Up to 37% in savings when you subscribe to hi-fi+
hifi-logo-footer

Begin typing your search above and press return to search. Press Esc to cancel.

Roy’s Round Up

Roy’s Round Up

We live in a world that seems to treat the terms “high-end” and “high-priced” as interchangeable. But they’re not, and nor should you ever accept that they are. High-end is all about attitude and thinking, goals and philosophy – and none of those things define cost. What makes a product high-end isn’t a high-price. Indeed, if we’re honest, we are regularly presented with expensive products that claim high-end status but are in reality, anything but. What actually does make a product high-end is its pursuit of performance, a notion that is absolutely central when it comes to audio, especially with it’s conjoined concepts of sonic performance and the musical performance itself.

, Roy’s Round Up

Perhaps the most dramatic example of this is contained in the unassuming shape of AudioQuest’s £40 Jitterbug, a blocky little dongle-like device that attaches, not entirely surprisingly, to USB ports everywhere – at least, everywhere in your audio orientated file-replay rig. If you are running music files out of a server, a MacMini, a MacBook Pro or just about any other computer-based audio source, stick a Jitterbug between the USB cable and the port its connected to and you’ll enjoy an instant and significant improvement in audio quality and a serious step forward in musical communication and rhythmic intelligibility. Now add another, either in line or in parallel on the same USB buss, and you’ll get another, similar improvement. In fact, you can go on adding Jitterbugs, scoring really effective improvements until you run out of ports and patience, or at least as far as four or five (the number varies with specific equipment and circumstances) where the scale of subsequent improvements doesn’t diminish. In fact, seemingly on the basis that dancing on your own really isn’t all that, using a pair of Jitterbugs is way more than twice as good as a single one. But what makes the Jitterbug a genuinely high-end device is that in a world where file replay is hailed as the inevitable future of home audio – and in which it so seldom actually delivers the musical performance available from CD, let alone vinyl – here’s a universal response that tackles fundamental issues with the format at source. This is the nearest thing to digital music magic I’ve come across – and you don’t hear me say that too often!

In somewhat the same vein, the HRS Damping Plates offer an absurd level of improvement to products that would consider themselves immune to such help. If high-end and high-priced are all too often synonymous, how about high-end and heavyweight? With the advent of affordable CNC machining it seems that every product on the market offers some variation on the sculpted front-panel and contoured casework recipe that was once the hallmark of only the most ambitious and expensive designs. Unfortunately, looking the part and sounding the part are two very different things – something that has become even more obvious as the importance of a product’s mechanical behaviour has fallen into focus. HRS’s deceptively simple solution to this problem consists of slabs of aluminium, combined with sheets of polymer material that act to interface with the chassis. Take one of the Damping plates and place it along the length of a chassis top-plate and what you do is create a constrained layer, the polymer sandwiched between the top-plate and the damping plate. Simple and – believe me – effective! Naim went to extraordinary lengths to control chassis resonance in their Statement amplifiers, yet a quick AB demonstration of their sound, with and without HRS damping plates atop the towers pretty much stopped designer Steve Sells in his tracks: more air, more resolution, less grain, more colour, better dynamic discrimination, and wider dynamic range. Basically, all things you’d associate with a lower noise floor. It works on Classic Series components too, but lest you think this is a case of Naim bashing, the Audio Research Ref 150 SE undergoes an even more dramatic transformation. In fact, I haven’t found a single product in my system that doesn’t benefit, especially if you combine the Damping Plates with the matching Nimbus or Vortex couplers.

 

Moving up in price, we come to two products at the opposite end of the price bracket, but two products (or even three, ‘cos I’m going to cheat) that both offer exceptional performance at their price, as well as exceptional performance together. First up is MartinLogan’s remarkable Motion 35XT, a small, two-way box-speaker in a world that’s seemingly full of small, two-way boxes. But the Motion 35XT is different. Firstly, because it’s a little larger than the average (well, larger than the also impressive 15XT anyway) allowing it to use a 165mm bass unit that’s actually capable of moving some air.  Secondly, because this is that rarest of beasts, a hybrid speaker that actually works. Now, if anybody is going to make a hybrid that works, the MartinLogan is a pretty good bet given how long they’ve been at it. What’s slightly ironic is that in the case of the 35XT, there isn’t an electrostatic driver in sight. Partnering its in-house aluminium coned woofer is a large diaphragm AMT folded motion driver, both housed in a heavily braced and beautifully finished high-gloss cabinet with sculpted edges, invisible fixings and a sloping top-panel (which comes in handy if you want to flip it over for better time alignment) adding up to a speaker that looks – and in this case sounds – a lot more expensive than its £1,300 asking price. Crisp, clean, and dynamic, the 35XT is detailed without sounding forced, enthusiastic without sounding overblown, and offers rhythmic fluency and articulation that many a flat-earth design would give its voice-coils for. Able and energetic, purposeful and communicative, the Motion 35XT is a timely and cost effective reminder of just what a good speaker should do – and just how good a really capable, compact two-way can be.

, Roy’s Round Up

At the other end of the price and ambition scale you’ll find products from Gryphon Audio, legendary éminence grise of the Danish high-end. Best known for very big, very black amplifiers, stunning visual design, fit and finish, as well as even bigger (and occasionally even blacker) loudspeakers, full Gryphon systems are normally priced well into “If you have to ask…” territory. But what I’m talking about here is the company’s most affordable units, the Scorpio CD player and Atilla integrated amplifier. Outwardly almost identical (which is why I get to mention them both) these two elegantly styled, immaculately engineered and finished products share all the physical and aesthetic attributes of Gryphon’s flagship products, yet cost “only” €6950 a piece. That’s a Gryphon source and amplification for around a hundred notes the right side of £10K: just add speakers and you are ready to rock and roll. No, really, you really are ready to rock and roll. The Scorpio delivers a musical signal that’s supple, sinuous, and dynamic, while the Atilla’s Gryphon DNA is clearly audible in its powerful sense of drive and sheer musical presence. With positive, touch screen controls, and immaculate metalwork to go with the beautifully flush mounted glass fascia, Gryphon’s most affordable set up looks and sounds considerably higher-end than a lot of the company’s flagship products. A joy to listen to and a pleasure to use, the Scorpio and Atilla are brilliant individually, and even more powerful together; a timely reminder of those days when the terms “hi-fi” and “pride of ownership” used to actually appear in the same sentence.

, Roy’s Round Up

If you want to talk cost-no-object options then, for once, the choices are easy. One seemingly inevitable audio trend is the apparently unceasing upward spiral in the prices being asked for top-flight components. But even in the rarefied atmosphere of the highest-end, the price-tags attached to Naim’s Statement amplifiers came as quite a shock. What also comes as a shock is the level and nature of their performance. These are Naim amps that will slot straight into a traditional high-end system – and show it a thing or two when it comes to temporal and dynamic coherence, absolute spatial stability, and above all, bass definition, texture, and energy: Truly, remarkable products, both for their genesis and their realisation.   

, Roy’s Round Up

Neodio’s Origine is not only the most beautiful piece of hi-fi I’ve ever used, it is also of all the digital replay systems I’ve experienced, the one that sounds most like life. One box means one shelf and a lot less cabling, which makes the Origine almost cost effective. The more I use it, the more I love it and, like the Naim amps, this product has never failed to please and startle visitors in equal measure. It only plays CDs (although there is a USB input), but when CDs sound this good, who cares?

, Roy’s Round Up

What non-hi-fi item has moved me recently? That would be an Orbea OMR frameset. This sub-900g, carbon-fibre bicycle frame is ridden at Pro-Tour level (that means in the Tour De France for you non-cyclists out there). It is the human-powered, two-wheel equivalent of a Formula 1 car. Yet despite that, a complete, pro-level build (frame, wheels and parts) will leave you change from £6K. It is (undoubtedly) more – or less, at least in material terms – bike than I will ever need, but it also serves as a timely reminder: I haven’t owned a cartridge that affordable for nearly a decade – and they wear out! In a world where we can buy more and more for less and less, if high-end audio hopes to have any continuing relevance then it’s going to have to offer not only performance commensurate with the prices it demands, but also that performance is going to have to be clearly demonstrable. Guys, we need to get used to the idea of justifying our existence all over again, for a whole new and whole lot more demanding audience.

Tags: FEATURED

Adblocker Detected

"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."

"There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain..."