LATEST ADDITIONS

LoudspeakersVintage
Spendor BC III (Vintage)
Hi-Fi News Staff  |  Dec 22, 2014
When the BC III was launched in 1973, Spendor’s ads described it as ‘An extension and refinement of theBC I and BC II’, while Thomas Heinitz, doyen of hi-fi consultants in those days, could not resist using the headline‘Hey, big Spendor’. The BC III was rooted in Spencer Hughes’ work at the BBC: he was part of the legendary BBC research team, working under both D E L Shorter and H D Harwood. It had an 8in driver with 40mm voice-coil, working in its own sealed chamber as a midrange unit while the 12in bass unit was reflex-loaded by a carefully designed port. The crossover point was 700Hz.
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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Brinkmann Balance 2 (£17,495 (deck), £2895 (tube Psu), £4195 (12.1 Tonearm))
Hi-Fi News Staff  |  Dec 22, 2014
A masterpiece of stylish understatement, the flagship Balance 2 uses Brinkmann’s Sinus motor and belt-drive system as a way to update the earlier Balance model. The plinth is CNC-machined from aluminium and supports both arm bases plus the bearing; it sits on three spiked feet adjustable for levelling. The bearing is made of hardened stainless steel and rotates in sintered brass bushings, but it’s unusual in that the assembly is heated by a MOSFET device in order to ensure the bearing operates at a steady temperature. The 90mm platter is machined from a block of aluminium while a polished crystal glass mat is recessed into its top surface.
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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Clearaudio Master Innovation (£14,500 (black, £15,400); Tonearm £3350; Stand £8000 (black, £8500))
Hi-Fi News Staff  |  Dec 22, 2014
While the massive Statement continues as Clearaudio’s very top model, below it in the hierarchy comes this spectacular and impressive new flagship for the main Innovation Series. It is built up on Clearaudio’s familiar, elegant, three-lobed chassis members, each constructed as a sandwich, with a core of Panzerholz (an ‘armour wood’) between two sheets of aluminium. The Master Innovation is in fact built as two separate units with the proprietary multi-platter arrangement facilitating Clearaudio’s magnetic contactless drive system. The upper section is the turntable proper, with a 70mm-thick acrylic platter atop a 15mm stainless steel base platter.
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Pre/Power Amplifiers
Furutech Adl X1 (£400)
Hi-Fi News Staff  |  Dec 22, 2014
Furutech’s Alpha Design Lab range includes cables, headphones and earphones, a portable headphone amplifier and stylish system equivalents of the ADL X1 here. This appears to be a portable miniature music centre, offering USB and iDevice functionality, plus a built-in rechargeable battery giving around five hours of operation. Six top-mounted LEDs display sampling frequency, and there’s a front fascia volume control – which sadly proved just a little too easy to accidentally move when out and about. Those on the Number 41 bus will doubtless prefer the ergonomic simplicity of, say, an Arcam rPAC or Cambridge Audio DacMagic XS, which are truly portable devices.
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Integrated Amplifiers
Canor Tp134 (£2495)
Hi-Fi News Staff  |  Dec 22, 2014
Longstanding Slovakian tube specialist Canor is based in Prešov, in a purpose-built factory where it builds everything in-house and has developed a proprietary valve-testing and burn-in methodology. Valves that don’t measure up, we’re told, are returned to their makers for use in guitar amps and the like. The company traded for many years as Edgar until changing its brand name to Canor at the end of 2007. Its inaugural integrated tube amp, the TP101 was first shown in 1995 at an exhibition in Brno.
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Integrated Amplifiers
Exposure 3010s2 (£1495)
Hi-Fi News Staff  |  Dec 22, 2014
Exposure Electronics was founded by John Farlowe in 1974 and has remained committed to two-channel music reproduction. The company is largely famous for its big blackpre/power amplifier combinations of the 1980s, when it sold to people who wanted punchy solid-state amps that sounded smoother and creamier than rival Naim products. Nowadays, the sound hasn’t changed much but the size has, and most of its wares are more affordable products such as this one – Exposure’s top integrated. The 3010S2 series comprises a CD player, mono and stereo power amps, a preamplifier and a phono amp.
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Hi-Res Downloads
Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Sakari Oramo : Elgar Symphony No. 1 Cockaigne (in London Town)
C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Dec 01, 2014
96kHz/24-bit FLAC, BIS-1939 (supplied by www. eclassical. com) Oramo’s Swedish orchestra plays Elgar with real warmth and commitment, especially the brass – glorious in the finale and at the end of the overture Cockaigne (where accurately dry bass-drum sounds are underpinned by organ – an option not always heard in recordings). There’s some characterful phrasing here by the principal clarinettist, presumably Hermann Stefánsson [see Hi-Res DownloadsHFN Aug ’14].
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Hi-Res Downloads
Jack Johnson : On And On
J. Bamford (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Dec 01, 2014
On And On (2013) was the second album from Hawaiian-born surfer Jack Johnson recorded in his own Mango Tree studios, since when he has released four further studio albums and three live recordings, as well as writing the songs for the 2006 animated movie Curious George, in between his extensive charitable activities which include education in schools about nature conservation, etc. It features his song ‘Gone’ which was covered by Black Eyed Peas (as ‘Gone Going’) on the band’s album Monkey Business where Johnson sang the chorus. The recording is up-front and intimate, Johnson’s voice and intricate acoustic guitar closely mic’d, while fellow players Merlo Podlewski (bass) and Adam Topol (drums) appear well balanced throughout these soulful and often spirit-lifting ballads. But is it worth having in a 96kHz/24-bit container? Probably not.
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Hi-Res Downloads
Manfred Honeck/wiener Symphoniker : Johann Strauss
C. Breunig (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Dec 01, 2014
It would be hard not to succumb to the very real charms of this programme of polkas, waltzes, etc, by the three sons of Johann Strauss – replete with effects like insects’ wings buzzing (string tremolandos in ‘The Bee’), cuckoo and other birds (‘Im Krapfenwaldl’), or the comic anvil blows of ‘Feuerfest’. Currently with an extended contract with the Pittsburgh Orchestra, the Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck – he first graduated from playing zither to viola – has made a special study of the genre. The playing is carefully balanced, the VSO set well back in the lively acoustic of the Salzburg Grosses Festspielhaus. But there’s a certain ‘flatness’ when you compare the champagne sparkle and variety to be found with Boskovsky’s mid-’60s Decca versions with the city’s premiere league Strauss orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, still sounding amazingly vivid as CDs.
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Hi-Res Downloads
Larry Goldings, Peter Bernstein & Bill Stewart : Ramshackle Serenade
J. Bamford (Music); P. Miller (Lab)  |  Dec 01, 2014
Often recording as ‘The Larry Goldings Trio’ this longstanding collective of American jazz virtuosi Larry Goldings (keyboards), Peter Bernstein (guitar) and Bill Stewart (drums) cover all manner of musical moods in their latest collaboration Ramshackle Serenade, from the rubato rumination of the album’s title track to the Brazilian-flavoured ‘Luiza’, interspersed with a smattering of blues, swing and soulful grooving to keep listeners enthralled throughout. The seductively rich textures and colourful tones of Goldings’ Hammond B3 organ (so reminiscent of the sounds favoured by Focus’s frontman Thijs Van Leer) have been captured exquisitely by this impressively dynamic recording released on the German label. The musicians really do sound like they’re playing together in a believable space, spread across a wide soundstage. Great stuff! JB Sound Quality: 85% Hi-Fi News Lab Report Much of the ultrasonic energy arising from this digital recording is associated with the gentle percussion [as in track 8,above] but could also be a product of distortion from downstream limiters.
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