Indholdsfortegnelse for May - June 2021 i Australian HiFi

Since the company is actually named after a particular ‘Class’ of amplifier, and the Delta Stereo uses both Class-A and Class-AB circuit topologies, you should really know a little about both these circuit types. Basically, in order to ‘amplify’ an audio signal we need to use a special type of semiconductor called a transistor which allows you to use a low voltage (the input) to control a much higher voltage (the output). This means that the word ‘amplify’ is something of a misnomer because it’s not actually making the low voltage signal any bigger, it’s just making a different, higher-voltage signal increase and decrease in perfect unison with the low-voltage signal. Various different types of solid-state devices have been invented to do this. The most common of these is the…

ELECTRIC BOYS Ups!de Down [Mighty Music] Electric Boys’ Conny Bloom and bassist Andy Christell are joined by Slim Thomander and drummer Jolle Atlagic. They’ve crafted the most mature classic rock-oriented album of their careers. In the past the Electric Boys mostly made fun, hedonistic rock’n’roll. Here they’ve gone in a different direction. Once you’re past the 8-minute instrumental opener that will weed out the casual fans, lead-off single Supergod is the closest they get to the ‘classic’ EB sound, albeit filtered through an organ-heavy Deep Purple crunch. But the funky, wah-wah-drenched guitars, leggy bass and free-flowing arena rockisms are all there. One of their best. Elsewhere are melodramatic power ballads (Tumblin’ Dominos), Beatlesesque psychedelic ballads (It’s Not The End), post-grunge power ballads (Never Again Your Slave), and a handful of…

FOCAL TURNS TO BLUE French loudspeaker and headphone manufacturer Focal has for the first time built a pair of navy blue headphones, the Focal Celestee, using a shade selected by designer and product colourist Doris Bölck. “Navy blue is the new black,” says George Poutakidis, of BusiSoft AV, which distributes Focal in Australia. “By combining and contrasting Navy blue against Focal’s traditional copper and bronze accents, Bölck has created a sophisticated, sumptuous feel to these headphones, offering an interesting, unusual and elegant alternative to more traditional chrome, and silver against black contrasts.” The Focal Celestee is a closed-back circumaural design using 40mm aluminium/magnesium drivers with an ‘M’-shaped inverted dome diaphragm. Focal says that shaping the dome in this way results in it having a larger surface area than a typical…

Newport Test Labs measured the Rotel A14MkII’s power output as being comfortably above specification driving both its channels into 8Ω loads, with the Rotel delivering a best result at a frequency of 1kHz of 105-watts per channel. At 20kHz output dropped a little to 100-watts, while at 20Hz it dropped further again, to be 90-watts per channel, still 10-watts per channel higher than specification. The overall frequency response of the Rotel A14MkII was incredibly wide-band, extending up to 921kHz! You can see from the tabulated chart that single-channel output was much higher again, indicating both that Rotel is using an unregulated power supply and that the amplifier’s ‘dynamic’ short-term power output would be far higher than the continuous figures shown here. Measured into 4D loads the Rotel comfortably met its…

Newport Test Labs measured the power output of the Classé Stereo power amplifier as 272-watts into 8Ω, both channels driven, at all three test frequencies, which means it will produce this output at any frequency right across the audio frequency band and, as you can see, it’s a power level that is handily higher than Classé’s own specification of 250-watts per channel. The Classé Stereo was able to double its rated power when load resistance was halved (the theoretical ideal) when Newport Test Labs used a 1kHz test signal, but came up a little shy at 20Hz, where it delivered 488-watts per channel both channels driven and at 20kHz, where it delivered 475-watts per channel, both channels driven. As you can see from the tabulated results, the Classé Stereo will…

After 36 years of US ownership, the founder and owner of Velodyne, David Hall, sold his company to Mansour Mamaghani, the owner of Germany’s Audio Reference, in a deal that was inked on November 22nd, 2019. Hall was keen to sell the company so he could concentrate on his new company, Velodyne Lidar, which makes lidars for autonomous vehicles, which he saw as the future (See break-out box Velodyne Lidar for more details). For his part, Mamaghani was keen to purchase Velodyne because his company had been the German distributor for more than two decades and he was a huge fan of the brand. The deal included all Velodyne’s stock, spare parts, patents, designs and tooling. “We are very excited with the opportunity presented by the Velodyne purchase,” said Mamaghani…

Che sorpresa! There I was expecting delivery of a pair of small, bookshelf loud-speakers and the courier made me sign for two outrageously large cartons, both of which were so heavy that I had to get a trolley to move them off the stoop. How on earth could either of these cartons contain a pair of small bookshelf loudspeakers? Once inside, I opened the smaller of the two cartons first, which revealed the Sonus faber Electa Amator III loudspeakers I had been expecting. So what could possibly be in the larger box? Had the distributor also sent me a second, larger pair of loudspeakers to evaluate? A few moments with a box-cutter revealed that the larger carton contained a pair of stands — stands that I later discovered were designed…

Why don’t Yamaha’s headphones get more attention? They have the cachet of an established Japanese audio brand. They have the track record — including a number of industry awards in recent years. Yet they don’t often seem to make the recommendations lists that are stocked with the more usual candidates. Perhaps that will change with this move into the mainstream category of wireless noise-cancelling headphones. The newly-introduced YH-E700A wireless NRC headphones launch at what can now (thanks to Apple’s eye-wateringly expensive AirPods Max) be called a ‘midrange’ price. There’s also a pair of on-ear noise-cancellers, YH-E500A, at just $229. BUILD AND FEATURES The YH-E700As are substantial headphones, their earcups 90mm in diameter, fully circumaural and spaciously so, with leatherette-covered foam earpads that are 25mm thick, sealing firmly yet lightly around…

Where products are made is becoming an increasingly important question for many audiophiles, particularly here in Australia. Originally manufactured in Canada by Classé itself, the brand continued to be manufactured in that country until it was purchased by Bowers & Wilkins in 2001, which moved production to China. However, when B&W was in turn purchased by EVA Automation (in 2016) it put Classé into hibernation, which included dispensing with the services of Classé’s president, David Nauber, despite the fact that the company was in the process of developing a brand-new model series — Delta. In 2018 Canadian company Sound United (which already owned Marantz, Denon, Polk and Definitive Technology) purchased both B&W and Classé from EVA and one of its first actions was to hire David Nauber to bring Classé…

After founding Velodyne Acoustics in 1983 to build subwoofers, and his inventions of servo-motor and motional feedback circuitry, David Hall became increasingly interested in the new field of light detection and ranging, generally known by its acronym: lidar. Essentially, lidar technology works by bouncing pulses of laser light from an object and measuring the time it takes for those pulses to reflect back to the sensor. Initially the technology was used by builders and estimators as a faster, more precise way of making measurements, but the technology then made its way into modern motor vehicles, where it is now used to provide such features as adaptive cruise control, automatic emergency braking, lane departure detection, and blind spot detection amongst others. Manufacturers of autonomous vehicles, such as those pioneered by Google…

The Musical Fidelity M3x Vinyl MM/MC phono stage is a first for Musical Fidelity in more than one way. First, it’s the first phono stage in the company’s M3 Series, which Musical Fidelity promotes using the catch-phrase “Great-looking, superb-sounding hi-fi doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Our M3 range offers an elegance of design, quality of build and standard of finish you’d associate with products costing twice as much.” The M3x Vinyl is also the first Musical Fidelity component to be built entirely in countries in the European Union. This is a significant switch that requires some explanation. When he started the company back in 1982, Anthony Michaelson built Musical Fidelity products exclusively in the United Kingdom. He later switched production of most of his products to Taiwan. However, in…

LISA GERRARD & JULES MAXWELL Burn [Atlantic Curve] Erstwhile Melbournite Lisa Gerrard is best known as the gifted singer of the duo Dead Can Dance, which she and Brendan Perry formed in 1981. Gerrard also worked with Hans Zimmer on the score for Gladiator which gained an Oscar nomination, and with Enrico Morricone on Grammy-nominated new age music. Although still with DCD, this is a side-project of hers with composer/ keyboardist Jules Maxwell. It’s a gorgeous blend of calmly constructed, gently building soundbeds and astonishing improvised Gerrard vocals. In one sense it’s what listeners would expect — cinematic, with lapping waves of electronica and world music — and could be filed next to Enya or Vangelis. Yet what’s really impressive is how instantly affecting this album is. This isn’t abstract,…

ERRA Erra [UNFD] When they come late in a band’s tenure, self-titled albums tend to reflect radical stylistic departures — rock bands going pop, metal bands going rock, etcetera. But fans of Alabama shredders Erra need not panic, as LP6 is not some legacy-tarring fizzle but a rich, concentrated distillation of everything the fivesome excel at: punchy, pummelling riffs down-tuned and drenched in distortion, bright choral leads that roar with luminous aplomb, and crunchy, speaker-testing breakdowns that mosh-fiends will certainly fall head over heels for. The intro track, Snowblood, was released as a single, and it showcases the band’s punishing sound. Divisionary was also released as a single. The best track though, is Gungrave. What a riff. Admittedly the hourlong jaunt tends to overstay its welcome when taken as one…

ACOLYTE Entropy [Wild Thing Records] Melbourne-based Acolyte’s second full album uses the stages of coming to terms with loss as a central thread, with each of its nine tracks representing another step along a path of recovery. The band touch upon all manner of styles and influences along the way while retaining a consistent authenticity and identity. At one end of this stylistic spectrum are Solitude and Recovery which hint at Floyd at their most reflective, while at the other are the powerful prog metal statements of the brooding Resentment, the impressive sweep of the title track, and the classic rock-meets-Middle Eastern lilt of Idiosyncrasy. Vocalist Morgan-Leigh Brown is the focus throughout, her performances moving assuredly between theatricality, anguish and fragility. However, keyboard player David Van Pelt does much of…