Innehållsförteckning för April - May 2024 från Sound + Image

EDLINES Among our dozens of award-winners in this special issue of Sound+Image, it’s especially great to see the vinyl spinners and accessories and phono stages: categories that faded away in the earlier years of our awards, but which are now driving the hi-fi industry in all the right ways — the attraction of vinyl is bringing new listeners, younger listeners, while simultaneously promoting the idea of attentive listening. Vinyl almost forces you into good listening habits, because given the cash we splash these days, we are likely to sit down and listen with attention to our purchase, in the order the artist selected, of course, and hopefully in hi-fi quality. It’s sometimes frustrating that this doesn’t happen more often with music. When you sit down to watch TV for an…

VINYL Turntable of the Year under $1000 Let’s open our Awards with the joys of vinyl, resurgent as ever, and laughing in the face of the CDs that came to conquer it. Along with still rising vinyl sales we are seeing ever more new turntables from ever more brands. JBL, for example, was founded in 1946, but didn’t get the urge to produce a vinyl-playback machine until 2023, when it announced two. First came the TT350 Classic (see p20), closely followed by this JBL Spinner BT. The TT350 overleaf is indeed more ‘classic’ in both looks and abilities, while the Spinner BT winning its award here is bolder and, as its suffix indicates, comes with Bluetooth output (with the aptX HD codec), so you can play your vinyl back through…

VINYL Turntable of the Year over $2500 Denon is not a company new to turntables, nor to the direct-drive method of spinning vinyl discs. Direct drive was originally the preserve of radio stations and DJs — hence Denon’s first was the DN-302F made for use in Japanese radio stations, released in 1970. Belt-drive has ruled hi-fi turntables for decades, but new techniques seem to have reduced the importance of cogging and the objections to direct drive; VPI, Rockport, Technics and others will happily now sell you DD turntables upwards of $30k. There are no convenience extras here: no Bluetooth, no built-in phono stage. The DP-3000NE is priced at $4499, nothing that doesn’t include a cartridge: we reviewed it with Denon’s own DL-103R cartridge which proved so delightful a partner that…

STREAMING Wireless Loudspeakers of the Year Where merely active speakers (see p67) require source components, streaming speakers can be a complete system alone. That’s the goal of the Duettos — they build on Sonus faber’s single-unit Omnia (an award-winner last year), bringing the same streaming and ease of use to a proper two-speaker system, which is, after all, where the Italian company has its expertise. So here the two beautifully-veneered speakers boast what Sonus faber calls a ‘luteshaped’ cross-section for their leather-covered top panels, while the fascias combine a 28mm silk-dome tweeter backed by a ferrite magnet system with a copper cap on the pole, above 133mm long-excursion paper-pulp cones, with neodymium magnet systems, copper caps and aluminium rings, housed within Sonus Faber’s new ‘Organic’ basket. These are active speakers,…

HEADPHONES Headphone Amplifier of the Year This may seem a very particular product for a particular purpose, and that is true — a headphone amplifier which powers specifically electrostatic headphones, most likely Stax’s own ‘earspeakers’. But it is several things beyond that. You can feed it, as any headphone amplifier, with an analogue cable from a preamplifier, amplifier, or direct source. But it also has a USB-C connection for a computer (or mobile phone via an OTD kit), doing DAC duties to 384kHz PCM and DSD256, DoP and native. The final contribution comes from an internal battery, making the D10 a portable product. There are, of course, a great many portable headphone amps. But this one powers electrostatic earspeakers, which require 580V bias voltage. Until a few years ago this…

UST Projection System of the Year under $10,000 TVs & PROJECTORS JUDGES’ “ COMMENT Firing up from below makes for convenience in set-up, but presents challenges in projection. Epson delivers an impressive complete solution here. Here we change categories to a different type of projector, Ultra Short Throw (UST) meaning that instead of being at the back of the room or on a table halfway back, they sit almost directly under the screen onto which the image is to be projected, shining their picture upwards. In their efforts to replace a TV, the UST breed often comes with a smart interface (e.g. Android TV) with streaming apps, along with built-in speakers, appropriate in this projector type since it sits at the front of the room. More than that, some manufacturers…

AV SOUND AV Receiver of the Year $2500-$5000 Marantz here and Denon opposite are sister companies, travelling together under first D+M, then Sound United, and now Masimo Consumer. When one releases a range of AV receivers, so does the other, and in many respects, such as their back panels, the products can look remarkably similar. But they are differently tuned, generally using different amplification technologies, and they certainly look different from the front. Marantz (a Masimo ‘luxury’ brand) has a new livery, with a false fascia forward of a spiraletched front panel, a style which has proven successful across its AV and hi-fi separates. There are currently five AV receivers in Marantz’s new range: lowest is a $2000 slimline Cinema 70s, highest for now (not counting the AV 10 processor)…

Soundbar of the Year over $1000 AV SOUND JUDGES’ “COMMENT Genuine 4.1.2channel performance from soundbar, subwoofer and a pair of satellite rears which can be used as wireless speakers in their own right. Ranting about Yamaha’s pretence at immersion in the previous soundbar award is particularly ironic when here the company’s ‘True X’ system genuinely delivers just that immersion, and does so without any trickery at all, instead simply putting real drivers in all the right places. So the soundbar (SR-X50A) and wireless subwoofer alone deliver 2.1.2 channels, meaning stereo left and right from the front of the bar, two additional driver units on the top of the soundbar which bring Dolby Atmos height performance to the performance, plus the ‘.1’ of the wireless subwoofer. If you then add two…

HI-FI AMPS Amplifier of the Year $4000-$10,000 In Australia, Advance Paris is a new brand, but it has a 25-year history in Europe (as Advance Acoustics, the company was making loudspeakers as far back in 1995). We’ve so far tested three of the company’s latest offerings, and two of them proved remarkable enough to secure our awards. You’ll find a pre-powr combination further on, but let’s begin with this fairly straightforward stereo hi-fi amplifier, the A12 Classic, pitched at an upper-midrange price of $4499. There are some key Advance Paris characteristics: the front fascia in full black, dominated by two large and lovely blue VU meters, calibrated to show power output into eight ohms, and also dB. Between the two VU meters, behind the glass, sit a couple of smallish…

HI-FI AMPS Stereo Pre-Power Amplifiers of the Year Back to France for our final amplifier award, with Advance Paris also taking our our gong for preamplifier and power amp pair. There have been some monster winners in these categories in the past, rising into the tens of thousands of dollars. One of the things we like about this pair is that they’re relatively affordable: $2299 for the X-P700 preamplifier, $2900 for the X-A220 Evo mono power amp, of which you’ll need two, so the full set comes in just under $8100. The pre-amplifier is lower in height — and here lacks the valves that glow on the company’s integrateds. Its size also limits the inputs, though they are still generous, with seven analogue RCA inputs and a switchable phono input,…

Active Loudpeakers of the Year SPEAKERS Wireless streaming speakers are becoming ever more popular these days — and Airpulse is a brand which has several of those to offer, including the similarly-named A200 Bluetooth speakers. But these Airpulse SM200 speakers are different. The ‘SM’ stands for Studio Monitor, and they are indeed more intended for use in a studio (or perhaps more a home studio, given their very reasonable price of $1450 the pair). They contain their own amplification — but they are not wireless: they do not stream in any way. So these will be suitable for a slightly different type of system. You’ll need a preamplifier or a source with switching and a volume control in order to feed them, as each speaker has just a single input,…

“There were several reasons for Slade’s success,” the band’s guitarist and fabled ‘Superyob’ Dave Hill informs us in a Black Country accent thick as treacle. “Most importantly, we had great songs. But the whole country recognised us as four workingclass guys who’d got glammed-up, stuck their fists in the air and were telling everyone to have a good time. We were no-nonsense. We didn’t take ourselves seriously, and we were proud to be British. People could relate to that, whether you were a granny, a teenager or a three-year-old. And we had a violin. Until then there were no rock records with violin.” Fronted by the foghorn-voiced Noddy Holder, always resplendent in ever-changing outfits that included a top hat bedecked with mirrors, between 1971 and 1976, Slade notched up 17…

SHOW REPORT Not many things would have descended on Sydney in greater numbers than millimetres of rainfall on the weekend (150mm over 24 hours!), but hi-fi brands were certainly one of them. After a successful inaugural event last April, the Australian Hi-Fi Show 2024 returned to the Sydney Central Hotel to give Sydneysider entertainment fans and audiophiles the opportunity to see and hear some of the best audio and AV products from Australia and all over the world. Brought to you by Australian Hi-Fi, What Hi-Fi? and Sound+Image magazines from Future Publishing, the three-day celebration of hi-fi and home cinema featured nearly 30 rooms of kit, which included an all-Aussie super system, luscious AlsyVox ribbon speakers from Italy that delivered mindblowing sound and got everyone talking, and even the latest…

Turntable of the Year under $1000 VINYL JUDGES’ “COMMENT With four different paths to playback plus impressive build and features at the price, this Lenco will suit those looking for classy looks and high-value vinyl sound. This is a joint winner: it shares this category with the turntable opposite. That’s because the price is very similar, here $699, yet the approach and the presentation are rather different, so our judges decided that both approaches should be recognised. Lenco’s offering looks more traditional. The plinth is no lightweight, being nearly 30mm thick, and that walnut finish (the model number sometimes has WA after it, for walnut) looks a nice dark properly-grained veneer; it fits perfectly around corners, invisibly masked around the sub-platter. (Lenco is based in the Netherlands as part of…

Phono Stage of the Year over $5000 VINYL JUDGES’ “ COMMENT Perreaux’s VP4 shows how smarts and sound can merge seamlessly even in a primarily analogue product like a phono stage. Top tech from across the Tasman! Another Australasian product wins our higher phono stage award: this time from New Zealand, where Perreaux has been innovating in high-end audio for close to half a century. It was originally founded by Peter Perreaux in Napier on the North Island in 1974, but was moved to Dunedin after 2018 by Dutchman Edwin Nieman, to be closer to his own business, Kamahi Electronics, which designs firmware, software and apps for avionics, industrial electronic systems and scientific instruments. And this connection is no side story, because it is clever software which stands the VP4…

TVs & PROJECTORS TV of the Year It’s a difficult time of year to present televisions with awards: TV models are updated every year, and the 2024 models are just beginning to land as we decide which of last year’s models were the stand-outs. Then again, this is exactly the time of year when you might snag an extra bargain on these outgoing 2023 models. With that in mind, we are making two television awards, both joint winners of ‘TV of the Year’. We can’t separate them by technology, since both use Mini LED technology. We can’t separate them by price, because end-of-year changes have seen their prices change dramatically and even cross over. This 55-inch TCL C845 Google TV, for example, is officially listed at $1999, but is currently…

AV Projector of the Year $2000-$4000 TVs & PROJECTORS Here’s another unusual form factor for a projector: this time a full 4K long-throw model designed to operate from the back of the room. We reckon it’s a real looker; it’s ironic that Leica came back to projection this year (see our final projection award) because when we first saw the Horizon Ultra, its creamy leathery aesthetic (they call it ‘misty gold’) had reminded us very much of an old family Leitz slide projector. When powered on, the top section of the frontage slides down to reveal the lens, there’s a quick autocheck which extends to focus, position check for the optical zoom, even a wall colour adjustment, and then you’re onto the home page of the XGIMI’s smart interface. Because…

TVs & PROJECTORS UST Projection System of the Year over $10,000 In our world it’s an Ultra Short Throw Projection System; for Germany’s Leica it is a ‘Cinema TV’. As with the Epson, it combines an ultra-short-throw projector with smart streaming and a built-in sound system — but here there are also TV tuners for free-to-air, even more fully fulfilling the intended role as a complete TV replacement. You can plug in external sources, but the Cine 1 could provide everything you need in one neat and quite gorgeous package. And it is a real stunner; Leica’s external design is both classic and luscious. But it’s the lenses that are very much the crucial thing here. Lens quality is crucial in any projection system, of course, but even more so…

AV Receiver of the Year over $5000 AV SOUND JUDGES’ “COMMENT From 15 channels of amplification to the convenience of its HEOS streaming, Denon’s AVC-A1H brings everything you could possibly want in a modern multichannel audiovideo component — and manages to fit it all in a single box. One difference between sister companies Denon and Marantz comes at the top end of AV receiverdom. Marantz splits its top offering into two — a processor and a multichannel power amp. Denon, on the other hand, delivers this AVC-A1H: a monumental integrated AV receiver that has 15 (that’s fifteen!) channels of power onboard, with each of those channels rated with a power output of 150 watts. With four independent subwoofer outputs, that means you could use it to drive a Dolby Atmos…

HI-FI AMPS Amplifier of the Year under $2500 This award make three in a row for Yamaha, but here we are out of the AV sound categories and into the more rerefied air of hi-fi stereo amplifiers. But it’s no surprise to find the Japanese company here as well: Yamaha is celebrating 70 years of hi-fi products this year (it is around 137 years old all up), having purportedly been the first to use the contraction of Hi-Fi in the name of a product: the 1954 ‘Yamaha Hi-Fi Player’. Things have moved on rather from then, although there is a remarkable style continuity across the decades. But the R-N1000A stereo amplifier benefits from Yamaha’s most recent hi-fi renaissance, which started with a luxurious 5000 Series and has now reached the…

SPEAKERS Standmount Speakers of the Year under $2500 When British brand PMC revealed a new entry-level range with a starting price nearly half that of the previous most affordable PMC model (the Twenty5 21i), the question was whether the company could compete at such a level against relatively mass-market brands like KEF and Bowers & Wilkins. Once we had a pair of the $2399 Prodigy 1 standmounts on test, however, it became clear that far from pandering to the mass market, PMC has been happy to leave the new models looking rather plain, in order to focus on taking its studio-grade sound mainstream. According to PMC, the Prodigys are even measured and listened to alongside reference models, and are similarly signed off by their assembler before they’re boxed up and…

music & movies classic movie scenes People never much worried about their ankles until 1990’s Misery. “I actually have the Misery game,” said host Billy Crystal in his opening monologue of the 1991 Academy Awards. “It’s a home hobbling kit.” Yes, that scene in Rob Reiner’s adap of Stephen King’s bestseller made an instant impact - much like Annie Wilkes’ swinging sledgehammer on Paul Sheldon’s ankles, you might say - and the mere thought of it still induces sharp intakes of breath more than 30 years later. And yet in the novel it was so much worse, with Annie cutting Paul’s left foot clean off before cauterising the stump with a propane torch. Screenwriter William Goldman loved what he was reading, saying, “I never dreamt such a thing was possible,…

music & movies classic track There seemed no end to Pete Townshend’s ambition come the turn of the 1970s. Not content with the success of sprawling rock opera ‘Tommy’, The Who’s creative linchpin started work on an even more demanding project. The complex storyline of ‘Lifehouse’ — set in a dystopian future where rock‘n’roll has ceased to exist and society is enslaved by technology — involved theatre, astrology, philosophy and film. It was too much for Townshend to realise in the end, leading to a nervous breakdown. But he was able to salvage parts of ‘Lifehouse’ for ‘Who’s Next’, the band’s 1971 studio album. Baba O’Riley was one of those pieces. Beginning with a loop from Townshend’s favourite new toy, the ARP synthesizer, the song grows wings with the introduction…

VINYL Turntable of the Year $1000-$2500 We’ve already seen the JBL Spinner BT perform admirably at its price level of around $650 (see p18). But that youthorientated Bluetooth-equipped turntable was preceded in its announcement, if not its Australian arrival, by this upmarket TT350 Classic at $1999. That makes this the first-ever turntable released by the Harman/Samsungowned US marque in all of its 78 years. It was launched as part of the company’s ‘Classic’ series, specifically with a line-up of JBL separates components around a new SA550 Classic integrated amplifier taking its cues from a 1966 SA600 amplifier designed by Bart Locanthi. The Classic range also now includes three sources: an MP350 high-res music streamer, a CD350 CD player — and this, the TT350 Classic turntable. But there’s no reason this…

VINYL Vinyl Accessory of the Year The ubiquity of Audio-Technica’s cartridges is evidenced by three of our four turntable winners coming with A-T cartridges as the standard inclusion — even though the decks are from other brands against which Audio-Technica competes on turntables. Two of the winning turntables this year — Lenco’s and the higher JBL — use the same AT-VM95E cartridge. This is the green-cased cartridge from Audio-Technica’s six-strong VM range. We often mention this in reviews as a great advantage in offering a very simple upgrade path. All AT-VM95 cartridges are compatible with any turntable headshell that accepts half-inch-mount cartridges, needing just two screws to fix, and not even nuts underneath. The six variations each tweak the stylus profile, and in some cases the shape of the shank…

DIGITAL CD Player of the Year The Compact Disc may be done as a physical format for the future, but the silver discs offer better sound than basic streaming, while every charity shop in town is packed with secondhand CDs, the cheapest possible way to build a music collection. So there’s good reason to keep a CD player as part of your hi-fi system. And our winning CD player brings a great many more abilities to recommend it. In addition to the central CD slot, Marantz’s CD 50n is an all-round smartypants, the ‘n’ standing for ‘networking’, because there’s streaming music onboard here, thanks to the wireless streaming and multiroom HEOS platform, This covers paid and free services including Spotify Connect, Tidal, Deezer, Amazon Prime Music, TuneIn internet radio and…

Wireless Headphones of the Year over $500 HEADPHONES JUDGES’ “ COMMENT The T+As are gems, alone in a territory of wireless performance quality that no other pair we’ve heard can occupy, and also a fine listen via cable or USB-C. It is not unusual to see high-end home headphones reach a price like the $2499 of the Solitaire T, but this is new territory for wireless noise-cancellers that are intended to travel. The reason is that German hi-fi company T+A started from its high-end ‘electromagnetostatic’ designs, switching to the compact, closed-back form here and incorporating wirelessness, ANC functionality, and a new 42mm dynamic transducer made of wood-fibre-plastic which has very high power handling and is said to produce sound pressure levels over 120dB. The Solitaire T can be used passively,…

TV of the Year TVs & PROJECTORS JUDGES’ “ COMMENT Seeing out its time in Mini LED Pro glory, the 65-inch U8K shows Hisense moving from its value niche into performance that challenges all comers. Our second joint TV of the Year is another Mini LED TV from another Chinese company, and also another example of how these brands are now being recognised as much for high technology and premium performance as for their initial market stances of being ‘bargain’ brands. The Hisense U8K model (just being replaced in the market by the incoming U9K) may qualify as a bargain, but it does so by being a brilliant TV at a sharp price, not by being ‘cheap’. While Hisense is making this move to be recognised as much for high…

TVs & PROJECTORS AV Projector of the Year over $4000 Another excellent projector from Taiwan’s BenQ tops our main projector awards — the W4000i is more traditional in looks and several levels above its quirkier portable GV31. This is a true home cinema model which delivered excellent colours, blacks and DLP-level 4K resolution. As a proper theatre projector it measures significantly larger than BenQ’s business and lower-cost home entertainment projectors, a full 42cm across, and weighing a solid 6.6kg. It’s a ‘4K’ model, using solid-state LED lamps which are warrantied to 20,000 hours of use, and that 4K is built up in DLP style from four flashes of a 1920 × 1080-pixel 0.65-inch Digital Micromirror Device. BenQ rates the brightness at 3200 ANSI lumens, and the contrast ratio at up…

AV Receiver of the Year under $2500 AV SOUND JUDGES’ “ COMMENT Externally it looks the same as the previous model, but internal upgrades and updated abilities bring Sony’s new midrange receiver back to the top of its class. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, we said when we reviewed Sony’s latest seven-channel AV receiver. We were referring to its appearance, because it looks exactly the same as the previous STR-DN1080, a highly regarded receiver even after five years in the market; indeed the front hasn’t changed much since the latest model’s great-grandpa was released back in 2013. But while Sony’s industrial design team may not have turned up, the engineering team has been hard at work bringing technical standards up to date with HDMI 2.1, with…

AV SOUND Soundbar of the Year under $1000 Regular readers may wonder why the SR-B40A soundbar and subwoofer have made our Awards: we were really quite rude about it when we did our original review. But that’s because Yamaha makes some ridiculous claims for it on the website, with an animation of a sphere of sound sources all over the room (including underneath you) and talk of “a brand-new immersive experience”… “fills every corner of your room with expressive sound”… “fully immerses you in a sonic universe”. That’s nonsense: this is a soundbar with just two tweeters and four circular midrange cones specified at 46mm diameter, all of them firing directly forward from the bar, joined by the 16.5cm driver in the subwoofer. It plays in 2.1 — stereo plus…

HI-FI AMPS Amplifier of the Year $2500-$4000 Roksan is a UK brand which started life making turntables in 1985, but this Attessa Streaming Amplifier is an example of the electronics into which the company later diversified during an evolution which included acquisition in November 2016 by British loudspeaker manufacturer Monitor Audio. Roksan is wise to emphasise the ‘streaming’ in the name, as this version of the Attessa comes with BluOS onboard. That’s the music management system behind Bluesound; it allows you to access and stream lossless music up to 24-bit/192kHz via your home network, and integrates with most streaming services - Qobuz, Deezer, and Amazon HD as well as free services and internet radio. It also supports Spotify Connect and Tidal Connect, plus streaming via Apple AirPlay 2. That’s all…

Standmount Speakers of the Year $2500-$5000 SPEAKERS JUDGES’ “ COMMENT The best thing about the FR6 speakers is not their isobaric complexity, it’s the simple pleasure of listening to their music. The Dellichord FR6 is difficult to fully describe without the use of the cutaway graphic reproduced below. From the front it looks like a simple two-driver two-way standmount. But there are four drivers — in addition to the front baffle’s 25mm soft-dome tweeter and 16.5cm natural-fibre mid-woofer, there is a large passive radiator at the rear, and then the final driver is inside the cabinet, positioned in what is known as an isobaric arrangement (iso ‘equal, baric ‘pressure’). This arrangement puts multiple (here two) identical drivers one behind the other, so that the rear one has no direct coupling…

Floorstanding Speakers of the Year over $10,000 SPEAKERS Over in Canada, PSB Speakers’ Paul Barton (his wife Sue supplied the ‘S’ to the brand) is renowned for being a ‘sound quality first, looks second’ kinda guy: an engineer who won’t sacrifice sound quality for fashion or fad, nor — even when the T800s are touted as ‘cost no object’ designs — would he be likely to spend more money on cabinets than on the drivers and crossover networks built into them. So in a world where most large and expensive loudspeakers are curvaceous or complex, the Synchrony T800s are, well, more straightforwardly boxy, doubling down with rather blocky-looking outrigger feet at each base, though again thee are sonically enhanced by isolation feet provided by IsoAcoustics. And not to denigrate the…

GREEN DAY Saviors Punk-pop masters return to formula, sprinkling Gallagher. Once more back to basics, dear friends. Green Day may have strayed a little from the path to Welcome To Paradise over the past three decades — into punk opera, grandiose rock balladry or, as on 2020’s last album ‘Father Of All Motherfuckers’, garage rock’n’roll — but eventually they always steer back into their melodic punk hammer lane. Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong has described ‘Saviors’, their fourteenth album, as bridging the gap between 1994’s ‘Dookie’ and 2004’s ‘American Idiot’, and there it certainly sits, part hurtling punkarama, part political rock drama. It’s a style that Green Day pioneered and epitomise, and they don’t wander too far from it. Opener and first single The American Dream Is Killing Me, held over from…