Indholdsfortegnelse for May - June 2020 i Sound + Image

I don’t have a lot of gaps in my life. Magazines don’t make themselves and expand to fill the time available, plus I’ve recently been working feverishly (though not, I should quickly clarify, with an actual temperature) on the Sydney hi-fi show which was to have taken place at the beginning of April — until it became clear that nothing of any magnitude was going to happen in April, not anywhere in the whole wide world. It is, as we are all now saying on an hourly basis, what it is. I have no trouble working from home, much of it alone with the dog, while the missus works 12-hour shifts in essential veterinary services. But as I came towards the end of work on this issue of Sound+Image, I…

Nirvana Sound is a new audio distribution and consulting business based in Melbourne, with a select network of national dealers, along with its own demonstration rooms, “dedicated to representing the finest audio equipment to discerning music lovers”. And the enthusiasm of the main protagonists is palpable. Managing Director George Moraitis has spent a lifetime surrounded by music, with a professional guitarist father and a folk-singer mother, and a working life spent taking side trips to visit audio designers, personalities and audiophiles in his search to discover audio equipment which gets out of the way, putting the emphasis back on the music. "One of the benefits of this hobby is that you meet very interesting people, and the friendships formed over listening to music are very precious to me," he says.…

With Sydney’s HIFI2020 Show cancelled and, as we go to press, doubt regarding any events still scheduled in 2020, we should enjoy the the few shows that did take place before the Great Lockdown descended on us all. With thanks to our EISA colleagues in the Czech Republic, Serbia and Greece, here are highlights from the Audio Video Show Praha (Prague) at the end of February, and the recent Hxos Eikona Show in Athens.…

BOWERS & WILKINS FORMATION WEDGE ♦ DENON HOME 350 LINN SERIES 3 ♦ NAIM MU-SO Qb ♦ TECHNICS OTTAWA S SC-C30 How about having just one speaker as your whole hi-fi system, streaming music, looking great, sounding fine. It’s a tempting proposition, especially with premium wireless speakers like these bringing the latest music and multiroom tech to your home. What was the first premium one-box speaker? Bowers & Wilkins’ Zeppelin in 2007 often gets the recognition, but Meridian was out earlier in that year with its then astonishingly expensive F80 CD-receiver system, all cool curves and bold red Ferrari livery. But almost invariably forgotten was the Australian-born VAF Octavio, which launched in 2006, and could well have been a world-beater had it not been designed originally to house only one…

This new range of wireless multiroom speakers took us by surprise. They come from Denon, which released the ‘HEOS by Denon’ range of wireless speakers and components in 2014. But since then HEOS has developed as a brand in itself, with a whole ecosystem of HEOS products, as well as being a platform which appears in many Denon and Marantz products, with efforts to spread beyond. The HEOS range is now simply HEOS, no longer attributed to Denon. That leaves a gap in Denon’s own offerings, now filled by the Home range. Equipment As seems dictated by some marketing god on high, this range has the usual three speaker sizes launched by nearly all new multiroom contenders, here called in rising size the Home 150, Home 250 and Home 350.…

With Panasonic withdrawing TVs from sale in Australia, the company has more time to focus on the rest of its catalogue, which only recently welcomed Technics back into the country, although Panasonic had relaunched its mothballed audio brand elsewhere in the world several years ago. While most famed for its turntables, and its DJ-orientated direct drive SL1200 in particular, Technics always had a full range of component and system hi-fi. In its new incarnation, it seems focused on the premium audio segment, with three Premium Class Ottava Series units available, of which this SC-C30 is the junior member at $1149. Above is the similar but larger SC-C50 at $1429, these two being called Wireless Speaker Systems. Above them is the rather different Premium Compact Stereo System SC-C70 at $1649. Equipment…

CEDIA is the peak body for custom installers and ‘home technology professionals’, and when it conducts its annual awards it describes a media room as “designed to serve multiple purposes suitable for family entertaining… can be an open floor plan or isolated/dedicated space. The room may include several entertainment areas such as a bar, gaming, billiards table, and additional seating.” The danger, however, is doing too much. It’s all too easy to start with the dream of a sleek high-tech room (like the ‘dream’ room shown right), but then to end up with a cluttered family space which tries to be all things to all people (‘reality’ room, right). Set your priorities first, along with those of your family, and create clear zones within the room for those activities. Keep…

So often underestimated or misunderstood, acoustics can be a gamechanger, the difference between a room which is a pleasure to inhabit, and a space which feels unfriendly and noisy. Bright and hard surfaces won’t do your audio any favours, just as some modern décors do such horrible things with the squeals of playing children that you can end up with a beautifully sleek but effectively unuseable space for family rooms. A well-treated space, on the other hand, gives your sound system the best chance to shine, while also creating a soft pillow of atmosphere even when the room is not in entertainment mode. David Moseley of Wavetrain Cinemas has told us that his clients often use their home cinemas for other purposes — reading or playing or just hanging out…

An ‘integrated hub’, is how Ayre Acoustics describes the EX-8. That’s nice, we thought, but what the heck is an ‘integrated hub’? We have not previously encountered a thing so described. The problem, of course, is that there are now so very many different ways to store and deliver music. Hi-fi manufacturers not only have to make sure their components accommodate all those different ways, but they have to come up with a simple way of telling customers that their products are equipped to handle all those different ways… as well as give them an idea of what type of amplification might also be built in. AV receiver makers have been struggling for more than a decade to come up with a better term describing everything a modern AV receiver…

Jabra has come to the personal audio market by way of its long expertise in all things Bluetooth, including a claim to having made the first ever Bluetooth headset. As part of the GN Group it is also a sister company to ReSound, a company with its expertise in smart hearing aids and other tiny things that go in your ear. No surprise, then, that Jabra has excelled in the Bluetooth in-ear bud space, entering early and scoring great acclaim with these Elite 65t true wireless buds which were launched in 2018, and are now available in three shades — titanium black (above), gold-beige (they called them beige?), and our favourite, the copper black shown in their charging carrycase below. Blue and red versions have also been seen, but aren’t…

JBL is a heavy hitter when it comes to true wireless sports earphones, and the Reflect Flows reveal clearly just why. Available here in four colours — green, black, blue and the pictured ‘teal’, subject to stock — their RRP is already below the most premium true wireless buds at $249, and we’ve seen them offered significantly below that, so shop around. Despite such beneficial pricing, they are waterproof-rated to IPX7 which means they are not only rain and sweat-proof but fully immersible for a limited time. They also have a longer battery life than most, at 10 hours from the buds themselves and 20 more via the case. And the whole lot can go from empty to fully charged in about two hours. The buds are circular, comprising a…

You’ve sourced the best music you can, put it onto your iPhone, found an app to play it and now all you need to do is pipe it into your head through your nice, new headphones. You might think that the job was done. The only trouble is that the quality of your smartphone’s internal DAC might be the weak link that gets in the way. The arrival of the iPhone 7, for example, saw the disappearance of the 3.5mm jack from Apple handsets. Anybody wanting to plug their headphones into their mobile, from those handsets onwards, needed to use Apple’s Lightning-to-3.5mm adaptor. That’s absolutely fine if you’re using a lower-end streaming service or playing MP3s, but anyone aiming for high-res audio should be aware that the DAC inside the…

With many of us currently having more time than ever to devote to video streaming from catch-up and subscription services, you need to ensure that your home Wi-Fi isn’t a weak link in the chain. If wireless woes are throttling your flow to a trickle, then Google’s new Nest Wi-Fi mesh network might be just the thing to help unlock the floodgates. All for one Nothing kills movie night faster than constant buffering, which makes a reliable home network one of the cornerstones of a great digital AV experience. This is where mesh Wi-Fi can come to the rescue. Rather than depending on a single powerful wireless base station to cover the entire house, mesh networks rely on a handful of hubs working in unison to help reach the furthest…

JBL is making some noise about its new HDI series of speakers, a five-strong collection with performance founded on JBL’s patented ‘High-Definition Imaging’ waveguide technology coupled with a patented 25mm 2410H-2 high-frequency compression driver. It’s aiming for that “you-are-there presence that makes music and movies come alive,” says JBL’s marketing coordinator Torsten Sporn. Benefiting from research undertaken for JBL Professional’s D2 transducer range, the 2410H-2 compression driver is a lightweight polymer annular diaphragm, its low diaphragm mass promising improved high-frequency extension, while the V-shaped geometry of the annular diaphragm reduces break-up modes and reduces distortion. The Series is led by the flagship 2.-way HDI-3800 floorstanding loudspeaker at $9999/pair (pictured right), adding triple eight-inch (200mm) Advanced Aluminum Matrix cone woofers below the compression driver in a bass reflex cabinet with dual…

If you’re at the opposite end of your vinyl journey to those considering the Dohmann Helix turntable opposite, then Pro-Ject’s latest release may apply less pressure to the purse-strings. The T1 SB is the first in the company’s new T Line of turntables that will aim to deliver high-fidelity sound on a limited budget. Despite an RRP in Australia of only $549, it includes a built-in moving magnet phono stage so can be plugged into any line-level amplifier input, or its phonolevel outputs can be used into an external phono stage. Its build seems remarkable at the price, in a piano-black finish with a heavy, low-resonance glass platter, under which is a newly designed sub-platter mounted into an precise 0.001mm main bearing with a hardened steel axle and brass bushing.…

Cambridge Audio has launched its CX Series 2 component hi-fi range, with particular emphasis on the advances made in amplifier technology since the original CX range debuted five years ago. “CD players haven’t had to change at all,” says the UK Cambridge team, “while software-based sources such as the CXN network player have benefitted from constant firmware upgrades to reflect modern listening habits. But the progress made in amplifier technology over the last five years has come at a hardware level — and there’s no updating that over the internet.” But those changes don’t include a switch to Class-D amplification; both amplifier models employ Class-AB amplification, rated at 60W in the $1699 CXA61, 80W in the $2199 CXA81, which also boasts symmetrical dual-mono circuit design. The CXA61 offers four line-level…

Linn was one of the first hi-fi brands to launch a music streamer back in 2007, simultaneously announcing with some prescience the imminent death of the Compact Disc. So it’s surprising the Glasgow-based company has waited this long to launch its first wireless speaker. But here it is, and it’s called the Linn Series 3. While a newcomer in the market often faces an uphill battle to conquer established rivals (in the case of premium wireless speakers, that would be Naim, Linn’s longtime sparring partner in the UK), Linn’s entrant arrives exuding a cool confidence thanks to the company’s decade-plus experience producing high-end network streamers. But the Series 3 is by far the most expensive wireless speaker in this group, indeed the most expensive we have ever tested (if you…

Ever since the first premium one-box systems arrived, there has been a cloud hanging over our reviews. Are you buying this one-boxer as a system for a secondary room, a bedroom, or study? Or are you going to put this in your lounge instead of a real hi-fi system? We have long begged people not to take this latter course. There is a natural division between the world of one-box speaker systems and two-speaker stereo hi-fi. And it’s not rocket science — it’s simply the difference made by having two speakers that are separated in space. The rest is down to the quality of drivers, cabinet and amplification, and there’s no reason why a premium one-box system can’t have those. But it won’t create real spread, soundstaging, openness. It can…

Budget: Cheaper TVs are all LCD TVs, which are illuminated by either a backlight or side-lights of LEDs. Side lighting can help achieve a thinner TV, whereas backlighting inevitably adds depth and bulk to the TV. But we reckon you’ll hardly notice that when it’s home and running. Backlight is generally better, since with side-lighting it’s hard to achieve an even spread of light across the panel, and blotchiness and colour variation is common on the cheapest of side-lit TVs. Don’t get too hung up on smart functions and streaming channels. These vary so much between manufacturers and even between models that it’s hard to get clear information on what services you’ll have when you get the TV home. It’s often far easier to budget the few hundred bucks for…

The Panasonic DP-UB150 UHD Blu-ray player is a more important piece of kit than perhaps its makers realise. It occupies a golden niche for the product category — a 4K Blu-ray player for less than $300. And with Panasonic withdrawing from televisions in Australia, these will lose out on ‘bundled’ sales, so we anticipate there may be even lower prices if you shop around. Of course, you can spend a whole lot more on a UHD Blu-ray player. While the legendary Oppo players are no longer around, Panasonic itself pushes into the same rarefied air with its Sound+Image award-winning DP-UB9000, currently at $1799; Pioneer also has an award-winner at $1999, and another at $3999. These all offer high-quality audio circuits as well as the 4K video, with balanced audio outputs…

You’ll always remember your first love, your first kiss, your first dog. But with very few exceptions, hi-fi models are transitory things, launched to great fanfare until a year or two later comes a new model which is even better, often correcting flaws that the company only then thinks to point out were present in their wonderful previous model. But we love hi-fi history, and so we’ve been digging out and unboxing the very earliest efforts in loudspeaker creation from some of the bestknown speaker manufacturers today. For many of these companies, the bonds to the past have been broken in multiple changes of ownership, nationality and location until the brand has become just a brand. Others are still honing their art in buildings a short distance down the road…

The Pump Air 2 are certainly among the smallest earbuds we’ve tried, and they achieve decent sound quality despite both this and being relatively affordable for true wireless buds. They also arrive with the choice of seven different silicon ear-tips, with their sweat-proofing (IP54) combining with compact and light (4g) design to lend them well to workouts. But unfortunately they suffer in a few other areas, with that low price in evidence when it comes to the cheap-feeling charging case, its micro-USB port and relatively poor battery life. The four-hour playtime on the units themselves can be forgiven considering the challenges of achieving capacity within their diminutive dimensions, but the charging case only donates an additional 11 hours of juice in total — disappointing given it’s relatively bulky and awkward.…

This more recent addition to Jabra’s true wireless offering bundles together more than a dozen improvements in an effort to tackle competitors that have arrived since the 65t. The upgrade has largely been a great success — as before, they’re comfortable, and fast to both pair and reconnect, but the 75t’s more compact and discrete design (20% smaller) also feels significantly tougher and more robust, while still exceptionally lightweight and well-balanced in terms of weight distribution. The smaller size has meant doing away with the volume rocker in favour of long presses of the single button on each bud, which can make accurate volume selection tricky. On the other hand battery life has soared — not only an extra 2.5 hours battery life for 7.5 total from the buds, but…

Klipsch is an American speaker company which plays on its heritage (the firm was born out of an Arkansas tin shed in 1946), but that hasn’t stopped the company stepping up to the true wireless plate and taking a swing at the new age of wireless with its first set of true wireless buds. Some things are notably Klipschian. The charging carry-case is in brushed metal, so that it weighs nearly 100g (about three times as heavy as the Apple AirPods’ case), but the effect is striking, like a Zippo lighter case, and in the US you can get this engraved both on top and along the side (see right); sadly this option isn’t available here. The buds themselves are black with rose-gold coloured branding on top of their housing,…

It seems to some that Sennheiser has taken its time joining the true wireless party, observing quietly from the sidelines how it might best approach this particular headphone category. But those with longer memories will know that Sennheiser was in fact very early indeed, bringing out the MX-W1 wireless buds more than a decade ago, back in 2008. They used a bespoke transmission system, and you had to attach a transmitter pack to your phone (or back then, iPod). And we darned nearly dropped one of our test sample buds down a drain getting off a bus, which was alarming since they were $999 a pair. Perhaps this early experiment put Sennheiser off the category. It returned in late 2018, with the original Momentum True Wirelesses. They delivered a balanced…

This movie is a battlefield of potential futures. There’s one in which the Terminator franchise survives, oozing like liquid metal into further sequels, prequels and reboots. Alternatively this is the brand’s final stand, crushed like one of those skulls that litter post-apocalyptic cityscapes, just waiting for the pitiless stomp of some mechanical bastard. Judging by the tepid box office, Dark Fate may have triggered the darker of those timelines. It certainly fights for its life by screwing with its own past, slashing away previous screen adventures like gangrenous flesh — nearly two decades of continuity — to insist it’s a direct sequel to Judgment Day. And that’s welcome. It allows this entry to breathe, and brings a clarity to the storytelling that’s liberating. Distorted, static-filled images precede the titles. A…

Bon Scott — rock’n’roll singer par excellence, charismatic frontman, the free-spirited larrikin hellraiser whose easy charm earned him the epithet ‘Bon The Likeable’. AC/DC’s 1979 album ‘Highway To Hell’ was the band’s first million-seller, and in the early days of January 1980, when work began on new songs in London, Bon was buzzing; he knew they were on to something big. These new songs were demoed by Angus and Malcolm with Bon playing drums, as he had done in his first groups back in Australia, and he was convinced that they had the makings of an album that would be even bigger than ‘Highway To Hell’. In a phone call to his mother Isa in Australia, he had told her, “This one is going to be it!” It was only…

Australia’s hi-fi showgoers and followers of the high-end will know Kyron, whose unique speaker systems have carved the company’s position at the highest levels of audio performance, using box-less dipole designs which deliver literally showstopping realism. First came the statement Gaia system, currently priced at $289,000, and then the Kronos ($161,000 with its optional subwoofer). And finally the flagship $349,000 Phoenix system, with seven different elements and twice the processing power of Kronos. Now the company is producing all these models in a new and mighty cool livery — the only catch being that you’ll have to buy a $1.3m car first, the world’s most track-focused hypercar, indeed: Australia’s own Brabham Automotive BT62. Only 70 of these cars, with their tubular spaceframe steel chassis and naturally aspirated 5.4-litre V8 engines,…

JBL’s wildly successful soundbar range is lifting to a new level — that of overhead Atmos channels — with the arrival of the JBL Bar 9.1. This has detachable wireless rear speakers which pop off the main soundbar to go behind the listening position, an idea pioneered by Philips with its Fidelio soundbar back in 2013 and already used in the JBL Bar 5.1. But the JBL Bar 9.1 wireless rears each also have an upward-firing Atmos-enabled driver, which work in concert with the two upward drivers on the remaining soundbar portion to bounce Atmos height channels off your ceiling and create immersive true 5.1.4-channel playback. The wireless rears are rated for 10 hours of battery playback before requiring a return to the mother bar for recharging. A wireless 10-inch subwoofer…

Researchers at the University of Chicago have delivered one in the ear to voice assistants (and, indeed, all covert listening devices) by designing a bracelet which, when activated, ‘jams’ all microphones in the area. It works by emitting white noise at 24kHz to 26kHz from transducers around the bracelet. Although this is above the frequencies within human hearing range, commodity microphones such as those in voice assistants will leak this ultrasound into the audible band, where it effectively masks speech. Previous jamming attempts have been highly directional and subject to blind spots; the bracelet’s ring of transducers overcomes the first issue, while the device being wearable improves the second by introducing motion through natural hand movements, which shifts any blind spots constantly. The bracelet is only a prototype, but could…

The Bowers & Wilkins Wedge is part of the recently-launched Formation series, a collection of products which can form a B&W multiroom system throughout your home, all connected at high resolution, and using their own wireless network to do so. The Wedge is one of the Formation highlights, a roughly elliptical multi-driver wireless speaker curving around the front, displaying the silky cloth-formed diamond patterns used across the Formation range, and its rear almost equally beautiful in curving polished wood. It’s a beautiful thing — does it make an equally beautiful sound? Equipment While B&W has come late to the multiroom party, it is no newcomer when it comes to wireless speakers. Indeed the company pretty much defined the premium section of that market with the Zeppelin, which began life as…

Naim Audio really does have all the hi-fi bases covered. In its earliest days as an amplifier-centric UK hi-fi company it grew a deeply-entrenched base of fans who were true believers in its views on amplification (then considered ‘out there’, now accepted as common wisdom). And the company evolved, taking its core base of hi-fi amplification to new levels (witness the $200k+ Statement pre-power amplifier), while investing well ahead of the pack in streaming audio trends. It had already been making its own loudspeakers, but its 2011 merger with French speaker company Focal brought new abilities and facilities in terms of drivers and design, and a few years later came its standalone wireless speaker, the Mu-so. Somehow this one-box speaker retained Naim’s emphasis on audio excellence while shifting into this…

Here at Sound+Image we get to visit some pretty stonking home cinema builds, often created by professional installers, sometimes by the home owners. Some rooms stand alone, others sit within an entire smart home of connected video and audio zones under the control of an integrated technology platform. In the best of such dedicated home cinemas, the lights dim at the touch of a button and the projector illuminates a huge screen as you settle into the front row of comfy cinema-style leather seating, put the worries of the world to the back of your mind, and let the movie begin. As we address in our series of questions that follow, if you want a home cinema that achieves the maximum possible effect from the equipment installed, there really is…

There’s a new breed in town, and it’s breaking down the differences between projectors and TVs. These two display technologies have long been separated by a number of fundamental differences. Projectors have required installation on the ceiling or at the back of the room with the tricky task of running HDMI cables to them. An AV receiver has been required, both as an input hub (because projectors have only one or two HDMI inputs), and to deliver audio, because projectors don’t do audio. And projectors use bulbs, which require regular replacement, whereas a TV just carries on working, at least until it doesn’t. And TVs have all the benefits of smart interfaces and internet connections for streaming services, whereas projectors are plain old dumb. The Optoma P1 sweeps these differentiations…

APPLE ♦ BLUEANT ♦ BOSE ♦ JABRA ♦ JBL KLIPSCH ♦ PLANTRONICS ♦ SENNHEISER ♦ SONY When it comes to ear-buds, there’s wired, then there’s wireless, and then there’s true wireless. The distinction between the last two is that wireless buds receive their signal from your smartphone wirelessly, but the two buds are joined by a wire between them in some way. True wireless means no cable between the buds either. Just the buds. True wireless is not a brand name or a particular technology, just a description that has become a buzzword (or, more accurately, buzzwords). True wireless: good While true wireless in-ear headphones have been around for only a handful of years, the technology in these remarkable little buds is improving at a rapid rate of knots. Their…

As the name suggests, these true wireless buds are built with sporty types in mind, both sweat- and water-resistant, and with a rugged feel to them that might indicate durability, although they are also relatively weighty (well, a whole 9 grams), while their appearance might be best described as ‘chunky’, and they protrude from your ears a bit more than some rivals. You could argue that some of the competition (such as the Sony WF-1000X) look both more stylish and more discreet, especially if you diverge from the glossy Triple Black finish of our review sample and go with the Midnight Blue, Bright Orange or the rather luscious Ultraviolet (which is actually a visible violet, as ultraviolet would look merely black to our poor human eyes). The SoundSport Frees are…

After Jaybird entered the true wireless market with the promising but ultimately flawed Run range of in-ears in 2017, we were eager to see the company have another crack. And we pleased to find that the Jaybird Vista has addressed every earlier shortcoming to make this excellent pair of rugged in-ears. The Jaybird Vista’s charging case is highly compact and lightweight we’ve come across (particularly in comparison to the Run’s), and still squeezes in 10 hours of reserve charge to add to the six from the buds themselves. It’s coated in a rubberised plastic that looks and feels sleek and durable, and is the first of the range to upgrade to a USB-C port. The earbuds themselves are similarly sleek, light and hardy, with a much smaller profile when in…

Model numbers are hard enough without companies having one product called the WH-1000XM3 (over-ear noise-cancellers) and another, these true wireless earbuds, called the WF-1000XM3. But the point is presumably that the buds successfully capture everything that made their over-ear counterparts such a success. With only a few minor caveats, these are a super-compact alternative to their larger brethren. First and foremost, there’s noise-cancelling, and it’s just as exceptional as on the full-size headphones, and so can be considered the best on the consumer market right now. Sporting an updated version of Sony’s dedicated processor (the QN1e chip), each bud utilises two microphones to intelligently identify environmental noises and aggressively block them out. The results are spectacular — particularly for typical use cases such as commuting, city noise or chatty offices.…

The latest DC movie starts with Harley Quinn splitting from her infamous long-term BF. Whether this has anything to do with her seeing his last film is unclear, but it’s difficult to imagine this Harley looking at that Joker and thinking ‘Phwooarrr!”’ We jest, but there’s surely no cinematic universe in which continuity makes it through entirely intact. And the DCEU has been a lot more fun since the movies stopped trying to be the MCU but darker. So like Shazam!, Birds Of Prey doesn’t play by the rules — it changes the rules. It’s ostensibly a sequel to Suicide Squad, but it doesn’t look or feel like it, and pays mere lip service to events in its predecessor. Very few will be sorry about that… That’s not to say…

James Hunter Six Nick Of Time Gawd bless James Hunter, the aitch-dropping, chain-smoking British geezer who has, inexplicably, the most glorious soul voice of his generation; you suspect he could croon a Centrelink on-hold message and leave you shivering. And his Daptone output is getting stronger. These blues and soul originals salute the golden age – right down to the sleeve art – but spiced with snarky nods to here and now, they never stink of pastiche Leaving the blocks at a lollop with I Can Change Your Mind, the album’s pace is perhaps a little more stately than its 2018 predecessor ‘Whatever It Takes’. Who’s Fooling Who is a snare-brushed stunner that chronicles a relationship’s death rattle. The leisurely Missing In Action evokes the sun-kissed morning stroll back from…