Indholdsfortegnelse for August - September 2016 i Sound + Image

“A movie gives one sight and sound. Suppose now I add taste, smell, even touch if your interest is taken by the story. Suppose I make it so that you are in the story, you speak to the shadows, and the shadows reply, and instead of being on a screen the story is all about you, and you are in it. Would that be to make real a dream?”‘Pygmalion’s Spectacles’ 1935 Head to any technology show these days, be it CES in Vegas, Computex in Taiwan or CE China in Shenzen, and the biggest buzz by far is for virtual reality. Companies are throwing immense development budgets into delivering a successful VR experience, and the hottest VR companies have been eaten up by the tech giants — Facebook buying Oculus…

It’s not often we are surprised by a piece of hi-fi that does things so very differently, and so very well, that it delights us every time we get to push its buttons. One such was Arcam’s SR250. It is hardly unique in being a stereo receiver — several decades ago the world was full of stereo receivers. But of course times have moved on, and roles have changed. This is a receiver which is built firmly around high quality delivery of your video sources and television sound, as much as for the usual inputs to a music system. But instead of driving 5.1 channels, or 7.1.2 or any form of surround sound, it sticks with stereo. Because really, that’s all that many of us want. And it addresses a…

Just because you’re the sole manufacturer (almost) using the best TV technology available at the moment — OLED — doesn’t mean that you can just abandon the main technology. After all, an OLED TV costs a couple of thousand dollars more than an equivalent size of LCD/LED model. There’s still money to be made there. So what’s LG doing on that front? It actually has several ranges using the standard technology, and most of them are 4K models. At the top of this particular heap is the UH950T series. There are monsters in this range — 86 and 79 inches — and more practical 65 and 55 inch models of which we have the larger 65UH950T on review, the best non-OLED 65-inch TV the brand has to offer. Equipment LG…

We are in quite a fortunate position in the world of audio reproduction, having access to some of the world’s best and most expensive equipment all in one showroom. With access to this equipment comes interaction with some of the best engineers, visionaries and influential people in our industry. Take a look through the past ten years of the events we’ve held and the manufacturers we’ve brought to the country, and you’ll see names like Flemming Rasmussen from Gryphon Audio, Bjorn Bengtsson from Nordost, Ivor and Gilad Tiefenbrun of Linn, Robert Suchy from Clearaudio, and many more – far too many to list here. The time we’ve spent with these figureheads of the industry have taught us a lot about audio and music, as each manufacturer explains the engineering behind…

More than one million satisfied DALI owners in over 65 countries attest to the high quality and sublime sound from this unique Danish company’s speakers. With exclusive driver units designed from scratch by its own engineers, Danish Audiophile Loudspeaker Industries leverages 30 years of experience to create a unique DALI sonic identity that focuses on musical realism and sound integrity. EPICON, RUBICON, OPTICON The EPICON series (main image above) signals exclusivity and simplicity with speakers for the most demanding of music and movie enthusiasts. Their performance is clearly DALI, but taken one step further – true musical passion and escapism for the mind. The RUBICON range (above left) sets a new benchmark in affordable audiophile-quality reproduction in a perfect union of striking design and sound engineering expertise. The result is…

Arcam’s universal player embraces movie and music playback, offering outstanding performance in both disciplines. Blu-ray movie performance is to the very highest standards, while Arcam’s long experience in music electronics ensures that music from SACDs and CDs is delivered with equally outstanding quality, a true rarity from a Blu-ray player. Arcam’s unique and hard-won engineering expertise allows the UDP411 to deliver a stunning portrayal of your discs, delivering both blockbuster movie experiences and wonderful music.…

Arcam pioneered the idea of its Solo systems a decade ago, aiming to create all-in-one ‘just add speakers’ solutions to deliver the ultimate in convenience without compromising the company’s legendary audio quality. The latest editions today include the Solo Music system, the Solo Movie system, and the unique Solo Bar, a high-quality soundbar which can be used with the Solo subwoofer for TV audio at the highest levels. The Solo concept is all about delivering true hi-fi quality sound without the usual intrusion into today’s modern living. Never before has music been delivered with such simple elegance and yet enthralling performance. Arcam Solo Music Featuring a CD/SACD drive and 80W per channel of amplification, together in a stylish, low-resonance enclosure, the Solo Music provides high-quality sound to the stereo speakers…

Model S Don’t let the size fool you – the Model S series is an incredibly powerful system, a dense, solid and incredibly inert speaker ready to withstand the rigours of even extremely high outputs. Recognised with numerous awards and accolades, its innovative AER dipole tweeter design produces a spacious and live effect throughout the listening room, making it the clear choice for those seeking perfection at a competitive price point. Ask us for an audition of this amazing speaker system! Bringing together Steinway & Sons, makers of the world’s finest pianos for over 160 years, and Peter Lyngdorf, one of the industry’s most forward-thinking audio innovators, Steinway Lyngdorf’s high performance digital sound systems combine perfected technology with design artistry and the finest craftsmanship, designed and manufactured in Denmark.…

What should be the ultimate aim of an accurate sound system? How should technology serve the artistry of the performer in a faithful way? Equally to the point, how many audio manufacturers can hope to maintain their aims along the entire chain of reproduction? Scotland’s Linn is one that can. With its Exakt system, it aims to delete the deficiencies of reproduction and offer the closest thing possible to a live feed from the studio. Smart simplicity The Klimax Exakt DSM system reflects simplicity itself. Attractive floorstanding speakers and a single elegantly-designed component – nothing looks alarmingly technical, nor quite run-of-the-mill, yet these seemingly plain vanilla-flavoured transducers are actually palate-tingling tutti-frutti in their operation and performance. The slimline Exakt DSM is one beautifully-built 24-bit/192kHz-capable network player, able to on-forward packets…

Yamaha’s premium Aventage networked AV receivers are now up to Series 7. Out of the box they feature support for the very latest home theatre audio codecs — Dolby Atmos and DTS:X — and they gain significant abilities through also being fully compatible with Yamaha’s networked multiroom audio system, MusicCast. But how much of all this do you get at the very entry level of Aventage? Here’s the Yamaha Aventage RX-A760; let’s find out. Equipment This is a seven-channel receiver, with seven amplifiers, and handling a maximum of seven channels (no additional outputs are available). So here you can choose to have a 7.1 surround set-up, for example, or 5.1.2 (i.e. five channels on the floor plus two height channels), but you can’t expand it to 5.1.4 or 7.1.2, as…

I somehow missed this movie at the time of release, so it was interesting to see how this Superman reboot would go. I was one of the few fans of Bryan Singer’s 2006 attempted reboot Superman Returns — I thought Brandon Routh did an amazing job of playing Christopher Reeve playing Clark Kent/ Superman. This was, after all, a kind of sequel to the 1970s/1980s franchise. This one is a real reboot, though, complete with origin story. In fact, the first 20 minutes is spent on the planet Krypton, establishing what seemed at that moment to be way too detailed a back story, although decorated with many millions of dollars of special effects. Later, however, it became clear that all this was usefully needed for the telling of this particular…

Panasonic’s eagerly awaited 4K UHD Blu-ray player, known as the DMP-UB900, has now launched in Australia. Recently we were lucky to have Panasonic’s own Japanese based Chief Engineer, Kazuhiko Kouno, in the Showroom for a technical briefing and to take us through the considerable technical achievements they’ve packaged into their flagship player. From what we’ve seen of its specs and fron witnessing its operation first hand, it is clearly a cut above the rest. This is a 4K Blu-ray disc player that has been built with high-end user tastes in mind, especially for fans of high-end audio formatting. It certainly looks the premium item. The glass-cut finish and mirrored front panel is designed to match expensive flat panel TVs. The remote comes with classy backlighting – very handy when you’ve…

We’re delighted to see Bose taking BOSEbuild to the next level — the original project was a small initiative for use at US summer camps, where children could wire their own voice coils, discover how currents and magnets interact, then add a speaker diaphragm and investigate, among other things, how frequency resonance could be used to make a simple folded figure shake and dance. The new BOSEbuild project has gone public, with a US$150 kit available, with everything required to build and customise a durable Bluetooth speaker with LED lighting. Many of today’s speakers and electronics designers would have begun their carreers with kits and circuits from magazines such as ETI — it’s good to see Bose aiming to enthuse a new generation.…

Thank you Samsung! Perhaps, even, thank you Consumer Electronics Industry might be in order. When DVD appeared in Australia, players cost $1500 or more. When Blu-ray appeared in Australia, players cost $1800 or more. Now that Ultra HD Blu-ray has appeared in Australia, the first player costs just $599. By the time this review publishes, a second UHD Blu-ray player, from Panasonic, will be available (earlier than expected) at $1099. But for right now, the only player in town is Samsung’s UBD-K8500. Equipment Ultra HD Blu-ray is, of course, the long-awaited higher performance version of Blu-ray. Rather than a resolution of 1920 × 1080, you get 3840 × 2160. You also get HDR (High Dynamic Range) and WCG (Wide Colour Gamut), with ten bits for encoding each component of the…

Momentum Integrated Amplifier The latest stunning addition to Dan D’Agostino’s new company’s line-up is the Momentum Integrated Amplifier – the first integrated design ever to bear his signature. It combines the core audio circuits of the Momentum preamplifier and the Momentum stereo amplifier, both acclaimed by reviewers around the world as among the best audio components ever created. The integrated amplifier is rated at 200 watts per channel into 8 ohms, and 400 watts per channel into 4 ohms. A completely separate power supply, encased in a chassis machined from solid aluminum billet, isolates the sensitive audio circuitry from electromagnetic interference. The Momentum Integrated Amplifier is an audio first – an integrated amplifier designed entirely without compromise. No name is more closely associated with high-end audio amplifiers than that of…

Founded in 1976, Arcam quickly became renowned in the UK and beyond for the quality of its home hi-fi amplifiers, beginning an engineering-led business that is still innovating four decades later to achieve the very best in music and home cinema sound. The company displayed leadership in being one of very few European companies to develop its own CD, DVD and Blu-ray players from scratch; it has been at the forefront of digital radio, and has a world-class reputation for making some of the best-sounding home theatre electronics. Arcam launched the first offboard digital-to-analogue converter in 1988, and continues its unrivalled series of DAC and streaming options for every eventuality. Most recently it has won plaudits for its series of unique amplifiers based on Class G delivery. As the company…

For those seeking the highest levels of purity, the C49 preamplifier and P49 Class G stereo power amplifier combine the best components and all Arcam’s extensive engineering experience to produce a product to give many years of musical pleasure and reliable service. With massive power, yet total control and finesse, this is also a flexible and expandable system, allowing for the ‘ultimate’ system of C49 with 6 bridged P49s tri-amping suitable speakers.…

Arcam’s AV receivers are audiophile products that go far beyond competing receivers in the level of sound quality they can deliver. The AVR550 is equally at home with high-resolution surround sound or two-channel music, delivering stunning realism across 7.1 channels with everything from heavy-weight blockbusters to your favourite concert video. Both video and audio stages embrace current and upcoming technologies, with app control, and processing that includes the latest Dolby Atmos object-based audio. The seven HDMI inputs are all 2.0a specification, ready for 4K ‘Ultra HD’ sources and their higher quality video performance. The AVR550 also includes the very latest room correction from Dirac Research (see previous pages).…

Don’t confuse Arcam’s Solo Bar with the usual run-of-the-mill soundbars – this is an audiophile product with class-leading specifications, designed to offer unrivalled performance. With the Solo Bar wall-mounted or in front of your TV, its six drive units and 100 watts of amplification can provide high quality, room-filling sound, taken to another level by adding the wireless Solo Sub to deliver low frequency power and scale from its 10-inch downfiring woofer and 300 watt amplifier. While lesser soundbar solutions are under-engineered, Arcam employs extremely rigid materials, high quality construction and hi-fi specification drivers for a bar that looks great and sounds superb with both music and movies, for which onboard Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD processing ensures a highly accurate and powerful delivery. With all this plus the convenience of…

Definitive Technology BP9000 Series The arrival of Definitive Technology’s new BP9000 Series ushers in a new era of true high-performance full-range sound. Redesigned from the ground up with improved acoustic materials, machined aircraft-grade aluminium details and sharper lines to enhance the minimalist aesthetic, the BP9000 Series pushes to new performance levels that other speakers only aspire to achieve. Beyond its striking visual allure, the entire series is tuned to perfection – totally re-engineered with improvements that cascade across the company’s patented audio technologies. From Forward Focused Bipolar Array to built-in powered subwoofers to Intelligent Bass Control, and with seamless Dolby Atmos integration and DTS:X compatibility, the BP9000 Series offers big yet precise room-filling sound, yet offers an elegant footprint that makes every single day of ownership a marvel to behold.…

Planned obsolescence has never been part of the Gryphon design concept. Hence the original Antileon Signature power amplifiers have been available for a decade and a half, because they were engineered and built, like every Gryphon model, to remain at the forefront of audio performance for many years. Now Gryphon takes a significant step forward, with the Gryphon Antileon EVO, available in stereo and single-channel configurations. Gryphon’s Antileon EVO employs true and pure Class A for this spectacular amplifier, believing that there is no short-cut to the sheer magic of pure Class A’s instant availability of full current at all times. Exceptional peak-to-peak current capability ensures compatibility with even the most viciously reactive loudspeaker loads, permitting the loudspeaker of your choice to perform at its very best. This is a…

We’ve got a keen eye for all sorts of pre-loved equipment, and we’d be happy to either help you purchase a new audio system by taking your trade in, by showing you the latest and greatest pre-owned products we have at an affordable price, or just by helping you move on your existing hi-fi system to make room in your home. We have new products every week, so it’s worthwhile checking back in with us from time to time, as you may find that bargain you’ve been searching for! With one of Australia’s largest range of high quality secondhand audio equipment, we’re sure we can help you, no matter what stage of the audio journey you’ve reached.…

There are so many ways, major and minor, to bring streaming abilities to a hi-fi system that it can be hard to know where to start. You could investigate one of the many multiroom systems that offer units to squirt their streams into your existing hi-fi, but many of these are odd-shaped boxes with minijack outputs rather than proper hi-fi phono plugs. Many may prefer a more traditional hi-fi component that slots neatly into your equipment rack, and that’s exactly what Pioneer delivered with its original N-50 network audio player five years ago, which achieved great success, even if certain aspects (particularly the control app’s limitations) annoyed us royally at the time. It has now been updated to this N-50A, its component-width brushed aluminium fascia offering a full colour 3.5-inch…

The Revenant is even more of a revenge flick than Deadpool, but just about as far different in character as you can imagine, while still remaining a fine work. It’s slow and long. But it isn’t tedious because the moments of intensity — and they are usually quite extreme — come along at just the right moment. DiCaprio is playing a trapper named Hugh Glass — his role is based on the story of a real Hugh Glass’s travails in South Dakota in the 1820s. He has an unfortunate encounter with a grizzly bear. His party seeks to care for him, despite it looking like he is certain to die. Part of the party heads back towards their home — it’s wild, snowy, they’re on foot and there’s a strong…

Both of the multiroom platforms that can lay claim to a Sound+Image award are undergoing an evolution, one with enhanced abilities, the other with additional players joining the range. Denon’s HEOS multiroom system is the one evolving, with the company adding both high-res audio playback and built-in Bluetooth to the platform, both much-requested omissions from the original round of product releases. The first unit to arrive in Australia is the new HEOS Link HS2 (pictured below) — the Link is the unit which plugs into to any existing hi-fi via the Link’s analogue or digital outputs to deliver full HEOS abilities. So those will now include direct Bluetooth streaming, network streaming from UPnP network shares on computer or NAS drive, online streaming from Pandora, TuneIn and Soundcloud (free), Spotify, Deezer…

Sony has announced that its premium 4K HDR television series, Z9D, will be available to Australians from “early Spring” (most likely a September arrival) in sizes up to a 100-inch diagonal. The Z range “brings 4K High Dynamic Range (HDR) to a new level with ultra-contrast” says Sony Australia, and features a newly developed 4K image processor, the ‘4K HDR Processor X1 Extreme’, and notably the new Backlight Master Drive, which aims to take on OLED both in HDR levels of dynamic range and in extremely accurate wide colour expression. Sony Backlight Master Drive combines a dense LED structure with the ability to dim or boost each LED individually, rather than in the zones used by most current back and side-lit LED-LCD televisions. From the released images this arrangement seems…

Questyle, whose high-res portable we review on p67, is not stopping at the moveable market — pictured left is its Reference System (the Gold Edition), which comprises the $5199 CMA800P preamplifier, the $4299 CAS192D DAC/preamp, and not one but two CMA800R Current Mode Headphone Amplifiers (2 x $4299), each operating in mono balanced mode. The Shenzen-based Questyle has a global patent on its Current Mode Amplification technology, where all the discrete transistors work in a pure Class A configuration to achieve ultra-low distortion (0.00038% in standard stereo mode, 0.00026% in mono mode) along with 118dB signal-to-noise and frequency response up to 650kHz. The DAC uses Wolfson’s flagship WM8741 DAC chipset and in this latest edition supports DSD replay as well as PCM. More information: www.audiodynamics.com.au…

At the high-end there are your Caliburns, your Clearaudio Statements, then your Linn Sondeks — but if you’re talking iconic real-world turntables, the list is surely topped by the Rega Planar 3. Introduced in the 1970s, it was radical in its time and still retains certain ‘rebel’ philosophies through its various revisions, which included the 1980s arrival of the almost equally legendary RB300 tonearm. It has never been out of production, even as Rega hedged against the vinyl decline with CD players and electronics, and now that vinyl is resurgent once more we have not only a new Rega Planar 3, but a new RB330 tonearm to go with it. The price is smack on a sweet-spot for those returning to the black stuff — though of course that means…

The SR250 is an audiophile product by any measure, offering a level of sound quality far above other receivers. It delivers stunning realism with everything from heavyweight blockbusters to your favourite concert video, but it is built for music, too, replaying all your favourite sources, streaming via UPnP over a home network, and having built-in FM and DAB+ digital radio, plus internet radio when you connect it to your home network. Arcam has also included the very latest room correcting technology from Dirac Research. ‘Dirac Live for Arcam’ (see panel) gives the ability to tune the acoustic performance of the system to any room. You enjoy the best possible experience, tailored to your own home. Both video and audio stages are designed to embrace current and upcoming technologies, including HDMI…

Few specialist manufacturers have ever stepped up to the plate and succeeded where development of digital disc playback is concerned. Arcam is a standout here, with more than 25 years of digital audio experience, and global recognition of its successful products. The CDS27 not only meets reference standards for CD music playback, it plays high-res audio from SACDs and can also stream music from a network via UPnP. Arcam has gone to incredible lengths to maximise the superb performance of this latest-generation player, so that music from SACDs, CDs and networked sources is delivered to your speakers at the very highest standards currently available.…

The AVR850 takes Arcam’s multichannel amplification to its highest level, with seven channels of true hi-fi quality power to take your movie experience to new levels, while still achieving the subtleties required for the superb two-channel music delivered through this same system. Dolby Atmos offers the possibility of height-enhanced surround sound, while internal tuners deliver FM, DAB+ and internet radio with all Arcam’s established radio expertise. The range of inputs on the AVR850 offers enormous versatility, with seven HDMI 2.0a inputs and plenty of stereo analogue and digital inputs for music sources, while again Arcam’s use of room correction technology from Dirac Research ensures perfect results in your specific room.…

Definitive Technology’s wireless and multiroom-capable W Series solutions distribute audiophile-grade music anywhere and everywhere in your home. Use a smartphone or tablet to stream your favourite music services, internet radio or your own music library from computer or NAS drive to a single Definitive Technology system or to many throughout your home. Add W Series abilities to your existing system; enjoy stunning soundbar performance with multiroom operation as a bonus. The W Series offers the best-sounding wireless speakers on the market, Think you don’t like soundbars? Wait till you hear the W Studio! The larger of two soundbar and subwoofer solutions in the W Series has already won awards as TechHome’s Speaker of the Year, and praise from Australia’s Sound+Image magazine which hailed it “a powerful beast, rich in sound,…

THE RANGES Norse 2 range Tyr 2: analogue interconnects | speaker cables | power cords | tonearm cables Frey 2: analogue interconnects | speaker cables | power cords | tonearm cables Heimdall 2: analogue interconnects | speaker cables | digital interconnects | USB cables | iKable | headphones cable | Ethernet cable | 4K UHD cables | power cords | tonearm cables | biwire jumpers The Norse 2 family is labelled its ‘High Performance’ collection, with silver-plated, OFC solid-core Mono-Filament conductors, extruded FEP insulation, and mechanically tuned construction. The three sub-categories of this midrange are topped by the Tyr 2 cable collection, their superior technology providing the resolution, acumen and effortless musicality found in only the highest echelons of cables at this realistic price-point. Leif range Red Dawn: analogue interconnects…

The Questyle QP1R portable music player in many ways similar to other players of the genre, but is in one way very different from many of the others. Let’s get right into this very attractive, very high fidelity, music player. Equipment First, here’s what’s different about it. The others tend to be high fidelity equivalents of an iPod touch. The Questyle QP1R is more the high fidelity equivalent of an iPod Classic. Well, a solid-state iPod Classic. Devices like the Astell&Kern AK380 and the Fiio X7 have, at their operational hearts, an Android operating system. They have touch screens. You scroll and select things as you would with a smartphone. As an iPod touch is like an iPhone without the phone functions, they are like an Android phone without the…

It has been a while since we’ve laid hands on a premium BenQ projector. Mostly it has been models highly suitable for home theatre, but relatively lower cost, lower featured models. Now with the W8000, BenQ is back in the game. Equipment The BenQ W8000 shares, of course, some similarities with the lower-cost models. It offers a full-HD picture — 1920 × 1080 pixels — using DLP technology. You can read a quick tech refresher on the remarkable DLP use of digital micromirror devices (DMDs) in the panel overleaf. The specific DMD used here is not specified. This BenQ is a much heftier projector than the lesser models noted above, with very different optics. The W8000 weighs twice as much and would have to be termed mid-sized. Does that matter?…

West Coast Hi-Fi Midland is celebrating 10 years since opening its doors to this town on Perth’s eastern fringe, which grew around the junction of railways and roads where the Great Northern Highway meets the Great Eastern Highway as it heads out for the long run to Coolgardie and the right turn to the Nullabor. The Midland store is part of what proprietor Scott Stay calls the “really cool chain of West Coast Hi-fi stores in Western Australia”, specialists in home entertainment, hi-fi and home automation. “We pride ourselves on going the extra step for our customers,” says Scott Stay, “and we enjoy collaborating with not just great brands but wherever possible with good people. Home cinema, music and technology binds us, and we truly enjoy embracing it all. One…

Deadpool is the best movie I’ve seen for several years. If you haven’t seen it, you are missing out on one of the greats. A full on super hero action movie where the hero is just as much an anti-hero, it’s fun and full of unexpected turns, and even moving. So Deadpool himself is a hideously scarred ex-mercenary who is after the man running the super-hero transformation process that made him so. Because, of course, he wants to get back together with his girlfriend. This is happening in the X-Men universe, but the X-Men don’t approve of him and occasionally get in his way. None of which conveys the delight with which Ryan Renolds plays the character, dancing his way through mayhem. The touch is just right at every moment,…