Articles Archive - Page 35 of 266

Michi Q5 – elevating CD Audio to new levels of excellence

Tokyo, Japan (20 September 2024) – Michi, renowned for its legacy of high-end audio excellence, is expanding its elite lineup of audiophile-grade components with the launch of the Michi Q5 Transport DAC. The Q5 redefines the CD player experience by merging state-of-the-art technology with unmatched craftsmanship to deliver the unparalleled sound quality demanded by the most discerning of audiophiles.

The Michi Q5 Transport DAC is engineered to elevate the audio experience to new heights. At its core lies the premium ESS ES9028PRO DAC, an industry-leading eight-channel digital-to-analog converter. Michi has implemented the DAC in a fully balanced, fully differential circuit design to offer precision audio reproduction with an extremely low noise floor, ensuring pristine sound with minimal distortion to both XLR and RCA analog outputs. The Q5 dedicates four channels within the DAC to each of the left and right audio signal paths, ensuring extraordinary detail retrieval and an expansive soundstage that brings every nuance of your music to life. For additional installation flexibility the Q5 also delivers CD audio to both coaxial and optical outputs allowing the unit to act as a CD Transport.

The Q5 continues to showcase Michi’s commitment to exceptional craftsmanship. The bespoke, top-loading CD mechanism is constructed with precision optical laser pickup housed in a premium carbon fiber and CNC-machined aluminum chassis that offers exceptional durability in a sleek, modern aesthetic. The CD mechanism is further mounted on a custom floating spring assembly, reducing unwanted vibrations and providing a stable platform for flawless CD playback. This design not only enhances the Q5’s visual appeal but also ensures the highest level of performance by isolating sensitive electronic circuits from physical disturbances.

To further ensure audio purity, the Q5 is equipped with bespoke, dual in-house manufactured toroidal transformers that isolate digital and analog voltage supplies, significantly reducing noise and interference. The CD drive motor’s voltage and current supplies are also electrically isolated from the sensitive audio signals, preventing any potential motor noise from affecting the sound quality. The classic Michi meticulous attention to detail results in a listening experience that is both immersive and true to the original recording.

Beyond its superior CD playback capabilities, the Michi Q5 is a versatile digital music hub. It supports a wide range of additional audio inputs, including PC-USB (up to 32-bit / 384kHz) with MQA and DSD 4X support, plus 24-bit / 192kHz coaxial and optical inputs. These features make the Q5 compatible with all your favorite digital sources, as an ultra-high-performance DAC for your entire audio system.

The elegant front panel of the Q5 is a testament to Michi’s minimalist design philosophy, featuring a full-color TFT display that showcases CD album artwork to enhance your listening enjoyment with visual appeal. The included Michi remote provides intuitive, seamless operation, while RS232 and Ethernet ports enable integration with popular automation systems, ensuring easy management of your audio setup.

The Michi Q5 Transport DAC is crafted for those who demand the best in both performance and aesthetics. Its premium construction, exceptional audio quality, versatile connectivity, and advanced control options make it the ultimate CD player for high-end audio systems.

The Michi Q5 Transport DAC will be available through authorized Michi dealers starting in November 2024. For more information, please visit www.michi-hifi.com.

PRICING AND AVAILABILITY

The new models are available in the global markets beginning in November 2024, retailing for $6,999 USD.

JMR Electroacoustique BLISS Jubilé

The late Jean-Marie Reynaud was one of those loudspeaker designers who never learned the art of making a bad loudspeaker! Every design upon which he put his imprimatur sounded lively and lovely, and it’s good to see (hear?) that in passing the baton from father to son, Jean-Claude Reynaud is assiduously following his father’s lead. The JMR Electroacoustique BLISS Jubilé stand-mount loudspeaker is just as lively and lovely as its predecessors.

In fact, on my first listen to the BLISS Jubilé, my first thought was, “Why isn’t JMR better known in the UK and the US?” It ticks all the right boxes and has a sound that satisfies the requirements for ‘tuneful’ bass in the UK and ‘deep’ bass in the US. All the while having that distinctive mid-range-driven speed and fun factor that is very much a function of French loudspeaker design. When discussing them with an industry friend, the reaction was ‘…nice!’ And yet, the brand – unfairly – can struggle for recognition in the public domain.

The JMR Electroacoustic BLISS Jubilé should go some way to redress that imbalance in the loudspeaker Force. That is, so long as the lack of recognition is ‘fear of the acute accent’, in which case… this is the BLISS Jubilee! Whichever way you celebrate it, the BLISS Jubilé is a two-way stand-mount design featuring EUTERPE drivers, a 28mm impregnated silk-dome tweeter with a 170mm long-throw mid-bass unit with a long-fibre paper cone.

Franglais

The website and manual have a charming ‘Franglais’ feel, which can seem ‘quirky.’ For example, the loading of the cabinet is described as “based on the loading principle developed for the Supreme Offering, a device using four coupled cavities with progressive damping leading to a front laminar vent. This proprietary charging principle significantly improves the system’s group propagation time.” Another way of saying this is ‘transmission line,’ but while I like the brevity of the latter, it lacks the near poetry of the former. Calling the bass driver ‘the boomer’ is equally poetic and no more or less right than calling it ‘the woofer.’ Regardless, the enclosure is a transmission line with a front laminar exit, and the front baffle has rounded edges to reduce step effects.

However, going back to the boomer for a moment, the BLISS Jubilé’s mid/bass unit benefits from an internal rod bracing and tensioning system, which locks the magnet and basket in place, improving the impulse response of the driver and helps to stiffen the cabinet in the process. This is a development that JMR first used in previous models, but it clearly works well. Other brands have tried similar systems or mounted the driver to a rear baffle plate to reduce driver coloration and improve impulse response. Unfortunately, most of these experiments are short-lived and cut due to costs. JMR is one of the rare brands that continued to pursue this means of improving driver performance and should be applauded for its consistency and resolve.

Crossover simplicity

Moving across to the crossover network, JMR went for a comparatively straightforward 12dB/octave filter with a crossover point of 2.8kHz. This features non-inductive air-coil resistors, silver armature capacitors, JMR’s own HP1132 silver-copper internal wiring, and the whole network is hand soldered in free space, and the circuit-board-free crossover network is then mounted on anti-resonant supports. JMR strongly recommend its Magic Stand II, which is said to extend bandwidth and imaging properties, but was unavailable at the time of the review.

The BLISS Jubilé operates best about 2.5m apart, with a slight toe-in (or “pinch them very slightly” in JMR-speak) and should be 40cm from the rear and side walls. With an 88dB sensitivity and a four-ohm minimum impedance, the JMR Bliss Jubilé is relatively easy to drive and shouldn’t trouble any amplifier. I used it with my go-to Primare I35 Prisma, which is indicative of amplifiers likely to partner the JMR stand-mount, and the two worked extremely well together.

Could it be magic?

I’m surprised JMR makes such a big thing about its Magic Stand II because, on a pair of regular 24” sand-filled loudspeaker stands, the BLISS Jubilé turned in an extremely good performance. If I’m running these sub-par because of the wrong stand, it wasn’t something that interfered with the performance of the loudspeaker one jot. But, if it is the ace up the JMR’s sleeve, then the BLISS Jubilé moves from great to awesome!

But perhaps I can talk JMR around to sending me a pair of stands. They include a pair of Helmholtz resonators in their construction, so JMR’s recommendation isn’t to ‘upsell’ a pair of stands. That will mean I have to hold on to these little beauties for a while longer! Therefore, I will keep some of my powder dry for the revisit when these loudspeakers and their stands finally meet.

No dry powder

Who am I kidding? I can’t keep any of my powder dry on this loudspeaker; it’s excellent. It has a fine balance of energy and fun that makes it impossible to ignore. I’ve long argued that a loudspeaker must start with the midrange; get that right and the rest will (should?) follow. And it’s in the midrange that the JMR BLISS Jubilé excels. Music is refined, liquid, and extremely articulate in that all important frequency range. It’s fast and dynamic, too. Vocalists project into the room with the sort of fast-transient details that are normally the domain of electrostatic designs but with the visceral impact of dynamic drivers.

This midrange is also extremely lively and exciting. I can imagine that in extreme cases, that will push an uneven-sounding system into brightness, but the rest of the listening world will love the energy it brings to music.

As always, my go-to recording for vocal articulation is Joyce DiDonato [Stella di Napoli, Erato]. It’s also a good test of dynamics thanks to her possession of a damn fine set of lungs. Her diction and vocal projection were perfectly played through the JMR loudspeaker, while the parts where she unleashed her dynamic vocal cords on unsuspecting listeners could still be shocking.

Friendly rivalry

The friendly rivalry between our two great nations is well documented, so it’s altogether right and proper that I should devote at least part of the review to playing a lot of English music. And I did; playing everything from Zedoc the Priest (yes, OK, Handel was German, but you get the drift), Elgar’s Enigma Variations, Elbow’s ‘One Day Like This’ [The Seldom Seen Kid, Fiction] some quality jangly guitar and whining about jobs and ambivalent sexuality from The Smiths [‘Frankly, Mr Shankly’, from The Queen Is Dead, Rough Trade] and to bang things home, ‘Spitfire’ from Public Service Broadcasting’s Inform – Educate – Entertain album [Test Card Recordings]. I guess I could have found Laurence Oliver reciting the ‘St Crispin’s Day’ speech from his 1944 interpretation of Henry V, but that might be over-egging things. Regardless, the loudspeaker delivered all these tracks perfectly without the hint of accent. Or a shrug.

Moving out past the midrange, you get extremely good frequency extension. The transmission line gives a powerful, but coherent bass, without any of the ‘boat anchor’ effect that plagued older versions of this enclosure. It’s perhaps not quite as rhythm-sensitive as the likes of PMC, but neither does this have the ‘half a beat behind the beat’ ponderous bass that some still – erroneously – attribute to transmission lines.

Informative

And if the bass is good, then the treble is excellent. It’s informative, fast and detailed yet without the sting and up-tilt often accompanying these traits. Yet, it doesn’t suffer the characteristic soft-dome warmth or roll-off that many loudspeakers pass off as a laid-back sound. This is a treble as exciting as it is accurate.

Staging properties are excellent too. You get a sense of a band playing in your room, which scales up and down well. Yes, the limits come through when playing something with some pomp; syrupy, complex prog, orchestral swells, the bit where the fat lady sings at the climax of an opera. At that point, the BLISS Jubilé gently reminds you that it is a two-way stand-mount and the laws of physics need to be obeyed. Harking back to the Magic Stand II, I wonder if this might be one of the parts where it benefits.

No expression

None of which can express quite what the JMR BLISS Jubilé does so well. It conveys the magic of the performance extremely well. That – beyond anything – is the BLISS Jubilé signature trait. You play someone singing or playing with some real mojo; I’m drawn to jazz here because the first time this happened was when playing Chet Baker singing ‘My Funny Valentine.’ But the JMR BLISS Jubilé has that ability to catch you unawares.

The song’s emotion – something I’ve heard a thousand times – is pushed to the max, the hairs on the back of your neck jump up and you are briefly choked up by the passion in his voice and his – frankly beautiful – trumpet playing. It’s hard to express quite how hypnotic these moments are, and the JMR BLISS Jubilé is one of the only speakers that can do this regularly that doesn’t cost a small fortune to own and a larger fortune to drive.

For those (not) about to rock

I feel it is against my better principles (loudspeakers don’t have a built-in musical filter), but the nature and output of the BLISS Jubilé don’t lend it to the more headbanging end of the community. I’m not saying the loudspeaker can’t ‘rock’ (it can, and does), just that it can’t do it at shouty levels. This is probably most noticeable in rock music because it’s frequently a compressed PA-like sound played loud, and the exuberance and energy of the BLISS Jubilé can make that too much of a good thing. The same holds to a lesser extent if you like to play Beethoven’s Ninth or Mahler’s Eighth at ‘fruity’ levels. It’s effectively making a loudspeaker that combines fun and refinement in most settings jump out of its comfort zone.

I don’t want to overstate this, though. In context, you would need to be driving the BLISS Jubilé very hard indeed, and even trying to overdrive it in a room that is too large. The 99% rule applies here; 99% of people, 99% of the time will listen to the BLISS Jubilé and never experience this limitation, even if their musical tastes run from AC/DC to ZZ Top. However, if you want a loudspeaker that can double up as a PA system, you might best look elsewhere.

Nominative determinism

There used to be a dentist in Barnet, in North London who went by the name of Ian Screech. There was a medal-winner cross-country runner at the 2009 London Youth Games called Aaron Farr. One of the longest-serving editors of the neurological journal Brain was Walter Russell Brain. It’s called ‘nominative determinism’ and highlights how someone, or something can be extremely well named for the job. The JMR Electroacoustique BLISS Jubilé is one such product. It’s BLISS by name, BLISS by nature.

They have a midrange that cuts through the ephemera of audio and gets right under your skin, and that is backed up by a sublime treble and a surprisingly deep bass. It might not be the last word in playing loud, but when something sounds this sublime, you can often set most other considerations aside. The sheer excitement of listening to music this live and impassioned makes for some fun listening sessions.

And that is before we get to the recommended Magic Stand II. Even without those stands, these are loudspeakers with something close to magic powers. They draw you into the music in a way that few loudspeakers at anything close to this price could ever expect to do. It’s a truly BLISSed out experience.

Technical specifications

Type Two-way transmission line stand-mount loudspeaker
Drive units 28mm impregnated silk-dome tweeter; 170mm long-throw midbass unit
Crossover slope 12dB/octave
Frequency Response 45Hz–25kHz
Impedance 4Ω (minimum)
Sensitivity 88dB/W/m (2.83V)
Distortion Less than 0.4% (84dB)
Finish White pearl, black gloss, anthracite, dark cherry
Dimensions (H×W×D) 41.6 × 29 × 21cm
Weight 11kg
Price €2,130/$2,500 per pair

Manufacturer

JMR Electroacoustique

www.jm-reynaud.com

Lindemann Audio MOVE

Lindemann Audio has been producing high-quality hi-fi electronics for many years. Some time ago, the company consciously moved away from more traditional full-sized separates. It now makes clever, smaller MusicBook all-in-one units and a small range of Skunkworks ancillary electronics under the Limetree name. However, those with long-ish memories might also recall that Lindemann Audio was known for its loudspeakers. Those speaker smarts never entirely disappeared; the new Lindemann Audio MOVE is the result.

Lindemann Audio could have made MOVE a safe pair of loudspeakers to fill out the brand. It could be straightforward for the reviewer to dismiss the Lindemann Audio MOVE for the same reasons. There is good historical precedent for such thinking; too often, the loudspeakers made by audio electronics companies are a bit… ‘meh’! This is an equal opportunity ‘blandemic’, however, as the electronics built by loudspeaker specialists are often a little mediocre. But Lindemann Audio smashes that cliché with the MOVE.

Point Source

While at first glance, the Lindemann Audio MOVE looks like a conventional ported two-way stand-mount loudspeaker, it’s a full-range point-source design. That brightly coloured main driver is a full-range unit. It’s not a coaxial driver where the tweeter is in the acoustic centre of the mid/bass in the style of Fyne, KEF, or Tannoy. It’s a full-range driver, covering from 40Hz to 9kHz in room.

The AMT folded ribbon above this full-range unit acts like a supertweeter. That’s ‘supertweeter’ in the old-fashioned sense, a driver that covers a small amount of high-frequency musical information and some spatial cues we perceive as ‘air.’ It also covers the more modern interpretation of the term as it extends up to 36kHz. In addition, an Air Motion Transformer acts as a supertweeter up to 36 kHz. This uses a reference class coupling capacitor (Alumen Z-Cap).

The speaker cabinet is more conventionally shaped for good reason. While radical is good, loudspeakers are the most visible part of many systems, and you have to live with them in the room. The rounded edges and traditional box shapes are popular for that reason; they fit the largest number of listening spaces. Nevertheless, the rear-ported design is made from HDF (high-density fibreboard) instead of MDF and that – coupled with its aluminium front panel – makes for an enclosure with very low energy storage.

X-Shape

This is aided by the supplied stand, which is a curved X-shape, that tilts the loudspeaker back very slightly, and aids in the reduction of resonance and energy dissipation. The stand also uses a clever form of point coupling, but this means the speaker sits between two arms that grip the last centmetre or so of the Lindemann Audio MOVE’s side panels. This is a neat way of keeping the loudspeaker in place, but detracts slightly from its otherwise clean lines.

Speaker placement is straightforward. The rear port needs to be at least 30cm from the rear and side walls. Then, they need to be around 2-2.5m apart, but when it comes to toe-in, they are distinctly unfussy. Regarding partnering equipment and the need for a lot of fancy room treatment or exotic cable, the Lindemann Audio MOVE is your flexible friend. You can be as elaborate or as prosaic as you choose. No problems either way.

No accident

A loudspeaker as well designed and executed as this is never an accident, but it’s also not the kind of thing the mainstream will ever create. What you have here is a stand-mount loudspeaker of extraordinary quality, starting from its sensational imaging properties. The loudspeaker does act as a fine point source, in the way something like the Eclipse TD models do. Sound is three-dimensional, holographic, and extremely engaging, as you feel this uncanny sense of layers of sound emerging from the speaker system.

Play something with even the merest nod toward stereophonic sound and you are met with a live sense of stage and presence. This works with those classic 1960s Phil Spector Wall of Sound recordings as it does from more audiophile ‘church hall acoustics’ recordings not produced by murderers. In the first case, you get a broad canvas of sound, in the second, a genuine recreation of the ambience of the venue. I’ve already said uncanny, but it needs restating… there is a total absence of can, here.

As if to prove these reviews aren’t just thrown together, the ‘can’ thing isn’t quite correct. The directness of sound from the Lindemann Audio MOVE reminds me of the sound from good headphones, in the right way. A pair of top-flight headphone designs also use a full-range driver and that absence of interference is something they have in common with the MOVE. Changes in dynamic shading are quicksilver-fast and this gives a sense of detail that few rivals can match. Put a few more drivers in the mix and a crossover and the MOVE makes those rivals sound glacial and ponderous. This is audio speed personified.

Speed and Clarity

That speed and clarity shine through on almost anything but become especially noticeable on drums. No, not in the vapid audiophile drum records; instead, listen to something like ‘Nowhere Man’ by The Beatles [Rubber Soul, Apple]. You get a clear sense of that ‘Ringo Swing’ from how he brushes the hi-hat. This shouldn’t be one of the recordings that make you notice just how much of a ‘song’ drummer Ringo Starr is, but through the MOVE, you hear how much he occupies the song. That only comes because of the speed of attack and decay the MOVE brings to the party. And it is a party!

This revelation goes on giving; once you begin to process how directly connected you are with the music, you begin to hear it everywhere. This isn’t just about clarity – although the Lindemann Audio MOVE is exceptionally clear and accurate sounding – it’s about ‘clarity of purpose’. It’s the kind of sound that can put you into complete ‘pause’ mode with the right track. Listen to Maria Callas sing ‘Costa Diva’ from Bellini’s Norma [Warner Classics] and you are pinned to the chair. To move, to make a sound would be an act of musical heresy. That happens rarely and usually with giant full-range speakers with a built-in sense of occasion. To be so moved by the sound from a pair of stand-mounts is little short of staggering.

Complexity as standard

I am sometimes concerned by smaller, full-range designs like the Lindemann Audio MOVE that they might fold under questioning. They are perfect for resolving small-scale pieces, but the real broad-scale stuff eludes them. That’s not the case here; the MOVE can rise to the occasion whether it’s a power trio like Rush banging out Ayn Rand’s philosophy to the sci-fi setting of 2112 [Anthem], the big-band appeal of The Atomic Mr Basie [Roulette] or Klaus Tennstedt’s powerful yet sympathetic interpretation of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. And it rises to the occasion with detail, precision, and good stereo imaging. Yes, eventually, physics takes control. Trying to fill a larger room with complex and dynamic full-range sound at high-volume levels pushes the MOVE beyond its limits. However, achieving anything better requires a far bigger loudspeaker anyway.

Delicacy so plaintive

The biggest downside of the Lindemann Audio MOVE for me was the whining noises it created in family members. Whining noises like, “Why do you have all that other stuff when this does all you need?”. In fairness, it’s a tricky question to answer. The thing is, this answers a lot of questions about how high-end audio needs a lot of boxes to match. A MusicBook and a pair of MOVES make a strong case for the ‘turnkey system’ many people want. Sure, if you want a home PA or need to fill a room that could double up as a roller-skating rink with bass, then the MOVE is not for you. For most of us, it achieves everything we need from a good stereo system.

I approached this review with some trepidation. Lindemann Audio could have just made a perfectly competent ‘me too’ loudspeaker that would fill the gap. And people would buy one to go with the company’s excellent electronics. But it didn’t do that. Instead, it made a loudspeaker that made a mark. It’s one of the most direct and immediate loudspeakers today. And with the Lindemann Audio MusicBook COMBO (one of the few products where the price has been reduced recently), the MOVE is an absolute steal.

Technical specifications

Type Full-range point source stand-mount speaker with high-frequency extension.
Full-range driver main driver, AMT supertweeter
Impedance 8 ohms nominal
Frequency range 40 Hz–36 kHz
Sensitivity 87dB @ 2,83 V (1 W into 8 ohms)
Input power 30 W thermal, 60 W impulse
Dimensions (WxHxD) 18.6x35x30.5cm
Weight 6.5kg
Price €3,200 (MusicBook COMBO, €3,690, stand €295)

Manufacturer

Lindemann Audio

www.lindemann-audio.de

Belfast Audio Show 2024: join MBL and Kantata Audio this November to mark the launch of MBL in Ireland

German high-end audio brand MBL and Northern Ireland-based exclusive hi-fi retailer Kantata Audio are delighted to announce the launch of a new retail agreement that will bring MBL’s pioneering and unique omnidirectional Radialstrahler loudspeakers and award-winning electronics to customers throughout Ireland. The launch will be marked as part of a brand new audio show to be held in Belfast in early November.

The Belfast Audio Show 2024

Hi-fi press, audiophiles and music lovers are cordially invited to join Kantata Audio’s John Stirling and MBL’s Antoine Furbur at the inaugural Belfast Audio Show 2024, to celebrate the launch of the MBL brand in Ireland.

What:

The Belfast Audio Show 2024, in association with Kantata Audio

When:

Saturday 2nd & Sunday 3rd November 2024

Saturday 10am to 5.30pm, Sunday 10am to 4pm

Where:

Northern Ireland’s leading conference venue –

Confex Centre at the Stormont Hotel, 587 Newtownards Road,

Belfast BT4 3LP

www.stormonthotelbelfast.com

Entry & booking:

Entry is free.

To book your tickets please visit www.kantata-audio.co.uk/events

The Belfast Audio Show 2024, created in association with Kantata Audio, is a brand new audio event designed to showcase the best of high-end hi-fi available across Ireland.

This inaugural Show will feature a total of nine audio exhibition suites / listening rooms, showcasing live demonstrations of the incredible sounds of MBL as well as Amphion, AudioQuest, Exposure Electronics, Graham Audio, Hegel, Innuos, Moor Amps, Ophidian, Stratton Acoustics and Vertere Acoustics.

Additionally, there will be displays from Audite Acoustics and Custom Design.

Visitors to the Show can relax in a prime venue, conveniently located just 10 minutes from Belfast city centre and 10 minutes from George Best Belfast City Airport. Come along and enjoy a ‘home from home’ listening experience that reflects Kantata Audio’s highly personal approach to experiencing and buying hi-fi – with the addition of a select gathering of audio experts, designers and advisers from some of your favourite world-leading brands.

Visitors will also have the opportunity to enter an exclusive prize draw with the chance to win some high quality vinyl goodies from the Vertere record rabel, all remastered by Myles Showell of Abbey Road Studios.

A warm welcome to Ireland for MBL

German brand MBL is justifiably famous for its pioneering ‘Radialstrahler’ omnidirectional loudspeakers, originally created in 1979 by company founders Meletzky, Bieneke and Lehnart and subsequently perfected and advanced by current chief engineer Jürgen Reis. Meanwhile, the brand’s growing range of stunningly crafted, masterfully performing electronics has equally amassed an impressive complement of international awards across its three series: the top-of-range Reference Line, the innovative Noble Line and the elegantly compact Cadenza Line.

The Belfast Audio Show will celebrate the launch of MBL in Ireland, thanks to a new retail agreement with Kantata Audio. Three audio exhibition suites / listening rooms will feature MBL’s superb, multi award-winning Radialstrahler omnidirectional loudspeakers and electronics, including:

A dedicated MBL room, hosted by the company’s Sales Director Antoine Furbur, which will showcase an all MBL system comprising: the new Cadenza Line C41 network player partnered with the C21 stereo power amplifier, and the revolutionary Radialstrahler 126 compact standmount loudspeakers (recent winner of The Absolute Sound’s Golden Ear Award 2024).
The Audioquest / Stratton Acoustics room, which will feature MBL’s N31 CD player & DAC and N51 integrated amplifier, here wired with Audioquest’s exceptional cables and driving Stratton Acoustics’ unmistakeable, hand-built loudspeakers.
The Vertere Acoustic room, featuring MBL’s N11 preamplifier alongside a pair of N15 mono amplifiers driving the incredible MBL Radialstrahler 101E MkII loudspeakers (one of The Absolute Sound’s ’15 Most Significant Loudspeakers of All Time’).

Your hosts, Kantata Audio

Kantata Audio is Ireland’s ‘alternative’ hi-fi retailer. Founded in 2017 by John Stirling, it offers customers a highly personal approach to experiencing and buying hi-fi. All products are hand-selected by John himself, to create high-quality audio systems for his customers to enjoy in a relaxed and comfortable setting. Kantata Audio is the exclusive retailer of multiple premium audio brands, offering systems and separates for many tastes and budgets. John invites customers book an appointment, bring along some of their favourite tracks and rediscover their music collection – as it should sound.

John says, “When MBL was first described to me as offering ‘value for money’, I was sceptical, since theirs are clearly very high-end products. Then I heard an MBL system and was instantly convinced. The build quality and sonic performance of an MBL system puts it head and shoulders above comparable competitors. MBL should be at the top of everyone’s audition list.”

“Creating the 2024 Belfast Audio Show around the launch of MBL in Ireland has been exciting, and I guarantee that our visitors will be treated to some exceptional, class-leading hi-fi in a relaxed and fun environment.”

Stravaganze consonanti: Gianluigi Trovesi/Stefano Montanari

If ever an album could be said to bridge the worlds of baroque and jazz Stravaganze consonanti is it. Violin player and ‘concertmaster’ Stefano Montanari guides a good sized ensemble through the works of Purcell, Dufay, Trabaci and others including wind player Gianluigi Trovesi who adds the jazz element with piccolo clarinet, alto clarinet and alto saxophone. It’s an unlikely yet highly entertaining proposition that makes music from the 15th, 17th and 21st centuries seem related in totally unexpected ways. The rasp of original string instruments provides a baroque feel yet the melodies and beats could be from our day and age.

The band consists of Stefano Rossi: second violin; Claudio Andriani: viola; Francesco Galligioni: violoncello; Luca Bandini: double bass; Emiliano Rodolfi: first oboe; Pryska Comploi: second oboe; Alberto Guerra: bassoon, dulciana; Riccardo Balbinutti: percussion; Ivano Zanenghi: archlute; Valeria Montanari: harpsichord; Fulvio Maras: percussion, and electronics.

The first pieces are interpretations of works by Henry Purcell and the first two are very short but thrilling with it, ‘The Witches Dance’ is full baroque grandeur that appears to segue into Vivaldi in its last few bars then stops abruptly after a mere minute and a half. ‘Dissolvenze convergenti’ is even shorter and features a Gershwin-esque horn that evolves into something that could be Eric Dolphy, it barely breaks the minute mark. ‘Consonanze stravaganti’ by Trabaci is more of a requiem and quite subdued by the standards thus far, it’s a beautiful lament that is given more time to be expressed but doesn’t overrun its welcome. ‘For a While’ features the lovely timbre of Trovesi’s bassoon which is joined by saxophone, strings, harpsichord and archlute with horn and violin duetting to produce the closest thing to blues that such a pairing could achieve.

Dufay’s ‘Kyrie I’ is a touch austere after this but Trovesi’s take on ‘L’ometto disarmato’ brings in a modern feel with percussion and strings where you would expect drums and keyboards today with a lovely clarinet lead. This switches to a harpsichord beat with horns jumping in and out of the soundstage with short blasts of joy, it could almost be an arrangement of something mainstream from the last few decades such is the familiarity of the melody, at least it could before it resorts to its baroque roots and revisits the delighted honking theme developed earlier. Latterly the piccolo clarinet joins the fray and introduces the final stanza of this the longest piece in a collection that’s full of surprises.

The sound quality is as you would expect of ECM, super silent backgrounds and rich, three dimensional acoustics which really make the most of the broad tonal and dynamic range on offer from the gathering of musicians. Image depth is particularly strong with a huge natural room acoustic.

Purcell’s ‘Dido’s Lament “When I am laid in Earth”’ is a beauty, introduced by the archlute with one of Trovesi’s horns at centre stage. Falconieri’s ‘La suave melodia’ strikes a change with plucked bass and ‘Karaib’s Berger’ introduces Fulvio Maras’ gong-like Hang drum. This is a lovely tune whose origins are hard to spot. The percussion continues into ‘De vous abandoner’ with alto clarinet giving it a middle eastern tone. In an unforgiving system the highlighting of the various wind instruments can be a bit strong so it’s a relief when ‘Mille regretz’ by Josquin Desprez comes in with strings alone on the penultimate track.

Stravaganze consonanti ends on a high with Trovesi’s ‘Bergheim’ which is introduced by marshal drums and the smallest clarinet and develops into a dance with distinct pop accents, it wouldn’t have sounded out of place in Bridgerton.

This is a charming and joy filled release that should appeal to both fans of both classical and contemporary acoustic music, or at least those who are looking for music with a little bit of piquancy and a spring in its step.

Back to Music

Origin Live Sovereign S Mk5 turntable and Agile tonearm

We might think that among the current crop of high-end turntables it would be possible to identify some commonality and consistency of design. But, with a few exceptions that’s not the case.

Some claim suspension is required, others say no suspension is best. Some say the plinth should be skeletal, others that quite the reverse, it should be high-mass. Some say the platter should be lightweight, while others specify a heavyweight approach. How the platter should be driven is also a point of fundamental disagreement, with some specifying a single DC motor, others claiming AC drive is the way to go and still others that want to use two or even three motors. And that’s before we get to the menu of different materials turntable designers want to use from slate to acrylic, ceramic, titanium, solid wood, carbon fibre and so on.

Origin Live’s founder and designer Mark Baker has been confidently consistent, continuing to keep faith with essentially the same turntable design philosophy for over two decades. That’s not to say that the company’s current turntables are identical to those of yesteryear. Baker has applied multiple, iterative changes over time; to platters, power supply designs, bearings and drive belts. What hasn’t changed is the appearance of the turntables, and that’s because the distinctive Origin Live form-factor results from engineering principles established right at the start.

First principles

There are five models at different price-points in the company’s core range, plus a flagship design that is an outlier both technically and price-wise. The core range starts with the £1,600 Aurora and tops out with the £8,300 Sovereign S.

The distinctive shape results from Baker’s unique use of a cantilevered construction, with the platter bearing and arm fixed at opposite ends of a substantial beam with a single mounting bolt nominally equidistant between the two ends. The bolt fixes the assembly to the plinth. Think playground seesaw…kind of.

The plinth assemblies are formed of acrylic – any colour we want, as long as it is black – while other materials with dissimilar but complimentary impedances and resonances are deployed as vibration dampers and barriers at multiple points. The basic design confers a modularity that enables a ladder of sonic performance to be achieved by the progressive addition of further resonance-controlling elements and plinth mass. The entry level turntable, the Aurora, has it in critical areas. The costliest, the Sovereign S, takes the mass and damping to the max. At nearly 29kg, it is more than twice the weight, with a double layer of acrylic in the plinth, sandwiching steel. The plinth’s three richly chromed outriggers act as both massy dampers and pods for the turntable’s adjustable feet. The standard Sovereign is priced at £6,800. An extra £1,500 buys the S version with a more complex multi-layer platter and an outboard balanced mains transformer with a higher rating than that of the standard turntable. Higher-grade components and regulation, plus wiring in Origin Live’s own hybrid of copper and silver, are to be found in the Mk5 power supply.

The review Sovereign S was fitted with a 9.5-inch Origin Live Agile tonearm, at £10,200 one model below the company’s flagship £26,000 Renown arm. The Agile features Origin Live’s usual arrangement of dual-monopivots set across the axis of the arm tube to allow virtually friction-free vertical movement, while horizontal tracking is controlled by a more conventional ceramic bearing. The arm tube is aluminium with carbon fibre and other coatings. The yoke, a heavyweight affair, has a mirror-like chrome finish. The counterweight is de-coupled from the arm tube to prevent reflection of energy and it combines both co-axial and off-set mass, the latter with fine adjustment. Decoupling is also deployed at the interface between the bearings and the yoke, and the headshell and the arm tube. It is a joy of an arm to handle, with an impeccable fit and finish that befits a product at its price point. It is available in 12-inch, 10-inch, Rega-fitting 9.5-inch and Linn 9-inch lengths.

Jiggery pokery

The turntable arrived in two boxes and required the bearing and tonearm beam assembly to be mated to the plinth, the single fixing bolt being tightened using a supplied box spanner. The plinth feet were adjusted to level the turntable, the bearing charged with metered oil from the included vial, and the Agile tonearm fitted. Job done in under half an hour.

A dealer will deliver an assembled package, but as a DIY prospect assembly is not at all daunting, a notable contrast to the Groundhog Day rigmarole of cable ‘dressing’, spring adjustment and general jiggery-pokery required by some designs. It’s also a fit and more-or-less-forget turntable with nothing to go out of tune or require dealer servicing. Fit a fresh drive belt every once in a while, change the oil in the bearing every few years, and that’s it.

The review turntable was used in a system with a PS Audio Stellar phono stage, icOn 4PRO Balanced line stage and Quiescent T100MPA monoblocks driving PMC MB2se speakers. This magazine and this reviewer have some history – of the good sort – with Origin Live. Alan Sircom evaluated an earlier model of the Sovereign, a Mk3.2 and the then top Origin Live arm, the Enterprise, in issue 140 and was very complementary about what he heard. I had owned an Origin Live Resolution turntable in its Mk2 guise for some five years in the early 2010s and then in 2018 reviewed a Calypso Mk4, second from bottom in the range.

The Sovereign S Mk5 triggered fond memories, exhibiting a familiar immediacy and strong sense of natural and neutral musicality. At the same time though, it sounded considerably more high-end, with greater levels of tonal and dynamic detail, superior rhythmic drive and a lower level of background noise. I had expected it to be good, but not that good. It was such a strong and refined performer that I was compelled to ponder just which elements of design and execution were responsible for the surprising uplift in sonic performance.

Platter matter

Arthur Khoubesserian of Pink Triangle is credited with identifying acrylic as presenting an almost perfect impedance match with vinyl records and therefore being the ideal material from which to make turntable platters. Still used by a number of turntable manufacturers, plain acrylic used to be the go-to material for Origin Live too, but Baker has in recent years put a lot of development effort into teaming acrylic with other materials to create platters that are multi-layer. The engineering principle here is that energy at the stylus tip not only travels up the cantilever to excite the cartridge coils but also travels downwards into the platter from where it can be reflected back out of phase to cause smearing and intermodulation errors.

Baker notes that metal alloy, glass and ceramic platters are the worst offenders, yet even acrylic exhibits this behaviour, but to a lesser degree. On the Sovereign S the platter has a 25mm-thick base of acrylic. Lifting off the flexible top mat, which appears to be a composite of cork and rubber, reveals three further visible layers; first a black composite that is laser-cut with hundreds of thin slots. Underneath that is a similar thickness of an unidentifiable second material, and under that is thin copper, precision cut, at least where it is visible, in a pattern of spokes radiating out from the platter spindle. The three layers are held secure to the acrylic substrate by a perimeter of nylon screws.

For the 2018 evaluation of the Calypso I had been lent a then current version of Baker’s multi-layer design and had been able to compare it to a plain acrylic platter. The multi-layer platter had stomped all over the plain acrylic one, giving dynamic and tonal detail at all frequencies much greater clarity. What particularly impressed was that the improvements were linear, not highlighting any particular frequencies.

Fast forward, and I was therefore not too surprised to find that the 2023 multi-layer platter moves sonic performance on further still. Baker has retained the linearity but at the same time extended the low-end and increased the texture of what we hear. The revised platter also seems to better preserve phase. Sound-staging, a strong suit of the original, sounded more confident and still more precisely drawn in depth and width.

Power broker

The power supply used in the Mk5 turntables is Baker’s own creation, but he is careful to make the point that power supply design is pretty much all prior art. Some buyers might regret that the funky blue illumination of the platter, a feature of the previous ‘light speed’ controller, is no more. In its place is a simpler current-loaded control circuit with a focus on the quality of the elements of the AC to DC conversion and on minimising Voltage ripple.

Baker says the revised power supply delivers just the same wow and flutter as the old light speed controller, but that doesn’t tell us the whole story. While there is no reason to doubt Baker’s claim, the Sovereign S Mk5 has an emphatic, almost relentless sense both of stability and drive that I felt sure eclipsed that of the older power supply design. There are multiple possible reasons for this; the circuit topology and the quality of the discrete components used to build it, the specially wound – Baker says uniquely – balanced transformer and even the cable taking the regulated voltage to the motor. As he notes: “All these things are interrelated and you’d be amazed at how much sonic difference they can make.”

Before the arrival of the Sovereign S, I had tried the Agile tonearm on two alternative turntables, and on one in particular had noted extremely low levels of groove rush. Fitted to the Sovereign S the Agile was quieter still between tracks. Groove rush is primarily the result of stylus jitter due to cartridge design, and so I am at a loss to explain how mounting the Agile on the Sovereign S had apparently reduced it. Nonetheless, the finding was undeniable, the lower surface noise allowing subtle musical details on familiar recordings to emerge with greater clarity.

Quality pressings of quality recordings assumed almost digital levels of blackness between notes with consequent benefits for apparent dynamic range. The Agile, teamed with the Sovereign S, also produced the deepest, most powerful and most richly textured low end that I have heard from any turntable, bar none.

Something else interesting emerged during the review listening sessions and it’s to do with length. Arms at 10 or 12 inches tend to offer a more relaxed sound than those at 9 or 9.5 inches. The 9.5 inch Agile, which had already confounded expectations when fitted to the two other turntables, did so again when teamed with the Sovereign S. Baker has somehow managed to give the Agile a Jekyll and Hyde-like character, combining a goodly helping of both worlds; fast transients and a sense of musical impulsion, but combined with a sense that everything is under perfect control and that there is all the time in the world for the next note to emerge.

Sweet return

The Sovereign S Mk5 turntable and Agile tonearm delivered hewn-from-rock speed stability and a sense of relentless natural drive coupled to strong dynamic expression, tonal density, dynamic agility and timing; a sweet return and a new high-water mark for vinyl playback.

Are there better turntables? Perhaps, but the remarkable thing is that for all its sonic high achievement, the Sovereign, even in its S-guise, is not costly when compared to top-of-the-range alternatives from other brands. For not a lot of money we get a beautifully conceived and built music machine whose form today is not the result of shameless plagiarism more than five decades ago, or the heedless following of fashion, but stems from proper engineering principles that have been further refined by a designer who is ever curious, thinks for himself, and pays scrupulous attention to detail.

In the context of today’s high-end turntable market Baker could charge a lot more for the Sovereign S Mk5 than he does. That he declines to do so tells us something else about him that some will admire, and buyers on the hunt for benchmark vinyl performance should have reason to be grateful for.

Technical specifications

Type Skeletal Turntable with external DC motor belt drive & outboard balanced transformer
Speed 33 &45rpm electronic switching
Turntable body Single point cantilevered suspension, ultra low friction bearing, high performance armboard, heavyweight pods
Plinth Steel between acrylic
Multi-layer ‘S’ platter Acrylic, copper & composite layers
Power supply MK5 PSU
Tonearm Agile dual pivot tonearm
Armtube Aerospace Metal Alloys, dampening layers & carbon fibre
Arm cable Silver Hybrid-S internal/external
Counterweight Multi-Layer counterweight with fine adjustment
Effective Lengths Available 9”, 9.5” 10” & 12” (standard is 9.5”)
Effective Mass 14.5 grams
Weight 28.4 Kg
Dimensions 500 x 190 x 380mm
Price Sovereign S turntable £8,300 $10,500
Agile tonearm (9.5 inch) £10,200 $12,910

Manufacturer

Origin Live

www.originlive.com

+44 (0) 23 80578877

Meet Your Maker: Michael Hedges of Monitor Audio

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, British manufacturer, Monitor Audio, unveiled the Concept 50 prototype loudspeaker at the High End Show in Munich in 2022.

Last year, it launched the production version of that product, Hyphn, which was tested here, will set you back £70,000 for a pair.

Monitor Audio says it’s the most creatively ambitious, technically advanced and powerful loudspeaker it’s ever made.

Hyphn, which has an unusual and striking design, takes its name from the architectural term ‘hyphen’ – a link connecting two separate structures.

Each loudspeaker consists of two pillars, with the ‘hyphen’ between them housing the M-Array – a configuration that’s been developed by Monitor Audio’s in-house engineers and consists of a single high-frequency transducer surrounded by six two-inch midrange drivers.

The six two-inch midrange drivers feature Monitor Audio’s Rigid Diaphragm Technology III (RDT III) cones, which were introduced in 2022.

Each pillar houses a pair of powerful eight-inch bass drivers, facing inwards, in a force-cancelling configuration.

This, says Monitor Audio, results in almost no vibration force from the drivers, either within themselves or being passed into the cabinet.

Hyphn has been engineered to deliver enhanced bass control, response and dynamics, plus exceptional detail through the treble and upper midrange.

To find out more about designing and making its own drive units and the challenges involved, we spoke to Monitor Audio’s technical director, Michael Hedges, at the company’s HQ in Rayleigh, Essex.

SH: Hyphn has a striking design – it’s very different…

MH: Oh, yeah – it’s going to be a bit Marmite. Some people won’t like it.

The moving coil loudspeaker driver was invented by Rice and Kellogg in 1925. How hard is it to continue to innovate in a technology that’s nearly 100 years old?

My background is engineering and transducers. If you go back 50 years, the engineering process was quite manual – you didn’t have computers to do a lot of the work for you.

You designed a drive unit, you tested it and, if it didn’t work, you modified some tooling, re-pressed the cone into a new shape and you tried it.

You did maybe six or seven designs which all had different features and then you did a report to see how those designs differed and came up with a hypothesis to do the next steps.

You’d apply a full engineering and scientific approach to it. You can imagine the amount of time that took and also the cost…

Often, with a hi-fi company in the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, they weren’t rolling in lots of cash.

There have been constraints in the industry and it’s not an industry that has a massive amount of research funding.

There are companies in it that do really well and prioritise research but it’s not like the medical industry – you haven’t got billions going into research on how a drive unit works.

Our previous technical director, Dean Hartley, was phenomenal at building drive units, testing them, and understanding and following amazing engineering processes. It was because of him that I came here as a student – he was my mentor.

In the late 2000s, computers were at the point where we could apply the raw physics to a simulation and solve the model.

We were effectively taking the electrical input to a drive unit, running it through the voice coil, simulating the electromagnetics, then the structural mechanics of how that force moves from the voice coil into the cone, and how that propagates into the acoustics.

We can build a model that effectively simulates real physics and, after 100 years, why can we do more now than we’ve ever done before.

It’s because I can take a graduate out of university and within a few years of using the simulation tools, they’re seeing how the physics work – they’re not just guessing.

We have a great, relatively young acoustic engineering team that have come to Monitor Audio over the last 10 years or so – they’re acoustics experts but they’re also simulation experts at heart.

How have changes in materials science influenced Monitor Audio’s product development?

Materials have changed quite a lot – you’ve got refinements in magnet material, like neodymium, which is mass-market. You now get strong grades – Hyphn uses N52, which is the strongest.

For many years, we’ve used lower grade neodymium, because it was expensive enough, but it was still a great move forward. We now use high-grade because there’s more of it and the price has changed.

Glues and adhesives are important – the chemistry around those is a place that moves all the time. If you can imagine a drive unit, there are six or seven key glue points in it.

We have glues that have more damping in them or can be set quickly in two minutes by shining a UV light on them.

What are the challenges involved in making and continuing to develop your own drive units?

There are a myriad of challenges – you need to understand how the drive unit will be manufactured. You can design what looks like a great drive unit on a screen, and make one of them, but making a thousand of them the same going on automated machines is a process – there are variances that occur. You need to make sure the design is fundamentally capable of handling that.

Does Monitor Audio see big differences in the ‘shape’ of global markets?

For example, traditionally America is considered the place where large loudspeakers are never large enough, whereas Europe is often considered more reserved and demands smaller designs. How do you address those differences?

It’s simple – we don’t design or develop products with different looks for different markets – we keep a consistent Monitor Audio feel to a product. But we develop a range of products and within that range there are models that maybe sell better in different areas.

What is the company’s direction of travel?

For example, is it looking at loudspeakers as an ‘active streaming music hub’, or are conventional loudspeakers still the way forward?

For the vast majority of people, there is definitely a pleasure they get from taking a record off the shelf, looking at the sleeve, holding the record in their hand, lifting the needle and dropping it on the turntable – the ritual.

We have to be careful – audio can become very sterile if you just walk into a room and play it on your phone.

Fulfilling the experience of what music can deliver to you means sitting down and involving yourself in the listening – that doesn’t necessarily always mean on your phone.

But do you have to cater for different consumers?

There’s a lot more streaming going in hi-fi electronics.

Vinyl doesn’t work for everyone – I have a four-year-old and a seven-year-old. If I stick a turntable in the living room, that won’t be a working turntable anymore. I have one in my office and my son is mesmerised by it rotating – he reaches for the needle…

What’s your take on the industry at the moment?

Innovation is key – I’m an engineer and I want to see people innovating and being a bit disruptive in the market. It’s always hard when you’ve got a business model where you know what works but you want to do something else – you don’t want to upset the market.

Especially in challenging times…

Exactly. There are lot of things we know about loudspeaker design.

From research that’s been done, we know that what we’re doing with Hyphn is the right way to go, but there are so many loudspeaker companies out there that aren’t looking at the latest research. There’s so much hi-fi out there, especially at the high-end, but which has no engineering background to justify its claims.

I think there’s a pressure in the industry to be different, but let’s see some difference that’s better. There are companies out there that are definitely doing it – we’re following them and we hope to drag more people with us.

In 2022, Monitor Audio celebrated its 50th anniversary. That’s a big birthday…

Fifty years is a milestone – the company has been through changes, but it’s always had that desire to deliver an experience.

Mo Iqbal [founder] originally got into Monitor Audio because he wanted to make loudspeakers better and we’re carrying on that tradition. We try to excite and engage people and deliver them an experience.

Manufacturer

Monitor Audio Ltd

www.monitoraudio.com

+44 (0)1268 740580

Back to Reviews

Coherence Systems/ADD Powr Sorcer Apprentice

Buzz Hughes looked at the Sorcer X4 from Coherence Systems here. The Sorcer Apprentice is an inline variant of that clever power conditioner. However, power conditioner is merely the catch-all description. Bill Stierhout’s description is closer. These are ‘electronic harmonic resonator’ devices.

This could easily place the whole ADD Powr line firmly into ‘oddball’ territory, were it not for Bill Stierhout’s track record. He invented a product called QuantumSymphony Pro, which became the QRT (Quantum Resonant Technology) system that Nordost has used so successfully over the last 15 years. Since selling that technology to Nordost, Bill Stierhout has not exactly sat on his laurels.

Stierhout’s connection with QRT also pre-approves ADD Powr products for dismissal by audio’s many cynics. The legitimately sceptical – those who might question the concepts underlying these products but are prepared to ‘give them a listen’ – should read on.

Fourier and square waves

As described earlier, the Sorcer Apprentice power conditioner is a harmonic amplifier or resonator, which ADD Powr claims saturates the power supplies of components with harmonic frequencies (like a tuning fork) that is said to increase the energy of the audio material. Greater audio harmonic energy, goes the claim, means greater listening pleasure and satisfaction. More specifically, the Sorcer system is claimed to inject very low frequency square waves into component power supplies. This, ADD Powr claims, is based on Fourier’s series and harmonic resonance, which is said to result in the Sorcer boosting the signal-to-noise ratio of the system.

Stierhout believes his system provides an energy boost to the audio signal level, which may be as great as 10–15%, and an acoustic energy increase that ranges from 0.25–1.00dB.

ADD Powr is fond of a few analogies to get the message across. Stierhout likens the Sorcer Apprentice’s performance as putting the right fuel in your sports car, or the difference between stargazing in a city or 60 miles from the light pollution. In other words, the quality of the mains AC power helps lower the system’s noise floor.

Setting aside the harmonic technology, the Sorcer Apprentice has four line transformers and an EMI line filter. It features two outputs for your system, although the claims made about the Sorcer Apprentice apply just as much if it’s connected anywhere on the AC line. For giggles, I tried the Sorcer Apprentice as a bulwark against the horrors of phone chargers and plugged them into the Sorcer. Then I tried it between wall and system. It worked in both settings. It did its job just plugged into the wall with no power cords connected.

Here’s one of the few concerns with the Sorcer Apprentice; the two power connectors are either hospital-grade US sockets or Schuko connectors for EU plugs. There are no UK connectors available.

The Great Get-Out Clause

Around about now, a reviewer will say something like “Your Mileage May Vary” when it comes to power products. There is a reason for this; no two mains AC installations are alike. The conditions in one person’s home and surroundings – from electrical, electromagnetic, and magnetic considerations –are very different to the next. However, with the Sorcer Apprentice, that doesn’t seem to matter too much. It works universally, whatever the AC mains does.

What it does so universally is bring out the best in your system, Naturally, the better the system, the more it can bring out. This is not necessarily a quality issue, more a ‘is it well put together, almost irrespective of cost’ concern. If you have a poor-sounding system because it isn’t assembled or installed with care, all the Sorcer Apprentice will do is throw that poor sound into a sharper accent.

A good system that is correctly ‘sorted’ on the other hand, sounds significantly improved. It takes a couple of hours or more to harmonise the power through the house and the system, but suddenly what was good springs to life, and is several notches better than before. It’s not a ‘fireworks’ change and more a slow realisation that everything seems more in the right musical order.

Sure, the dark backgrounds are darker and backgroundier. Music seems clearer, more physically in space in front of you, more focused and more like you expect to hear music in a live setting. But more realistically, the Sorcer Apprentice makes your system sound like you always expected it to sound.

Those who want quick A-B tests are in for a long wait between A and B, because the Sorcer Apprentice takes a while to percolate through your system. A rapid-fire A-B test is changing the crew of the spaceship midway through the countdown. But wanting an A-B test is probably missing the point.

Now here’s the weird part. There’s something about the sound played with the Sorcer Apprentice in situ that is like a dopamine hit, or it turns your brainwaves from Beta to Alpha, and you are in musical chillax territory. This makes no sense to the “yes, but what did it do to the soundstage?” listener, but the Sorcer Apprentice seems to act at a deeper level.

Logically, there is no way a black box can monkey around with my brainwave state, pump my brain with happy chemicals or otherwise mess around with my wetware because I am not connected to the Sorcer Apprentice. But each time I played my system with it in place, I relaxed into the music faster and easier. The music just ‘felt right’. I don’t think there’s the vocabulary to express that in observational terms.

Return to Angular

Removing the Sorcer Apprentice returned the system over the next couple of hours to its more angular, less cohesive and more relaxing nature.

It’s hard not to be impressed by the ADD Powr Sorcer Apprentice, even if the reasons why it is so impressive are not the stuff of normal audio observations. It makes a good system into an exceptional one.

Price and contact details

Price $3,299

Manufacturer

Coherence Systems/ADD Powr

www.add-powr.com

+1 310-954-4837

Back to Reviews

Børresen Acoustics X2 floorstanding loudspeaker

Loss leader is not a term that gets bandied around the audio business very often. Sales numbers at the serious end of the market are not so great that luring the customer in with a giveaway deal is likely to result in them returning for more in the foreseeable future. Or maybe amplifiers last a lot longer than washing up liquid. But if you look at the pricing of Børresen Acoustics loudspeakers, the X2 at under £8,500 looks a bit like a loss leader. It is one heck of a superbly finished loudspeaker for the money, the like of which even the biggest companies have trouble competing. The most affordable Bowers & Wilkins 800 series floorstander, the 804 D4 is £11k, for instance; that’s quite a lot for one extra driver and tweeter on top.

I reviewed the Børresen X3 last year and was very impressed with it for the same reason: it offers a lot of advanced technology in an extremely elegant boat-tail section cabinet for an equally reasonable price by high‑end standards. The X2 is a very similar beast in a smaller cabinet of much the same style and proportions; it doesn’t have a fancy sandwich plinth but is, in other respects, very much a mini-me of that impressive model.

The drive units consist of two four-and-a-half-inch cones and a ribbon tweeter, the topmost cone being a mid/bass, while the lower unit is dedicated to low frequencies. Both these drivers feature the distinctive spread tow-woven carbon fibre material that you will see across the Børresen loudspeaker range; this is a method of weaving much thinner carbon fibre strands than is found in most drivers that use this material and results in the chequerboard pattern that marks out the technology.

Sandwich construction

The cones are actually a sandwich construction with outer skins in carbon fibre bonded to an aramid honeycomb core, the latter provides tremendous stiffness in the direction of the cone’s travel while the spread tow carbon fibre gives it lateral stiffness. Børresen designed the X series cones to “achieve maximum stiffness with minimum noise”, the noise in that sentence referring to colorations or unwanted vibrations in the cone that are produced when it deforms in dynamic conditions. It is very difficult to build a cone that can reproduce a series of sound waves without echoes of those waves reverberating within the cone after the initial impulse has been produced. Ideally, they would be like ripples in a pond that die away when they reach the edge of the driver, but that is probably impossible to achieve, so drivers like this are engineered to minimise the effects of these reflections.

Two rings for control

To keep costs at bay for drivers that are made in Denmark – which, like the rest of Europe, is an expensive place to manufacture anything – the magnet or motor system that drives the X series units is smaller than that found in Børresen’s more pricey loudspeakers. Yet they retain some key tech that maintains high-end credentials; this is in the form of copper caps or rings in the pole piece that result in a flatter inductance curve and lower electro-magnetic resonance. Reducing aberrations in the inductance of the driver equates to a smoother impedance which in turn means that the amplifier has an easier job when trying to control the drive unit.

The X series tweeter is a planar ribbon rolled in at 2.5kHz and has the daunting task of handling frequencies up to a specified 50kHz. Its visible area is 65 by 27mm making it larger than average which must help at the lower end of its range, apparently the design has the potential for very high 94dB sensitivity but Børresen has reduced the amount of iron in the magnet to reduce cost which brings this figure down to a still very respectable 90dB. The ribbon has an extremely low 0.01-gram mass, which gives it the potential to accelerate and decelerate at high speed. Yet, Børresen claims it is also very robust and capable of delivering plenty of power when required. The ribbon is set into a short horn or waveguide that will help when it comes to power handling but might compromise dispersion; this is likely to be one reason why Børresen recommends placing its loudspeakers far wider apart than most brands.

Balls of titanium

The X2 cabinet is a thing of beauty; its gloss black flanks curve back to a narrow spine at the back and make the speaker look smaller than its depth would suggest; the front baffle is 175mm (6.5 inches) wide, but the rear one is only 35mm (less than 1.5 inches). The front baffle edges are post-formed, as is the transition from baffle to the top of the box, which slopes backwards under a lacquered carbon fibre skin; the same finish can be seen underneath the drivers on the front of the cabinet. This is a subtle finishing and stiffening detail that makes the X2 stand out from the crowd of shiny speakers. The whole thing sits on a plinth with outriggers for resonance control feet. Like all sensible speaker makers, Børresen eschew spikes in favour of sister brand Ansuz’s Darkz feet; these have a circular indentation in the underside, which can interface with Darkz resonance control devices via titanium balls. Alternatively, you can put them straight onto the floor regardless of whether it’s carpeted or hard.

Connections to the speaker cable are made via a single pair of vertically aligned terminals, and the dedicated fan of parent company Audio Group Denmark can use Ansuz cables for this purpose; I stuck with the Townshend Fractal F1, which seems to do a pretty good job in all instances. Overall sensitivity for the X2 is 88dB at four Ohms, which is not terribly efficient, so I used higher powered amps for the majority of listening, initially a rather nice Bricasti M25 (150W) and latterly a Moor Amps Angel 6, also 150W.

Space in between

The X2 user guide suggests placing these speakers near the room corners with 50cm to the back wall and as little as 15cm to the side walls, which seems very close for a rear-ported design. I cannot put speakers that close to side walls but could have three metres between the inside feet of each speaker (the minimum distance they recommend) with over four metres to the listening seat. Speakers usually sit about two metres apart in my system. Børresen also recommends toeing in the X2s such that their axis crosses behind the listening seat, which in practice means you can see the inside flank of each, which was duly followed.

Unsurprisingly, the effect of this set-up is to create a soundstage that, while it doesn’t extend beyond the outside edges of the speakers, is cavernous in between. It’s an arrangement that suits some recordings better than others. Generally, the better ones benefitted the most, while those with instruments or vocals in individual channels felt a little empty in the middle. Overall, though, it worked well, and I will try it with other speakers in future. It allowed the X2s to ‘disappear’ with decent recordings whilst delivering a rich, refined tonal balance that reflected the nature of recording and ancillary equipment with remarkable accuracy. The Rega Naia turntable was delivered whilst the Børresens were in situ and it was immediately apparent that the quality of vinyl sound had risen significantly. Every record played had its own distinct character, with all the nuances revealed both good and compressed, but every record sounded great in its own way. I tried a few speakers in this way and the X2s proved consistently better than most at resolving the way this turntable reveals so much about each recording, it was a lot of fun and hard to put down.

China Doll

The X2’s tonal balance is, if anything, on the dark side; the treble is refined and sweet, which means that you can hear plenty of detail, but it’s never splashy or zingy in the way that metal dome tweeters can be. The bass balance can be adjusted with placement but is on the rich side with more warmth than average, this made it forgiving and delightfully plush with good recordings but not thick or slow. With double bass, for instance, the sense of speed and depth of each note produced strong three-dimensional solidity. Still, something like Stevie Wonder’s ‘Big Brother’ sounds very mannered in the bass with a lot of thickeners and an odd balance, yet it is brilliant nonetheless. The Grateful Dead’s live version of ‘China Doll’ (Reckoning) delivers an extraordinarily powerful full-scale image from which the harmonies ring out in beautiful fashion; it’s easy to hear why the audience reacts so positively to this, and almost as easily to close your eyes and be in that audience.

Radiohead’s ‘The Tourist’ also manages to evoke beauty in its own way, the guitar crying out in such articulate fashion that you have to wonder how much rock guitar Johnny Greenwood listened to before launching the indie band to beat them all. I particularly enjoyed how the Børresens manage to deliver the energy and angularity of the guitar without the screech that usually accompanies it; whether this is strictly accurate is hard to say; how many guitar amps have ribbon tweeters? But the result is an intense sound that doesn’t pierce the ears.

With the Moor Amps in the driving seat, you lose some of the finesse but little of the musicality that makes the X2s so enjoyable. The tonal balance remains the same as does the strengths of timing and imaging that make these speakers so effective, the Naia turntable continued to carry me away as well, revealing Frank Zappa’s ‘Find Her Finer’ (Zoot Allures) to be a fabulous cut with juicy bass, lots of space and another of the man’s diverse range of guitar sounds. The focus is on the music, however, which is really inspiring, particularly when the title track from this album comes along and almost makes it impossible to do anything else but float away with the music.

Riley Walker’s Golden Sings That Have Been Sung is a more contemporary production where considerable effort has gone into getting a particular sound, which, while it has plenty of appeal, is full of manipulation that isn’t really about high fidelity. This much is immediately apparent with the X2s, but so is the fact that this is superb music, the quality of songwriting and musicianship being far more obvious than the effects applied to give it a certain sound.

As I had just about enough Darkz T2 feet and titanium balls to put under the Børresens, this was done, and the effects auditioned; these were primarily a tightening of the bass and an opening up of the soundstage still further. The bass benefitted the most and now I could play dub in full effect and get really articulate, well extended low frequencies without any sense of thickness. A similar result could be achieved by pulling the X2s into the room, I suspect, but the 50cm gap plus the 55cm depth of the cabinet meant they were already close enough.

Worthwhile experience

I also tried a Trilogy 921 integrated amplifier to see if its 75W would be sufficient to control these speakers, this proved to be a very worthwhile exercise as the partnership was not only beautifully balanced and timed but also delivered an emotional impact that was soul stirring. If you’ve not heard Bobby Womack’s version of ‘Fire and Rain’ on a decent system, make sure you do at your earliest convenience.

It’s hard to see how Børresen manages to bring the X2s to market at the price it does. The cabinets are spectacularly well built and finished, and the drive unit technology is clearly in the Premier League, and, not insignificantly, this is a small/medium sized Danish company without the backing of an international organisation. It’s hard to see that they can make much margin on the X2, which means that by high-end standards, these Børresens are a clear bargain.

Technical specifications

Type reflex loaded 2.5-way, three-driver, floorstanding speaker
Driver complement One 65mm planar ribbon tweeter;
one 4.5 inch carbon fibre bass midrange driver;
one 4.5 inch carbon fibre bass driver
Crossover frequencies 2.5kHz
Frequency response 40Hz–50kHz
Impedance 4 Ohms
Sensitivity 88dB/W/m
Dimensions (H×W×D) 1100 × 300 × 550mm inc plinth
Weight 36.4kg/each
Finishes Black or white piano lacquer
Price £8,500/pair, $8,800/pair

Manufacturer

Audio Group Denmark

www.audiogroupdenmark.com

UK distributor

Auditorium HiFi

www.auditoriumhifi.co.uk

+44 (0)7960 423194

Kassa Overall: Animals

Google Kassa Overall and the brief description of him that comes up is ‘drummer’. However, like other ‘drummers’ including Moses Boyd and Terri Lyne Carrington, that one-word description doesn’t come close to explaining the range of talents they have at their disposal. Not that we are knocking drummers, heaven forfend, but there is so much more to what Overall does than that simple label conveys.

For starters he is also a singer, emcee, songwriter, bandleader, and producer – each of which on their own is more than most of us can claim. What he also does incredibly skillfully is elegantly blend Jazz and Hip-Hop in his own unique way. This is something that caused him issues when studying at the prestigious Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. While the staff there appreciated his Jazz drumming, they were less enamoured with his passion for Hip-Hop. Perhaps not unconnected is the fact that while studying, Overall experienced some manic episodes, which we only mention here because his lyrics often discuss the mental health struggles of a black man living in America.

Overall is an incredible collaborator, having worked with numerous New York Jazz luminaries, and Yoko Ono, but it’s his sensational solo work that has really grabbed our attention. He started off with the wonderfully titled Go Get Ice Cream and Listen to Jazz, before releasing 2020’s I THINK I’M GOOD, on Giles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings. This second offering proved that he was in fact as good as the title suggests, and received the critical acclaim if not the sales it deserved.

And now to Animals, his third solo album, and one that marks his debut for Warp Records – a badge of honour in and of itself, with stablemates including Aphex Twin, Brian Eno and Flying Lotus pointing to the level of creative chops this man has at his disposal.

Animals once again sees Overall engage with themes of race and mental illness, and he pushes his subversive vision further with an all-star roster of collaborators including Danny Brown, Wiki, Lil B, Shabazz Palaces, Laura Mvula, trumpet master Theo Croker, and Nick Hakim, whose understanded vocal performance on Make My Way Back Home is one of the highlights of this exceptional album.

The result of Overall’s style and this gallery of contributors is a hectic, thoroughly enjoyable 35 minutes of musical exploration. From the moment the needle drops, Overall pushes the boundaries of Hip-Hop and Jazz closer together, and on more than one occasion merges the styles so completely as to create a completely new genre of music.

But throughout all this experimentation, his acute sense of rhythm, dynamics and the subtleties of percussion prove him to be a master of the art. That’s true of both the hectic, amusingly voiced Ready to Ball and the slow, unrelenting beat of Clock Ticking, which boasts a Hip-Hop feel that most closely resembles the LA scene of the early 90s – Ice T would happily rap over this instead of Danny Brown and Wiki who take up the mic.

Other highlights including the beautiful So Happy, with Laura Mvula delivering a show-stopping vocal performance and Maybe We Can Stay, which is a pretty crazy four-minutes of electronica and wild guitar before the rather wonderful J Hoard makes his own.

And finally you get the double whammy of The Score Was Made (which again puts me in mind of the backing tracks of East Coast Hip hop from the early 90s) and the six blissful minutes of calm in the form of Going Up, which rounds off a quite sensational album.

Back to Music

MOON 641 and 681

In 2023, MOON by Simaudio revised its top line with what it initially called the ‘North’ Collection. This is a sextet of products that span the upper atmosphere of the company’s output. The first out the gates were the Network Streaming Preamp and Power Amp from the 700 range. MOON’s 641 integrated amplifier and 681 Network Streaming DAC followed. The upmarket 891 Streaming Preamp and spine-busting 861 power amp top the range.

We tested the MOON 791 streaming preamplifier and 761 power amplifier here. We concluded that they are extraordinarily flexible products that take on the highest of high-enders. However, the MOON 641 and 681 integrated amp and Network Streaming DAC will be even more significant.

Long history of amps

The 641 comes from a company with a long history of making great amplifiers. It represents the top of the company’s integrated amplifier tree. The dual-mono amplifier delivers 125W into eight ohms loudspeaker loads and doubles its power exactly into four ohms. This signifies a good amplifier design with a suitably ‘stiff’ power supply. That supply can cope with the most comprehensive range of loudspeakers. MDCA (MOON Distortion-Cancelling Amplifier) design features an independent circuit with precise signal correction to significantly lower noise and distortion. This is the latest development of MOON’s long-standing amplifier noise-reduction circuits.

You can’t get far talking about a MOON amplifier without discussing volume controls. MOON is once obsessed with volume controls. The result is a delight to use, thanks to its revolutionary BRM-1 intelligent remote control. This smart pebble control sits in the hand well. So well, I’d be tempted to use it even if the amplifier itself was at my fingertips. However, it’s no simple potentiometer. The 641’s volume control is a sophisticated signal attenuation system. It places the volume in the optimum spot in the circuit itself. MOON calls its third-generation electronic gain control M-VOL3.

Good, solid high performance

The amp has four RCA inputs and one XLR input. It’s a line-only design, with no internal module space for optional on-board DACs or phono stages. There is a single set of RCA outputs and network connections purely for linking the MOON 641 and 681 together. This link works for upgrades, too, and there is a 12V trigger. That’s it. There is no headphone amplifier and no tone stack. It’s just a good, solid, high-performance amplifier.

The significant external changes are a more rounded styling with a chassis that gets rid of external screw heads. It also features clever use of internal heat channelling through the logo on the top plate.

It also has an easy-to-read 4.3’’ colour graphic display screen instead of the large red LED readout you could see from space in previous models. MOON also looked to what designs sold best and did away with the all-black and all-natural versions, with just the ‘panda’ scheme (black chassis with natural aluminium side cheeks) available in the new collection. It shares this new set of design cues with the 681 Network Streaming DAC.

Back in DAC

Where many companies making an amplifier at this level will include a built-in DAC, MOON knows that packing a good dual-mono preamplifier, power amplifier and a DAC in the same chassis is rarely the best way to get high-end performance. Something usually has to give, and almost invariably, it’s DAC performance. This isn’t a lack of capacity or digital engineering prowess at MOON; the same company makes the Ace and 200 and 300 Series integrated amplifiers with built-in devices. But at this level, it would be a compromise, and that’s not in the MOON North lexicon. So, you are back to a separate DAC.

The 681 is currently the best standalone Network DAC in the MOON line-up, replacing the popular 680D and up-scale 780D v2 at a single stroke, despite costing less than the previous range-topper. And like that former flagship, the 681 can take a power supply upgrade.

At the heart of the 681 is the MDE1 ( MOON Digital Engine 1), which is based on an FPGA and an ESS 9028Pro chipset. The FPGA achieves re-clocking with pico-second accuracy, and two sets of four DAC channel outputs are summed in the analogue stage. It can decode MQA and DSD with alacrity. Equipped with MOON’s popular MiND2 network player (so it can synchronise with other MiND2 products in the house), the 681 accesses music from TIDAL, Qobuz, Deezer, and HighResAudio. It is compatible with Bluetooth, AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, and TIDAL Connect. It is also Roon Ready. In short, digitally speaking, you name it, it does it.

No issue

That ‘does it all’ approach extends to its inputs and outputs and even the way it handles volume (I said it was a MOON obsession). You can squirt digital signals into the 681’s many ports, be it HDMI, USB, Ethernet, AES/EBU, S/PDIF or Toslink. There’s even a host USB connection. Add in the Bluetooth and AirPlay 2 links, and the only connection missing in action is probably I²S. Away from the digital domain, there are balanced and single-ended outputs, a 12V trigger and MOONLink on an Ethernet port.

The 681 includes configurable outputs to serve as a line-level source with an integrated amplifier like the 641, a reference-level preamplifier, or a variable output source. The MOON Hybrid Volume (MHV) control in the 681 takes advantage of 32-bit processing to finesse inaudible digital attenuations with several analogue gain adjustments. This crafty algorithm results in a seamless volume control circuit designed for direct coupling with a power amplifier like the 761. Even the BRM-1 can be mapped to either the 681 or 641, while MOONLink controls both devices in perfect harmony.

Fit and finish

Before we get on to the performance of the MOON 641 and 681, it’s worth mentioning the overall fit and finish of these products because it’s exemplary. The control surfaces (especially the use of rotary controls on the handset and the 641) are exceptional, and the widescreen displays on both DAC and amp are legible and never garish. They make set-up and use easy. Most people will initially mash their fingers against the screens, thinking they are touch panels, but the operation is intuitive, both on the devices and with MOON’s MiND App. We tend to elaborately over-engineer audio electronics, but there’s a sense of appropriateness here. It’s built to withstand the rigours of domestic use, and although it’s solid enough to be parachuted out of a military transport, that build comes across as absolute authority. Nothing is vibrating here, ever!

There’s a reason we started discussing sound through the medium of build quality. The term ‘absolute authority’ applies perfectly and equally to both products. It’s a pity the term ‘competent’ sounds so pejorative because their competence makes these products so good. This pair are a perfect match for each other, and the pair are an ideal match for the most comprehensive range of loudspeakers and cables.

Do one thing

Where so many good audio products are in the ‘do one thing brilliantly’ category, the MOON 641 and 681 duo are more universally excellent. While I have a lot of time for products that are remarkable in one aspect, I also think products with good balance win out in the end. Few of us get asked about audio as often as we used to, but when someone starts discussing good loudspeakers they like, it’s frequently tricky to find an easy partner in electronics. The MOON 641 and 681 duo are that easy partner. I know that any loudspeaker (that isn’t the size of a small asteroid and just as hard to drive) will sing with the MOON 681/641.

So, what makes these two MOON products so universally good? It’s a perfect blend of insight and detail without sounding etched or exaggerated. That means a sophisticated and elegant sound that hangs together musically perfectly. It’s also a forgiving sound, thanks to all that refinement and elegance, but it isn’t masking anything. It’s just the kind of musical performer that makes you want to listen to more music. I find Muse a bit of a bellwether for this musical insight; There’s a great recording hiding somewhere in ‘Supermassive Black Hole’ by Muse [Black Holes and Revelations, Warner], and it is an excellent track I want to hear sometimes. A lot of similarly-specified electronics at this level focus on the squashed and compressed sound and not on the tonality and energy of the music. The MOON 600 models sidestep that compression and make the performance more enjoyable.

Loudness wars

When you move over to similarly recorded prog that is a casualty of the loudness wars of the 2000s, you get the complete package. Pick any Porcupine Tree or Steven Wilson album, and the room fills with a beautifully layered insightful sound that draws you deep into the musical mix.

The MOON 641 and 681 performed impeccably, to the point where the usual audio descriptions seem a little stale. The DAC’s network connection was always flawless, and it performed equally well when being fed a CD feed from a Hegel CD player, a USB feed from an Innuos Statement Next Gen or taking online streaming straight from an Ethernet switch (admittedly a good one from Nordost). The access via the App was quick and accurate. The display was both legible and informative. But most of all, the sound was quicksilver, detailed, dynamic and highly coherent.

The DAC was unfazed by dynamic classical pieces (Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, Zinnman, Telarc) or avant-garde jazz (Eric Dolphy’s Out To Lunch, Blue Note). These are often problem sounds for a DAC to process. In the former, the scale and dynamic range can be a problem. The latter relies on a lot of leading-edge detail. Most DACs can do one well, and the other suffers. The 681 does both well. To find something better means spending more money on cabling the boxes together than the cost of the 681.

Return to the amp

If the DAC feeds the amplifier an excellent signal, the amplifier more than rises to the occasion. It never once sounded like an integrated amplifier, with power to spare and a sense of stereo separation and detail typically found in pre/power systems. This comes with excellent soundstaging properties, a good depth understanding, and even height in the proper settings.

The combination of staging, refinement, and muscularity is a rare gift, making for a sound that is incredibly solid yet light and airy. This sounds like a contradiction, yet I think that’s because we are too used to amplifier systems that don’t tick all the boxes. The 641 – like its larger MOON North siblings in the 700 models – shows we can have our cake and eat it, too.

The telling recording here is ‘The Ghost’ by Anna B Savage [in|FLUX, City Slang]. This (literally) haunting song is atmospheric and sparse. It needs to be enveloping, claustrophobic and almost visceral in its staging. And that’s precisely what you get through the 641. There’s a word I don’t use that often, but it fits perfectly here – this product has ‘slam.’ Part of the reason I don’t use it is that it also lacks finesse… but not here!

Perfectly matched

It’s hard to break up the band. However, of the two, I would say the 681 is probably the better. Not in performance terms – they are perfectly matched and on par with one another – but the increased flexibility of the DAC puts it a notch ahead of the amp. And, for the record, I preferred placing the volume control in the DAC… but not by much. The amp is every bit as good in sonic terms. It is also straightforward to use and is the perfect partner for the amp. However, its minimalist specification sheet might deter the ‘Top Trumps’ collector.

More fool the collectors, both amplifier and DAC, are remarkable performers. You are onto a couple of winners when ‘criticism’ is the lack of headphone sockets in a market not known for playing headphones. Both MOON 641 integrated amplifier and 681 Network DAC are a perfect ‘add loudspeakers’ audio system. They can cope with almost anything without fuss. That it also sounds excellent in the process is the icing on the cake.

Like the 700 pre/power models I tested in 2023, the 641 amp and 681 DAC are perfect ‘dingers’. They are products that will happily ring the bells of almost anyone with any loudspeakers or cables. The MOON 641 and 681 are built to last and sound excellent, too!

Technical specifications

Moon 641 integrated amplifier

Output Power (Stereo 8 Ω) 125 W
Output Power (Stereo 4 Ω) 250 W
Input Sensitivity 300 mV – 6 V
Input impedance 22 kΩ
Gain 37 dB
Frequency response 2Hz–90kHz (+0 dB/-3 dB)
Crosstalk -109 dB
Signal to Noise ratio 109 dB
Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise (@ 1W) 0.008 %
Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise (@ 125W) 0.003 %
Intermodulation Distortion 0.06 %
Damping Factor 700
Dimensions (W×H×D) 48.1. × 10.2 × 46.5cm
Weight 26kg
Price (at time of testing) £11,000/$11,000

Moon 681 Network Streaming DAC

Analogue input impedance 50 Ω
Analogue Output Level 2 Vrms / 3.5 Vrms / 6.5 Vrms
Crosstalk -125 dB
Frequency response 2Hz–200kHz (+0 dB/-3 dB)
Signal to Noise ratio 125 dB
Dynamic Range 125 dB
Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise (@ 0 dBFS) 0.0003 %
Intermodulation Distortion 0.0002 %
Dimensions (W×H×D) 48.1. × 10.2 × 42.7cm
weight 18kg
Price (at time of testing) £12,000/$12,000

Manufacturer

MOON by Simaudio

www.simaudio.com

UK distributor

Renaissance Audio

www.renaissanceaudio.co.uk

+44(0)131 555 3922

Technics SL-1500C turntable

In the days before the launch of the Technics SL-1500C turntable, when Panasonic resurrected the Technics brand and brought the SL-1200 turntable back from its unceremonious retirement, few people outside the company realised what the cascade effect would be. Some of what followed was logical enough: a simplified GR model to sit underneath the G Series, for example. However, a return of the SL10 and matching SL-1000R flagship probably wouldn’t have featured in most predictions.

In its way, the Technics SL-1500C turntable is no less surprising. At its core, it is the same engineering as the 1200. However, simplified from the G and GR but effectively domesticated (I briefly flirted with using ‘civilianised’ at this point as if the 1200 participates in ground operations in the Middle East rather than the occasional sound clash), which is a fascinating reflection of the scale of the analogue revival that a company the size of Panasonic wants in on it.

Alterations

The most significant alteration between the 1200 and 1500 is that, where both retain their pitch controls, the Technics SL-1500C turntable is intended to rotate at 33, 45 and (when both speed buttons are pressed at once) 78rpm. With the elimination of the pitch control comes the removal of the built-in strobe and dotted platter edge. The motor unit is not as grunty as the ones in the higher spec 1200 models, but it still starts and stops with an urgency that competitors with a belt dream of.

This revised motor and platter is partnered with an S-shaped arm that is visibly similar to the ones used on other Technics models. Like those arms, it is slightly deceptive as it doesn’t move in an especially confidence-inspiring way when manipulated, but it seems effective once playing. Something specific to the 1500C is the fitment of an automatic arm lift, which raises the arm at the end of the side. This is a rare fitment indeed in 2023, and by and large, it works rather well, only being slightly perplexed by records with an exceptionally long play-time.

The 1500C is also fitted with a cartridge, unlike the 1200 models, where you choose your own. This is an Ortofon 2M Red and represents a mixed blessing. The boost to simplicity in terms of getting the Technics up and running is welcome, but a £95 cartridge on a turntable with a retail price north of a grand feels a little out of proportion. The simplicity of changing a 2M stylus and the fact that the arm uses a detachable headshell (which also isn’t the greatest of its kind but no different to most Technics headshells in that regard) means that options for upgrading it are simple enough.

Internal Phono stage

Of rather more benefit is that the arm outputs via an internal phono stage, which is a helpful convenience feature. Of no less use is that it can be bypassed if you have a phono stage already. The Technics SL-1500C turntable also scores points by connecting to the mains via a three-pin IEC lead and having RCA outs on the back of it with separate ground posts, which means it will rarely, if ever, be the source of unwanted hum or other issues and can be placed where you want it rather than where captive leads dictate that it must go.

Aesthetically, the 1500C could only be a Technics, but the streamlining of the features on the deck itself has some rather unexpected benefits in terms of its overall appearance. This is a cleaner and more elegant piece of design than the 1200 models are, and I rather like the result. I will say that this product looks considerably better in the silver finish than the black (I haven’t seen a white one in the flesh, so I’ll reserve judgment on that).

None, none more black

The black version also has a black arm and looks almost oppressive, whereas the silver balances ‘period charm’ and ‘timeless’ rather well. The overall standard of build and finish is excellent, too. The Technics has a ‘feel’ that is a world away from most rivals because it doesn’t feel remotely artisan in terms of its design and construction, and I prefer that.

Initially running via the supplied 2M Red and with the phono stage in the circuit, one crucial aspect of the 1500C’s overall performance directly channels the 1200 models, and it does so in a wholly satisfying way. As a byproduct of a well-spent (or misspent, your mileage may vary) youth, to hear certain records played on it is to be taken back a few decades to where you first heard it, most likely being played on a 1200 or 1210 of one vintage or another. This might be a domestic turntable, but it knows its roots.

Effortlessly funky

The propulsive and effortlessly funky ‘Give The Po’ Man A Break’ on Fatboy Slim’s Better Living Through Chemistry [Skint] sounds ‘right’ on the Technics in a way it doesn’t necessarily on turntables that cost many times more. This rightness is a combination of a few different factors. The pitch stability is, as you might expect, metronomic, and the bass response is tight and exceptionally well-defined. That loping, big beat time signature is grist for the Technics’ mill. Across a wide selection of material that might loosely be grouped into ‘danceable,’ the Technics SL-1500C turntable has delighted in a way that belies the relatively sensible price.

Move outside the world where the 1200 reined supreme, and only some things are pretty accomplished. Agnes Obel’s lovely Philharmonics [PIAS] is delivered with a slightly hard edge, and some of the airiness I know this record can demonstrate is more challenging to determine. The piano that supports many of the songs on the album never wants for weight or scale, but there is a lack of tonal realism that hinders the suspension of disbelief.

Easy to unlock

The good news is that there is a level of extra performance in the Technics that is relatively easy to unlock. Switching the 2M Red stylus for a Blue one instantly helps with space and tonality. Some experiments with headshells in the £50-80 range also start to help with that perception of space and airiness, and the Funk Firm Achromat that fits the 1200 models also works a charm here and helps to both lower the noise floor and provides a boost to the overall three-dimensionality. To its credit, you do not need to be in anything like the same rush to dispense with the internal phono stage; it’s quiet, has more than reasonable gain and has a commendably neutral tonal balance to it.

Spend an extra £2-300 on the Technics, and its value calculation changes markedly. The fundamental underpinning of that well-engineered and carefully evolved direct drive motor and sturdy build are more than up to supporting some better ancillaries in crucial locations. It’s possible to argue that the 1500C is a better value turntable at £1,500 than at £1,100. If you keep pushing upgrades on the Technics, you’ll eventually run into the limitations of the arm, but it has a tremendous stretch.

Lush life

Used with the Achromat and 2M Blue, the way that the Technics SL-1500C turntable handles Terry Callier’s What Colour is Love? [Verve] is genuinely engaging. The lush instrumentation supporting ‘Just As Long As We’re In Love’ has the room it needs, and you can discern individual instruments without losing a sense of the whole. Callier’s glorious vocal turn is rich and resonant, underpinned with that same effortless weight as before. Everything beneficial about the Technics ancestry is unchanged, but there’s now a delicacy and nuance that isn’t necessarily present out of the box.

What does come in the box, though, is a compelling piece of kit and an attractive halfway house between truly plug ‘n’ play devices and turntables that require you to choose their ancillaries from the outset. The key to how much joy you’ll experience from the Technics partly depends on whether you have the budget to unlock its essential potential in spades and if that sort of tweakery appeals to you. If it does, it offers the scope to enjoy the basic turntable before adjusting the fine details precisely to your liking, securing a performance that combines the muscular virtues of its professional ancestor in a usefully domesticated package. The 1500C is another fine addition to the Technics turntable range.

Technical specifications

Type: Direct drive record player with fixed axis tonearm and moving magnet cartridge
Motor: 110-240v Quartz stabilised direct drive
Speeds: 33, 45, 78, selected by push button
Tonearm: aluminium with detachable headshell
Finish: silver, black gloss and white
Dimensions: 453 × 169 × 372 mm
Weight: 9.9kg
Price: £1,099/$1,299.95

Manufacturer

Technics

www.technics.com

UK Distributor

Technics UK

www.technics.com/uk

PRICING AND AVAILABILITY

Franglais

Crossover simplicity

Could it be magic?

No dry powder

Friendly rivalry

Informative

No expression

For those (not) about to rock

Nominative determinism

Technical specifications

Manufacturer

Point Source

X-Shape

No accident

Speed and Clarity

Complexity as standard

Delicacy so plaintive

Technical specifications

The Belfast Audio Show 2024

A warm welcome to Ireland for MBL

Your hosts, Kantata Audio

First principles

Jiggery pokery

Platter matter

Power broker

Sweet return

Technical specifications

Manufacturer

SH: Hyphn has a striking design – it’s very different…

The moving coil loudspeaker driver was invented by Rice and Kellogg in 1925. How hard is it to continue to innovate in a technology that’s nearly 100 years old?

How have changes in materials science influenced Monitor Audio’s product development?

What are the challenges involved in making and continuing to develop your own drive units?

Does Monitor Audio see big differences in the ‘shape’ of global markets?

For example, traditionally America is considered the place where large loudspeakers are never large enough, whereas Europe is often considered more reserved and demands smaller designs. How do you address those differences?

What is the company’s direction of travel?

For example, is it looking at loudspeakers as an ‘active streaming music hub’, or are conventional loudspeakers still the way forward?

But do you have to cater for different consumers?

What’s your take on the industry at the moment?

Especially in challenging times…

In 2022, Monitor Audio celebrated its 50th anniversary. That’s a big birthday…

Manufacturer

Fourier and square waves

The Great Get-Out Clause

Return to Angular

Price and contact details

Sandwich construction

Two rings for control

Balls of titanium

Space in between

China Doll

Worthwhile experience

Technical specifications

Manufacturer

UK distributor

Long history of amps

Good, solid high performance

Back in DAC

No issue

Fit and finish

Do one thing

Loudness wars

Return to the amp

Perfectly matched

Technical specifications

Manufacturer

UK distributor

Alterations

Internal Phono stage

None, none more black

Effortlessly funky

Easy to unlock

Lush life

Technical specifications

Manufacturer

UK Distributor

The sound of excellence delivered your way