Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 1 2016 i Best Buys – Audio & AV

Now that 1080p has become reasonably affordable in front projectors, there’s a strong market for entry-level models that cost little to run, yet produce a big picture. At not a great deal over a thousand dollars, Epson’s new EH-TW5300 is likely to attract a big chunk of that market. EQUIPMENT The EH-TW5300 is a compact unit, but still curvy enough that it doesn’t look like a business projector. Yet it is nice and small, and so convenient in handling it could easily be kept away somewhere and pulled out for movie night or big sporting events. But it also has the fittings necessary for it to be permanently ceiling-mounted. As is Epson’s practice, the projector uses three LCD chips — 15.5mm units in full-HD resolution, with 10 bits of colour…

HEOS by Denon is a full wireless multiroom system, and a fine one — two HEOS units won Sound+Image’s first ever awards for multiroom products in the 2015 awards. In addition to three sizes of speaker unit, an amp and a receiver unit, the range has recently expanded with the introduction of the HEOS 1 speaker unit (see panel), the HEOS Drive (a four-zone HEOS amp and controller), and this soundbar and subwoofer solution, the HEOS HomeCinema. And this has a headstart in our affections, since were we betting folk, we’d put money on this unit deriving a chunk of its audio prowess from another Denon soundbar, the award-winning DHT-S514. But this soundbar has full HEOS abilities, so will not only handle your TV and movie sound, it also has…

We never got to hear the original Avid Sequel, which from all reports was a fantastic bit of kit. But we were delighted to spend time with this improved version, the Avid Sequel SP, which now benefits from the newest version of Avid’s DSP variable speed power supply, as well as its twin-belt drive and the latest (improved) version of the company’s famous ‘upside-down’ main bearing. EQUIPMENT The single most important component on a turntable, after the motor, is the bearing. It’s the major source of noise (or, hopefully, lack of noise) during playback, it can be contribute to wow and flutter, and can also cause frequency-induced modulation distortion. Avid is one of very few companies to use an inverted bearing, ‘upside down’ compared to those used by the majority…

Humax won Sound+Image’s PVR Award last year with its four-tuner media machine known as either the ‘4tune’ (or the HDR-1000T). That unit combined the usual PVR functions of recording TV, live pausing and so on with additional abilities as a media player and network device, also having a three-pack of apps which allowed, most usefully, streaming of live TV to a tablet. Now here we have the ‘2tune’, or the HDR-3000T, a lesser and lower-priced unit, but nevertheless remarkably powerful in some surprising ways. EQUIPMENT As you might guess from the friendly version of the name, the ‘2tune’ drops the tuner count to two in the interests of economy, yet it retains some of the remarkably advanced features of its predecessor. And that makes it astonishingly advanced for a PVR…

Entirely designed and built in Bochum, in Germany, ‘The Tube’ comes from what is, at heart, a family company. Volker Bohlmeier, who co-founded Einstein in 1988, is responsible for the management of the company, while his wife, Annette Heiss (a well-respected architect and interior designer), is responsible for the exterior cosmetic design. Rolf Weiler, the other founder, heads up electronic design. Their products are built by hand, rather than on a production line as such, so all Einstein’s products are built in small, bespoke batches. EQUIPMENT The Einstein is certainly unlike any integrated amplifier you’ve ever seen before, because it’s totally feature-less: there’s not a knob, button or switch in sight: just a rectangle of curved black acrylic, fixed to a solid aluminium facing, with a single square display in…

Things just won’t stand still, but Denon seems up to the challenge. Affixed to the sides of the cartons of Denon’s nifty new AVR-X2200W and AVR-X3200W networked AV receivers are stickers proclaiming these units to be ‘DTS:X ready’. ‘DTS:X’ is DTS’s answer to Dolby Atmos, providing objectlevel surround sound and a sense of height. ‘Ready’ means that a firmware update will be arriving after a while — probably by the end of 2015 — adding this feature to these receivers. Until then, we have to make do with mereDolby Atmos and Dolby Surround. Poor us! EQUIPMENT We are combining two reviews here, since there are many similarities between these two units, both 7.1-channel home theatre receivers with, as you’d expect, the more expensive AVR-X3200W offering somewhat higher specifications and a…

The latest premium model in Yamaha’s premium Aventage range is the Aventage RX-A3050 AV receiver. In addition to the high-end features you’d expect, it adds new multiroom features, supporting Yamaha’s ‘MusicCast’ system. EQUIPMENT MusicCast is a large topic all of its own (see p40-41), so here we’ll merely note that the receiver is not just a passive receiver of MusicCast networked signals, but all its sources and audio inputs are available for sharing with other players in a multiroom MusicCast system. In other ways little has changed from last year’s RX-A3040 model. Here there are the same generous eight HDMI inputs and two HDMI outputs. All the HDMI inputs support UHD and 4K up to 60p, and the unit has inbuilt scaling, too, all the way up to those same…

Audio Solutions is always watching the latest trends in audio. When we called proprietors Nicholas Papas and Tony Stantzos to check on new developments at their audio store on Botany Road in Mascot (not far from Sydney Airport), they didn’t dwell on their extensive suite of listening rooms, or even the arrival of the B&W 800 Series D3 in their Australian-first Bowers & Wilkins Sound Lounge. Instead they were straight onto the joys of streaming audio. But not just any old streaming audio. “We’re interested in the higher-end digital streaming, systems that go above the widely-known competitors in this area,” says Tony Stantzos. “For example, the latest Generation 2 components of the Bluesound wireless multiroom system.” Bluesound has released Generation 2 versions of most of its range (pictured above, see…

This spectacular TV (and its 65-inch sibling) is the culmination of two different strands of consumer TV technology being brought together. OLED has been around for a couple of years, but was limited (in Australia, anyway) to full-HD resolution. The other tech is Ultra High Definition, which this TV also enjoys. EQUIPMENT UHD means 3840 by 2160 pixels, four times the number of full-HD. While UHD content is sparse at the moment, there’s what seems to be a reliable pipeline building up, both via internet streaming (though you’ll need a fast connection) and through the promise of UHD Blu-ray, coming next year. The TV supports HDCP 2.2 and the new deeper colour standards, so compatibility is almost certain. As for OLED itself, this seems like the final, perfected display technology.…

We had the pleasure of spending a way-too-short 72 hours with Sony’s VPL-VW520ES 4K home theatre projector. With the passing of another year, Sony’s latest midrange 4K projector scores a slightly different model number, a little extra brightness, and a 50% increase in contrast ratio. And although we hear whispers that 4K DLP projection is now imminent, we believe that Sony’s remain, as we write, the only 4K projectors in town. EQUIPMENT We first heard that the sagging Australian dollar would be pitching the VPL-VW520ES around four grand up on the equivalent model of two years ago. But as we went to press, this came back down to a merely inflationary $14,999. If that still sounds like premium pricing compared to the projectors on our previous pages, we must stress,…

Bluesound launched last year as the most ambitious of the wireless multiroom systems that have arrived to challenge the market dominance of Sonos. And unlike some rivals, it is no Sonos copycat. Rather than following the Sonos line-up unimaginatively closely, Bluesound, backed by its hi-fi credentials from stablemates NAD and PSB Speakers, went straight for the sonic high ground — a higher level of player, able to stream high-res music with ease. And its app was (and remains) one of the very few to rival Sonos in terms of delivering attractive screens and effective ease of use, building a library of music from network shares. The range of hardware is different too. Only the Bluesound range has a ‘Vault’, which can rip CDs to internal storage as well as doing…

It might be considered that Yamaha has arrived a little late to the wireless multiroom party, but it has certainly arrived with the biggest crowd in town. Where rivals have each created little ecosystems of products that can share their music around the house, Yamaha has delivered a platform that will operate throughout its extensive range of audio and AV — in soundbars, AV receivers, stereo receivers, micro systems, active stereo speakers… even in some models from earlier this year and last, which can be firmware updated to MusicCast abilities. One MusicCast model which will appeal to hi-fi fans everywhere is this pair of active networked speakers, numbered as the NX-N500, but also known in the MusicCast family as ‘Studio’. Yamaha cites the classic NS-10M Studio Monitor as the inspiration…

It’s an ongoing delight to see the resurgence of vinyl spawning new turntable designs, and here we have a new deck designed in Germany by Thorens as what it calls a “new reference for the entry level”. Available in black, white and the red that Thorens is making something of a trademark, the TD 203 boasts a uni-pivot arm, unusual at this price, as is the luxury of electronic speed change rather than having to manually move the belt. Best of all, this turntable offers a level of sound significantly above its price range. EQUIPMENT The TD 203 is a belt-driven turntable, with a flat belt around the sub-platter hidden within, rather than wrapped around the platter itself. The speed change is electronic, with a switch front left to move…

We reckon Topfield is at least the second-longest continuous supplier of digital personal video recorders on the Australian market. We still remember fondly the Topfield TF5000PVRt that was our reference recorder for what must have been five years. Standard definition only, back then, but a reliable unit that set the standard for twin tuners. If we recall correctly, it was around seven years ago that we first started using a Topfield HD PVR. A few years later Topfield settled on the user interface still employed on what we’re reviewing now, the Topfield TRF-5310. This suggests to us something important: reliability, always a vital attribute of a PVR. EQUIPMENT As has been the Topfield pattern for a while, this is a two-tuner, quad-recording PVR. That is, you can record up to…

Richter Acoustics is a long-established Australian brand, best known for its high fidelity loudspeakers and Thor subwoofer. But did you know that it also produces amplifiers? And not just any old amplifiers, but valve ones. (Or ‘tube’ amps in Amerispeak.) Hot out of development is its latest one, the Richter Medusa integrated valve amplifier. EQUIPMENT This is a mid to high power unit, employing a push-pull Class A/B design based around four KT88 valves in the power output stage. It’s built in a dual-mono configuration for optimum independence of the left and right signals. It is rated at delivering 50W from each channel into four or eight ohms. There are six hefty gold-plated binding posts on the back, suitable for banana plugs, spades or bare wires, three for each channel.…

Receivers — multichannel AV amplifiers — do tend to be large units, double height, partly allowing ventilation space for all those amp channels, partly simply to fit all the required connections on the back. Marantz has offered a friendlier design for some years now, and the NR1606 is the newest version of this ‘slimline’ receiver series. At only 105mm tall (including feet but not including the two antennas) and with its curved face, it’s a far prettier unit than is the norm. So let’s dive right in and see what’s behind that attractive face. EQUIPMENT Examining the raw facts and figures, we see that the NR1606 isn’t disappointing. Perhaps the only marked variation from the norm in a receiver in this price category are the headline power measurements. There are…

What don’t we like about soundbars? Well, their goal is supposed to be the simplification of lounge life, a sound solution for TV and movies (and maybe music) that is relatively neat compared with a set of speakers wired all round the room. But soundbars are still potentially messy things. They sit out in front of your TV, with a varying number of wires running to their always-too-small rear connection bays. Then most of them come with a subwoofer, often wireless these days but still a big box that you need to stick somewhere near a mains socket. Messy bar, inconvenient subwoofer — and sound that can’t match a dedicated surround system — all in the cause of neatening things up. Where did we go wrong? Well, with the Dimension,…

BenQ has filled a gap in its AV projector line-up — between the budget and the higher-level models — with the W2000 home theatre projector. As is BenQ’s wont, this is a full-HD DLP projector, but it comes pre-calibrated with, and defaults to, the Rec.709 HDTV colour standard. EQUIPMENT The W2000 has new styling, but remains quite a compact unit. The lens is offset to the left of the centre line, with the connection panel on the rear and a small control cluster on the top. Focus, zoom and lens shift are all accessible through an inset in the top of the projector, revealed by a sliding panel. The moderate weight and compact size of the unit, along with a fairly short-throw design, make this projector particularly suitable for environments…

Definitive Technology’s ‘W’ series is a set of products forming a complete wireless multiroom system aiming to challenge (and outperform) the market dominance of Sonos. The family currently includes two sizes of wireless speakers — the long rectangular W9 (pictured above) and the smaller cubic W7 (above right). Also in the W collection are two electronics units, the ‘W Adapt’ as a source added streaming services into an existing hi-fi system, and the ‘W Amp’ as a just-add-speakers solution. And there is the W Studio (see panel), a soundbar solution which — like the HEOS Home Cinema in this issue but unlike the Sonos Playbar — has a subwoofer that is not optional; here it is integral to the presentation of the W Studio. HOW IT WORKS Each element of…

Arcam started life as a hi-fi manufacturer and despite the fact that it now has half-a-dozen products in its range that spill into the audio/video or ‘home theatre’ sphere, it’s still predominantly a hi-fi manufacturer and has a two-channel ‘high fidelity’ philosophy… which is demonstrated by the FMJ UDP411’s strengths… and its weaknesses. EQUIPMENT It’s billed as a ‘Universal’ disc player, though being finnicky we might mention that there are two disc types not supported. First are DVD-Audio discs, to our minds not a particularly big issue since DVD-A is pretty much a failed format. And nor, of course, does it play next year’s new 4K Blu-ray format, but then nothing on the market yet does. So that aside, what the UDP411 does do — and does outstandingly well —…

Beyonwiz has released an entire new series of personal video recorders in the last year, under the ‘T’ name. The model numbers are marvellously selfexplanatory — so far we have seen the T3, which has three tuners, and the T4 with four. So this new T2, of course, has two tuners. But with a bonus! — just so you don’t feel shortchanged, it comes with an additional USB tuner. EQUIPMENT As with the other models, you can buy the T2 with a range of hard-disk sizes. For $299 you get you a unit sans hard disk: you can add your own. Or you pay $399 for 500GB (as on our review model), $449 for 1TB, or $579 for 2TB. Two new options are equipped with SSD (Solid State Disk): $599…

Musical Fidelity has a crash-hot record with medium-priced DACs, the digital-to-analogue converters that go between a digital source (most commonly these days a computer) and your conventional analogue amplifier. This UK company has won two Sound+image Awards in the last two years for its M1SDAC and before that the larger M6DAC, both of which used large casings and offered remote control plus something unusual at this level — Bluetooth streaming. The new MX-DAC strips all this away, with indicator lights instead of a graphic display, and a case clarified into something not quite dinky, but easy to fit into even a crowded rack. EQUIPMENT So this now appears as a fairly conventionallyequipped DAC for today’s market. It has two optical and two coaxial digital inputs, plus USB-B to which you…

Spec Corporation is something of a rarity: a newly-founded (2013) high-end audio company that manufactures its products in Japan. Of course some might say that because Spec is a Japanese company (founded by Syuzou Ishimi), manufacturing its products in Japan makes perfect sense. EQUIPMENT The company’s product line is a little eclectic, because although it includes stereo amplifiers and a phono preamplifier, it also ranges a string-driven turntable, also a device called a ‘PSP-901EX Real Sound Processor’ that says it ‘absorbs back-emf from speaker systems’, and a range of mica capacitors that electronics technicians can use to replace or bypass the standard capacitors in valve amplifiers made by other manufacturers. The company places more importance than most on the design and manufacture of the capacitors used in its products. One…

Pioneer’s VSX-930 home theatre receiver is its entry point into the wonders of Dolby Atmos and Dolby Surround processing. But it does rather more than that — as attested to by the twin antennas popping up from the rear, showing that this is not only a network receiver, it’s a Wi-Fi one. EQUIPMENT The Pioneer VSX-930 is a seven-channel receiver with support for, well, precisely seven channels. Since you can’t configure it to deliver an 11-channel Atmos system (e.g. 7.1.4), you need to make choices. Five of the channels are fixed in application: two front, one centre, and two surrounds. Then the last two amps can be switched between two sets of output terminals. One set supports either surround back, or a ‘Zone B’, or bi-amping the front speakers, depending…

It’s unusual to see a quality loudspeaker manufacturer eschew the goal of producing the world’s best loudspeaker. But that’s what Q Acoustics suggests on its website. Instead it has tasked itself with trying “to design and produce the very best affordable loudspeakers in the world”. They want, then, to deliver the best in the world ‘for the money’. And while despite our best efforts, we haven’t quite managed to sample every 5.1 channel speaker package in the world priced between $2856 and $3466 (depending on finish), we will say that the Q Acoustics 3050 system is up with the very best within that price range that we’ve ever experienced. EQUIPMENT Q Acoustics has gone mostly for a reasonably conventional speaker layout. The five main speakers are two-way units with the…