Review: Mark Craven

Since launching in 2009, CH Precision, based in Préverenges in Switzerland, has carved itself a niche in hi-fi’s high-end. Moreover, although a product inventory spanning just two ranges, the 10 Series and 1 Series, might suggest some form of boutique minimalism, its design approach shows plenty of modern, technically innovative thinking. How so? The L1 preamplifier and M1.1 power amp on test here both offer user-tuning of their performance via a custom smartphone app…

The last subwoofer we auditioned from Wilson Audio raised eyebrows simply because of its name. ‘LōKē’ was no doubt meant as an homage to the Norse God, and therefore related to the American marque’s earlier Thor’s Hammer unit, but the phrase ‘low-key’ doesn’t exactly call to mind hi-fi excitement. We’re back on firmer ground with the maker’s new Submerge, the name conjuring images of deep, infrasonic bass.

Just as the American audio manufacturer Perlisten sells a varied range of loudspeakers [HFN Apr/Jun/Aug ’22 and [HFN May ’25], it also features an equally expansive line of active subwoofers. They don’t quite come in all shapes and sizes – the shapes never vary beyond flavours of cuboid – but there’s a broad sweep of price and specification to match different room sizes. Towards the top of the lineup is the £5500 D15s, reviewed here.

Hailing from Treviso in northeast Italy, Unison Research is a brand with an obvious love of tubes, to the point that you half expect to find a hot bottle or two incorporated in its Malibran and Max loudspeakers. Its CD players, the Unico CD Uno and Due [HFN May ’16], have tube-based output stages, while the solid-state amps in the same series have tube-based inputs. But the company is best known for its all-tube amplifiers, of which there are 15 spread across integrated, pre and power ranges.