The UK's longest-serving cable company celebrates 50 years with a special edition version from its X-Tube range, and it's a 'Golden' upgrade.
Was it really 25 years ago that QED celebrated its Silver Anniversary with a special edition XT speaker cable? Or a full half century since the brand burst into our audiophile consciousness with, three years later, what must surely be the most famous cable of all time – QED 79-strand? Monster Cable would surely argue the toss, but for hi-fi fans building their first system on a budget, the classic figure-of-eight 79-strand (still only £1.99/m) has long been the go-to choice.
With an impressive back-story, impeccable engineering and glorious finishes, these imposing '5th generation' Italian speakers promise much – so do they deliver? Certo!
The Amati G5 sits at the top of a four-strong new 'fifth generation' range of the company's Homage speakers, so-called because they pay tribute to the tradition of musical instrument manufacturing in Cremona, Italy. And they do so not just in name, but in the way they're made, with extensive use of selected woods, handcrafting based on the work of traditional luthiers of the past, and even a lute-shaped profile, which first saw the light of day in the previous Homage series [HFN Oct '17].
This latest nuvistor/bipolar hybrid integrated marks a return of Musical Fidelity's traditional 'no-nonsense belter'. Difficult speakers? This amplifier will drive anything!
The conclusion to our review of Musical Fidelity's original Nu-Vista 800 integrated amplifier [HFN Nov '14] announced: '16 years from now, we'll remember it!'. That was the gap between the manufacturer's first Nu-Vista product, the 1998 Nu-Vista Preamplifier, and its then-new integrated descendant. Yet while our reviewer was so enamoured of MF's tube/solid state powerhouse that he imagined it flying the hybrid amp flag for years to come, it turns out the Nu-Vista 800 was not to last quite that long.
Aurender's flagship two-box network music library isn't the traditional PSU/player you might expect. Instead, the functionality is elegantly split between data in and data out
Look at any multi-box component and you can usually work out what's going on: CD transport and DAC, preamp and power amp(s), for example. But just as often those two boxes are an 'audio product' – phono preamp, headphone amp, DAC or even a digital audio transport – plus an outboard power supply. The rationale for these latter two-boxers is clear, for by isolating the electrically noisy parts of the system away from delicate audio signals, interference is minimised and signal purity maximised.
From the man behind the iconic Continuum turntable comes this next-generation range, under his own brand, incorporating a 'negative-stiffness mechanism' suspension
Australia is not only home to some of the world's most fascinating animals but it's also the stomping ground of high-end heavyweights Halcro [HFN May '23] and Döhmann Audio, the latter responsible for the finely-engineered, and robustly elegant, turntable that graces the pages of this month's feature review. For Mark Döhmann, Director of Design, the 'Two' – one of a pair of decks in the Helix range, now in Mk3 guise – represents his latest thinking on the art and science of vinyl replay.
The 'Blade' models fly the flag for KEF's speaker tech, but its Reference 5 offers a more accessible route to 'high-end Uni-Q'
Fortunately, the Reference 5 Meta is the £17,500 flagship of KEF's 'conventional' speaker range, bettered only by the striking-looking Blade designs [HFN May '22]. Fortunately? Well, yes, because this is an imposingly huge design, standing just over 1.4m tall, even if some of that impression of scale is minimised by the slenderness of the cabinets. Indeed, if the enclosures were any narrower than their 205mm, there wouldn't be room on the front baffle for the quartet of 165mm aluminium-coned bass drivers, arranged in pairs above and below the company's 12th-generation Uni-Q treble/midrange unit.
Less than a year after PS Audio launched its inaugural loudspeaker, this flagship floorstander has already inspired a trickledown sibling. Will the FR20 unseat the FR30?
The advice given by Apple's Steve Jobs to 'Start small, think big' is pretty sensible, going hand in hand with that old saw about not trying to run before you can walk. That recommendation seems to have eluded Colorado-based company PS Audio, which launched its speaker line last year with the big aspen FR30 [HFN Jun '22], arriving in the UK with a price tag now running at £30,000, and clearly aiming high straight out of the box.
Sweden's Supra brand was in the vanguard of the cable revolution in the late '70s so its new and vibrant Excalibur flagship is no mere stab in the dark.
With its blue-tinged foil screen positively glowing through a tight, translucent PVC jacket, Supra's flagship speaker cable, priced at £1700 for a 3m terminated set (£300 per additional stereo metre), makes for a vivid statement. It's a world away from the speaker cables that helped Tommy Jenving launch his Swedish Supra brand in 1976. Its Supra Cable 4 and 2.5 used bunches of very fine copper strands in a standard figure-of-eight geometry. Its later 10mm2 Supra Cable 10, with 2562x0.07mm 4N copper strands, still has the lowest series resistance that I've measured (3.1mohm/m) when tested nearly 30 years ago [Hi-Fi Choice Aug '94].
If you're a fan of the legendary 300B triode, who better to produce an application for that valve? Western Electric's 91E integrated amplifier may be your dream come true
Pedigree? You want pedigree? How about the inventor of the 300B triode? Western Electric's provenance beats all comers, the company dating back to 1869, which kinda trumps any other manufacturer's claims for longevity. Here it is 154 years on with the Type 91E integrated amplifier to dazzle those wedded to single-ended triodes (SETs), yet with enough modern details, both sonic and functional, to ensure it is regarded as a 21st century tube amplifier.
Newly launched to fill the void between its Mavros and flagship silver Asimi ranges, these Arran cables might just be the sweetspot in the Atlas portfolio.
While audiophiles might ordinarily associate the 'home of the brave' with Linn Products, Scotland is also home to the hand-made Atlas Cables. Its new Arran interconnects and speaker cables are a clear evolution, taking inspiration from its solid silver Asimi range [HFN Dec '18], utilising the same geometry but with OCC (Ohno Continuous Casting) copper.