Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 1 - 2019 i Best Buys – Audio & AV

Bluesound was quick to establish its credentials as a high-quality platform for enjoying music throughout your home. Key to its success has been its ease of use, with one of the most attractive and effective apps for selecting what you want to play and where you want to play it, including the ability to play to multiple rooms at once. From the very beginning one key differentiator against some rival multiroom systems has been that Bluesound has allowed high-res audio to be played, which some rivals haven’t. And of course you can use it to play from online streaming services, some free, some (like Spotify and Tidal) requiring subscription. But while these things about Bluesound have remained the same, much has also changed since its original launch, especially in the…

Many audiophiles are ‘rusted on’ followers of Arcam, having been fans of this British brand since its humble beginnings back in 1976, when it started life in Cambridgeshire, England, as ‘Amplification & Recording Cambridge’ — a name that was soon after sensibly abbreviated to Arcam. However, following Samsung’s purchase of Arcam (adding to a high-end hi-fi portfolio that now includes JBL, Lexicon, Revel and Mark Levinson) we suspect that many of those rusted-on followers were waiting with bated breath to see what the first new range under new ownership looked like. As you can see, it’s basically ‘same same’ — nothing’s changed dramatically. All three components in Arcam’s new HDA (High Definition Audio) line are typically ‘Arcam’ in terms of appearance, finish and build quality, those three being the SA10…

Arcam’s reputation was built on amplifiers, and particularly this breed of high-quality midrange integrated amplifier. They remain instantly recognisable, so that while this new range has had a pleasing spruce-up to update the aesthetics, someone transported from the 1990s and familiar with the company’s then-’alpha’ range of products would have no trouble spotting the evolutionary path that has led to the latest SA models. But alongside this continuity there has been significant change. The new range comes one year after the company’s acquisition by Harman, itself only then recently acquired by Samsung. So under Harman, the UK-based Arcam brand sits alongside the likes of Mark Levinson, Revel and JBL Synthesis (that’s the higher end of JBL, not the portable speaker end of the brand). We should note there’s no need…

The Marantz NR1609 is the higher level model of the company’s two slimline receivers. This one is essentially a full-blown 7.1-channel AV receiver in all respects, except for a slightly reduced power output. EQUIPMENT The main visual difference is the height. It stands just 105mm tall, or a little over four inches. The seven amps produce 50W each, and can be switched to support four-ohm speakers for all channels. The surround+height systems of Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, Dolby Surround and DTS Neural:X are all supported in 5.1.2 mode. That is, you can choose between seven head-level speakers, or five plus two overhead. (Or you can bi-amp front speaker, drive a second zone and so on.) There are eight HDMI inputs, including one on the front panel. There’s full UltraHD support on…

This home cinema has it all. A reference-quality audio system which combines soundtrack slam with dialogue clarity. A 212-inch Stewart Filmscreen Cinecurve Jumbo screen filled with the native 4K brilliance of a high-end Sony projector fitted with an automated Schneider Kreuznach anamorphic lens. And of course you know you’re in for a treat when a company with the engineering reputation of Stewart Filmscreen starts throwing around words like ‘Jumbo’ — in terms of viewing angle from the prime seating positions in this eight-seat home cinema, this is one of the widest, largest home cinema experiences we’ve ever enjoyed. Steven Spurrier of Studio Connections was responsible for the concept and design, working with a team that included Paul Kutcher of Visual Fidelity (the Australian distributor for Stewart Filmscreen) and Andrew Steel…

Elac’s original Debut series, designed four years ago, was a true debut… and in more than one sense, because not only was it the first series of its type from Elac, it was also the first series designed for Elac by famous speaker designer Andrew Jones, who had been hired by the German manufacturer to be its Vice President of Engineering. (Jones had previously been chief speaker designer at KEF… and had also worked for Infinity and Technical Audio Devices.) Despite the model numbers in this series changing only slightly through the addition of a ‘.2’ to the various models (so the B6.2 we’re reviewing here is the successor to the original B6), the speakers are completely different, with new drivers, new cabinets and new crossovers. Speaking of which, it…

How simple do you want your music system? The time-honoured approach of hi-fi separates has been to have a separate box for each function — a couple of sources, tape deck, amplifier and so on. That takes up a lot of space, and uses a whole lotta cables. So how about putting everything in one box? How about adding an internal hard drive which can not only store music files but can also make recordings from anything plugged in? How about networking the box so it can deliver internet radio and network streaming, as well as USB playback? That’s Cocktail Audio’s impressive little X14. EQUIPMENT Cocktail Audio has a range of full-size hi-fi components, but the X14 is clearly designed as their pint-sized power pack. Despite being just 18cm wide…

The high-res portable player emerged as a reaction against low-quality MP3s and other file formats used on portable devices of yesteryear – you could have 1000 tracks in your pocket, as they said, but only at the lowest of quality. Astell&Kern is the high-end portable division of iriver, and if iriver didn’t quite invent the concept of an audiophile portable device, it was right in amongst the first of them, and has since taken the art to its extremes. Its top machine is currently the $4999 SP1000, which is tagged, a little oddly, ‘A&ultima’. The tag for the more affordable $999 SR15 is the still-odd and rather less inspiring ‘A&norma’, which seems quite the understatement for a player which comes fitted with dual Cirrus Logic CS43198 DAC chips, with which…

On paper Yamaha’s R-N803 D looks like a do-it-all solution loaded with clever stuff. While it is in essence a stereo amplifier, Yamaha’s description of it as a networked receiver emphasises its inclusion both of traditional radio sources (DAB+ and FM) and of networking plus online playback. MusicCast plays a large part in the latter set of abilities — Yamaha’s multiroom platform includes AirPlay and DLNA network playback, Bluetooth streaming, and app control of playback from internet radio and online music services. So it’s as much source as amplifier, and all for $1499 — did we find compromises? EQUIPMENT Let’s check its fundamental role as an amplifier first. It’s quoted at 2 × 145W at the AV electrical standard of measuring into 8 ohms at 1kHz allowing up to 10%…

There’s one other home theatre projector from Epson that we haven’t mentioned so far, because it’s very different. And it’s clearly designed to be multi-purpose not just a home theatre unit. That’s the $4499 Epson EHLS100. It’s an ultra short throw projector. Most projectors cast an image across the room, and need to be located two or more metres away from the screen. The EH-LS100 uses mirrors instead of lenses, and sits at the foot (or immediately above) the screen. The image is cast onto the screen at an extreme angle, but these mirrors are designed so that the picture ends up the proper shape. You can imagine many installations where this would work better than, say, a ceiling mounted projector across the room. This projector has a high rated…

At first this seemed like an odd name for a home theatre sound bar: the Polk Command Bar. What’s ‘command’ got to do with anything? But it soon became clear why it is so named. This isn’t just a soundbar to reproduce audio. You can talk to it. EQUIPMENT For the last year or two everyone’s been talking about smart speakers — speakers to which you can give verbal commands. You tell them to do something (within their capabilities), and they go and do it. Often that means simply asking them to play some music. Sometimes it might be to control some other smart device in your home. Mostly everyone has focused on the smart speakers from the main vendors of the competing technologies: Amazon (with its Alexa system), Google…

We rarely review installation speakers in Best Buys Audio & AV. Why? Because the sound is typically extremely unpredictable. But when we saw the TDG Audio Skybar speaker system, we had to give it a go. There were two main reasons. First, it eliminates one of the main causes of unpredictable performance in most installation speakers. And second, because this system is so extremely versatile. We had to see if it could really do as we expected. EQUIPMENT With a high fidelity loudspeaker, the design of the box is very nearly as important as the design of the front baffle. But if you’re cutting a hole in Gyprock and inserting an open-back speaker driver into it, none of those things are known. Hence that unpredictability of installation speakers. TDG Audio’s…

KEF’s LS50W wireless speakers have proven such a hit with customers and reviewers alike over the past few years, that KEF has been working away to bring the same attractions to a wider audience. The result was revealed at the official Australian launch of a new colourful family of ‘LSX’ wireless stereo speakers at a Christmassy event in South Melbourne’s trendy Smart Artz Gallery. The LSX design brings the idea and much of the technology of the successful LS50W into a new design which roughly halves both the size and price. But it is “not simply a baby LS50W”, insisted Ben Hagens, KEF Product Specialist (below right), at the Melbourne launch. This is also about KEF changing what hi-fi can be — a product for the 95%, not the 5%,…

Hi-fi enthusiasts often debate the very definition of hi-fi. In olden days when classical music and jazz were the mainstays of music, hi-fi systems were seen as the path to reproducing the live experience, to create a concert hall or a jazz club right there in your drawing room. But as music became created more in the studio, once The Beatles began creating music that was never intended to be performed live — well, what was hi-fi supposed to do with that? The answer, to our minds at any rate, is that hi-fi should deliver as close to what the band and engineers heard in the studio. That’s what they made, that’s what they want you to hear. How do bands hear their music when they’re recording it? They don’t…

The smart speaker market has just graduated to include screens — Google’s Home Hub and the Amazon Echo Show have both arrived… but with one or two exceptions, neither company has a good record when it comes to sound quality. JBL, on the other hand, is a loudspeaker company that has got smart, selling frankly astounding numbers of its wireless speakers, then being very quick to implement Google Voice Assistant into its Link smart speaker range, and now bringing this touch-screen JBL Link View to market in Australia at a remarkable price of just $349 (indeed rather less as we write). It is a useful thing? Hell, yes. For a start you get everything you’d normally get with a Google smart speaker. Ask it questions, have it tell you jokes,…

Like Astell&Kern in our previous review, Fiio also makes high-rescapable portable players. But this isn’t one of them. Instead it’s a different solution — a portable DAC and headphone amplifier. The goal, though, is similar, to allow you to enjoy high quality audio while you’re on the road. It means having this additional box with you, but then despite its considerable capabilities and (as we’ll see) excellent performance, it only costs $150. Audiophile quality is now within reach of most of us. Most portable DACs operate from USB, and are designed to improve the sound of your laptop (laptop headphone outputs are usually poor, being built pretty much as cheaply as possible). The FiiO Q1 Mark II is certainly compatible with Windows and Mac computers in this way, but also…

As the Awards logo above indicates, Denon’s $1599 AVR-X2500H took out our Sound+Image Award this year as AV Receiver of the Year $1000- $2000. So clearly we think it’s as fine a performer and as loaded with features as you could possibly hope for at this level of price. Let’s find out why. EQUIPMENT The term ‘AV receiver’ is woefully indadequate these days - there’s rather more going on here than radio-plus-amplifiers. Those fundamentals are here, though; the Denon still has AM and FM radio tuners (and internet radio, once we get networking). As for amplifiers, not so long ago you’d have got five amplifiers in a receiver at this price; the AVR-X2500H has seven of them, and each rated at 95 watts into 8 ohms, two channels driven, across…

The emergence of immersive sound has changed home cinema. New soundtracks in Dolby Atmos, DTS:X and Auro-3D make use of ceiling speakers to deliver height as well as surround. Where once we had 5.1, now we have 5.1.2 (adding two ceiling speakers), or 5.1.4, or 7.2.4, or… well, Atmos soundtracks are designed to scale to whatever size of installation you care to consider. South Australia’s Krix recently demonstrated a 24.10.10 system, and even that’s not the end of it, since Dolby Atmos allows for up to 64 discrete speaker feeds. But that’s a level only a commercial cinema would require, and a sizeable one at that. To prove the capability of a more real-world system, Krix invited us to Metricon’s ‘Studio M’ Selection Centre in Bella Vista, Sydney, where a…

The Optoma UHL55 projector is, we think, quite possibly the interesting product to cross our desk in years. We haven’t seen anything quite like it, and we mean that in a good way. EQUIPMENT So a projector, huh? What’s so unusual about that? Really, it’s the way the Optoma UHL55 combines several different bits of existing technology into a single, neat package. And a remarkably inexpensive package at that. First point of note: this is an UltraHD projector. It uses DLP technology. The only description of the Digital Micromirror Device we could find for this projector was thus: ‘Single 0.47” 4K UHD DMD DLP by Texas Instruments’. That sounds to us like it’s the special small 1080p DMD with 4× pixel-shifting technology that we’ve seen in another couple of products.…

Sony knows a thing or two about the movies, having Sony Pictures on the one hand, while Sony the electronics company has long led the market in bringing them to our homes via first tape, then DVD, then Blu-ray, and now the ultimate presentation of movies in the home, Ultra High Definition Blu-ray, with 4K pictures suitable for 4K TVs — which are another strength for Sony, with one of its premium OLED models winning Sound+Image’s 2018 Television of the Year. But what about the sound? UHD Blu-ray also ups the audio ante considerably, delivering uncompressed multichannel sound formats like never before, including the immersive likes of Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. Many homes fail to enjoy this, using the TV speakers or a soundbar or pair of stereo speakers. We…

Wireless active speakers are a great system solution. These Dynaudio Xeo 20 speakers, for example, could be your sole piece of hi-fi, if you were happy simply to send all your music to them via Bluetooth from your phone. No other connections would be required, since the amps reside inside the usefully narrow enclosures here — what neater solution could be possible? But they are not limited to such simplicity of operation. There are physical inputs also on the Xeo 20s, and further expansion possible via a wireless hub (see overleaf). Dynaudio’s Xeo 20s can even be grouped to transmit to additional speakers and audio systems in up to three zones around a home — so these speakers offer versatility and expandability, as well as simplicity. EQUIPMENT When installing the…

In our main bimonthly issues of Sound+Image we have already reviewed the floorstanding model from Q Acoustics’ latest updated 3000i Series of high-value loudspeakers. We liked it very much — sufficiently to award it our Sound+Image 2019 Standmount Speaker of the Year under $2000. But this series also includes two sizes of ‘bookshelf’ models, the 3010i and the 3020i. We’ve decided to bundle these two remarkably high value sets of speakers together for this review, given their similarities — though also some differences. EQUIPMENT Before digging into them, we should mention that as part of the same range as the 3010i, 3020i and 3050i are the 3090i centre channel and 3060S subwoofer — the complete set is pictured opposite. Clearly you could add those to some combinations of stereo speakers…

The previous flagship headphone from Kennerton was the Odin, an appropriate handle given that Kennerton is the luxury arm of Fischer Audio, with both Fischer and Kennerton based in St Petersburg in Russia… and that the original Rus’ people are believed to have been of Viking stock heading eastward from Scandinavia. Those Odin headphones were very well received, for their craftsmanship as well as their sound, though if they had a fault, it was weight — might the great Odins be a little heavy in longterm listening? So for the new flagship model, Kennerton has somehow dropped the weight from 680g to a more bonce-friendly 480g. But not by using plastic — you won’t find any plastic parts in a Kennerton model. Unusual woods, yes; aerospacegrade aluminium and steel, yes.…