Fully sick. This amplifier very nearly didn’t come to market. Its Australian designer, Hugh Dean, is a man who went through a lot in 2012: his abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) led to twenty-nine days in a coma, during which time he also suffered a stroke. At one point doctors gave Dean a five percent chance of survival. Visiting Dean at

“Thirty twenty”. A most common utterance when NAD comes up in hifi conversation; it was the integrated that brought audiophillia to thousands upon thousands of households. The NAD 3020 was – and is – a quintessential piece of everyman hi-fi.  I own one.  It’s a tidy benchmark from which to judge other amplifiers that pass through these doors. Heck, its

Remember Resonessence Labs’ INVICTA – their statement DAC and headphone amplifier?  Refresh your memory with Michael Lavorgna’s review at Audiostream and Srajan Ebaen’s coverage over at 6Moons.  You’ll note from the picture below that Mark Mallinson’s team have added DSD support to new and existing INVICTA owners (via a field-flashable firmware upgrade).  DSD, DXD, PCM 352.8kHz and PCM 384kHz playback now runs on

My final thoughts on AURALiC’s Vega have just gone up on 6Moons. Make no mistake - this is one fine-, fine-sounding DAC.  It gives the listener far more aural satisfaction than DACs swimming in the budget end of the market (say, <$1000).  For a similar cash drop, the Metrum Hex is capable of pulling up alongside.  Both DACs have well thought

Louis Chochos has taken his budget-friendly single-driver Omega Super 3T standmount and transmogrified it for use on to the desktop.  A longer front spike ensures the sound is better angled toward the ear and the (rear) port has been moved to the bottom of the cabinet so that positioning close to rear walls won’t mess with lower frequencies.  Having reviewed

As an appetizer to this stand off, I suggest you first devour two slices of dedicated Wyred4Sound mINT review commentary from 6Moons (where it summarily dismisses the Bel Canto C5i) and TONEAudio (where TWO writers dig and find gold). Also check out Sam Tellig’s words on the Peachtree Nova125 at Stereophile.  My coverage isn’t a straight up review of Wyred4Sound’s minT.  Instead,

I first saw the Burson Timekeeper on static display at RMAF 2012′s CanJam.  Six months later and it looks like Burson are getting ready for the official launch of their statement amplifier. I asked the guys at Burson if any internal changes had been made since the Denver sighting. “R&D has made some improvements since then. Let’s say it was

Before I’m a reviewer, I’m a consumer. I always attempt to thread my customer-oriented thoughts through my hi-fi commentary. For me, it keeps things real. I never want to lose sight of the opportunity cost of spending $3k on a new DAC. That’s an overseas holiday that I’m foregoing. I don’t review anything that I can’t afford. I guess that’s

Schiit Audio are making good on their promise of the Bifrost and Gungnir DACs being modular and fully upgradable. First up, the Bifrost gets a new Uber analogue board. This apparently lifts the ‘sonic and measured performance’ of the Bifrost by borrowing the discrete, direct-coupled gain stage from the Gungnir. The Uber board can be ordered with any new Bifrost

The AURALiC Vega (US$3499) is a ‘digital audio processor’ that handles up to 24/192 PCM on AES/EBU, optical and coaxial (x2) inputs. The USB input is super-sized: it deals PCM up to 32/384 as well as DSD64 and DSD128 [via DoP V1.1]. More on this in a moment. I’ve already written about my DSD listening experiences with this DAC (here)

iFi Micro are about to add another unit to their already excellent Micro range. This time it’s a USB-S/PDIF converter called the iLink. According to the press release they “analysed the complete transmission/conversion process.”  Two new (trademarked) technologies – Super Digital Output® and Jitter Elimination Technology JET® have been deployed within the iLink recipe in order to best combat jitter.

The trouble with websites peddling free electronic music is you have to wade through a lot of chaff to get to the wheat. I have an aversion to anything that brushes up against new-age (you can keep your crystals and dolphins) and 145 bpm psy-trance (oonce-oonce-oonce) dumbness.  Best to stick to the likes of paid site lies Bleep and Boomkat.  Even