LATEST ADDITIONS

Audiophile Vinyl
Audiophile: Vinyl, April 2022
Ken Kessler  |  May 03, 2022
This month we review: Steely Dan, David Crosby, A Tribute To Roky Erickson and War.
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Audiophile Digital
Audiophile: Digital, April 2022
Ken Kessler  |  May 03, 2022
This month, we review: The Beatles, Eric Clapton, The Doors and Moonshine Society.
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Rock
Rock, April 2022
Mike Barnes  |  May 03, 2022
This month we review: Animal Collective, Black Country, New Road, Cate Le Bon and Michael Rother And Vittoria Maccabruni.
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Jazz
Jazz, April 2022
Steve Harris  |  May 03, 2022
This month we review: Immanuel Wilkins, Basil Hodge, Andrea Motis and Oscar Peterson.
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Classical
Classical, April 2022
Peter Quantrill  |  May 03, 2022
This month we review: Dmitri Sinkovsky, La Voce Strumentale, Benjamin Alard, COE/Harnoncourt and Anna Netrebko, La Scala/Chailly.
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Hi-Res Downloads
Hi-Res Downloads, April 2022
Andrew Everard  |  Apr 30, 2022
This month we review and test releases from: Alexander Scriabin/Andrey Gugnin, Clandestine Amigo, Dzsindzsa Band, Petra Magoni & Ilaria Fantin and Blue Violet.
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Inside the Studio
Capitol Studios
Steve Sutherland  |  Apr 29, 2022
Synonymous with legends such as Sinatra, The Beach Boys and Nat King Cole, this studio in Hollywood has a pedigree spanning over 60 years. Steve Sutherland on Capitol...

Imagine if Jimi Hendrix had decided to release an album that wouldn't feature any guitar. Or that John Coltrane announced a long player sans any sax. Or Miles Davis did an LP on which you didn't hear one toot of horn. Madness, right? No way José.

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Integrated AmplifiersNetwork Audio Players/Servers
Roksan Attessa Streaming Amplifier
Review: Mark Craven,  |  Apr 28, 2022
hfncommendedThe most comprehensively-equipped component of Roksan's Attessa quartet combines phono, line and digital inputs with a BluOS streaming platform and beefy amplifier

So it turns out that network amplifiers built around BluOS streaming technology are like buses. No sooner had we waved goodbye to the £1299 NAD C 700 [HFN Feb '22], then up popped the Attessa Streaming Amplifier from Roksan, a little more expensive at £1495 but cut from the same just-add-speakers cloth. This joins a competitive market alongside not only NAD's device but Bluesound's £850 BluOS-based Powernode, plus other streaming integrateds including Cambridge Audio's Evo 75 and Audiolab's Omnia. Handy for Roksan, then, that it has a lot going for it.

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HeadphonesNetwork Audio Players/Servers
Astell&Kern ACRO CA1000 Digital Audio Player
Review: James Parker,  |  Apr 26, 2022
hfncommendedWith powerful battery pack and styling inspired by the Mars rover, the CA1000 aims to squeeze the performance of a full-sized 'digital' headphone amp into a portable player

The new Astell&Kern ACRO CA1000 desktop player/DAC/headphone amplifier, selling for £1999, has a raft of functionality built-in – and yet I'm still not quite sure who it's for… Of course, this is far from the first step beyond its core expertise in high-quality pocket music players taken by the company. After all, it's already given us the extraordinary AK500 stack system [HFN Apr '15], active speakers and the chunky ACRO L1000, its first desktop headphone amp/DAC.

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Integrated AmplifiersNetwork Audio Players/Servers
HiFi Rose RS201 E Streaming DAC/Amplifier
Review: Andrew Everard,  |  Apr 25, 2022
hfncommendedKorea's Citech group is ploughing its considerable in-house hardware and software resource into a series of network-attached players. Here's its most compact all-in-one

One of the great advantages offered by network-capable audio hardware is that, once a platform has been designed, it can be rolled out across a number of products, re-purposed and scaled depending on the target market. We've seen the same from brands as diverse as AVM [HFN Dec '21], Cambridge Audio [HFN Nov '21] and Naim [HFN Aug '21], and now recent arrival HiFi Rose is following the same path with high-end players designed to be used in existing systems all the way through to one-box soundbar set-ups.

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