome.
Manning Fireworks was recorded at Asheville’s Drop of Sun studios during multiple four-day stints whenever Lenderman had a break from his hectic touring schedule. Still, it doesn’t sound disjointed in any way.
Yes, there are plenty of diversions, both sonic and subject-related. Still, Manning Fireworks is only going to cement his reputation as a truly exceptional talent, and one who will continue to grow with each passing release.
The Eagles, Michael Jackson, Elton John, Billy Idol, Depeche Mode and Christine Aguilera. What do they have in common? Their albums were all mastered in recording studios using Tannoy monitor loudspeakers such as the Tannoy Super Gold Monitor SGM12.
That’s quite an impressive pedigree. But the company did not make inroads into professional studio monitoring until the 1970s. Its story started long before that. Guy R Fountain founded Tannoy way back in 1926, originally as the Tulsemere Manufacturing Company. It changed its name a couple of years later. It chose ‘Tannoy’ to reflect the materials used in its rectifiers – TANtalum and lead allOY. Its first speakers were aimed at the public address market. This gained it such brand awareness that ‘Tannoy’ is still a household word in the UK today. It moved into domestic speakers in the 1930s.
The right kind of retro
There’s no denying that retro is ‘in’ right now: retro motorcycles, furniture, bathrooms, kitchens, vinyl and valve amplifiers. But there is retro for its own sake, that focuses more on style than content. Then, there’s the kind of ‘retro’ that makes sense. In the case of the Tannoy Super Gold Monitor SGM12, you could call it retro. I prefer to think of it as authentic heritage that has stood the test of time.
Tannoy’s heritage in loudspeakers is undeniable, and the company will soon be celebrating its 100th anniversary. It joined TC Group in 2002, which became part of Music Tribe in 2015. However, Tannoy has remained true to that heritage.
Late 2023 saw the introduction of the Tannoy Super Gold Monitor SGM12. It is a modern reworking of the Monitor Gold concentric range launched initially in 1967. I reviewed the SGM12’s little brother, the SGM10 stand-mount (£5,995), in issue 230. It has a bigger brother too in the shape of the SGM15 floorstander (£11,495).
First in seven years
After appointing Symphony Distribution as its new UK distributor, 2023 saw Tannoy’s first new speaker launches for seven years. In May, a new Stirling III LZ Special Edition model launched. It is an homage to the 1960s III LZ Monitor Red. Then the Super Gold Monitor range (including the Tannoy Super Gold Monitor SGM12) came in September. Global brand category leader David McCaffrey said the appointment of Symphony had “revitalised the UK market” for Tannoy. This heralds a period of growth for the company, which he confirmed has “major plans for the future”.
At the heart of all of these speakers is Tannoy’s legendary dual-concentric drive unit, originally launched in 1947 and brought thoroughly up to date in its latest speakers. The SGM10 has a 10in, the Tannoy Super Gold Monitor SGM12 has a 12in, and the SGM15 has, you guessed it, a 15in variant.
Before looking at the Tannoy Super Gold Monitor SGM12 in detail, it’s worth looking at what advantages Tannoy claims for the dual-concentric driver. As its name suggests, at the centre of its 12-inch paper pulp mid-bass cone sits a 1.3-inch aluminium/magnesium alloy dome tweeter. Having high- and low-frequency sound waves emanating from a single point results in a more coherent and accurate reproduction. This is also said to help rectify the phase and time alignment anomalies that occur when the sound from two separate drivers arrives at the listener’s ears at different times.
When two become one
One of the main benefits, says Tannoy, is that the dual-concentric driver provides better dispersion and a wider ‘sweet spot’, which means the listener does not have to sit dead-centre to get the best experience. A further claimed benefit is that it achieves a smoother frequency response as it minimises interference between separate drive units on the same baffle.
The new Super Gold Monitors have seen certain upgrades over the originals. The cabinet of the Tannoy Super Gold Monitor SGM12 uses thicker 19mm chipboard with MDF inserts and internal plywood bracing. In contrast, the front baffle uses a twin sandwich construction to reduce vibrations. The cabinet also gains a second reflex port to help reduce internal standing waves.
The SGM12’s dual-concentric driver uses a tulip waveguide and modern ferrite-type magnet system with copper demodulation rings and a high-flux magnetic circuit. The original had an Alnico magnet with a pepperpot waveguide. The tulip type, says Tannoy, means that some 10kHz could extend the frequency response to 30kHz.
Hard-wired
The hard-wired crossover uses premium-grade polypropylene capacitors, low-loss inductors and high-power resistors, all hard-wired, to provide a 12dB/octave low-pass filter and a 6dB/octave high-pass filter.
Like its smaller sibling, the Tannoy Super Gold Monitor SGM12 also provides fine-tuning of the treble response using a knurled screw on the front panel that can be shifted from hole to hole to give a Treble Energy adjustment over a range of 1kHz to 30kHz. It comes set to FLAT, but can be adjusted to +1.5dB and +3dB or -1.5dB and -3dB. Similarly, Treble Roll-off from 5kHz to 30kHz can be adjusted in steps of +2dB, -2dB, -4dB and -6dB, or left ‘FLAT’.
In my 19ft x 13ft listening room, the sweet spot for speakers is generally around 18in from the rear wall and 12in from the side walls. It worked for both the SGM10 and the SGM12. Although the SGM12’s low frequency response extended only 2Hz lower (38Hz) than the 10, the larger cabinet audibly produced more bass energy in my room. So whereas I had set both the treble roll-off and treble energy to ‘FLAT’ on the SGM10, the Tannoy Super Gold Monitor SGM12 worked best with treble energy set to +1.5dB, which helped to balance out the sound. This demonstrates the usefulness of these controls, and I strongly advise any owner to experiment for themselves.
The fun factor
I hooked the Tannoy Super Gold Monitor SGM12s up to the same system I used for the SGM10, with an Audio Note TT3 turntable/Arm Two/Io1 and S9 transformer through Audio Note’s Meishu Tonmeister integrated single-ended valve amp. The same company’s CDT-Five transport and DAC Five Special converter took on the CD-spinning role.
As its smaller sibling did before it, the Tannoy Super Gold Monitor SGM12 put a smile on my face from the very start. The sound was dynamic, exciting, detailed and had great impetus and rhythmic integrity while deftly dealing with subtle musical detail and layering.
Starting with ‘Smiles and Smiles To Go’ from guitarist Larry Carlton’s Alone But Never Alone album, I was impressed with the dynamics and control on the drum kit. This is an area where the SGM10 excelled, too. Carlton’s guitar was well voiced, and the Tannoys let me hear the nuances of how each note was played and shaped. The bass line was tight and weighty, moving well. I listened on into the next track and was again impressed how I could hear his fingers moving along the strings, and again the drum sound was tight and dynamic.
Emotion conveyed
Next up was ‘It Didn’t All Come True’ from jazz singer/songwriter/pianist Ben Sidran’s superbly recorded Bop City LP. The Tannoys conveyed the emotion and phrasing in Sidran’s vocals and the speed and dexterity of his piano playing. At the same time, the drums were explosive and snappy. They have a significant impact from the snare, delicacy, and fluidity of the cymbals. That wonderful bass line also had the walk, growl and weight it should. The track is fast-moving, and the Tannoys kept up the impetus and drive, giving it real excitement and energy.
I greatly admire George Benson as a guitarist. I wanted to see how the Tannoy Super Gold Monitor SGM12 would handle the track Johnnie Lee on his That’s Right CD. It’s a gentle and touching tribute to the late John Lee Hooker. Benson’s guitar was beautifully voiced on the Tannoys. The masterful yet understated way he packed emotion into every note, how he bent and shaped it, and the beautiful chord structure, were all laid bare. The bass line was deep and moved well, and the tracked flowed rhythmically. Tannoys can handle a slow track like this as well as they can a raunchy rock number.
Retro-modern
The Tannoy Super Gold Monitor SGM12 may have retro looks, but its sound is thoroughly modern. They took everything I threw at them in their stride. From ZZ Top to beautiful acoustic tracks like singer Sarah Jarosz’s ‘Build Me Up’ from Bones, or raunchy sax of David Sanborn or Eric Marienthal. They are pacey, delicate, and detailed. But when they need to be, they can be wonderfully tight, dynamic, and exciting. And with a sensitivity of 91dB, they are the perfect partner for a low-powered, single-ended valve amp like the Audio Note Meishu Tonmeister.
If you are in the market for some speakers around £8,000, put Tannoy’s Super Gold Monitor SGM12 on your shortlist.
Technical specifications
Type: Two-way reflex-loaded floorstander
Driver complement: One dual-concentric driver with 12 12-inch bass/midrange cone and a 1.3-inch dome tweeter
Frequency response: 38Hz-30kHz ±6dB
Treble adjustment: shelving ±3dB over 1kHz to 30kHz, +2dB to-6dB slope over 5kHz to 30kHz
Merason is a small but dedicated Swiss company whose creations (including the Merason Reuss DAC) are all of the digital-to-analogue converter persuasion. Not only that, but it also makes dedicated PCM-only converters, such as the Reuss tested here. That is a niche within a niche that the company has had some success with over its eight years.
Daniel Frauchiger runs Merason. Frauchiger originally trained as a mechanic. He has always been a hi-fi nut (as they probably don’t call them in the Cantons). He spent 30 years doing a ‘proper’ job. Finally, he realised that the meaning of life rests in the sound of great music. So, he dedicated his time to making a digital audio source. A source that could “keep up with analogue when it came to musicality and emotion”. The original Merason DAC1 was a thrilling device. It brought much of the musical reward associated with analogue sources to the digital world. The DAC1 had an acrylic and stainless steel case with minimum frippery in electronic or design terms. It made a strong impression on listeners.
Today, Merason makes three DACs: the DAC1 MkII, Reuss, and Frerot. The latter is the least expensive and offers the option of a power supply upgrade. Reuss (pronounced ‘Royce’) is a slimline beauty that maintains the less-is-more ethos inherent in all Merason converters. The Merason Reuss DAC has all the usual input types, including AES and USB. The latter runs into an Amanero input board that offers low jitter thanks to a pair of crystal clocks. All the other inputs are galvanically isolated and feature jitter-reducing transformers and capacitors.
If it ain’t broke
The Reuss uses two Burr-Brown 1794A converter chips to turn the incoming bitstream into an analogue signal. You will find these hybrid multi-bit/sigma-delta devices in all Merason DACs. Frauchiger considers the 1749A the ‘ne plus ultra’ converter chip. In a world where new is generally considered better, using a DAC that originated in 2004 with the A update in 2015 in a high-end converter is quite a statement. However, Merason is not alone in appreciating the qualities of such chipsets. Many smaller brands prize similar chips, including CAD and several in the tube tech world.
The drawback with the Burr Brown 1794A converters, however, is that they don’t do DSD. This one-bit format is still highly regarded in some quarters of the high-end universe. Although most streamers can convert from DSD to PCM, I suspect that there are enthusiasts for whom only native conversion is acceptable. And don’t even think about MQA. I have always preferred the sound of PCM. I even find DVD-Audio to be a more musically compelling format than SACD. So this is not a hurdle for me. Your mileage may vary.
Less is more
Build quality is very much up to Merason’s Swiss origins. The casework is simple but attractively designed with a row of input buttons, a lock light, power, and input selection buttons. The slim sans serif font and brushed aluminium front panel appeal in simplicity. Meanwhile, the absence of filters, upsampling, and volume control indicates that the designer has made all the choices. The end user can sit back and enjoy the music without worrying that there is a better setting somewhere in the submenus. While having no user adjustments means you can’t tune the Reuss to musical or sonic taste, the absence of such options can often benefit the sound quality produced; fewer switches are usually better.
Controversial opinion time: DACs with volume control are overrated! Volume controls on DACs are great for headphone users and have a place with powered speakers. However, for those in pursuit of the absolute, they are a compromise that’s best avoided/bypassed.
Merason DACs have a quality that sets them apart from many others. The Merason Reuss DAC has a lightness of touch that is very appealing and brings out the musicality in digital sources. I used the Reuss with a Lumin U2 Mini streamer, which had a Network Acoustics power supply upgrade, and connected it to the Reuss using that brand’s muon2 USB cable. A Melco N10 server and the Qobuz streaming service brought the music signal to the party. Amplification was Townshend Allegri Reference preamp and Moor Amps Angel 6 power with loudspeakers including Vivid Kaya S12 and PMC twenty5.26i, a system which went a long way to revealing the qualities of this converter.
Digging deep
It’s a subtle device. The magic in digital music resides in the minutiae, the low-level details that combine with the fundamentals to recreate the sense of acoustic realism. Any smartphone and Bluetooth speaker can do the fundamentals well enough for background listening (well, almost any), but if you want to immerse yourself fully in performance, then the quiet stuff matters. Merason’s Reuss does these with a fluency and coherence that is highly gratifying, pulling out the nuances of phase and timbre that make sounds into something alive and inspiring. It is particularly good at reproducing three-dimensionality where it exists, one modern recording revealing a degree of spatial solidity that was surprising given its almost entirely in-the-box creation.
Acoustic imagery is likewise well reproduced, with reverb unfolding back behind the speakers in a very natural and coherent fashion. I particularly enjoyed the Liv Andrea Hauge Trio’s ‘Istid’ (Ville Blomster). Merason’s Reuss reproduced this piano trio with a solid three-dimensional soundstage, with the instruments being exceptionally full-bodied.
Coherence degree
Reuss’s degree of coherence made this and many other pieces enjoyable. The converter chosen for this DAC is robust in timing. It’s the area where digital usually lags behind its analogue adversary. That lag is tiny with this Merason Reuss DAC. With an excellent recording like this, it’s hair-splitting stuff.
Of course, it can only work with what you give it. King Crimson’s ‘Starless’ sounds thin and aggressive, but likewise, it’s incredibly intense. The compression is evident in the small scale of the audio picture, but that doesn’t get in the way of the musical message. It’s about as good as this record gets without resorting to a plush-sounding turntable. The Reuss has a leaner-than-average balance, but it makes the better recordings, often the more recent ones, sound spectacular.
Some old analogue recordings did not translate to digital all that well, hence the market for remasterings on better studio hardware. The flip side is a visceral impact on transients, such as the drum kit on The God in Hackney’s ‘Interstate 5’. The God in Hackney track is a decent modern recording that uses effects but not to squash or dirty the sound. Instead, it enhances the drum sound, and the Reuss revels in the results, producing large-scale imaging and a strong sense of presence from the vocal.
In spirit
The Merason Reuss DAC did a beautiful job with acoustic recordings, such as Chasing the Dragon’s Locrian Ensemble playing Mendelssohn Octets. The open, melodic presentation flowed easily and drew me into the performance. The Reuss is a refined DAC in all respects. It digs down into the bitstream and reveals the finesse of the playing and the timbre of the instruments in a relaxed and engaging fashion. Likewise, the acoustic guitar and double bass of Baden Powell’s Solitude on Guitar were vibrant and spirited, and the live nature of the recording was immediately apparent alongside the quality of its performance.
I used the Reuss with and without a Mutec MC3+ USB reclocker, which sits between the server and DAC and delivers an AES signal to the converter. This Mutec reclocker can often sound better than the Lumin streamer, but not on this occasion. One conclusion is that the USB input, with its upgraded input board, produces a better result than the other inputs, but there are other possible explanations.
Narrow the divide
I enjoyed the Merason Reuss DAC. It narrows the divide between analogue and digital sources to the point where one doesn’t need to purchase vinyl copies of great albums discovered through streaming. Well, not every time. The quality of timing and imaging is superb. This DAC is an excellent choice for anyone who enjoys immediacy and realism in their music. Its tonal balance is far from lush but does not emphasise shortcomings in lesser recordings. The music always comes first; I only noticed the tonal balance occasionally. Anyone looking to discover why streaming is the most engaging variation on digital audio for the hi-fi enthusiast should check out the Merason Reuss.
PMC is as big in the studio world as it is in our slightly larger niche. The company has consistently made active speakers, but as a rule, those models have been large and black. They have often used the amplification and crossover in separate cases—in other words, ‘pro’ models. I was under the impression that PMC makes active versions of its big ‘se’ models. However, I can’t see them on the company’s website. This leaves the PMC Active twenty5.22i from the Active twenty5i range as the only examples produced for the domestic market.
Launched at the Bristol show in February 2024, this line consists of active versions of all the two-way models in the twenty5i range. It starts with the 21i bookshelf and rises to the 24i floorstander. These are four models, including the PMC Active twenty5.22i stand-mount tested here, which share a 6.5-inch woofer. The slimmer 21i and 23i models run a 5.5-inch main driver. They share the same active power pack built into the brushed stainless crossover panel.
This pack upgrades existing passive versions of these models. The pack can also drive the previous twenty-five series (before the i series). Owners of these models can purchase the Active twenty5i upgrade kit for £1,795. To install it, remove the existing back panel and disconnect the driver cables. Next, connect the components to the Active kit, and then replace the panel on the cabinet. Dealers or end-users can do the upgrade, says PMC.
No DSP
This apparent universality suggests that the active crossover is identical for all models, which would certainly facilitate their building. Still, the crossover points are different for each model, as they have different internal volumes or different-sized main drivers. The active kit consists of an electronic analogue crossover and two 100-watt Class D power amplifiers made by ICEpower. The latter was chosen because PMC has extensive experience with these Bang & Olufsen-designed amp modules in its more manageable studio monitors, including the result6. The use of an analogue crossover is what differentiates the PMC Active twenty5.22i from many competitors. The more affordable examples of the breed all use DSP, or digital signal processing, to split up the signal. Results vary significantly depending on how well this is executed. Still, few sound as good as the analogue alternative.
The benefits of active operation are numerous. A key advantage is that the amplifier is connected directly to the drive unit. This allows for significantly more control over the driver compared to passive designs. Oliver Thomas at PMC said, “It improves transient response through increased damping factor and reduces colouration for greater resolution and detail.” Having the crossover before the amplifier also means each amp only deals with frequencies appropriate to a specific driver. This means that in most cases, the amps will have headroom to spare.
Pros and cons
The active pack features balanced and single-ended inputs, a power inlet with a switch, and a gain switch with plus and minus settings. Consequently, connecting the PMC Active twenty5.22i’s up requires the use of long interconnects and suitable mains cables. The latter are supplied in the box, but not the signal cables. Connection can be to any component with a volume control, such as a preamplifier or a one-box streamer/DAC with a variable output.
The beauty of active systems is that they eliminate boxes and offer a matched combination of amplifier and loudspeaker. When you consider that this match is one of the most critical in any system, that’s quite useful. The drawback with them is that you can’t upgrade the amplifier. This has often been a barrier to popularity in the past, especially when dealers look to sell future upgrades.
The Active twenty5.22i is a medium-sized stand-mount loudspeaker. It features PMC’s Advanced Transmission Line loading with a Laminair ‘spoiler’ on the vent underneath the drive units. The tweeter is a 19mm Sonomex soft dome in a 34mm surround. It sports a grille that not only protects the dome but also aids dispersion. Therefore, it’s best not to remove it. The main driver is a 17cm unit with PMC’s preferred woven construction cone in a cast alloy chassis. This driver’s long-throw capability, allied to the ferrofluid cooling in the tweeter, means that those who enjoy a bit of level are unlikely to cause any damage. Ultimately, this is pretty much a pro loudspeaker in fancy attire.
Active all the way
Experience has taught me that active speakers don’t play nicely with passive preamplifiers; they work, but you don’t get the complete active package. For these PMCs, I used an ATC CA2, which is both price-appropriate (£2,150) and comes from a similarly pro-influenced background. I put the PMC Active twenty5.22i on a pair of Hifi Racks wooden stands and connected them up with fancy Ansuz power cables and decidedly unfancy Van-Damme balanced interconnects. My cable armoury is limited when it comes to the 2.5-plus metre runs required for active speakers. However, this decent down-to-earth cable worked well. I found some obscure silver cables to compare and went back to the Van-Damme quickly.
What first made an impression about the PMC Active twenty5.22 is the scale of sound they are capable of. With a decent recording and a bit of level, they throw up a three-dimensional soundstage that surrounds the speakers. They almost seem omnidirectional. I tried the Irresistible Force’s ‘Nepalese Bliss’, which has recently resurfaced in the record collection, and was carried away by its sheer scale and glorious, fulsome juiciness. There are four mixes on the disc, with Amon Tobin’s delivering the crunchiest bass and deepest notes. Let me tell you, these things go very low for such compact boxes.
Monitor-like ability
The PMC Active twenty5.22 also have a monitor-like ability to reveal a lot about each recording, another old 12-inch in The The’s ‘Sweet Bird of Truth’ having a powerful 80s character alongside its apocalyptic forebodings. I also tried some much older vinyl, including Marty Paich, Charles Mingus and Jimmy Giuffre and heard clear and distinct characteristics on each, albeit alongside some very persuasive music; those guys were not making it up as they went along.
Active operation done this well confers clear advantages when it comes to dynamics; the absence of components between the amp and drive unit means that they have a degree of grip that is rare in passive speakers. It means you get muscular, controlled bass and precise level tracking across the board. The PMC Active twenty5.22i’s jump when the signal says ‘jump’. It’s enough to make many passive systems seem limp by comparison, and those looking for the electric energy in their music will find an awful lot to enjoy. Especially if they like to play at higher levels, this is when the sound escapes the box and inhabits the room.
Small trade-off
There is a small trade-off for all this power, and that’s a degree of delicacy. A good amplifier and a pair of passive twenty5.22i’s sound more refined and are better suited to similarly inclined music (but cost more). However, achieving the same level of detail resolution and control as the PMC Active twenty5.22i would be a significant ask, and it cannot be completed within the same budget.
Despite what I said earlier, it’s possible to use a passive preamplifier with active speakers, and that ushers in all of the delicacy you could ask for, albeit not the dynamics, and it’s the latter that makes this such an entertaining system. It delivers the visceral in a way that few amp/speaker combos at this price can approach; there’s no blurring of detail and oodles of speed. Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Alright’ has the iron fist/velvet glove edge that it requires alongside a spaciousness that I didn’t expect. Nils Petter Molvaer’s ‘Quiet Corners’ has become the reference bass track in these parts of late, and it delivered its brooding menace with considerable extension and power.
Filth
Jeff Beck and Jan Hammer’s ‘Freeway Jam’ has mountains of atmosphere but needs a remaster to deliver the bass that it requires. The guitar, however, is pure filth, raw and dirty in the way that only Beck can provide. This was one of a few tracks that required tonal tweaking, and it would be nice if these speakers had a similar feature. However, such adjustments can often compromise transparency, making them better suited for later in the chain.
I had an absolute ball with the PMC Active twenty5.22i. They have a degree of grip and energy that is very hard to achieve in a passive design. They can do refinement, too. However, the combination of transmission line loading and absolute control over the drivers means they deliver thrilling dynamics and bottom-end grunt. Anyone who enjoys playing their music at higher volumes should give them a blast.
Technical specifications
PMC Active twenty5.22i
Type: Two-way, two-driver, bookshelf speaker with active drive and transmission line-loaded enclosure.
Driver complement: One PMC/SEAS, 19mm twenty5i series, SONOMEX fabric soft dome, Ferrofluid cooled, with 34mm surround and dispersion grille tweeter; one PMC 6.5” / 170mm long-throw g-weave cone with cast alloy chassis mid/bass driver.
DS Audio’s range of optical cartridges has long intrigued me. So, when they updated and upgraded their entry-level model, the DS Audio DS-E3, I could not pass up the opportunity to review it.
Introduced this summer, the new ‘third generation’ DS-E3 replaces the old DS-E1, costing £2,295 for the cartridge and equaliser package. You need an equaliser to ‘decode’ the unique output of the cartridge. The cartridge does not generate a signal using a conventional moving coil or magnet. Instead, it has a purely optical system of LEDs and photodetectors. The equaliser also provides power to those LEDs.
The nitty gritty
Before delving into the details of how the system works, it is worthwhile to examine its origins. DS Audio, part of Digital Stream Corporation (DSC) in Japan, was founded in 2013 by the then 27-year-old Tetsuaki (‘Aki’) Aoyagi. Aoyagi heard the quality of vinyl firsthand while listening to a friend’s system that included a Toshiba optical cartridge. He even disassembled one! Aoyagi was confident he could improve it using modern materials and technology. The Toshiba cartridge pre-dated the introduction of LEDs and used a filament lamp and phototransistor. This caused a problem with heat build-up.
Aoyagi could draw on DSC’s considerable knowledge and experience. DSC invented the optical mouse with Microsoft. It also has a 25-year track record in laser optics for medical testing systems and laser-based optical instrumentation. He also tracked down and recruited the original designer of the Toshiba optical cartridge.
The company now manufactures six optical cartridges, ranging from the DS Audio DS-E3 to the flagship Grand Master EX. This last features a one-piece diamond cantilever and stylus. It’s priced at £18,995 or £55,000 with the Grand Master equaliser.
Step into the light
So, how does this tiny package of hi-tech wizardry work? Well, you need to throw out everything you know about cartridges. Sure, it has a stylus attached to a cantilever in the conventional way. And, yes, this traces the record groove as you’d expect. But that’s where the similarities end. So, strap in and bear with me…
A DS Audio optical cartridge features no coils or magnets, instead utilising two infrared LED lights and two photo sensors, one per channel. Attached to the end of the cantilever is what they call a shading plate made from beryllium. As the stylus traces the record groove, the shading plate moves in front of the LEDs, causing changes in the light reaching the photodetectors. The photocells detect these changes in brightness, which alter the output voltage. The angular movement of the shading plate ensures that each photodetector can only pick up information from its corresponding channel. DS Audio points out that the output of the photocells is purely analogue, not digital.
Advantages
You might think it’s very clever, but why bother? DS Audio claims that the optical system has some significant advantages. For one, the moving mass is significantly lower, with the beryllium shading plate weighing just 0.74 mg, which they claim is approximately one-tenth the mass of a conventional magnet or coil assembly. This, allied to eliminating any magnetic damping effect of a coil/magnet system, is said to leave the cantilever/stylus assembly freer to follow the modulations of the groove.
DS Audio also claims that the optical system eliminates the non-linearities and distortions in an MM or MC generator system caused by a phenomenon called hysteresis, which is the lagging of the magnetisation of a ferromagnetic material, such as iron, behind variations of the magnetising field.
Although the output from an optical cartridge requires a dedicated equaliser, DS Audio says the output requires less manipulation than traditional moving coils or moving magnets, as it is flat across the entire frequency range. This means the circuitry can be kept simple. The DS-E3 equaliser uses an op-amp to minimise the number of components in the signal path and keep the unit small. It connects to a line input on your amplifier.
Third generation
As mentioned above, the new ‘third generation’ DS-E3 entry-level replaces the old DS-E1 introduced in 2019. However, the E3 also draws on technology developed for the flagship model.
It features two independent LEDs and photodetectors for the left and right channels, whereas the previous model had just one. This, it states, has dramatically improved channel separation by as much as 10 dB at high frequencies. It is also said to have eliminated crosstalk, increased the cartridge’s output from around 50mV to 70mV, and significantly improved the signal-to-noise ratio.
The DS-E3 features a reshaped shading plate, now made from beryllium rather than aluminium, which reduces its weight by more than 50% from 1.56mg to 0.74mg. DS Audio claims this is one-tenth the mass of a typical core and coil system in a moving coil cartridge. The cartridge’s internal wiring is also 1.6 times thicker to reduce impedance.
The cartridges and equalisers are hand-made by DS Audio in their factory in Sagamihara. Ogra and Namiki make the cantilevers and styli.
Proof of the pudding
Now you know how this optical cartridge works and why DS Audio believes it is an improvement over conventional design. But you and I want to know what it sounds like. My local retailer had often waxed lyrical to me about DS Audio’s optical cartridges, so I was particularly excited to try one myself, finally. So here goes…
I mounted the DS-E3 in a Tracer arm on a Clearaudio Innovation Compact turntable, playing through my Audio Note Meishu Tonmeister integrated valve amp and Russell K Red 120Se speakers.
The Clearaudio turntable also allows two arms to be fitted. I procured a second Tracer into which I mounted a well-respected moving coil. The Tracer’s price, including a phono stage, was similar to that of the DS-E3 and its equaliser.
The first track I played was the fast-paced ‘No One Emotion’ from George Benson’s brilliant 20/20 album. What struck me straight away about the DS-E3 was its life, pace and openness. Benson’s vocals were packed with emotion and pleasingly accurate, while the driving synth bass line was tight and moved this track along. It also allowed you to listen to the various layers of this lavish production. The moving coil cartridge sounded mellower, more laid-back, less insightful on drums and percussion, and lacked the sheer verve and excitement of the DS Audio DS-E3.
Impressive openness
Moving on to a masterful jazz singer/songwriter/piano player I have seen many times in concert, I played ‘It Didn’t All Come True’ from Ben Sidran’s superb Bop City album. The DS-E3 impressed me with its openness to Sidran’s vocals, allowing me to listen to his fleet-fingered piano play. His piano sounded open and dynamic, while the drums had a real kick and presence, and more subtle cymbal detail was well separated. When the track’s tempo picked up with the bass line moving it along, the DS-E3 was no slouch. The conventional MC cartridge was suitable, but it lacked the detail and energy of the DS Audio.
The DS-E3 also proved its worth with a superb rendition of ‘Red Lights in the Rain’ from Stephen Fearing’s The Secret of Climbing album, conveying the nuances of his vocal delivery and the skill in his guitar play. On ‘Human Nature’ from Miles Davis’s You’re Under Arrest, the DS-E3 captured his enigmatic style and sublimely understated phrasing with more allure and impact than its MC rival. It allowed me to hear more about what makes Miles unique.
Recordings from the Seventies vary tremendously in quality, but Hasten Down the Wind by Linda Ronstadt is superb. On ‘Lo Siento Mi Vida’, the DS-E3 conveyed her vocals’ nuances and power without making her sound like she was shouting. The drums and the percussion were also compellingly detailed and punchy, and the track had a more emotional impact and inner detail than its MC rival.
The light fantastic
This first acquaintance with DS Audio’s optical cartridge technology has whetted my appetite. Suppose this model is anything to go by. In that case, the optical cartridge offers a more open, dynamic, pacey and detailed sound, delivering excitement and energy while capturing subtle nuances in the mix and individual musicians’ contributions.
The DS Audio DS-E3 gave a superb performance, and I highly recommend it.
Technical specifications
Cartridge
Type: Optical pickup cartridge with dedicated equaliser
It’s been 36 years since 
