Review: Andrew Everard

This month we review and test releases from: Johannes Hustedt/S. Speidel, Gregory Hutchinson, Sankt Otten, Hanna Paulsberg Concept/Elin Rosseland, and Ingi Bjarni

Flying in the face of received hi-fi wisdom that presumes absolute sonic purity is best achieved with separate pre/power amplifiers, integrated amplifiers are having something of a renaissance. Aside from the entry-level and mid-market, where one-box amplification has always been the go-to choice, there’s now a good selection of high-end models from the likes of Rotel’s Michi X3 S2 [HFN Jan ’24], starting from just under £6000, to the massive Dan D’Agostino Momentum MxV [also HFN Jan ’24], yours for just short of £100k when fully loaded with DAC and phono modules.

Getting big bass from a loudspeaker, many think, requires huge drivers able to shift a lot of air. However, big drivers mean big cabinets to house them, and both skill in their tuning as well as capacity on the part of the amplifier. The former, at least, is something Danish company Raidho has clearly got under control with its X2t, although these £12,500-per-pair floorstanders opt for 135mm bass drivers – one covering bass/mid up to 3.5kHz, the other purely bass to 140Hz – for a slender form factor. The cabinet is just 143mm wide, and the whole speaker only 300mm wide including its aluminium outrigger feet, of which more later.

This month we review and test releases from: Wolfgang Muthspiel, the Liv Andrea Hauge Trio, Vince Guaraldi, Jack West, Gustaf Ljunggren and Emil de Waal