Many of us of a certain age will remember the radiogram, now Ruark bring it bang up to date with their R7 Radiogram costing £2000. John Scott gets a bit nostalgic in what is a bit of a departure for Hifi Pig.

I have been fascinated by music and the things that make music for literally as long as I can remember.  My earliest musical memories centre around a 1950s HMV radiogram that took pride of place  in the corner of our living room.  At this point, readers born after 1970 may require some explanation as to what a radiogram actually is.  The radiogram combined a record player – we didn’t call them turntables back then – with a radio (we didn’t call those tuners yet either).  The record player and radio were housed in a solid wooden cabinet containing a speaker, or if you were lucky a pair of speakers, and usually a little built in cupboard to store your record collection.  The radiogram was as much a piece of furniture as a functional item and was built for the ages – ours still lives in my mother’s house.

That radiogram entertained and educated me.  I moved from Pinky and Perky records (if you don’t know, look them up) and a series of orange vinyl 7 inch records that played at 78 rpm and contained nursery rhymes and children’s stories, to cherry picking from my elder sister’s record collection.  She was principally a Cliff Richard fan and I didn’t share that enthusiasm but The Last Time by The Rolling Stones, Yeah, Yeah by Georgie Fame, Here Comes The Night by Lulu and Cathy’s Clown by The Everley Brothers were given regular plays. The radio was something to be played with rather than played; the 4 bandwidths of VHF, Long Wave, Medium Wave and Short Wave could individually be coaxed into making a variety of interesting noises by twiddling the tuning knob but musically speaking there was little there to interest me.  That would all change in 1967 through, when BBC Radio 1 took to the airwaves.

The radiogram fell out of fashion by the end of the 1960s; replaced by the music centre, which typically added a cassette deck to the turntable/radio combo, and the increasing popularity of separate systems for those who really took their hifi seriously.  Tons of teak, mahogany, valves and Garrard turntables were consigned to the scrap heap – just not in our house.  Fashions often come full circle and if you have visited the furniture department of your local department store recently you will have noticed that 1950s furniture is bang on trend; all sexily-curved sofas and spindly-legged tables.  And if your local department store is the same as mine, a Ruark R7 radiogram sitting prettily in amongst them and looking perfectly at home.

Unboxing and Appearance 

Like the radiograms of yore, the R7 is very much a piece of furniture and is also solidly built; the unit’s 30 kg weight is testament to the quality of its walnut, aluminium and glass construction.  The unit arrived well packet inside a sturdy cardboard container.  A cardboard box is a cardboard box but the external design featuring the Ruark logo and a breakdown of the R7s features give a sense of the quality of the quality of the product within. Opening the box, the R7 and its component parts were so well packed that I was already dreading the repacking that I would have to do when the time came to return the product.  Luckily when the time came, that actually turned out to be pretty straightforward.

The R7 itself is cozily snuggled in a large cotton drawstring bag – very useful for protecting the walnut cabinet work if you need to put the unit into temporary storage.  A second box contains the power supply and a third the legs, remote control, FM aerial and various other accoutrements.  Slipping the R7 out of its little sleeping bag, I was immediately struck by the quality of its cabinet work – it really is superb, not just on the obvious visible surfaces but also on the base of the unit where the subwoofer lives.  The R7 can be used as a freestanding unit on its elegant spindle legs.  Alternatively, is can sit on top of a sideboard or AV cabinet supported on 4 screw-in “pucks”.  Aesthetically, my preference was for the freestanding spindly-legged option but the presence of a Christmas tree in the room meant that space was at a premium so, after a short test period using the legs, the sideboard option was the one I went for.

Setup,  Operation and Sound 

You would expect an all-in-one unit like a radiogram to be simplicity itself to set up and the R7 does not disappoint on that account. The circular, almost hemispherical, remote control is intuitive to use and in combination with the bright and clear front panel display, I very quickly entered my wifi password and connected the R7 to the audio files on my NAS and to Internet radio via my router.  It is possible to scroll through your network audio library using the remote and the display but if you gave a large library this quickly becomes tedious.  This is not a particular criticism of the R7 however – this process on the R7 is no more or less tedious than on any other product that offers on-screen library navigation.  Fortunately, as the R7 is  UPnP compliant, I was able to use my NAS’s library management app on my iPad to more easily navigate my collection.

Safe in the knowledge that my digital library was under control, I decided to start my R7 listening experience with the FM/DAB radio options.  I have never owned a radio that relied on a ribbon aerial and found the results to be anywhere near satisfactory.  Unsurprisingly, the R7 was no different. I went through the usual farce ballet of positioning the ribbon in unlikely and impractical configurations in order to get a signal that was as stable and static-free as possible.  Why anyone would want to do this when there is a perfectly acceptable substitute available in the form of Internet radio is beyond me.   I can say that because radio is not a particularly important source for me.  If it is for you, however, then connecting the R7 to an external FM/DAB aerial ought to see you right in that department.

Moving on to the CD player, I mirrored the R7’s retro-but-modern feel with Don’t Be Afraid, the recent album from country singer Tami Neilson, which also has a Fifties style with an up to date twist.  The R7 suited the album’s production perfectly; twangy baritone guitars were detailed and resonant; Tami’s vocals were rendered with clarity but with a degree of warmth.  The overall sound just made me want to settle down with a glass of red wine and wallow in the album from start to finish.

The R7 retained these qualities when I moved on to some choices from my digital library.  The R7 can be warm and comfortable like an old pair of slippers but it is also adaptable.   When asked to summon up the crisp, cold air and glacially-sculpted landscapes of Sibilius’ second symphony, it was still capable of painting an appropriate sonic picture.  Once again I found myself simply settling back and letting the music take me away. It would be unrealistic to expect the R7 to have a massive soundstage and it doesn’t, but it does do okay for its size.  I threw a lot of different styles of music at the R7; given the time of year, a lot of different styles of Christmas music in particular, and time and again the word I kept coming back to was comfortable.  The R7 isn’t the last word in tonal accuracy, it won’t knock you off your feet in the way that it coveys pace, detail and rhythm but it does offer an easy and seductive listen.  Playing Haitian Divorce from Steely Dan’s album The Royal Scam, I still got caught up in the intricacies of the instrumentation but I wasn’t able to pull the music apart and follow Dean Parks’ guitar lines or Bernard Purdie’s hi hat throughout the song in quite the same way as I normally can with my usual hifi set up.

I have not previously had any use for Bluetooth in an audio system but I discovered that the R7’s USB port was capable of powering my Amazon Dot and once I had paired that to the R7 via Bluetooth, there was great fun to be had by asking Alexa to play Radio 2 or a 1960’s Christmas playlist.  She even came up with the goods when I asked her to: “play the song that goes ‘Poor old Johnny Ray’”.  Okay, so this was straying away from hifi quality but for a bit of casual listening and a bit of fun it was perfectly acceptable.

Conclusion 

The Ruark R7 is a versatile, stylish and very well-built unit bringing together a CD player, network player, FM/DAB and Internet radio and Bluetooth connectivity.  It is never going to outperform a well-matched set of separate components but that’s not really the point and so if you feel this is the kind of thing for you it comes highly recommended. The R7 brings something unique to your home.  If you decide that you need one in your life then nothing else will do.

AT A GLANCE 

Build Quality: First-class craftsmanship, oozing quality

Sound Quality: Not the last word in Hifi at the price but a highly engaging and enjoyable listen

Value For Money: Purely in sound terms you can make £2000 go a lot further, but the R7 is much more than just a piece of audio equipment

Pros: 

Versatile and easy to use

Killer looks (if Fifties-inspired design is your thing)

Exceptional build quality

Cons:

Fifties-inspired design is not for everyone

If sound quality is your top priority, you can do better for the money

Price:  £2000

John Scott

Specifications

DAB, DAB+ and FM Tuner with RDS

Ultra black, high contrast fluorescent display

Dual aerial inputs allow for separate DAB and FM aerial feeds

Comprehensive Internet Radio functionality

Slot loading CD player plays CD-Audio and MP3 music disks

Full Wi-Fi capability allows wireless networking and music streaming

Bluetooth with aptX allows CD quality direct streaming with compatible devices

Charge-port for charging smartphones and tablet computers

2 × 5.5” dual concentric stereo drive

1 × 8” long throw subwoofer drive

160 watts nominal power output

Switchable digital and analogue auxiliary inputs

Adjustable treble and bass settings

Enhanced 3D sound processing

Stereo headphone output

Dimensions (without legs): H175 × W1000 × D400mm

Dimensions (on legs): H650 × W1000 × D400mm

Weight: 30kg

Supplied with spindle legs for free standing mode or puck feet for mounting R7 on existing sideboard or AV cabinet

Optional TV mount

Rich walnut veneer cabinet and black lacquer legs

exaSound are a Canadian brand that make just a handful of products. Here David Blumenstein takes delivery of their $3499.00 e33 Digital to Analogue Converter. 

Five years ago I embarked upon a decision to pick up sticks and emigrate to London from New York City. This was made somewhat more concrete for me as a result of my father’s passing and my desire to get away and make a fresh start.  I knew that wherever I would call home music, more specifically my library would come with, but not all my gear and definitely not my records and CDs. The decision was to streamline as much as possible and limit gear to whatever could fit in good sized Airline approved carry-on roller bag. This meant that I had to digitise all my music and that apart from my speakers I would be taking my Mac Mini, hard drives and trusty universal, 110/220v, Bel Canto Design s300 integrated amplifier with built-in 24/96 DAC. Everything else would be purchased upon my arrival. I went through a slew of speakers before I finally felt comfortable with the Audio Physic Tempos, and it was during that time that not only did I find myself downloading and acquiring more HD, high definition files, but also  discovering something new to me called DSD, Direct Stream Digital.

As I was slowly settling into my new life abroad, I felt that I was just settling for sonic quality, so I plunged myself into the UK hifi community; joining online forums and reading all the local magazines. I had purchased a very capable and portable FOSTEX HP-A4 headphone amp/DAC to tide me over. It is powered over USB and supports DSD 128, so I thought I had it made, and then DSD 256 raised its head, but more importantly the sound was good, but not the level that I would drop everything and rush home for. Armed with all the research and queries of forum members, I listened to and demo’d the following DACs which were available to me in the UK, without extraordinary import taxes and duties: Chord Hugo, Mytek 192, M2Tech Young, Auralic Vega, Wyred4Sound and miraculously the exaSound e22. Miraculous, because apart from reading about the DAC, it was only because of advert in one of local hifi magazines that I learned there was a sole distributor up in Cambridge, outside of London.

It is now just about three years since acquiring the exaSound e22. The decision not so obvious, as it met my particular criteria:

1. Portability, it would comfortably fit in my roller bag
2. Universality, auto switching power supply, so I could plug it in anywhere.
3. Integration, using the Apple remote meant one less gadget to keep track of
4. Sonics, in a word “Glorious”, and a reason for me to run not walk from the underground station to my flat.

The exaSound e22 remains the mainstay of my digital system. Over the past few years I have auditioned other DACs, listened intently to others in the possession of friends and kind strangers, but nothing I heard so far in terms of my aforementioned criteria, price and sonic quality has turned my head, until of course George Klissarov, founder and designer of exaSound announced the new e32 DAC, not a slipstream update, but a bona fide upgrade moving on from the ESS 9108S Sabre32 chip to the new ESS 9208 Sabre32 Pro chip, which after email exchanges with ESS and a close look at the block diagram, I learned that the 9208 affords designers a slew of new technical/design possibilities and improvements, however as it relates to prospective exaSound customers here are the highlights:

• Enhanced firmware and drivers for both Mac Core and Windows
• Seamless format switching and handling of higher resolution formats when compared to the e22, the e32’s predecessor
• Inclusion of a 12 volt 1.5 amp power supply input which allows for a number of linear power supply units to be used and after listening to a few which I either had on hand or borrowed, was not convinced that the additional outlay returned an exponential increase in sonic quality.

There is renewed debate in the benefit of a Linear Power Supply over a switched one, and this will no doubt rage on.

My digital library is now just over 10TB, and while that has indeed grown and storage solutions changed over the years, I have remained consistent in my use of an Apple Mac Mini Late 2012 as my source running various software playback programs: Audirvana Plus, Signalyst HQPlayer primarily for ASIO playback, upsampling and files manipulation. ROON has just recently been added to my arsenal.

HQPlayer’s ability to manipulate files with its myriad of filters and settings can be a minefield. I had to remember to go back and listen to unaltered files when assessing the e32, and remind myself what I was listening to and the role the DAC was playing in all of this.

For reasons of transparency, I have been and continue to be a long time proponent of Damien Plisson’s Audirvana software from versions 1.x, 2.x and now 3.x. As for ROON, this was most recent, and somewhat ironic as I count the principals behind ROON and SOOLOOS as friends of mine for just about 20 years now.

ASIO Windows – Steinberg vs CORE  Apple. It should not be a competition and more of a matter what one’s hardware supports. With exaSound’s proprietary drivers Apple Macintosh users can take advantage of both Core Audio and ASIO and make up their own minds which sounds better.

There are numerous papers and posts arguing their benefits and deficiencies. I made a point of including HQ Signalyst software and ROON in my arsenal because they both support ASIO playback and I want to not just notice but hear the difference. There’s also been quite the debate over Native DSD and DOP, DSD over PCM playback and that that latter is by definition inferior in some way. After extensive listening, switching back and forth between the two it remains subjective – a matter of personal preference. Unfortunately, in the course of the review, am finding that the number who find themselves steadfast and strident in one camp or the other, stating their allegiance to me directly, not surprisingly, were found to have a horse in the race looking to sell me on a better bit of gear/piece of kit. 

Bottom line: My ears are my instruments of choice and not an oscilloscope. Having devoted an entire day to ASIO/Native DSD and CORE/DOP listening comparisons, tantamount to aural ping pong,  all i can do is wish you the best of luck in your own double-blind test.

The associated equipment for this reviews is as follows:

Source;  Apple Mac Mini – Late 2012 – running Apple OS X Sierra as its operating system. Playback software: Audirvana Plus 1.x, 2.x, 3.x, HQ Signalyst and ROON. Files are stored on hard drives connected directly via USB and over the local area network, wired and wireless – WIFI.

DACs: exaSound e32, exaSound e22, Fostex HP-A4, Audio Note DAC 1.0

Amplification: Parasound Halo 2.1, Bel Canto s300

Speakers: Audio Physic Tempo, Platinum Audio Solo

Interconnects and Speaker Cables:  Audioquest

After almost three years now, I know the exaSound e22 from stem to stern. I know how it operates, how it handles, how it sounds. It has travelled with me across continents and until the e32 I would NOT part with the unit. The e32 has taken my listening experience and enjoyment to a whole new level. The clarity, the depth and the soundstage. From my days in the darkroom, the blacks are indeed blacker.

The e32 handled them all with such aplomb. Not satisfied, I never am, it was time throw everything at the e32 in a feeble attempt to flummox. I put together a massive playlist of files of all manner of format, file type, bit depth to trigger a reaction and wanted to see it fail. Damn you exaSound, the e32 did not miss a beat.

If one is going is going to acquire a top level DSD 256 capable DAC, might as well as get a hold of proper DSD albums and tracks. I made it a point to contact friends and soon to be friends from the Blue Coast, Yarlung and Native DSD/Channel Classics DSD labels so I can put the e32 to the DSD 256 test. I listened extensively to vocals, instrumentals and symphonic pieces  and was blown away by the sheer depth of it all. DSD, Direct Stream Digital, is an acquired taste and much like everything else in this wonderful HiFi world of ours is up for debate.

Two years ago I contacted Cookie Marenco of Blue Coast to supply me with 2 sets of files PCM 24/96 and DSD 128. These files were to come from the same masters and be as identical as technologically possible. Earlier this year I received a new batch of PCM 24/96 and DSD 256. I listened to the first batch and second batch with my e22 and then again with my 32 this month. The comparisons were startling. The PCM files, upon the second hearing sounded richer and fuller from both batches and whereas in the first listening there were stark differences between them, not so much with the e32.

Having downloaded Jenna Mammina’s Closer To You from Blue Coast, not small task when you take a look at the file sizes. I was transfixed by her rendition of Elvis Costello’s Watching The Detectives  and Steely Dan’s Dirty Work. Listening to the e22 it sounded alive, natural to the point that I could trace her breaths between lyrics, but then with the e32 I blinked once at it was if I was in the studio with her. Talk is made of breaking barriers, but not like this, it’s as if the fourth wall crumbled ever so gracefully.

It doesn’t stop there. In doing this review I set out to better understand the Native DSD process and learned a great deal about what goes into recordings before it gets to the studio. I received sample classical DSD256 files of Beethoven’s 1st Symphony’s Third movement and was asked to play them on my DAC and report back not only what I heard but which I preferred.

As luck/skill/fate would have it I chose the file that not only sounded better to me but to the producer/recording engineer of the music in question. I preferred the track where there appeared to be greater depth and contrast between the sections of the orchestra. I was expecting to hear tales of daring-do in the studio but learned to my surprise that everything was exactly the same, save for the manufacture of the microphones. There was no mistaking the difference listening through the e32. I sat down time after time marvelling at how I was hearing each instrument as if each member of the orchestra was being afforded a solo. Ivan Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra never cease to amaze on the Channel Classics label.

Gary Koh, of Genesis Advanced Technology, turned me onto the Yarlung label and the Smoke and Mirrors Percussion Ensemble’s Volumes 1 and 2.

The sound is transformative. Close your eyes and it’s not your cares that disappear but your system. If this is what Native DSD 256 is all about then bring it on. I’m open to seconds and thirds of the stuff. Am not going to shun DSD, as some might like, if it is out there and my DSD supports the format. Whether or not it survives, everyone should at least listen to DSD for themselves. Closed ears are the hallmarks of closed minds.

As for PCM files, regardless of depth and bit range, the e32 revealed more detail. Marcus Miller never sounded real to me. And for those who are of the mind that Rebook, like Latin is dead, I suggest acquiring anything and everything on the Stockfisch label. It is through such recordings that we come to understand and appreciate the power and versatility of the exaSound e32.

I could have gone into endless detail about technical advancements and features which would mean precious little to a lot of people.

If nothing else such information could be used to compare a device’s cutting edge quotient, but at the end of the day that’s what the official websites and promotional literature for. In touching upon the new ESS 9208 PRO chip and exaSound’s drivers I hit on what I deem to be the most noteworthy. I am here to write for those who appreciate gear but listen to their music.

Three years is a long time to own a DAC. What with all the improvements and advancements being made, so the exaSound e22 is a marvel in that regard. The exaSound e32 took my digital library an order of magnitude further. I was listening to the familiar and it made it unfamiliar as new details in the music emerged.

The e32 may very well unseat my DAC. I was prepared for it to be different and given my experience with exaSound I should have realized that this would be far more than an update but a wholesale upgrade. exaSound owners owe it to themselves to hear the e32 and experience the progression. The rest of you in the market for a DAC and in this price range should definitely include the e32 in your shortlist to audition.

AT A GLANCE 

Build Quality:  Built to last. Ergonomically designed: economy of controls 

Sound Quality: Detailed, wide open soundstage, a clarity which not only lets your hear the music, but the layers you didn’t know were there 

Value for Money: You reach a point in your life where if you want it, here it is, come and get it. Value is subjective. If you want the aforementioned sonic quality ask no questions 

Pros: Proprietary CORE Audio and ASIO drivers developed to extract the best from the respective systems. Built on top of ESS 9208 S Pro chip. Intuitive interface and detailed online support for playback software configuration 

Cons: Apart from the price. Human condition is to want everything for less, am at a loss to list any 

Price: $3499.00

David Blumenstein 

Specifications 

• Sample Rates: ENclusiv™ comprehensive sample rate support
  • DSD: 2.8224 or 3.072 MHz
  • DSD2: 5.6448 or 6.144 MHz
  • DSD4: 11.2896 or 12.288 MHz
  • LPCM/DXD: 44.1kHz to 384kHz at 32 bits maximum sampling rate
  • Native support for 88.2, 176.4 & (DXD) 352.8kHz master files
• Converter Core: ESS Technologies 9028Pro reference monolythic 8 channel DAC configured for stereo
• USB Input: Proprietary ZeroJitter™ asynchronous USB interface with error correction on classic B–Type connector, USB cable included
• Host Support: Custom, high performance Mac OS & Windows ASIO drivers; MAC Core Audio drivers with DoP256 support
• Player Application Support: Automatic sampling rate switching, software upsampling up to 384 kHz PCM and DSD4
• Clock: FemtoMaster™ super–low jitter quad-clock architecture, with 82 femtosecond master clock and 3 auxiliary stream-control clocks
• Power Conditioning: 11 linear power filtering stages
• Host Noise Rejection: GalvanicInfinity™ – Galvanic isolation between the USB subsystem and the DAC circuitry eliminates ground loop noise and blocks computer–generated interference
• Headphone Output: Third generation headphone amplifier, 4W into 16Ω doubles the current output to drive low impedance and low sensitivity headphones
• Digital Inputs: Two S/PDIF inputs provide jitter reduction and superb D/A conversion when used with CD transports
• Analog Outputs: Simultaneously driven, gold–plated balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA line outputs
• Power Management: 12V Trigger output
• Remote Control: Included 7 button remote, the e32 can be easily programmed to work with most IR remotes

Dan Worth takes a look at the Innuos Zenith MK2 an all in one streamer, CD ripper and SSD storage unit costing from £2299 depending on storage capacity chosen.  

So what is an Innuos Zenith MK2? I hear you ask? Well, it’s an all in one streamer for local files and streaming services such as TIDAL, Spotify and Qobuz, Internet Radio as well as a CD ripper. The ripper itself stores music ripped in the FLAC/WAV formats to an internal solid state hard drive of a size designated during purchase. Available options are 1TB, 2TB and 4TB.

Whilst expecting the Zenith MK2 for review I was somewhat sceptical to the benefits of it over the various Vortexboxes which I believed the Innuos Zenith MK2 was based on. I have previous experience with VBs – having built and tried many, which range from basic installations on standard PCs to more bespoke hardware installations and multiple linear power supplies.

Despite many believing that “bits are bits”, unfortunately there’s a whole world of “nasties” that go with them that influence the sound quality throughout the Hifi chain such as power noise, jitter and high-frequency EMI. Many think that a simple galvanic isolator would just turn any computer into the perfect digital source…if it was only that simple.

Innuos say that a digital source should remain as transparent as possible, allowing the amplifier and speakers to imprint their own signature as per the end user’s tastes. In order to achieve this, Innuos first target for the Zenith is the power supply. They design the Zenith so that rather than producing a lot of power noise and then trying to clean it up, they implement critically chosen parts for a triple linear psu design that is inherently clean to begin with and specifically implemented.

“We had to go through a very detailed oscilloscope for measurements. We have literally tested dozens of system boards and the noise patterns you get vary wildly between them. Some are absolutely dreadful and should never be used for audio. The key innovation here is our triple-linear power supply, designed and manufactured in-house. By providing three independent linear power supplies that separately power key components of the system, they prevent the power noise those components produce from contaminating the power circuits for the outputs, both USB and Ethernet. The triple-linear power supply design contains ultra-low noise regulators (40uV) and specialised audio capacitors (Nichicon MUSE) that further help maintaining the transparency and realism of the Zenith. This is then complemented by using medical-grade mains filters, that both filter the Common and Differential Mode noise coming into the Zenith from mains as well as preventing any noise produced by the Zenith itself to contaminate the remaining Hifi chain.”

This approach would inevitably clean the USB and Ethernet channels providing very clean digital outputs. Isolation transformers on the Ethernet ports also help keep some of the noise traveling through the Ethernet cables at bay. Connecting a streamer as I did with the Aurelic Aries Mini using a short Ethernet cable to the ‘Streamer’ port on the Zenith provided better sound quality than connecting the streamer to a my router or switch, even though both are already on linear supplies, the quality of the Zenith 2’s in-built psu, onboard single routed Ethernet switch and linear NAS function made for a better all round performance feeding files directly from the internal SSD and clean pass-through of internet ensuring a cleaner signal from the supported streaming services.

These benefits, along with the extensive internal vibration control and isolation would all be worthless if it wasn’t for the expertise of Innuos when it comes to software implementation. From the motherboard BIOS to the Operating System kernel and audio sub-systems, they have optimised settings to extract as much musical performance as they can. One key feature in this area is the 4Gb RAM buffer available for memory playback on the Zenith 2. This means when the user plays a track, it gets loaded almost instantly to the system memory from the SSD and then played directly from there. This is another advantage of using the SSD on the Zenith as it makes this transition imperceptible – playback is instantaneous. The onboard TEAC drive is a more bespoke version with unlocked firmware, ready for InnuOS’ tweaks to enable more efficient and effective ripping with less errors.

InnuOS – innuOperatingSystem

Moving on to the software installed on the Zenith MK2. I had initially mistaken this for a tweaked version of the Vortexbox platform until having an in depth conversation with Managing Director Nuno Vitorino. The complexity and intelligence of the operating system is presented in the most classy and user friendly manner, which deserves its own in-depth look here. The software is an absolute breeze to use and each feature has self explanatory options, leaving the unit without the need of an operating manual. 

There is also a lengthy video on YouTube showing off the InnuOS platform, posted on the Innuos channel with Innuos saying:

“One of our key values is listening to our customers and providing them a great user experience. Through direct contact with customers with our Zen Mk.I systems, which were based on Vortexbox, we noticed a number of shortcomings:

1.   Users required a PC/Mac to manage their music library (adding, deleting or changing music data). The applications to do this can be quite cumbersome for those who are not technology-oriented and we needed frequent remote support sessions to help our customers do this. They were very slow to save changes as users generally did this from Wi-Fi connected laptops.
2.   More and more customers don’t have a PC anymore, only a tablet. This made it impossible for them to manage the music library.
3.   Every time the server could not recognise a CD, it created an Unknown Album that was a real pain to identify later. This required the above tools to do the change itself.
4.   Customers with Classical music were often affected with missing metadata and they could only make changes after the CD had been ripped. They then needed a PC to do such changes.
5.   When copying files ripped on Mac systems, particularly Classical music, they could have very long filenames
6.   People had very disorganised music libraries as essentially they just copied files and folder to the Music folder. This meant duplicates and lots of incomplete metadata.
7.   If customers didn’t realise their Internet connection is off, the system would create a whole lot of Unknown Albums. One of our customer ripped 150 discs before he realised the server was offline. This meant deleting everything and ripping again.
8.   Different network settings made sometimes difficult to find the systems on the network, leading to a lot of frustration.
9.   The User Interface was very technical and most people did not understand the options available and we’re displeased with how it looked.”

I can relate to these customers concerns as I have had a lot of experience with Vortexboxes and like using any PC, people have to perform constant maintenance and coercion in order to keep the system working well whilst waiting for the next tantrum.

Rather than telling their customers to brush up on their technological abilities and or offer continued support for what they considered a somewhat fragile environment to use consistently, the company who have a great team of software developers and technicians give birth to the Innuos.

What InnuOS has achieved is an operating system that sits lightly on the system hardware and over its two and half year development has been refined extensively to be as comprehensive as possible, integrating features such as TIDAL, Spotify, Qobuz, CD ripping, album management, network integration and more, with the most straight forward of GUIs that I have ever had the pleasure of using. Calculating all nerdy type processes and individual key strokes firmly in the background, with the end user visualising only the key component task features on screen.

Currently – typing ‘my InnuOS’ in on a google search brings the user to the control software, which can be accessed by any PC/Mac, tablet or phone connected to the same network as the player. InnuOS are in the process of producing an app to replace this function on portable devices for completeness but the operations of the software will remain consistent.

Once loaded the software sees the player on the network immediately and the user can begin to utilise all the functionality of:

• Assisted Ripping mode – In this mode, rather than the system ripping a CD immediately with whatever metadata it found, the user is presented with the metadata and is able to change all of it, including cover art, before the CD rips. This is particularly useful for Classical or World music

• Rip to WAV or FLAC – Ripping to both WAV uncompressed format and FLAC with zero compression depending on user’s requirements (FLAC is more compatible)

Quarantine – Whenever there is an issue with either a CD or music being imported, it goes into the Quarantine section rather than the Music Library, so that the Music Library is kept nice and tidy. This way, the user knows which music needs some attention. If the ripping mode is Automatic and the server can’t find metadata for it, it shows as an Unknown Album. The user can then play the music directly on the tablet to help it recognise the album and edit the information directly. Once saved, it’s then moved to the Music Library. If a CD is ripped twice, it’s marked as a duplicate. If the server is offline when ripping, then it’s marked as offline and the user can simply click a button to retrieve all the metadata again.

• Import – This is one of the most complex engines on the system. TheImport engine allows users to import music from USB, NAS, another music folder or music placed in the Auto-Import shared folder on the server. The Import engine then as a number of (growing) rules to apply to the files as it imports. These are just a small number of rules applied:
  1. Organise based on the file quality (compressed, CD Quality or High –Resolution) and structure them in different folders accordingly.
  2.   Automatically create a consistent Artist/Album folder structure
  3.   Import files contained on a zip or tar file (which is usual with downloads from high-resolution music stores such as Qobuz or Linn Records)
  4.   Shortens potentially long filenames and removes problematic characters that can cause problems
  5.    Detects if the album already exists with the same quality on the music library. If you have an album in CD Quality and add the album in High-Resolution, the system knows and adds the respective tag to the album such as [HD96] for a 24bit/96KHz high-res file

Music Library – Allow to browse and change the metadata for the music already stored in the Music Library from any tablet, smartphone or PC/Mac Backup – Allow to backup the music library to either an external USB drive or to a NAS automatically. The automatic backup is actually based on storage rather than time. So instead of backing up once a week, for example, it backs up every time you add the equivalent of 50 CDs. This way, it will do frequent backups when you are adding a lot of music and them do it a lot less often when the user is adding only a couple of albums per month.

Fit and Finish

The casework to the unit is very nice, with a contoured front fascia and simplistic approach, a single CD slot and power button with indicator LED (which can be changed to any colour on a software level to match other equipment) are the only pieces of hardware adorning the front panel. To the rear there are two LAN sockets for Ethernet connection from the router and to route in a separate streamer, rather than connecting that direct to the router.There are two USB sockets, one for the audio output and another for a USB backup drive for safe storage of a duplicate library containing all ripped files that reside on the internal SSD.

Internally the main board sports a powerful processor and plenty of memory for quick operation of all remote app functions and boot up speeds, along with a TEAC ripping drive and a solid state hard drive. The multi-rail power supply on board runs from a large toroidal transformer with multiple layers of regulation and a large bank of smoothing caps in order to keep things ultra quiet and precise.

Setting Up

Setup is just so simple with the Zenith 2. The Squeezelite embedded software (which sits inside InnuOS) for audio playback piggybacks two main control apps (separate to the My InnuOS Software which is for system management), Orange Squeeze for Android users and iPeng for iOS customers. These apps are the current best way for controlling playback and integrate all playback features into one handy remote app. I used the iPeng app on my iPad and I must say it’s brilliant, version 9 is much more intuitive than older versions I had previously used in a past life with Squeezelite.

If you have a NAS drive already, this is the easiest way to get up and running by transferring files across the network to the internal storage. Ripping CDs is done into either FLAC or WAV.

The setup of TIDAL, Spotify and Qobuz is easy, clicking on the apps side tray allows for the installation of the apps and simply entering the user account name and password gains access to all pre-saved playlists and the full experience of searching for music, with all other menu functionality available by simply going back to the main menu leaving the current playlist (in iPeng) visible on the right hand pane of the screen for track skipping and pausing etc. The interface itself is so comprehensive yet so simple to use and all features and functions are literally idiot proof and self explanatory, which is a god send in this day and age for the technophobe.

A fixed volume output or variable (max volume is bit perfect according to Innuos), along with designated parameters for bit depth, sample rate, album, artist and genre options along with many more less significant features, all to be configured with a few touches proved to be extremely quick with no lag to the system, even during playback due to the Zenith MK2’s powerful CPU and memory abilities. To boot – Internet radio stations on average took less than a second to begin playing, which from a friends perspective is much faster than his MK1 version although we are in differing parts of the country and with bandwidth considerations, still worth noting.

When choosing music the app offers fantastic visuals with artwork showing for all radio stations as well as InnuOS ripped albums with all accompanied metadata. InnuOS will also tag non previously tagged albums that the user sent over to the InnuOS’ storage folder from another drive.

With a three cable setup (power, USB and Ethernet) alongside the downloading of the corresponding app for either Apple or Android, setting up the Innuos Zenith MK2 was an absolute breeze. 

The Sound

On first inspection the sound of the Zenith 2 was surprisingly good as mentioned above, I ripped a couple albums and played music from my NAS and TIDAL, I compared the sound with my modified Mac Mini which has been a reference source of mine for sometime now, outperforming many other front end gear during the time I’ve owned it. I found the two to be different in character but struggled to find big performance differences between the two through either the DiDiT 212 SE or Mytek Brooklyn DACs. There was a touch more refinement and depth to the Mac than that of the Zenith 2 which provided a soundstage of fantastic separation, clarity and body to the music, presenting a firm controlled weight and good raw timbral qualities.

Chris Jones’ ‘Long After Your Gone’ had a wonderfully controlled fluid bass performance allowing for vocals to stand in good height within a central focus which made sense musically and gave great bandwidth of the vocals. The lovely way the Zenith 2 does separation gave air to guitar strings and decays, which were obtainable through the player in a very clear non-artificial manner, giving insight into the acoustic arena and mic setup.

The same was very apparent on Fink’s live albums, where in fact over my usual setup I was more taken by the vocals, especially for their strong positioning within the soundstage, the lesser amount of depth seemed to allow the singer to stand more proud so to speak, never dominating the performance but simply stated a more commanding role rather than forwardness.

Intricacies of guitar strings across the two albums and the complexities of Derrin Nuendorf’s guitar was very much a treat to listen to, masking of micro details was very little and almost came up to spec with my Mac setup during my initial listening tests, the smaller details in recordings generally have a way of flavouring a performance as their ability to shine controls micro tempos, which add to a sense of overall flow.

Masculinity in tone and or delicacies contained within the vocal palette portraying much of the emotional quality of a performance along with the intensity of good dynamics kept the music interesting and explorative. Although the micro details were very cleanly and clearly expressed their dynamics (micro dynamics) were not as strong as say the Mac, but then the added refinement of the whole picture may be why they are easily or easier to determine, the Zenith 2’s raw and honest quality is infectious and again, neither worse nor better, just a little different and I am splitting hairs and doing some very critical listening between it and the highly specced one of a kind Mac.

Micro details and micro dynamics really do not necessarily go hand in hand, many people mention both in sentences as if they do but in my experience they don’t, a micro detail can be present and just like any other more defined detail can be either dynamic or not. I would say that the smallest of details in the Zenith 2 were very marginally masked by the foreground, although I haven’t heard anything that stands out to me that I can say does a far better job for around about the £2k mark, so I feel that my own personal comparisons to the one of a kind Mac needs to end here. For my own personal information though the test was very informative, proving that areas of the Zenith’s sound lit a chord with me that I feel was very beneficial indeed.

Bass performance with the Zenith 2 is equally very interesting, I adore the way the bass doesn’t feel as if it’s been crumpled into a heap at the bottom of the soundstage, a kick drum hit has a realistic height and a density of tone, then after you here the room interaction within a split second and any lower frequency or accompanied drum strike lower its position in the soundstage to convey a more exacting frequency – the room becomes quickly filled with great rhythm, as if the tone and frequency is within an artificial three dimensional grid, allowing for each beat to be considered relative to its natural aural take and physical feel of the note.

Playing some electronic music showed that immediacy of a strike and flow of deep rolling notes were timed terrifically without any unwanted sag or looseness.

Loreena McKennitt, one of my favourite female vocalists has a ‘Live At The Alhambra’ album and one of my most favourite tracks is ‘Raglan Road’. In order to nail this one a system has to be able to control the upper midrange peaks especially and deliver subtleties which allow her voice to retain its beautiful yet powerful tone. I’ve had the Zenith 2 running for a little while now and it’s really coming on well, maybe in its initial days of listening its refinement could be called into question and possibly some remarks I made earlier in this review could have been slightly tweaked to the more favourable side, but that’s the nature of the review process and it’s progression.

Now the unit has settled into its stride a little more – what I appreciate is how it doesn’t mollycoddle the music much, allowing for a little more rawness or truthfulness, which in turn characterises individual pieces of music very well – essentially very transparently. In this case Loreena’s vocal, so proud it stood in the centre stage that I felt the true realism and honesty of the piece, which with the little added refinement that came on after a couple weeks of playback, aligned the characteristics of the unit further.

I must admit, I am sitting here a little confused as to how Innuos have managed this, being similar in functionality and implementation as a Vortexbox based systems essentially and also running the common Squeezelite software on a hardware package that to me doesn’t have fancy clocks, TCXO’s, separate USB cards,  SATA filters, RAM filters or pure silver internal power wiring, leads me to believe that what Innuos achieve hardware-wise with synergy, noise control, the implementation of a very nice linear power supply and their own custom designed software and firmware is nothing short of impressive. It’s not the individual parts that make the difference but the combination of the whole.

I turned to TIDAL next and went through some of my playlists and took a few journeys exploring new music into the small hours and I must say I was captivated. At low listening levels, resolution remains strong, I’d imagine some decibel decreases in dynamic abilities at the lower volumes but everything still seemed really quite relative. The presence of the vocal at these lower levels was great, I really can state that the ability to convey some emotion and tangible feeling when the lights are down low and everybody is in bed is fantastic.

All too often have I listened to equipment that does well during the day, struggling at night at much lower levels (not just speakers but electronics also). Complex passages tend to smear, with under dynamic and blunted edges, causing many others, along with  myself to turn to the headphones, well not here folks, I can still even depict real space around instruments.

Note: make sure in settings that volume level is set to fixed output in iPeng or turned up full (bit perfect) in order to achieve greater lower volume listening pleasure. 

Before submitting this review to the Oracle (Stu) I had the opportunity to get a good listen to the Zen MK1 with a Teddy Pardo and Paul Haynes power supply. The Paul Hynes supply sounded better but was more expensive and surprised I was at how much more aligned the sound was with a better supply, giving better timing and noise floor than standard. Both Zen and Zenith have the same feature rich abilities, it’s just the levels of performance that vary. The Zen is a very capable unit but the Zenith is a true leader for the brand delivering a level of performance that Innuos can be proud of calling their flagship model.

Note: both units worked out of the box with an Audiobyte Hydra Z and Gustard U12 SPDIF converters, giving better control, focus and timing. 

Conclusion

If anyone wants to say, it’s just a Vortexbox then please do, as I did, then get one, then plug it in then turn it on, then listen to it and then repeat the first statement – if you can! If I felt that this piece of equipment was just a hyped up and rebranded commodity, I would say to just send the unit back with an accompanying note to express my feelings. I chose to except the Zenith MK2 for review as I had instant scepticism and the best way to deal with scepticism is to be open minded and try things out –  there’s nothing worse than an uneducated know-it-all!.

The Zenith isn’t just another streamer, it has its own personality and that’s Important. Innuos have designed a complete fuss free digital front end, that combines carefully chosen hardware and sophisticated software into an easy to use product which has honesty and transparency at its heart.

The sound of a Zenith 2 is transparent, honest and truthful and any system that reflects a balance that the user is happy with will benefit from its implementation. Setup and usage is easy and playback and library management is straightforward and intuitive.

What I adore about the Zenith MK2‘s usability from Innuos is that it’s not a celebration of what can be achieved in the future, it’s a celebration of what can be achieved right now.

AT A GLANCE 

Build Quality – Simple stylish looks, solid and heavy, well damped also.

Sound Quality – Fantastic transparency, strong detail and presence, great soundstage separation.

Value For Money – A little pricey when it comes to the higher capacity models but the base model works well for me considering its feature rich software and sound quality. A 1TB drive should be ample for most.

Pros:

Wonderfully engaging musical sound

Feature rich software package

Easy implementation into any system and network

Cons:

Higher capacity models can be a little expensive

Only comes in black

(Possible silver version in mid 2017)

Price:

Innuos Zenith MK2

1TB – £2299

2TB – £2899

4TB – £4599 

Dan Worth

Auralic refer to the Aries as a “bridge”; basically a digital device which refers to a networked music library from the likes of a NAS drive, or by use of an external USB hard drive, connected directly to the Aries. What we have come to know more lovingly as a streamer – although you could argue that they are usually an all in one device, often with an on-board hard drive and with analogue outputs from it’s on-board DAC. Dan Worth takes this £1495 box of tricks for a whirl. 

The difference between the Aries and a standard build streamer is that it has only the ability to output a digital signal – bridging the gap between library and DAC. The Aries boasts dual FemtoClocks, for the USB audio input and the digital outputs, a low noise internal design to eliminate jitter and Auralic Purer‐Power™ based 10uV low noise external linear PSU. A whole host of supported music services are available and a fully featured and easy to use App for Android and iOS devices – necessary for operation of the Aries as opposed to the included remote, which controls more basic features of playback.

Aries is powered by Auralic’s own Tesla hardware platform that includes a Quad-Core ARM Coretex-A9 processor running at 1GHz, 1GB DDR3 onboard memory and 4GB internal storage…for those who are interested. For the workload that the Aries has on its plate the specifications are overkill and the system runs very smoothly, although startup is fairly lengthy, allowing the ARIES to simply go to sleep when not in use is the most sensible way to use it day to day and with extremely low power consumption…so not a worry as far as  energy bills are concerned.

The Tesla platform has a calculation ability of 25,000 MIPS, more than enough to decode a vast spectrum of audio formats, including AAC, AIFF, ALAC, APE, DIFF, DSF, FLAC, MP3, OGG, WAV, WV and WMA. Auralic has chose this platform for a long term supporting consideration, the feature planned include DSD upsampling, room acoustic treatment and other acoustic DSP function.

By using OpenHome structure which is adopted by UK-based streaming solution manufacturer Linn, ARIES, as well as all other Lightning based products, supports several advanced functions such as on-device playlist that allow control software to turn off during play and the complete supporting of a multi-room system. 

Streaming Services Available

• Local uPnP/DLNA library content from NAS or PC/MAC
• TIDAL, Qobuz and WiMPonline streaming
• Internet Radio
• AirPlay and Songcast
• USB hard drive files
• RoonReady

Media Server Compatibility

• Built-in Lightning Server
• Minimserver, Twonky, Asset UPnP, JRiver
• DLNA/uPNP compatible server software 

Inputs

RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet

Dual-Band WiFi connection

USB 2.0 High-Speed for external disk

Outputs

USB 2.0 High-Speed for compatible DAC**

AES/EBU, Coaxial, TOSLINK

Though larger than its little brother (the ‘Aries Mini) Aries is still a wonderfully compact device at 25cm x 20cm x 7cm and weighs a mere 0.8kg (in no small part due to the off-board linear power supply), this allows ARIES to be easily implemented into any system. Pop it in a cupboard, under a rack, behind another piece of equipment or simply throw a towel over it, many options are available – so you don’t have to look at it! Now I’m not saying that it’s going to make you cry when you open the packaging, but beware, it’s not going to win a ‘sexiest at show’ award (although we have given Auralic the ‘Hifi Pig Loves You’ award at Bristol this year).

Removing the Aries from it’s packaging and feeling it’s sumptuous plastic body won’t get the juices flowing either. The half router, half freeview box design has a lot to live up to if you shop with your eyes but be patient, the best is yet to come, this Hunchback of Auralic has a generous heart. 

The Sound

The sound of the Aries is remarkably clean, remarkably detailed and remarkably sincere. From the outset with the already well run in review circular, the Aries will grab you, seat you and firmly glue you to your listening chair for substantial amounts of time.

Its musicality has an honesty about it. With the noiseless, grainless and clean sound, poorer recordings won’t get the benefit of a coloured glow to round the rough edges, but anything better than adequate will engage the listener wholeheartedly.

Listening to Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ gave me a notion of complete envelopment, far more accomplished than the already musically satisfying Aries Mini I reviewed a while back and during any out of phase, widely dispersed tones and layers the centre stage maintained incredible focus. Front spread was also very good and promoted excellent dynamics to the boundaries of the room, which my speakers are around four to five foot on each side away from the walls.

Bass response is equally as satisfying, in fact I am scratching my head as to how the lightweight, plastic, adorable only from a certain angle in the correct light, Aries can really sound this good. Given that Auralic purposely used a plastic enclosure in order to use a high powered aerial, I’m forgiving the exterior due to its endearing sound quality. If first impressions can be deceptive then the Aries is the epitome of the popular phrase.

The bottom end received by the listener is intuitive, controlled and very detailed. Playing either London Grammar’s ‘Hey Now’ or Urban Species’ ‘Blanket’ allowed me to easily discern each and every subtle change in note. Good extension with tempo driving the music along combines this detail with good flow and bouncyness.

Delving up into the midrange, the tighter detailed upper mids pave way for vocal extension to be beautifully pure, conveying a good representation of natural range. A very slight forwardness in the midrange allows for these vocals to be very well pronounced. Well tuned and versed, the Aries is somewhat of an accomplishment at its price. Whilst vocals stand true, the other elements of the midrange behave as I would have liked from a unit of this price. Transparency in the midrange gave good structure and depth to live performances, involving me deeply into the music.

Climbing up the frequency ladder the upper midrange only ever became rough and etched when listening to a few bad recordings, which I enjoy very much for their lyrics and am happy to accept. Overall a very clean and open upper midrange, with enough control to keep the vixens of vocals tamed and busy music well separated.

Top end air is wonderfully apparent in the Aries, I remember the top end of the Aries Mini being a tasty plate; if not refined or as airy, it had personality. The Aries has bags of personality, along with the additional refinement and inner details that two properly implemented Femto clocks should produce. A more accurate display up top gives the listener the experience of hearing all the fine delicacies and acoustics in their music. More can be obtained in higher-end products, but unlike some other high-end products sometimes more is less, leaning towards a more stringent and analytical performance. The Aries gives enough detail that the listener feels well fed and at the same time the music is tastier and easier to digest.

I’ve been using an Innuos Zenith 2 for some months now after producing a review for it which will be live in conjunction with this review CLICK HERE. My reasons for mentioning this is that one feature of the Innuos is that it has an onboard ‘Streamer’ LAN Output. Basically an Ethernet internet connection output which allowed me to plug the Aries into and use the Innuos as the router, switch, internet passthrough for my streaming services and a directly link to my music library saved on the Zenith’s internal SSD. All of this covered by Innuos’ triple linear PSU offers an incredibly strong platform for the Aries to work with.

Coincidently Auralic UK set the Aries up piggybacked off the same Zenith in demonstrations, at shows and dealerships and the combination of the two takes each unit to the next level with a combined price of £4000. So how does the Aries sound now? Even more accomplished!

I’m now hearing more detail, with a far blacker background. Taking all the noise out of the chain of command with standard routing options gives a confidence to the Aries whether playing Qobuz or Tidal – and from the direct onboard library of the Zenith, this is where things really get serious. The sound gains more resolution and bass premise, the tightness of the Aries alone gains a little more weight with it’s umbilicalled partner and dynamics get a nice helping hand also. But for me the most stand out attribute of the combination was the soundstage.

Everything is more easily discernible and vocals become more expressive, adding a nice touch of emotion along with standing more confident in the mix. What really engaged me was the additional structure of the soundstage, where depth was good before it was now more complex. During Fleetwood Mac’s live version of ‘Big Love’ the way the guitar moved throughout the left rear of the stage and forward again during the solo was incredibly smooth and concise, sort of in film where there is a higher frame rate which allows the viewer to to see more of what’s going on in a more detailed and fluid manner.

Studio mixed Pop Music and Electronic music is always a fine test for how well an item can stage around the listener and into the rear of the room simply due to the way it’s recorded. The Aries already showed good detail encapsulation in this area and with the addition of the Innuos this area gained additional strengths… it’s a shame that Auralic don’t build a Universal Player because music and films would work exceptionally well with their digital expertise in a 2 channel system, which for most of us who prioritise Hifi look towards in most situations where a theatre system cannot be accommodated or wanted. I could imagine sitting here watching some of my favourite movies with a 2 Channel sound quality so strong.

Conclusion 

Auralic seem to be creating a bit of a trend here – they are producing some digital equipment which is just so well voiced that wherever in the range your budget gets you feel assured that what you will receive is a musical piece of equipment that won’t disappoint for the price.

Retaining musicality whilst extracting more accuracy and detail retrieval is not the easiest of tasks. Reducing jitter, laying out circuitry, planning out PSUs, choosing components etc all have dramatic effects on a digital signal which is not as robust as some people may believe. Approaching this without care and plenty of R&D could make for the cleanest sound ever, but without personality it’s nothing short of a flop.

The charisma the Auralic products seem to obtain speak volumes about their designers and how measurements alone cannot produce music with heart and soul, so to the Auralic team I salute you for never putting the music second.

AT A GLANCE 

Build Quality : A bit plasticky and not so pretty. Looks better from a few feet away

Sound Quality : Wonderfully clean, and beautifully musical

Value For Money : I would be very satisfied of the price it’s this level of performance 

Pros:

Strong detail

Excellent vocals

Great dynamics

Huge soundstage

Above all musical 

Cons:

Plasticky build

Not the most appealing visually

Remote looks basic and bland (most will only use an app) 

Price: £1495

Dan Worth

The N1A/2 from Melco is intended to improve on the originals sonic performance, particularly for those using USB DACs. It can store a whole library of your music on its on-board drives and costs £2099 as tested. Dan Worth plugs it into his network and assesses its attributes. 

Melco was originally established in 1973 – Maki Engineering Laboratory Company.  Mr Maki – one of the true original audiophiles and founder of Melco still remains Chairman of the company today and at 84 years old is still an avid audiophile. In 1973 Melco were producing high end Japanese hand crafted turntables and valve electronics. Manufacturing and turn over was very successful indeed.

Difficulties with computers in the 70s meant printing boards took a very long time and at this time you could not use a PC for anything else while printing, due to a lack of processing power. Melco created a Print Buffer to fix this problem and sold these on to other companies under the name Buffalo Systems which soon became the largest Japanese IT peripherals manufacturer. To this very day Buffalo Systems is a household name, I myself have had many Buffalo hard drives and NAS solutions over the years and even had one running just a few years ago as my main music library.

Melco/Buffalo have an enormous engineering department and pre-production laboratories, which is where each and every Melco is hand made, utilising renowned Japanese precision techniques and quality components.

It’s hard to believe but Japan has no basic PC awareness, it is very much a closed market and consumers never even had the privilege of owning the famous ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64!  Certainly no BBC Micro. So no essentially there was no basic knowledge of PC by any class other than engineers. PC was always function specific hence word processors, SEGA and Nintendo.

So when streaming products started to arrive from Linn, Naim etc. nobody had the ability to set them up. No one had any skills in this area and the high-end audio shows of recent years within Japan were riddled with folk who had to phone through to the UK in order to get step by step instructions on how to link the renderers to a music library.

Chinese peripherals such as Qnap and Synology etc are not easily available in Japan due to the nature of the closed market. Buffalo Systems had the foresight to begin working closely with Linn in order to suitably create modified versions of Buffalo’s IT NAS solutions for audio use.

Detailed investigations showed that the basic architecture of an IT NAS was not entirely suitable for high-end audio playback.  So a new architecture was proposed. Lots of R&D and testing later, Melco as we know it today was born using the name of its Buffalo forefathers.

The immediate hardware difference was the redundant use of the data switch in the signal path to the Network Player, inclusion of a dedicated ‘PLAYER’ port and low jitter precisely structured data flow. Along of course with software filtering to keep unwanted data which causes unduly wanted crosstalk away from the renderer for optimum sound quality. A Melco will also restructure data from external sources such as streaming services or even other network NAS drives with the intention of improving sound quality…so TIDAL and Qobuz etc should work far better.

The ‘Local Player’ on a Melco also allows users to connect to an external DAC and this will be the main content of this review, although I have an Innuos and an Aurelic here which will be attached and their performance compared in relation to playing from an ordinary NAS drive and also from the Innuos’ internal SSD library storage.

An external USB CD drive can also be attached to the rear of the N1a/2 for ripping disks as well as having the software ability to move existing libraries across the network via a computer or via a transfer option within the Melco’s on screen menu from the front panel via a USB storage device.

The ability to use the Melco without any remote control or app via its front panel to play local files from its internal drive array is also a very welcomed feature, much the same as using a standard CD Player without remote and navigation is very easy. An attached CD drive also allows for the direct playing of discs on the fly with all data reclocked and managed by Melco’s proprietary software and hardware to ensure a very pleasing reproduction of media quality. I don’t spin many discs preferring the ease of use with an app and also the sound quality of the hard drive based files over CD direct, so I do recommend ripping, but for a quick listen of a new album it’s a fantastic feature to have onboard.

The Physical Unit

A unit from Melco will arrive in a double box and very well packaged internally. The physical unit itself in my case was in silver with a brushed silver aluminium front.
The front panel hosts a power button on the left and an OLED screen in the centre, controllable via the four right hand buttons for menu and local music library navigation.

The rear of the unit features two Ethernet sockets, one in and one out for an external music player/renderer. No less than four USB 3.0 sockets are available on the N1a/2, one on the front panel for high speed file transfer to the onboard music folder and three at the rear for ‘Easy Backup, Easy Expansion, Easy Play and Easy Import’. Along side the three rear USB 3.0 ports is a Neutrik USB 2.0 socket for connection to outboard DACs, utilising USB 2.0 is still a more stable platform for the majority of the DACs available on the market currently and for the foreseeable future, although one of the rear USB 3.0 ports on the backside will support any new USB 3.0 based DACs.

Differences Within The Mark 2 Product

Over the first incarceration of the N1a, there are many hardware changes which result in a more advanced sonic platform, making the Melco N1a/2 a great all in one server and player. As well as the aforementioned Neutrik USB output for DACs Melco have also added a high-performance capacitor bank and noise suppression unit, better grounding and isolation properties for the internal drives and also the chassis itself to minimise micro-vibrations to the delicate audio signal.

The player will support all popular audio files types and bit rates for PCM and DSD far beyond what is readily available to consumers today, making it future-proof for many many years to come. Along with the 6TB of internal storage configured with two specially selected drives of 3TB a piece, allowing users to use them as a combined amount of the 6TB, split into two mirrored 3TB drives for maximum redundancy in Raid 1, or Raid 0 which maximises latency, giving a full 6TB of usable space leaving the user to add their own form of redundancy with either an attached USB hard drive for backup or the use of a Network Attached Storage device (NAS). These options combined with the ability for USB external backup gives users incredible flexibility in setting up the system to best suit their requirements.

Myself, I settled with a Raid 0 configuration, after listening to all three options I felt that the Raid 0 setup had sonic benefits over the other two, now they weren’t revolutionary but they were clear to hear and the gains in sonic ability outweigh the fact I would require additional storage for backup. I would however need to have a backup of my music for safety as I am using a Raid 0 configuration, which I have already on a NAS drive in Raid 5 configuration with a drive spare also.

Installation

Connecting up the N1a/2 is as simple as plugging in an Ethernet cable, USB to DAC or in my case the Hydra Z clock and a power cable. The Hydra Z, DiDiT 212SE DAC and Mytek Brooklyn DACs which I connected were all recognised immediately without any issues and a quick navigation through the onboard software using the front mounted hardware buttons and OLED screen played music files instantly which I copied across using my Mac.

Once I had a complete front end chain and music playing I added around a terabyte of music which I had on an external drive. A simple USB connection to the front panel and some quick on-screen navigation to the import option choosing an external USB drive, quickly copied across the drives contents. Most NAS drives are fairly slow when transferring files, especially when writing but the N1a/2 made short work in comparison to build my music library, which I based on the simple file structure of the Innuos, ‘CD Quality’, High-res’ and ‘Compressed’. Once copied I had no issue navigating the front panel to play whatever I wished.

Apps

There are many apps recommended for use with the N1a/2 or in fact any of the units Melco offer, for either Android or iOS devices. After trawling through the recommended options and other suggestions made by current users I opted for BubbleUPNP on my Android tablet, being clearly the best for function and usability, allowing me to choose the chosen renderer or player as the N1a/2 with a separate selection for the music source, this can be selected as the Melco’s own internal drives, any associated network storage libraries such as a computer or NAS even a tablet that may contain music libraries (note – the tablet has to be the one that you are using as a Melco remote) Tidal and Qobuz are also available when selecting the onscreen library as ‘Local and Cloud’ opening up the cloud options for the online streaming services. There is no native support for Spotify but in all honesty any hardcore music enthusiast is going to favour the higher quality streaming services over Spotify. Swapping from the N1a/2’s internal library to that of a streaming service is incredibly simple and all features such as search, what’s new, trending, genres etc are available to the user as a complete desktop version of the software packages.

If I had my choice I would MUCH rather prefer the option of the Squeeze-lite platform installed on the Melco, I would MUCH prefer the use of iPeng, which would also include the use of Spotify for its already established and great music playlists available. iPeng is undoubtedly a far better remote and platform for control of an all in one streamer, such as the Innuos I have, navigation is simpler and the Innuos also builds its library instantly when powering on from a complete shutdown, the Melco takes longer to rebuild the library after shutting down. Another peculiarity that I found was that if I selected any music to play from the hardware buttons, using the internal onboard player direct I couldn’t then use an app thereafter, I had to shut down, power up, allow for the libraries to rebuild again and then fire up the app as my first point of control to enable it to work. Yes, the unit will be used only with the app the majority of the time but for any users experiencing the same issue, it just seems like ‘that’s the way it is’ so remember these steps so that you don’t begin to think the unit has an issue or that your not networked correctly.

Manufacturers note: a new firmware update is imminent, this will allow the library to rebuild itself instantly in the future.

The Sound

After conducting the review for Innuos’ Zenith MK2 player/server I ended up buying the unit and is a benchmark against the performance of the Melco which functions in a somewhat similar manner. My initial impressions were that the Melco, although easy to use doesn’t have the visually impressive interface of Innuos’ own InnuOS software, even the apps aren’t as pretty and informative as say iPeng which runs off the back of the Squeeze-lite embedded software on the Innuos, which is my preferred software/app configuration even now after many weeks of use. But all that is swiftly put to one side when hearing the sonic performance of the N1a/2 for the first time.

I was quite happy with the Innuos but found my modded Mac mini to offer a more natural and dynamic performance, the Mac really is a one of kind with completely passive cooling and is stripped down to its bare bones both hardware and software wise, with the addition of an incredible power supply made by Paul Hynes. Attaching the Mac to the ‘Streamer’ output of the Innuos also enhances performance due to the direct attached library and linear switch facility.

Listening to the Melco puts the sound on a whole new level of realism, drama and expression. The concern that the drives were mechanical and not solid state soon fell to the side of the road and there are concerns to the way that SSD’s retrieve their information in a high-end audio products anyway, which is why Melco/Buffalo create their own proprietary SLC SSD’s for their high end N1z and remain confident in specially selected mechanical drives for their other models.

I first played Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa’s album ‘Don’t Explain’, I was presented with a vocal prowess of such distinction and purity that I literally sat up in my seat saying ‘that sounds like magic!’ All other comparisons with the Innuos soundwise left my mind and the N1a/2 sat clearly in the commanding role in my system. Bonamassa’s performance throughout the album conveyed more texture and emotion in his methods and string work pinged into freer space in an almost rejuvenated manner as if he had just gotten over a cold and got his mojo back. A more informative placement of the stage where the two were performing and a fuller picture of delicate intricacies and rhythms made for a more playful interpretation of the same album which I’d grown to love over recent months, delivering more personality and emotion than I had previously heard with either the Innuos or Mac.

I had a similar experience with Damien Rice and Derrin Nuendorf, which I played soon after, depicting leading edges to strings that I felt were now a little somewhat muted even on the modded Mac in comparison. I’ve spent quite a lot of effort on the crossovers in my limited edition Ayon loudspeakers and have also made recent modifications to my Gamut power amp which have given me a more tangible richness in texture and tonality, filling out notes with a more robust accuracy. Adding the Melco to this recipe has further enhanced these aspects with more detail within the additional tonal qualities which I’ve managed to render from the music as a whole, showing the importance of a great source in he chain is still of massive importance. The music for me with the N1a/2 now sounds more complete, accurate in tone, colour, placement and naturalness and overall coherence.

Vocals are so much more beautiful now in my system, yes it has been a combination of the whole, but doing many A/B tests with my other front end sources in my own time and with others who have come over for a listen, the differences are not subtle. One extremely picky friend of mine even went as far as saying ‘can I bring the missus over to have a listen, so she can understand why I’m spending all this money to get my system right?’ He was of course joking but the Melco really seemed to strike a chord with him and he’s usually the type of person to criticise equipment rather than appraise it’s plus points first, if you knew him this statement alone would ensure you looked into a Melco product.

As I was saying…vocals, damn the vocals! A wonderfully liquid and exquisite sound is produced from the Melco on vocals. Where the Aurelic Aries has a fluid ultra clean vocal, the N1a/2 has a richer and more sultry presentation with a vocal placement that sits bang on the correct plane, in front of other band members and never forward.

Sinead O’Connors ‘I Put A Spell On You’ did exactly that, the vocal is projected well from centre stage, having roots in a more recessed position than its projected output feeling almost real. The same powerful tones bellowed from Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli’s ‘Prayer’ with the masculinity of his power and endless breath combining in real harmony with Celine’s own power and control, leaving me with goosebumps at one o’clock in the morning after an eight and a half hour listening session with a bottle of something tasty.

Norah Jones’ sultry voice still took me on further into the morning before I gave in for the night, wrapping her wonderful tongue around my brain and just pulling me further into the platform the N1a/2 had constructed before me in my listening room. All the while tapping my feet to the riffs and rhythms of her accompanying band.

A new day and a new set of goals, I was finding myself wanting listening to music a whole lot more, my system seemed to now have a passion that I sometimes felt it lacked, very minimally and I am being very picky but enough to take the sweetness off the crumble. It felt like it had ripened and matured just enough to please my palette and gave more flavour to the music.

Today however I wanted to explore some other genres I enjoy listening to a little more infrequently than my love for acoustic and maybe take the system out of its comfort zone. I thought to myself at the time and I remark back to myself as I write this, that it only seems like I really want to push the boundaries of a piece of equipment, or my entire system in fact, when a piece of kit comes along that shines so brightly and really put it through its paces, not just being satisfied by the staples of its presentation.

My system really isn’t geared up for Rock music, I don’t have large paper cones and horn tweeters, nor do I have the distance to be able to sit so far back that electric guitar feedback at high levels doesn’t make my ears bleed. So on this basis I can’t realistically criticise the Melco for not turning my gear into something it’s not.

What this test did prove for me was that the level of information the Melco could present was strong, I could clearly ascertain more scope on layers of distortion, vocals, drums and cleaner guitar notes, there was also less smearing between them. Many genres of Rock sounded fantastic such as Soft Rock, Rock n Roll and the Blues and RnB combinations, but the accidentally created distortions pioneered by the likes of Ike Turner in the 50’s and explosive narratives of late the 70’s through early 90’s groups such as Led Zeppelin, Van Halen and Nirvana etc still didn’t cut much ice on my system. I did have a great experience with Princes ‘Purple Rain’ but then who doesn’t right?

I have always since a teenager enjoyed Dance music, I grew up in a great era for it and my system has the energy and impact to reproduce it quite well, again it’s no PA rig but what it does offer is a level of detail that a lot of high end PA systems don’t, that combined with great control, strong soundstaging and enthusiasm goes an awful long way. With the N1a/2 in my system I really could hear right into the recording. Good mastering with this genre has so much inner detail and micro dynamics to be released that for anybody to refute this genre as not good enough for critical testing of a Hifi is just ignorant. The multitude of layering is wasted on today’s modern youth, listening to about 20% of the remaining material after it has been compressed many times and fed through an MP3 player.

The Melco also shone when it came to scale and dynamics, I was able to increase the volumetric display of the system more than usual as control and imaging was better, but on the flip side I ended up using a lower volume than normal due to the rush of structuredestroying transients. Needless to say I was incredibly impressed by the hand the N1a/2 lent to the stability of the systems tolerances as a whole.

It’s safe to say that I like this product very much and a quick overview to inform any potential interested party on the likes of Classical and Opera which I don’t listen to an awful lot, was emotional. The amount of resolution that the Melco can produce at this price point is few and far between I’d say, around £2000 in terms of CD players wouldn’t even begin to cut it unless fishing around the secondhand market for a bargain.

The ‘Habanera’ from act 1 and the ‘Toreador Song’ from act 2 of Carmen is undoubtedly two of the most well known versus from any Operatic performance and through the N1a/2 over my other sources sounds glorious. Venue acoustics are clearly depicted and harmonics convey all the drama of the performance so convincingly. The dramatic and dynamic impact of the backing to the lead musicians and expressive vocal hits hard with an intensity that remains really very controlled, conveying a mass of vocalists rather than a smeared mess which doesn’t resemble the live performance at all and the slight warmth in the upper bass/lower mids of the Melco really allows for great character to come through. The same important factors are reflected in the few classical pieces I listened too, allowing large orchestras to have a contrast of instrumental tone rather than a mass of noise smearing the prominence of foregrounds.

Like the Innuos, the Melco N1a/2 has a ‘player’ or ‘streamer’ Ethernet output, where the user can connect an additional streamer such as the Aurelic Aries or the likes of in the same system, or in fact for another room, via a long cat5/6/7 cable. Also like the Innuos, this option gives software and hardware benefits. Any player (audio or video) that requires an Ethernet cable to playback networked libraries and streaming services will benefit quite substantially in sound quality taking the streaming bridge to new levels of performance across the board.

I connected the Aries and also an Amazon Fire TV as I already have a Cat7 cable running through to an adjacent room, allowing me to play uPnP files and attain better sound quality from the AFTV (which also has an aftermarket linear).

The additional performance from Aurelic’s Aries was clearly discernible with a quieter background allowing for more intricate details to stand out more. Undertones and decays were especially more palpable and the additional richness in colour to the Aries was very much welcomed in conjunction with its clean presentation, making bass notes a little rounder and fuller. My modded Mac also thrived on the back of the Melco along with allowing me to have a very localised system rather than using the external switches and multiple Ethernet cables, but I still felt that the Melco on its own did a better job in its standalone form, so rest assured the Melco N1a/2 although having the external ‘player’ feature doesn’t require an additional streamer to work at its best, it’s simply an additional feature that one may wish to make use of.

Conclusion

The N1a/2 from technology giants Buffalo Systems, dubbed with the owner’s original brand name Melco is an absolute triumph of engineering for its price. The N1a/2 has no off the shelf parts apart from its hard drives which are selected for sonic performance. Everything else is proprietary and specifically for Melco’s audio playback devices, which is no doubt why they sound so terrific. Being of Japanese heritage combines attention to detail and sublime engineering which evokes big smiles when the unit is powered up for the first time.

I would like to see a more universal platform software-wise or at least the option to run Squeeze-lite so that iOS users can use iPeng and Android users Orange Squeeze. This would enable Melco to boast Innuos style operating with their own next level of sonic performance. The BubbleUPNP app works best out of the options available and although its menu structure is great, playback is a little less comprehensive attractive at times. So a proprietary app or the integration of iPeng would solve any issues I may have had.

Feature wise the Melco is outstanding and sound wise it’s just sublime, a real rich and full sound with fantastic amounts of detail retrieval, it’s dynamic and has a very large soundstage that images superbly and most importantly connects the music with the listener.

With the ability to play files locally from the N1a/2’s internal storage, from any network attached storage device, USB flash drive, external HDD or USB CD drive, its integration is comprehensive and pragmatic.

I feel the Melco N1a/2 is an audio bargain for what you receive and I only speculate for now what the higher spec’d models will offer.

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality – Nice standard styled good built piece of Hifi
Sound Quality – Excellent, rich, full bodied, highly detailed sound
Value For Money – very good value For Money indeed!

Pros
6TB possible music library
Exceptional sound per pound
Great feature rich software
Hardware navigation buttons with OLED screen
Plenty of USB’s
Ethernet out for clean additional players – audio or video
Clean linear power
Looks like a piece of Hifi

Cons
More mechanical vibration than I would have liked
Needs better app in my opinion

Price: £2099

Dan Worth

Dan Worth plugs the £900 MUTEC MC-3+ Smart Clock USB into a couple of his systems with some interesting results. 

MUTEC products are installed in cutting edge broadcast and television stations, well-respected recording and mastering studios as well as renowned musical theatres, opera houses and universities all over the world. The new line of audiophile consumer products takes their experience from the broadcast and pro audio world into the listening room at home to provide a level of audio performance generally only found in the professional world where the bang for buck is far greater.

Company Background

It was the year 1989 – the first Love Parade draws a crowd of about 150 ravers to Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm laying the foundation for years of techno revolution to follow. The very same year Christian Peters, CEO of MUTEC GmbH, registered his business for the first time with the city of Berlin. Together with a classmate of the time, an audio engineer at the former Teldec studios in Berlin, he was musing about an appropriate name for the newly conceived company in his home’s party room. From the start it was clear to them both that the brand name should symbolise the liaison between music and technology. So the name and its maiden spelling came to be: Mu-Tech.

In the 90s, as part of a re-design of the brand logo, the company name MUTEC was established to be more appealing to a global audience.

The first product was handcrafted by Christian Peters in his dad’s workshop around the end of 1989. It was a 2 MB flash memory expansion card for the venerable AKAI S1000 sampler, a product Mr. Peters had just been able to afford thanks to several summer jobs. Since the sampler had four slots for memory expansions Mr. Peters and his father built more cards for himself and also started to offer them to DJ and musician friends for purchase.

This sparked the idea of selling these expansion cards to studios in Berlin and the surrounding area. As the young business made a name for itself the first distribution contacts and an expansion of the product portfolio were soon to follow. The success of the memory cards led to a bigger scale, automated production by a Siemens owned contract manufacturer. Later in the 1990s MUTEC became an exclusive supplier of memory expansions for all European AKAI distributors.

When the company registered as a limited liability company in 2001, Mr. Peters began designing the first audio and video clock generators, format converters and sample rate converters with the help of an extended team of skilled developers. It’s these products that MUTEC are still widely known for around the world.

Currently MUTEC is focusing on the HiFi market where the MC-3+USB Smart Clock USB with its unique audio re-clocking and USB isolator capabilities has gained an excellent reputation and is a product which is right up my street due to the nature of the systems I run.. MUTEC is furthermore about to release a range of products specifically designed to meet the demands of audiophile customers. Even so, MUTEC continues to provide support and develop new products for professional audio applications and mastering studios.

Company Philosophy

“The symbiosis of music and technology is the foundation for the beginning of the company and still today this concept is at the core of every product made by MUTEC. Technical know-how, transparency, and exceptional audio quality are our highest priorities. Instead of overpriced, esoteric mumbo-jumbo with questionable results we focus on real, reproducible, and measurable solutions to achieve the utmost sound quality.“

Hands down one of the most encourage-able comments I’ve heard from a company in years. MUTEC are definitely a company after my own heart, combining technology and music with a realistic price tag that the world of Hifi should take strong heed of!

It’s Mr. Peter’s personal mission to source the highest quality components within a given product budget, since those components directly affect audio performance. He continues to push the boundaries up to the limits of financial viability to get the best sound quality possible for the money.

Signal Processing and Jitter Control 

In A to D and D to A conversion, the digital signal needs to be clocked accurately to prevent distortion. Digital audio is made up of amplitude values of a signal at different points in time (known as samples). Samples are taken many times a second, and need to occur at regular intervals (44.1 kHz is the sample rate used in commercial CD audio). If this does not happen, the amplitude of the signal will not be recorded or played back at the correct time and so distortion will be introduced into the signal. When the clock is not consistent in its timing, the resulting distortion is known as ‘Jitter’. If the clock frequency changes, it is known as ‘Drift’.

Firstly, without getting too technical I’ll explain why we need a word clock. Digital audio, as we know, is made up of 1s and 0s, or ‘bits’. These bits are grouped into sample words. The word size for common digital audio is 16bits, 24bits and 32bits and even 64bits. When talking about 24bit audio, we mean data with sample words of 24 registers for bits. When these sample words start and end at the same exact time on several devices, we have ‘word sync’. Which is what we want, synchronising all clocks in the digital chain.

When using multiple digital audio devices they must use the same size word and travel at the same speed (sample rate). So what would happen if you send a signal at a clock of 48kHz into a device working at 44.1? The receiving digital device may well just not lock or you might find one of the devices explode into an intensely loud cascade of white noise, which I’m sure people have encountered via computer audio, I know I have on many occasions using my Mac, which requires accessing of the ‘Audio Midi Setup’ to choose the correct clock rate for the material and accompanying DAC/clock.

If the clocks are very close, but not perfectly, synchronised then this is when we get “jitter”.  Jitter may be subtle or extreme.  At it’s extreme, there will be distortion that almost sounds like ring modulation or an intense tapping/popping sound. Sometimes you will hear the rhythmic pulsing of soft white noise bursts happening about a second apart. As the rates get closer this is more like loud popping and crackling noises in the audio which still makes the sound unlistenable  As the rates get even closer, you might hear only a few microscopic barely audible ticks now and again. Many of us may actually have systems plagued with Jitter but because the artefacts are so far apart we tend to ignore them like one would ignore the occasional vanilla record pop and click. Actually, you can have a perfect lock without clicks and pops, but still have quite a lot of Jitter. These subtle timing errors usually affect spatial resolution and staging, as well as the depth of the sound field.

Adding a Word Clock

Clocking between devices can be carried out in a few different ways. Devices can be connected using a BNC cable connected to the “Word Clock In/Out” of the device. Other connector types can be used such as RCA in this way as well. Devices can be connected in daisy chain configuration where a BNC T piece is used to split the clock signal but this is more so for professional studio use.

When using AES, S/PDIF or ADAT, the clock signal is encoded into the data stream so there is not necessarily a need for a BNC cable to provide a clock signal. The type of connectors used to clock depends on the equipment being used in the setup. This is the most common way for the Hifi enthusiast to integrate a clock into their system.

For the purposes of this review the MUTEC MC-3+USB will be used as a reclocker or SPDIF converter and again the most common way of implementing the clock is via the USB input from a computer or streaming device. The idea is that the dirtiest power from the computer fed across the USB +v/-v rails is isolated from the DAC, the MUTEC will re-clock and reduce the amount of jitter associated with the computers noisy clocks and reprocess the signal into either RCA, XLR or Optical outputs which as mentioned before carry the clock word length and sample rate in order to lock the DAC to a precise size, ensuring a stable signal.

So now you have a stable lock and music is without pops and clicks the only other option is to determine which cable sounds the best for your tastes and DAC implementation, I suggest AES/EBU, then RCA coaxial, then optical as a last resort, the reason being is simply down to the favoured sound quality over many years of testing the cable and connection types.

The Physical Unit

The MUTEC MC-3+ Smart Clock USB has a solid steel case with a 4 mm aluminium front panel which is available in black or silver. The fitted feet have recesses for included rubber rings which adjust the sound subtly. If your a fan of Xmas then the front fascia of the MUTEC will please you. There are led status lights for each and every bit depth and sample rate, along with PCM and DSD designations, the lights are bright and after a while of me using the unit, becoming familiar with its settings and syncing it with my DAC I soon found a spot where it could live in behind other equipment to hide the front panel lighting. Note: Optionally, you can also turn off a LEDs except for Power and Lock with a key command. The MC-3+USB has a single USB input for computer or streamer connectivity, along with optical, BNC and AES/EBU inputs. Outputs to AES/EBU, RCA coaxial and optical SPDIF variants are available. There are also 4 BNC Word Clock outputs. I would have liked to have a HDMI output for direct I2s coupling to my DAC but I’m sure that the innovative MUTEC will look into this in future products, other than that the MUTEC is as feature rich and informative as I and other consumers will require.

The Sound

My main passive system has two digital sources, a Melco N1/a and a Modified Mac Mini. I already use a clock from digital whizz kids Rockna – the Audiobyte Hydra Z and accompanied ZPM power supply, which I enjoy very much, having concluded very early in its demonstration period to be a crucial part of my setup and replacing a former model from the company. Unlike the Hydra the MUTEC doesn’t have the ability to use an external linear based power supply to clean things up even further. The Hydra doesn’t have a front panel dressed in a techni-coloured dream coat, you could argue that the front panel is extremely informative where the Hydra has absolutely no indication to what’s going on and it costs £300 more.

The MUTEC doesn’t have I2s over HDMI. What it does have though is a host of digital inputs all selectable via the front panel, rather than the Hydra’s single USB input and a preferred by many no doubt simple one box solution. Both have multiple clock outputs to sync multiple devices or multi room systems, the MUTEC however is the only one of the two that has the standard 5v Word Clock output, the Hydra uses the older 3.3v which I’ve found isn’t compatible with much I’ve tried it with unfortunately.

In short the MC-3+USB sounds cleaner and more transparent than the Hydra Z, the Hydra Z is a little softer sounding, not having the level of absolute precision of the MUTEC. I preferred the Hydra with the Mytek Brooklyn DAC due to its own clean nature and the MUTEC is the perfect companion to my main systems DiDiT 212SE DAC, bringing welcomed sonic benefits to either DAC.

The best way to describe the sound of the MC-3+USB in the system is stable. The soundstage goes from a slight ghostly blur to a solid, accurate and clear image. Leading edges of symbols, plucked strings and drum strikes are much more accurate and realistic in tone and timbre. The outer boundaries of the soundstage too have more prominence in their appreciation. Notes are more easily discernible and micro details become clearly defined rather than a lesser defined smear in the darkness, overall giving better structure, three dimensional and presence to a performance. This, all truly audible even with my already very clean and well worked out system.

When listening to vocals, the differences come with more natural and effortless power, better expression of the upper mids allowing for clearer toning of extreme highs from females and the same dignified approach to the lower end of a males voice. Overall positioning in general of the vocal is more focused, stable and organic.

Extra transparency and background darkness throughout the frequency range achieved by the MC-3+ produces increased separation especially noticeable in the high regions gives a larger performance and allows for more inner detail to come through without swamping the soundstage or becoming confusing or exhausting, even with it’s cleaner presentation. The MUTEC really allows the listener to explore recordings in more depth, digging really deep into the mix and extracting the finer rifts and tempos to make for a more complex performance, sometimes finding flaws in the music which are masked prior, but in most circumstances proves to be very interesting and adds a new dimension during listening sessions from time to time.

If you’re the kind of person who likes tweaking your system, with different cabling, supports, positioning and other magic trinkets you will undoubtedly love the MC-3+USB. Adding one to any system – as well as giving large improvements in detail and timing, also allows for other smaller tweaks elsewhere in the system to become more prevalent due to a greater level of transparency in the source signal. Similar to having great tyres and suspension on a car, allowing the driver to communicate with the road and other performance tweaks more intelligently.

Listening to the music and not just the equipment is a phrase used by many these days as high-end Hifi does have a tendency to lean further towards the exploitation of detail and dynamics, which can often lead to a starker and less involving rendition of the recording. The MC-3+ Smart Clock USB from MUTEC has the ability to extract information on a nano level and does an incredible job of maintaining musical flow and natural dynamics. The passion in the music is reflected by MUTEC’s passion for building equipment that can steadily walk the tight rope between accuracy and emotion and listening g to live performances from the likes of Sting, Candy Dulfer and Fink reflect this statement.

Every live performance I listened to really opened up a window into a deep soundstage that clearly defined spacial awareness of each band member along with clear placement of the crowd. Each applause was separate to the stage and even stage height was more defined than without a master clock in play. Acoustics and reverbs dependant on venue were so well perceived that late night intimate listening gave that ‘transported to the concert’ feeling, which again adds to the enthusiasm for the music and our own emotional connection with it and our systems.

In theory, good digital should always be better than by nil but in practice it’s really not true, however as technology develops and companies such as MUTEC keep pushing the boundaries producing equipment with love and honesty at their core maybe digital will find its way into the hearts of more enthusiasts.

My Active Systems

I have two active systems also at home, one is a pair of Focal CMS50 which sit on the desk and are ran via a Mac Mini connected to a Mytek Brooklyn DAC as the only source and the other comprises of Focal CMS40’s with the CMS Sub, this system also has a Samsung 55” curved screen, a Virgin Media TiVo Box, an Innuos Zenith MK2 streamer and an Amazon Fire TV, all into an Audiolab M-DAC.

Adding the clock to the first of these systems (desk) allowed me to use a BNC cable to lock the Word Clock direct to the Mytek Brooklyn DAC, produces results that were quite honestly as respectful, transforming and as enjoyable as the passive system. The lock was initiated instantaneously after cable connection was made. This system is reflective of a small home studio system and with modifications to the Mac and running AmarraRemote Symphony it is more so a playback system really, although can easily be changed with software to a mixing system, none the less even with upgraded linear supplies and exp naive cabling and unlit mains setup this system was taken to a new level of detail retrieval and overall performance with the MC-3+USB in the chain.

The second system warranted a clock ideally which could decode and re-clock a range of inputs to cover all the sources used in this setup and fortunately the MUTEC can. Now I couldn’t connect all devices directly at first until I borrowed a non-expensive D to D converter as there are just way too many opticals involved in this setup. Although this setup allowed for access to the high-precision clock employed by MUTEC in the MC-3+USB my direct connections to USB and optical were producing a superior sonic performance than using the digital to digital  converter. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the clock was able to produce an unsuspected rich and well balanced sound across a real glass optical and into the M-DAC, although USB and the AES and electrical SPDIF inputs along with USB still attained a sound which is superior.

There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that MUTEC’s MC-3+USB is and was an instrumental part of the audio chain in all the systems I implemented it. Although each system is of good pedigree the extra abilities of the precision clock added a new level of detail and timing that simply cannot be overlooked when building any quality digital system.

Conclusion 

Adding a MUTEC MC-3+ Smart Clock USB to your music source will improve a system substantially, in fact it will enhance the sonic performance of the majority of systems and sources to a quite substantial degree.

The stability of the system pertaining to phase control and timing will allow a system to sound more effortless and controlled, with a greater sense of realism and believability within the newly structured soundstage.

An MC-3+USB will extract a whole heap more detail from the recorded material and present it in a manner which retains musicality. It’s compatible with a whole range of streamers and works without issue on Windows or Mac and will support any source with any variant of SPDIF output.

Take your standard source to new heights or your high-end source to the next level.

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality – Solid, strong and sturdy

Sound Quality – Detailed with fantastic timing/imaging and strong musicality

Value For Money – Very strong performance and features with a fair price tag

Pros

Loads of inputs and outputs

Incredibly low jitter

Excellent imaging and timing

Clean, grainless sound

Black background

Large increase in detail

Musical

Cons

Front panel lights will offend some

No I2s over HDMI

Price: £900 give or take dependant on retailer

Dan Worth

Costing £3995 the AVM Inspiration CS2.2 packs a lot under the hood. It’s a streamer, a CD player, DAC, FM radio, Internet radio player, it has an on-board MM/MC phonostage and outputs a healthy amount of power. For those looking for a one box plus speakers solution it looks the business, but does it cut the mustard? Dominic Marsh finds out. 

The AVM Inspiration CS2.2 is one of many compact “all in one” units found on the market today.  The trend seems to be driven by a desire for people to be living in more and more cramped spaces in housing becoming less spacious, or people don’t want a heap of boxes sat in a rack and  cramping their lifestyle choices.  The word “compact” though conjures up images of cheap parts shoehorned into a small box, beset by a huge list of compromises to achieve that goal and with a sound quality ranking just above the standard of a portable transistor radio.

Just one look and touch of the AVM Inspiration CS2.2 tells you to take all your preconceptions about that word “compact” and erase them entirely from your mind.  AVM haven’t just helped you to get rid of that pile of boxes, they have redefined what “compact” should signify, with a price tag approaching four thousand pounds that forces you to treat it with some serious reverence.

Construction

You can tell instantly that this is a German designed product, with stunning attention to details, like the chassis and cover fitting together perfectly, the way the volume control glides rather than merely rotates, the buttons having a tactile presence to them.  As BMW are obsessive about shut lines on their vehicle’s doors, bonnets (hood) and boots (trunk), so too I would imagine someone on the AVM production line is checking the accuracy of fit and finish before it leaves the factory.

Within said compact box is a powerful Class D amplifier with a rating of 165 watts into an 4 ohm load, a slot loading CD player, an FM only tuner with RDS, a DAC, a phonostage with MM & MC input, a dedicated headphone amplifier, Bluetooth receiver and internet streaming facility.  There is no DAB radio fitted, but there is an internet radio streaming facility. There is full support for Qobuz and Tidal. Streaming-wise it will work with all the usual suspects (MP3 , WMA, AAC, OGG Vorbis, FLAC, WAV, AIFF) and upsamples these to 192/24.

With all that functionality on tap, the front panel controls are rather sparse, but don’t let that fool you for one moment, as the 5 push buttons beneath the display take you through a menu system that is pretty much comprehensive, but navigating down through the menu layers is logically arranged, something that can’t be said of some products.  This is one occasion where sitting in front of the unit with the user manual to hand helps to unravel the menu system easily.  Aside from the display and menu buttons, we find source selection, a power switch, rotary volume control, the slot entry for the CD player and a 3.5mm headphone socket.

Around the rear though is where the business end of this machine’s skills lie.  Reading from left to right, there is an FM antenna plug connection, then a pair of RCA sockets for phono connection, 3 pairs of RCA sockets for line level analogue inputs, then a pair of fixed line level analogue output RCA sockets, then a variable level pre-amplifier output pair, then a USB socket for firmware/software updating, then digital inputs consisting of an RCA socket and a TOSLINK connection and a matching set of digital outputs.  Back to the left and on the bottom row now we see a ground connection post for the phono connection,  then an RJ45 LAN connection, then a USB socket  so you can add a hard drive, then two buttons for Update and Reset accordingly, then the Bluetooth antenna.  Finally, we find two pairs of loudspeaker connections, but in a BFA type format only.  If your speaker cables are blessed with 4mm banana plugs then you have no worries, but those that have bare wire or spade connections will need to have new cables or existing cables reterminated.   At the far right hand of the rear panel there is the mains power switch and an IEC inlet. So, connectivity-wise AVM seem to have pretty much every area covered and whether you are looking to stream from a NAS or a hard drive, or use more conventional media you are well catered for. The line level inputs allow you to add other external sources should you wish and I would imagine many will use one of these pairs for improving the sound of their televisions.

AVM have also created an app you can download from their website onto your mobile device to control all the functions of the Inspiration CS2.2.  A remote control handset and charging dock is an optional extra.

Sound Quality

Being the very busy Hifi Pig Reviewer that I am these days, I unpacked the CS2.2 from it’s box and connected some mains to it, discovered that my speaker spade connections are not suitable, so a dig around in the trusty spares drawer and produced a pair of Tellurium Q Ultra Blue cables with 4mm banana plugs fitted that I keep for eventualities such as this.  All connected up I pressed the power button but simply ignored what it was doing because my mind was concentrating on other things at the time and that included reading the user manual, or indeed studying the specifications.

I then faced the prospect of inserting a CD into the slot loader and I will admit I had rather a nervous moment.  I do distrust, rightly or wrongly, slot loading CD mechanisms as two previous players (not from AVM I hasten to add) in for review had these things installed and both times my CD went in and didn’t come out voluntarily, plus car CD players have the same trick up their sleeve unfortunately, so they don’t have an unblemished reputation with me.  What the heck, it either makes the third instance for the hat trick or swallows and plays the CD, so it was gamble time.  Without even looking, I reached across to the CD rack and pulled one out at random from the bottom shelf – the same shelf were all the blind purchases should have remained blind, as in bought from charity shops for £0.99p, boot sales for £0.10p, or a token punt from someone’s ecstatic recommendation.  “Oooh, you MUST buy this CD Dominic, it’s superb” to find in reality it’s not to my tastes at all, not even close.  An ideal sacrificial candidate then for a potentially recalcitrant slot loading player.  In it went so gently and so smoothly, I ejected it and loaded it again with the same result, so I gave the AVM immediate absolution and it worked flawlessly for the duration.

The CD was called “Red Hot and Cool” a compilation CD given away free with some magazine or other, the first track being Moby’s ‘Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad’ no less.  Suddenly the AVM went from number four in the list of my priorities, straight up to number one instantly.  For such a “compact” unit, it produced a big, solid, powerful sound which got my attention, more biggerer, more soliderer and more powerfullerer than my resident system’s sound.  Dominic was more than impressed.  Well he was until he downloaded the app from the AVM website and despite many attempts I could not get the CS2.2 paired up to my mobile phone.  After a lot of head scratching I came to the conclusion that my phone didn’t have sufficient free memory to operate the app.  Great pity, as the app purportedly controls every single function of the Inspiration CS2.2, so I had to make do with getting up off my backside and operating it manually.

I then dug out the user manual and read it from cover to cover, where I discovered this isn’t a weedy little 30 watts per channel amplifier that sounds like banging a dustbin with a stick, this was a hefty 165 watts per channel of Class D amplifier throbbing away inside that compact box.  No wonder it sounded as powerful as it did.  It also didn’t suffer from the typical Class D sound either, which can sound dry and unpolished, lacking in warmth and emotion.  I couldn’t fault the sound I was hearing and very soon I had dropped from my mind that this was a Class D amplifier I was listening to.

Naturally, I had to play my reference recording of Fink’s “Wheels Beneath My Feet” album to see where if any shortfalls in performance were.  I was on a fruitless quest there, as the AVM gave a stunning performance that matched, if not eclipsed, many a big grown up separates system.  The floor tom whacks the drummer inflicts on his drum kit during the track “Sort of Revolution” was delivered with awesome power and control, fair made my listening room vibrate I can tell you.  Each one of my benchmark points in this album was passed with ease and I heaved a huge sigh of relief when the CD player ejected my CD without any fuss or drama.  I believe the drive unit is made by TEAC which is a good indicator of build quality.

The quality of sound emanating from this box of tricks was equally impressive and consistent whatever the source of the music and the inclusion of the very able phonostage is a boon for those already on, or looking to jump on, the vinyl bandwagon.

The Class A headphone amp is also a very neat feature for late night listening and sounds on a par with the rest of the system.

Conclusion

Well, after having initial mixed expectations from this small compact box, those perceptions quickly vanished.  It is a beautifully built, very well specified and great performing unit as befits the AVM label.

It isn’t cheap by anyone’s standards and asking people to shell out just short of four thousand pounds is up to AVM to justify.  If however you consider that buying the separate units to make up the equivalent functions and with this level of performance would be well in excess of four thousand pounds, plus you are back to a rack full with 17 inch units which you didn’t want to begin with.

For those looking for a great sounding, feature packed and pretty much future proof all-in-one then this one ticks all the relevant boxes.

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality:  Superb.

Sound Quality:  Sweep your preconceptions about “size” aside, this is a top performing device.

Value For Money:  If you can afford it, then don’t hesitate.

Pros:  Fine build, great sound and more than enough features built in as standard.

Cons:  No remote control handset as standard.

Price:  £3,995.00

Dominic Marsh

Technical Specifications

Analogue Inputs: 4x line (RCA), 1x phono (MM, MC)

Digital inputs: S/PDIF coaxial and optical, synchronous USB, LAN and WLAN Ethernet connection

Outputs: 1x pre (RCA), 1x line (RCA), 2x pair 4mm/BFA loudspeaker terminals

Digital outputs: S/PDIF coaxial and optical

Power output: 165W per channel into 8 ohms

Headphone output:  Class A amplifier, 3.5mm jack stereo input

CD drive: Slot drive, spring mounted., TEAC derived

Digital audio output: upsampled automatically
to 24-bit, 192kHz

Supported media server: UPnP 1.1, UPnP-AV and DLNA-compatible server, Microsoft Windows Media Connect Server (WMDRM 10), DLNA-compatible servers: NAS

Streaming formats: MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG Vorbis, FLAC (192/32 via LAN), WAV (192/32 via LAN), AIFF (192/32 via LAN), ALAC (96/24 via LAN)

Internet radio: vTuner Service, Auto network config., Internet Radio Station database (automatic updates)

FM radio with RDS

Dimensions (WxHxD): 34×9.2x35cm

Weight: 10kg

Finish: Aluminium silver or black, chrome front optional

Linn’s Klimax DS is a dedicated streamer with just an ethernet input to connect to your music library and yet it costs almost £16 000. Can Linn justify this high price with an equally stunning performance? Dan Worth finds out. 

2007 saw the release of the very first Klimax DS from Scottish audio giants Linn. The first DS, much like future products, utilises first class audio components confined in their clam-shell chassis which is itself milled from a single billet of aluminium.  Throughout the years Linn have pushed forward, advancing and refining their design on a hardware and software basis, continually striving to be a leader in digital audio playback with today’s Klimax DS being the 4th incarnation.

The launch of Linn’s 4th generation Katalyst DAC Architecture within the newest of Klimax DS dedicated streamers is notably more mature in its ability to take absolute control over critical elements that lie in the heart of the analogue signal’s creation – offering what Linn state to be their most accurate reproduction ever from a digital source and “completely devoid of noise”. 

Completely independent isolated power supplies are employed for each process in the Klimax DS, ensuring that there is zero feedback from each of the processes to interfere with the next, making for a far greater reduction in overall noise distortion.

Linn have their own proprietary optimisation stage employed in the Klimax DS, detailed specifics are not available but Linn say that along with Master Clocking with independent power supply the “optimisation stage prepares the digital signal before any conversion takes place, which maximises error control and reproduction accuracy right at the start of the process.” 

Linn’s newest ultra-low distortion Analogue Output Driver prepares the analogue signal before output. Much the same as Input Signal Optimisation completes its task, the Analogue Output Optimisation removes any final noise distortion and dumps it before the pre-amplification stage in order to enhance signal purity and stability.

System Installation and Integration

Installation of the DS is simple, a somewhat more closed design is apparent over the companies DSM variant which has 7 digital inputs, DS being optimised purely for the on-board streamer via a single Ethernet input to link to local network libraries and streaming services. I was a little concerned to say the least about such a closed architecture until Linn pointed out that they were offering the use of their Katalyst DAC with any other digital source on their DSM module, all be it at a premium of £3,100 extra on top of the price of the DS at £15,800.

With fully balanced XLR outputs and single ended RCA the connectivity of the Klimax DS is pretty much complete apart from some further RJ45 Exakt Links. 

Fit and Finish 

Some may regard Linn’s product line up as being a little understated in the looks department and may suggest you are not getting enough bling for your buck. I tend to disagree, not everybody wants huge shiny boxes dressed like a Christmas tree. It’s modest styling is sleek and inoffensive in any decor. Looking at a piece of Linn’s electronics in a photograph on the internet or in a brochure has no real bearing when confronted with the sleek lines of the physical product and when one handles one of their products an undeniable appreciation for precision build quality is immediately realised.

Set Up 

Linn recommend using a NAS drive as the music source library to support the Klimax DS, offering me a Netgear Ready Nas for use during the review, I already have two of these for data backup for all my system,  alongside a Melco N1a/2 which is my main music library for its benefits outlined in previous reviews. My pre-amplifier is the Audio Music RT-1 which is a great partner to my Gamut d200 mk3 power amplifier and Ayon Seagull Ceramic loudspeakers, all items have carefully selected modifications.

Ethernet in, Analogue RCA out and the flip of a power switch on the Linn and essentially everything is ready to go. Nice and simple! 

Linn Kazoo Control App 

Linn have upgraded many hardware and software aspects inside the new Klimax DS, as well as employing a new control app called Kazoo – over the older Kinsky app. Kazoo is available on Mac and Windows along with Android and iOS devices through their relative app stores or via the Linn website. Installation couldn’t be easier and in use Kazoo is extremely informative. Users have the benefit of choosing the player/source and accompanying local library where the music is stored, alongside being able to enter their login credentials for Tidal or Qobuz.

Playing back music offers all relevant album information as well as displaying any associated artwork and the overall screen layout can be set as a list or tiles. Playlists can be built and songs can be queued for a relaxing and fuss free evening of music without needing to intervene with this already very simple way of enjoying ones favourite tunes. I especially like the black theme that Kazoo has from the outset, it prevents eye strain in darkened rooms and also looks sleek.

The Sound 

Normally I’d begin this section with information based around the burning in of a product. Today I feel like that is an unnecessary topic to touch on – needless to say there is of course one, but when a Klimax DS is installed into a system the immediate impact it has is such a joy to behold that anything other than the music becomes irrelevant.  Most notably for me on first listen was the amount of organic information displayed around the timbre of instruments. An acoustic guitar has a more meaningful description of each note’s connection with the room and of course the instruments body. During Derrin Nuendorf’s ‘Ghost Train’ tonality was reinforced by its incredibly detailed natural timbre, which uncannily didn’t feel as if the music was slowing down as my brain adjusted to the plethora of information on offer. When masses of information is communicated to the human brain it naturally has a slowing down effect. Life changing experiences such as accidents are always reported by an individual to have happened almost in slow motion – of course, time hasn’t slowed but the attention and analytical nature of the brain comes into play allowing for potentially better reactions and assessment of the situation.

Linn’s Klimax DS easily puts the listener into the acoustic space and firmly into the heart of the performance from the outset. The evening I first installed the DS was with my girlfriend – she loves hearing new equipment and is very interested in their mechanics, but her true passion lies with the music and its reproduction – she has a very broad taste. We started to trawl through a range of music we both enjoy (which was mainly acoustic during the first evening) and I could quickly see how soon she wandered off into the presentation of the system.

Listening to the Damien Rice ‘O’ album my impressions of Rice’s vocal in comparison with my usual reference of the Melco and the DiDiT DAC was an obvious cleaner approach, there was still great balance in tonality, with a fluidness that gave the lyrics meaningful expression. The cleaner tonality allowed for an added layer of realism, or in the room sense of presence of the music as a whole.

The following day whilst my partner was at work I had some more time listening to the Klimax DS at higher volumes than the previous night, curious to hear if I could trip the DS up whilst listening out for any sharp tones lurking in its sea of cleaner, well rendered rendition of notes. I threw a bunch of material at it, more acoustic, some jazz, a bunch of 80’s rock music along with some electronica and pop.

I’d like to convey my admiration for the way the Linn deals with jazz; I’m not a huge fan at all of the newer funky jazz or any of its other derivatives, I’m more in favour of traditional jazz, Anker Bilk, Frank Sinatra, John Venturi, Earl Hines etc. I remember when my brother-in-law used to have a shop in London and he sold LP12’s and the Klimax DS gave me fond memories of the Sondek setup, the undeniable musicality and bounciness it lent to jazz and the playfulness it conveys still to this day is pretty much unrivalled by any other deck. I don’t know how Linn have managed it but I have searched and searched and I cannot find where inside the DS they have managed to hide the LP12 and it seems that Linn are being very tight lipped about this too! My speakers, being of an all ceramic array of drivers, conveyed this fun loving appeal very well, but undoubtedly paper cones would have been even more thrilling. It’s a very fine balancing act to produce a piece of equipment which portrays great accuracy and extended amounts of detail, especially in bass registers, without delivering an incredibly tight bass that feels just too dry. The Klimax DS doesn’t deliver as rich a tone as my current front-end setup, but then it is tailored to my system to create a terrific balance. However, the balancing act between exceptional tonality in timbre and extraction of detail on all levels of bass notes dignifies the company’s prowess in being one of the leaders in digital music reproduction.

Music from the likes of Bon Jovi, Genesis, Meatloaf, Fleetwood Mac etc filled me with great joy also. I have always had a place in my heart for this kind of music, having grown up with these groups, listening to them in the evenings and weekends as my Mum prepared meals for us. You would often catch her dancing around the kitchen, having a good old sing song with pots and pans boiling away as if she was appearing on Stars In Their Eyes! At the time I always remember her red cylindrical AM/FM radio cassette player and every now and then it would beep and chatter when the portable phone was about to ring, I even used to be able to pick up police radios on it with careful tuning. My point is that that time of my life contained some of my greatest memories, I loved where we lived, music was always playing, no matter what it was played from and my life was just so adventurous and care free as a small child. The Klimax DS is one of a few pieces of equipment that had transported me back to my childhood  and this is due I think to the undeniable signature it brings to the music and nothing to do with price. I found myself toe-tapping, singing along and inadvertently searching for the next song on a reminiscence basis rather than, “ I bet this recording will sound good on it”. And that’s what it’s all about really, I don’t care if something costs £50 or nearly £16k, any piece of equipment should be created ultimately to reproduce music and not just an array of over-embellished, over-detailed sounds. Each pricepoint as we climb the cost ladder needs to offer more insight and resolution, of course, but the fundamental factor in any music lovers system has to be the connection to the music and what it means to you personally. The Klimax DS achieves this – it has a heart!

My mid to late teens took me heavily into electronica and dance music, in fact it pretty much took me over for a while. I craved dynamic transients, huge punchy bass notes and synthesised sounds that enveloped me. My systems at the time moved from simple two channel receivers to multi-channel, multi-speaker arrangements that got me in trouble with my parents and neighbours alike. I moved out at a young age and when I got my first place I remember my Mum visiting to instruct on where things should be placed and what furniture I required. My reaction to this was simple, “I’ll setup the system first, then we’ll work out where everything else needs to go”. This made absolutely no sense to her “it’s a home not a nightclub” but for me music has always taken a priority. Again, this story isn’t something I reminisce about often, but it’s a story that was brought to the fore again by the Linn Klimax DS. I can imagine that within the four walls of their Scotland factory they have the technology and the know how to create pieces of equipment that can champion a whole range of attributes that would lend their abilities to very specific criteria; whether a vocal and acoustic masterpiece, a big band or orchestral masterclass or a dynamically astute enthralling wizard on the dance floor, how on earth can you get all of these specialties into one box though? Ask Linn, because they really have achieved it.

I already had a strong appreciation for the Klimax DS’s way of naturally rendering transients and harmonically its decays can be playful or subtle, in this case, however, the inner child was reborn and the pressure levels in the room increased dramatically as did the volume.

Most likely untested by many, within the factory or out, the Klimax DS’s sonic signature and effortless reproduction was absolutely on the money with this genre of music. It took on a new level of control with heaps of confidence – details were astonishing, kick drums were tight and fast and the midrange when vocals were included were simply exhilarating. The Klimax DS will have enthusiasts of all ages and tastes lost in their favourite genres. With the correct amp/speaker combination to tailor to one’s room and tastes, Linn’s Klimax DS will change the game for many, and in many respects it could be the last source that you will ever need (with the caveat, that if you don’t require any further digital inputs). It’s infinitely transparent, agile, textured, informative as well as being subtle and delicate in its approach to reproducing any music, but also ready to let its hair down and party.

Whether listening to Tidal, Qobuz or music from your own local library in standard or higher bit rates, the Linn Klimax DS will deliver. Newer, higher resolution formats from either of the above services shine through the intricately constructed and outstanding on-board Katalyst DAC, yet never left me wanting when listening to my large 16bit libraries. The Linn adds an authority to the music that is often overlooked and delivers a rarely surpassed performance with its associated features and app support making for a seamless integration into any system, and not just an all Linn arrangement. To be able to deliver this much charisma and character without influencing tonal colour is an achievement in itself, but to be able to combine this without becoming stale and uninteresting is testament to what Linn have achieved here. 

AT A GLANCE

Conclusion 

I’ve pretty much concluded this review above, so I will discuss the realities of owning a streamer which costs little under £16,000. First, the market for such a product is far smaller than that of the typical £2k to £7k high-end streamer, which in most cases carries more features.

The Linn Klimax DS has a very closed architecture and if one desires an array of digital inputs for other devices there is that £3k premium to add for the privilege of the DSM model. Personally, I feel that for this sort of money the DS should have at least one further digital input, with my preference being for optical. The addition of Bluetooth would have been a fantastic addition too.

What you do receive though is a dedicated and isolated streaming peripheral that at its heart has one of the most wonderfully implemented DACs on today’s market, connecting directly to the renderer, with absolutely no eyes for anything else whatsoever.

In Hifi terms this approach tends to make the purists happy and others who want maximum flexibility and less boxes not so. I’d imagine that consumers in the market for a dedicated streamer such as the DS would indeed favour the dedicated version over the DSM and those who want more flexibility in this price bracket at least have the option of knowing that with Linn’s “Input Signal Optimisation” and “Output Driver” technology they are in safe hands.

There are strong arguments all day long for and against both implementations and I don’t believe that these will ever combine to one universal trail of thought, so for now we need to simply accept the reality of this product and its target market.

Build Quality: Absolutely stunning!

Sound Quality: Heart felt, engaging and engrossing, very transparent and insightful.

Value For Money: I’ll let you be the judge of that.

Pros: Bespoke parts throughout. Incredible attention to detail, physically and sound-wise. Exceptional DAC integration. Genre flexibility. Transparent and engaging. Most of all musical!

Cons: Expensive enough to be positioned at a specific sector of the market, but then Linn do offer more reasonably priced models. Should have had at least one digital input or perhaps even Bluetooth.

Price – £15,800

Dan Worth

Musical Fideity’s M6 Encore Connect is a ripper, streamer and preamplifier all in one handy, if substantial box. It costs £3629 and Lionel Payne hooked it up to his system to see if it came up to scratch. 

The Musical Fidelity M6 Encore Connect Multi Format Audio Streamer is quite a mouthful! From now on in this review I will simply call it the Encore Connect.

The Encore Connect is what is often referred to as an “All-In-One” although this particular model has preamplifier but not power amplifier facilities. However, Musical Fidelity also produce a variant with in-built amplification (using dual mono amplifier modules from the M6Si providing 225watts at 8 Ohms) called the Encore 225. Available in black or white, the review sample arrived in the black variant and proved to be no lightweight as it tips the scales at over 16 kilograms, this being a good indicator of the build quality of the unit which is particularly sturdy. To either flank are substantial heatsinks which I assume are only really required for the Encore 225 but as both variants wear the same clothes they remain on the Encore Connect.

The Encore Connect has a rather extensive feature list. It is an audio preamplifier/source component allowing you to keep all of your music in the one place. It can be connected to almost any source component whether analogue or digital and it is also compatible with many network speakers such as Sonos. There is official support for Tune-In Radio, Tidal, Qobuz and Spotify, the latter two having just been added within a major software update. These updates come at fairly regular intervals and prove that the Encore Connect is ever evolving and improving.

There are three available analogue inputs (via RCA), the Encore Connect provides fixed and variable outputs, and these remain completely analogue throughout. There are no less than four S/PDIF digital inputs (2 coaxial, 2 toslink) as well as four USB type A connections, one of which has high current capacity for charging phones or tablets. There is also a USB type B connection but this is limited to use in future expansion. There is a slot-loading CD player and upgradable 1TB hard disk drive for storage which is enough for approximately 2500 CD’s. A quarter inch socket for headphones is provided and this proved to be of high quality when tested. At the heart of the Encore Connect is a 64 bit Intel CPU with 2GB of RAM. This specification is far more than is required and as well as ensuring superb performance it allows for continual upgrading of its facilities and makes the Encore Connect virtually future proof.

It’s not often that the manufacturer sends a representative to make sure its product is installed correctly for the review but this was the case with the Encore Connect – thank you Andrew, it was good meeting you. I was told that installation is quite complicated but I’m sure I could have handled it without any serious problems and any potential purchasers should not be deterred. The biggest problem Andrew and I had when installing the Encore Connect was discovering that my RJ45 network cable that travels from my ground floor router up to my second floor mancave must have been damaged when new carpet had been installed on hall, stairs and landings last summer. We overcame the problem by setting up downstairs directly to the router and then installing upstairs without it being hard-wired to the internet. The RJ45 network cable was then replaced a couple of days later and everything worked as it should. It should be noted that not hard-wiring the Encore Connect limits its functionality somewhat.

I have been contemplating the task of ripping my CD collection to FLAC for some time. The main reasons that I haven’t so far are that it would be rather time-consuming as it is a rather large collection and I could never be 100% sure that a new format wouldn’t be introduced to make my FLAC files obsolete. Once the Encore Connect had arrived and I had ripped a few CD’s to its’ 1GB hard drive I saw the opportunity to tackle the task.  I never quite imagined it being so easy! Using the Encore Connect for ripping couldn’t be easier, simply load the CD and the ripping begins. In fact playing a CD is a little more complicated than ripping it as you have to access a sub-menu and select to play a CD before you put it into the slot-loader. At first I have to admit that this seemed counter-productive but once I had spent a little time with the Encore Connect it made absolutely perfect sense. The first thing to realise is that once you own an Encore Connect you will be very unlikely to want to simply play a CD with it. Much more likely is that you will wish to rip it to the hard-drive and use the FLAC file in all subsequent use.  When I compared the playback of a CD against the playback of a ripped CD from the hard-drive I found a small but not insignificant improvement in the sound of the ripped CD. This can be explained by the fact that the ripped CD is virtually bit-perfect whereas playing the CD will incur error correction being involved during. Ripping a CD takes around 10-12 minutes and the Encore Connect will automatically search for the artwork and metadata to accompany the FLAC file. One or two of my less well-known CD’s weren’t recognised and I had to input the data manually but this was made very easy by the fact that the Encore Connect can be found through the use of Google Chrome on your laptop or PC. This allows you to manually input artist, album and track titles as well as drag and drop artwork to accompany the FLAC file. Using this Google Chrome interface also allows you to drag and drop large audio files directly to and from the Encore Connect. It also allows complete control of the Encore Connect and I personally found this fantastic and my much preferred alternative to using the multi-function remote control or the available free app (available for iOS and Android devices). The remote control works extremely well but I found it to be a little lightweight, being made of plastic, for a machine costing so much.  The downloadable app also works very well and may well be the first choice for many users. However, I absolutely loved using the Encore Connect with the Google Chrome interface and there are several extra very useful features with this including Random Mix, Alarm Clock and Don’t Stop The Music which allows you to set up so that you never have silence.

The sound quality of the Encore Connect is beyond reproach. When it first arrived my immediate thoughts were that it seemed bright but that was simply my own brain needing to become accustomed to the extra detail on offer. The Encore Connect is not bright but rather, it delivers wonderful sound quality throughout the whole sound spectrum with oodles of detail on tap. As a subscriber to Tidal (hifi quality) I was keen to listen to the same albums I had already ripped to the hard drive and determine whether there was any significant difference between the two. In most instances I found it difficult to determine which I was listening to in blind listening tests as both formats excelled. However, on a couple of occasions I found the Tidal offering far better than the CD rip and I can only assume that this was due to me having a poor quality recording on the CD in the first place.

AT A GLANCE

Conclusion

I don’t imagine that the Encore Connect is for everyone, but for those looking for an all-in-one such as this with top sound quality being the main objective, I cannot recommend it highly enough.  It sat perfectly within my system hooked up to my Tri Vista 300 integrated amplifier, by the same manufacturer, and set as a source by using the line level outputs so that the Tri Vista controlled the level of volume. The sound from my resident Monitor Audio PL300ii’s or any of the loudspeakers I had in for review during the period never failed to satisfy or excite. In fact it became my “go to” source for most of the time it spent with me.  I can also imagine it would be ideal at the heart of an audiophile’s office or second system. It could simply be hooked up to a pair of active speakers or an amplifier and passive speakers to produce a remarkably engaging system. Heartily recommended!

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality : Built like a tank and should last for years.

Sound Quality : Up there with the very best with outstanding detail.

Value For Money : When you add up what is available within the one box and take into account the sound quality, perceived value is astonishing.

Pros: A very well thought out package which offers true audiophile quality.

Cons: A remote control with a more luxurious feel would be welcome and care should be taken with amplifier matching as the Encore Connect’s detail may grate with a bright sounding amp and speakers.

Price : £ 3629.00

Lionel Payne

Specifications

Inputs

3 x Line Level RCA 300mV nominal 2V typical up to 7V rms

2 x optical S/PDIF 24 bit inputs up to 192kHz

2 x coax S/PDIF 24 bit inputs up to 192kHz

1 x USB 3.0 type ‘A’ connector

1 xUSB 3.0 type “B” connector (for future expansion)

3 x USB2.0 type ‘A’ connector (1 front, 2 rear) 10/100/1000 Base-T Ethernet connector

Outputs

1x line level PREAMP variable outputs (>6V rms max)

1x line level FIXED 2.0V @ 0dBFS (300mV rms nominal, >6V rms max) (Preamp gain, line input to PREAMP outputs is 4.5x (13dB) at maximum volume)

Headphone output suitable for headphones impedance 8 ohms to ∞. (Headphone output features independent volume setting)

Speaker outputs 1 pair 4mm banana plugs per channel

1x optical S/PDIF 24-bit output up to 192kHz

1x coax S/PDIF 24-bit output up to 192kHz

Internal storage 2.5” 1 TB SATA II hard disk (included) or SSD (future upgradeable)

General

Dimensions – W x H x D (mm): 440 x 125 x 400

Weight (unpacked / packed): 16.6 kg/ 21.3 kg

Based around Auralic’s Lightning DS Streaming Platform, which is one of the most intuitive and responsive software systems around for devices of this type, Polaris incorporates a wired/wireless streamer, a music server – via additional HDD/SSD, a DAC, a moving magnet phonostage, a preamplifier and a stereo power amplifier. Dan Worth tries out this £2875 box of tricks.

Polaris utilises AURALiC Flexible Filters and Femto Master Clock, supports quad-rate DSD and PCM up to 32 bit/384kHz. The powerful internal stereo amplifier module can deliver a continuous 120 watts per channel into 8 ohms or 180 watts per channel from its on-board, high power, high efficiency Class D modules.

The diminutive 33cm x 26cm x 6.5cm Polaris is packed with enough connectivity to make even most separate systems feel vulnerable in the flexibility stakes. Boasting a vast range of digital inputs including AES/EBU, Coaxial, Toslink, USB device to computer, 2 x USB host to storage and DAC, RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11b/g/n/ac Tri-Band WiFi along with two pairs of analogue inputs and one pair of analogue outputs.

Streaming options aren’t overlooked by Auralic either – as well as having the option for an on-board HDD/SSD storage, USB drives can be added and support for Tidal, Qobuz, Roon, Network Shared Folders on PC/Mac/Linux or a Network Attached Storage Device (NAS), AirPlay, Bluetooth, Songcast and Internet Radio are all supported. There is no support for Spotify but by now most of you will indeed have migrated to Tidal or Qobuz I’d imagine, and remember that if you don’t already use an iOS device then you will require one for Lightning DS to control any Auralic product and all of its features.

Fit and Finish 

Being dinky, very well constructed and having a little bit of weight to it makes the Polaris feel substantial and its cosmetics are great too in either of the two finishes – black or silver. I remember having a little jab or two at the Aries for its looks, calling it the “Hunchback of Auralic” but the guys have really made up for it with the Polaris with it’s all aluminium chassis which falls in line with the Altair Streaming DAC and Vega DAC – exuding quality and putting it into a more lifestyle category of products but with a Hifi pedigree to boot. I really like the design a lot. 

Setting Up 

Auralic’s product setup is a cinch! I hooked up to my Ayon loudspeakers, a power cable and an Ethernet cable to complete the oh so tricky task of physical setup and as long as you have an iOS device on hand the initial software setup takes 5 minutes or so, with each consecutive use from there on taking a mere few seconds to enter you into the Lightning DS portal of features. It’s incredibly easy to flick between streaming options, local radio and onboard or off board storage , leaving you stress free and eager to listen to some music.

The Sound 

With any Auralic product, the sound quality for the cost is quite generous – along with its feature packed design. Using the onboard amplifier offers a clean, distortion free sound that even at higher volume levels remains very stable and engaging.

The unit gives a good impression of transparency and resolution as my first pieces of music proved. I generally start by playing some acoustic and vocals and both female and male vocals to gauge a balance of the sound and these were dealt with very well indeed, giving me a strong projected vocal that sat slightly forward of the accompanying band members. A very powerful female vocal may at times suffer from a lack of absolute body, offering a more detailed texture over colour tonality in the lower end of the midrange but this is not a criticism, rather an observation of the sonic implementation of the class d amplifier and if you have ever spent a great deal of time with class d you will understand this this is a sonic signature of the technology. Upper midrange which can make or break a lot of designs in my experience was very well controlled, allowing soaring vocals to stay away from any harshness or grain whether I was streaming locally or via the Internet.

Nils Lofgren’s playful guitar work conveyed great precision and leading edge sharpness from the strings was very accurate and polished, with decays well rendered into the acoustic space. When things speed up the Polaris keeps up, it can do intricate and complicated passages justice and with the correct speaker will flesh out accordingly making for a very pleasing listen.

Having everything at your finger tips with the Polaris is a joy – apart from vinyl playback, which is what it is and something that I don’t use so I cannot comment on the onboard phonostage.

I did however use the radio feature a fair bit and although the sonics are dependent on the station listened too. I find that when we accept that there are going to be limitations on certain aspects of sound we stop criticising them so much. In turn I did find myself enjoying radio playback as more of a background thing and often turned the volume up more when a song I liked came on and admittedly had the odd little bop or two listening to a few stations I like.

120 watts per channel from this small box of tricks has the ability to push out beat driven music from most speakers very well, with a soundstage that has good strong width and a very good front to back presentation. I played a substantial amount of electronica through the Polaris that gave great energy and weight to the sound, punchy and detailed in the bottom end that had me turning up the dial more than usual as the in-built amp is just so clean and distortion free.

I’ve heard many class d amplifiers to date now and always champion them in subwoofers and although I enjoy them very much in their own rights I still prefer a good A/B for myself, in a main system – especially with my current speakers which are clean in presentation themselves. What Auralic have to offer from the Polaris is the ability to tonally match the amplifier to a better degree as the unit is an all in one, taking away the user’s own trial and error matching equipment and in my case primarily being a streamer of local and internet based files is the perfect match.

I actually ended up keeping the Polaris for longer than I normally would a piece of equipment due to this and used it fairly often. For me this was key to adjusting and appreciating the unit more. Oh so often we can fall into the trap of hearing something and passing judgement too quickly on its sound, whether it’s an initial wow and then a subsequent let down over time or a rash decision based on different imparting an impression of not being correct. I liked the Polaris from the outset but I must admit it really did grow on me further the more I used it. A smoother speaker cable and some good paper cones will exploit the abilities of the Polaris to a greater degree, retaining all of its detail and transparent poise but allow for a little bit more of a warmer tone – if that’s something you want from your sound.

AT A GLANCE

Conclusion

The Polaris is an agile sounding and rich feature packed piece of equipment from Auralic – who over the past couple of years have really stamped their own mark on the market. Combining their Lightning DS app with carefully implemented electronics and almost a fail safe, ready to use every time switch on and go unit, it just makes you feel that Auralic have cared for you in every aspect of simply enjoying your music without any faffing about.

The sound of the Polaris is very informative and detailed – class d may not be to everybody’s tastes but Auralic do their implementation of the technology well and just like any other piece of equipment synergy is key to getting the best out of a product. I’d say as far as all in one diminutive designs go the Polaris is a terrific piece of kit that should be considered as one of your list’s leaders when looking for a unit of good pedigree, overall design, features and ease of use.

Build Quality – Very well made, with a lovely laid out rear panel and small easy to integrate size

Sound Quality – Expectantly clean, informative and distortion free

Value For Money – Really quite generous, offering a plethora of features for the price

Pros – Good clean sound, agile, detailed with a great amount of features and of course the great Lightning DS app

Cons – Requires a little care for ultimately matching speakers if you outdo like a richer warmer tone

Price – £2875

Dan Worth

Specifications: 

Type: integrated amplifier, streamer & DAC

Power output: 120W/180W (8ohm/4ohm)

Frequency Response: 20Hz – 20KHz, +/- 0.5dB (precise filter mode)
THD+N: <0.01%, 20Hz-20KHz at 1W
Streaming Inputs: Network shared folder, USB Drive, Internal Music Storage (with optional 2.5-inch HDD or SSD), UPnP/DLNA Media Server, TIDAL and Qobuz streaming, Internet Radio, AirPlay, Bluetooth

Digital Inputs: AES/EBU, Coaxial, Toslink, USB device to computer, 2x USB host to storage and DAC, RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n/ac Tri-Band WiFi
Analogue outputs: Single-ended RCA(6mV @0dBFS), loudspeaker binding posts

Supported File Formats: AAC, AIFF, ALAC, APE, DIFF, DSF, FLAC,
MP3, OGG, WAV, WV and WMA
Supported Digital Formats: PCM from 44.1KS/s to 384KS/s in 32Bit, DSD64, DSD128, DSD256
Control Software: Lightning DS for iOS, RC-1 remote handset, OpenHome compatible, uPnP compatible control software, Roon
Power Consumption: Sleep – <10W, Playback –  450W at max.
Dimensions WxDxH: 330 x 260 x 65mm (13 x 10.2 x 2.6 inches)
Weight: 4.5kg (10lbs)

Australian manufacturer Burson’s Conductor Virtuoso V2+ comes with a DAC, a headphone amp and doubles the output of the original version to 8W into 16 Ohms. Janine Elliot dons her cans and takes this £1590 unit for a test drive. 

Burson and I have two things in common. The first one is that we both don’t like op-amps. Op amps might be great for pc’s and equipment short of space but there are many drawbacks having individual “components” printed on a miniscule composite the size of a grain of rice using a process of photolithography. The technology might be breath-taking almost following the Moore’s law in that the number of components in the space seems to get more and more every year, but this does mean that because they get smaller and closer together there is more likelihood of EMI noise and less tolerance to heat, let alone reduced specification. An op-amp could easily have as many as 50 inferior components squeezed onto it. Burson Audio do manufacture 8-pin op-amps such as the V6 Classic and Vivid, and whilst they still fit into conventional 8-pin DIP sockets what makes them different is that they contain discrete full-size components meaning that the ‘box’ they are in is significantly bigger in size.

Burson also share a dislike for Class-D amplification, though my preference for Class A is diminishing as the recent Class of 2017 and 18 have graduated. Burson is quite emphatic about how they feel;

“..class-D and class-T chips were created for the car audio industry and subsequently for mobile phones where power efficiency, size and budget are the driving design parameters so audio performance is secondary if that”.

They believe Class-D circuitry is overtly complex and reduces the purity of the music. I have listened to both Class-D and A headphone amps, and my favourite is class A and presently use a Class-A/b portable headphone amp for my serious portable listening. That said I have recently reviewed some highly recommended Class-D products from around the globe.

Today’s headphone amplifiers are becoming available  more and more with option for a built in DAC as we become more and more digitally minded. Even the latest top of the range Stax Energiser, the SRM-8000, comes with a blanked-off plate on the rear suggesting, perhaps, that a DAC card might one day find its way inside that unit.  Similarly, the Conductor V2+ is more than just a headphone amp. This is a three-in-one headphone amp, DAC and pre amp. It comes as a refined replacement to the original V1 headphone pre-amplifier, and in the “+” model denoting the addition of a DAC.  This is the third generation of Conductor, maintaining the looks of the original but with improved electronics. It keeps with Burson’s philosophy of being fully discrete and uses their excellent V5 SS op-amp.  As Alex from Burson proudly told me;

“The entire Conductor V2+ is pure Class A which means it is running at full capacity all the time. To us, using fully discrete, pure Class-A circuitry is the ideal design for audio amplification.”

Powered by two large 70W high density (lots of windings) transformers, twice the size of the original model, tuned to operate in pure Class A using Field Effect Transistors, the V2 doubles the output of the original model attaining no less than 8W in 16 ohm per channel to more than satisfy even the most inefficient planar cans.  Do remember that for thirsty 300 ohm Sennheiser HD650’s that does reduce it all to 500mW, though that is still more than adequate.  All this power does mean that it creates a lot of heat, and therefore the cabinet is carefully sculptured on 6mm thick aluminium around its body so that heat is dissipated uniformly around the whole casing. The case is effectively a giant heat sink.

Of course no ground-breaking DAC for 2018 could appear without the iconic ESS Sabre DAC, in this case the ESS9018S chip, though it is important to stress that the whole of any DAC is greater than the sum of its individual parts. The housekeeping around the DAC is equally as important. I have reviewed some lesser DACs that actually sound mightily impressive due to how the whole decoding, filtering and amplification stages work in tandem. This should also include the power supply connected to it.  As Alex from Burson informed me;

“The Digital section of the Conductor V2+ is powered by its own separate transformer and fully discrete power supply network”. 

The V2+ 9018 DAC board – one of several boards all beautifully laid out inside the unit – pushes the SABRE32 to its limits and employs 20 carefully-selected and matched components. The V2+ also employs the PGA2310 flagship 100 step volume control chip offered by Texas Instruments. Allowing a fine control of 0.5dB steps and dynamic range of 120dB and 0.0004% THD, this is a welcome addition to the circuitry. Whilst the trained human ear can pick up changes in volume as little as 0.5dB, this is generally only seen in the pro audio environment. Burson cleverly set the PGA2310’s op-amp output stage to unity gain so it essentially acts as a purely resistive volume control. When running digital audio the ESS Sabre DAC handles all of the volume itself, meaning it does not need to go through a separate analogue volume control. The Sabre controls the volume level for the DAC output sockets at the rear, meaning that the digital output is variable rather than fixed, as can usually be the case. Therefore the listener has the choice of how the volume levels are set;   pre-out stage uses the Texas Instruments 120dB volume  control, whereas the DAC output uses the volume control through the DSP in the DAC chip. I tried both, interestingly preferring latter, but there is the choice so you can decide your own favourite.

The unit has a classy yet sparse front panel with distinctive rotary control centre point and a button to toggle between two analogue (via RCA sockets) and three digital sources including S/PDif, Toslink and USB connectors. The volume control levels magically appear in blue dots behind the satin black or silver front panel left of the control. No need to look for pin holes on that front unit as there aren’t any. On/off toggle switch is from the rear of the unit. The unit has analogue and digital outputs meaning it can be used as a variety of applications, and as a basic preamplifier worked surprisingly competently during my review.  The unit comes with a cute aluminium remote to match the Conductor, and equally minimalist.

SUPPORT

The V2+ supports all major formats with coax/Toslink inputs up to 24bit 192kHz. Via the Win, Mac, IOS and Android compatible USB socket deploying the excellent XMOS  6-core chip it supports PCM up to 386kHz 16/24/32 bit, native DSD 64/128/256, and DSD over PCM (DoP) 64/128/256.

THE COMPANY

Burson Audio was founded by a small team of audio engineers founded in 1996, based in Melbourne, Australia, creating building blocks such as hybrid Op-Amps as well as complete audio products including a Class A power-amp mono-block, headphone amps, DACs and cables. Their philosophy is simple; have components that don’t interfere with the audio signal. Their philosophy is that if the equipment is designed well and transparent enough then the pace, rhythm, timing, dynamics and tonality will become a natural expression of the music, and they feel this cannot be achieved with standard circuit building blocks like IC chip op-amps, IC regulators, or standard transformers. Instead they research and develop their own discrete circuits so that every component in the signal path can perform at its peak.

MUSIC

The Queen Symphony from 1962 London born Tolga Kashif is not only a beautiful work based on Freddy Mercury’s iconic songs, but it is also extremely well recorded and performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with vocal intervention from London Voices and London Oratory Boys’ choir.  Kashif spent two years composing the Queen Symphony. He conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at its debut concert on Wednesday 6 November 2002 at the Royal Festival Hall, attended by Freddie’s mother Jer Bulsara, drummer Roger Taylor and guitarist Brian May, who all apparently found it very moving. After this it was recorded at Abbey Road Studios later in the year. This is indeed a very moving performance, though the complexity of the melodic lines and continuing pushing of famous idioms in the busy soundstage can make for a tiring listening. It necessitates playback through equipment with wide dynamic range, speed and clarity for it not to get saturated. The Burson succeeds on all these fronts. Where Queen’s musical style relied on a certain amount of outrageousness, Tolga continues this in his orchestration, something that takes decent decoding and amplification as well as excellent headphones to pull off successfully. Sennheiser’s new HD660S headphones replace the HD650 which has been around for many years and were my reference cans for many years, the new version having lower impedance making them more useable with lower-powered amplifiers, though that is not an issue here. I love these well priced cans because they can pick out individual phrases with engagement and detail that make listening through headphone such fun, and the new version pulls it off to a whole new level with a fullness and detail that justifies their use in broadcasting and recording studios around the world.

Shostakovich Piano Concerto no. 1 starts with a very decisive intro before the fun begins on the piano, trumpet and strings (Martha Argerich & Guy Touvron & Württembergisches Kammerorchester, Deutsche Grammophon).  This work is as emotional and similarly stuffed full with beautiful idioms as is the Queen, though they are not quite so tonally measured. Occasionally a simple tonal melody, such as on the muted trumpet, does allow you to breathe again and take in the scenery before heading off into another direction.  The Burson seems to understand the music and its clarity, force and musicality to show there is indeed harmony between the individual musical components, just as there is between the components in the circuitry. This is a great performance from the orchestra, soloists and electronics.

Neil Young Crazy Horse ‘Live Rust’ album and the track “My My, Hey Hey” is an excellently recorded live album and the Conductor handled both the mid-range voice and the acoustic guitars with panache and sensitivity. If I had to criticise the DAC at all it would be the tight and detailed top-end can sound a little too bright at times. The close mic’ing of the bass is particularly vibrant, and the reverb from the almost ‘Supertramp-esque’ solo mouth organ is allowed to decay with no sense of digital noise. My home choice Class-A headphone amplifier, whilst losing some of that detail, is slightly easier on the ears. My AT W1000 closed back cans were able to offer a more refined performance with a greater sound-stage that was hard to put down.

The Modern Jazz Quartet ‘Blues on Bach’ is a brilliantly performed album, with a very open and detailed soundstage that tests headphones, DACs and amplifiers in one simple go, especially with the over-modulated audio in certain places. This is the same album I used in reviewing the Wyred 4 Sound DAC; a Class D headphone-amp-come-DAC. That unit similarly has an ESS Sabre DAC, though in that case the ES9028PRO chip is employed configured in quad differential mode so that with four D-A converters per channel they could achieve improved S/N ratio and output drive. The Burson however has chosen to use the ESS9018S chip and this time only using two channels of the 8, which with the other components on the board provides for them the best sound.

The bell “ding-dings” at the start of the track “Blues in A-Minor”, sounding like the London No9  Routemaster bus being sent on its way to the Royal Albert Hall, have weight and detail providing a surprisingly powerful bass for such a small sundry instrument. Add to that the vibraphone played by Milt Jackson travelling between the ears combined with piano and double bass and percussion, this is a memorable performance captured with finesse, power and detail. The V2+ at level 42 out of its 99 range is more than adequate for my ears on the HD650’s. Lower harmonies from harpsichord in “Don’t Stop this Train” combined with the vibraphone and bass melodic lines all work in harmony with control and weight and resolution. Only that the sound could be slightly too brash for the ultimate in Class-A sound, left me slightly wanting, though the shimmer and decay from cymbals was highly infectious. But at £1590 for such a well built and good looking product, this is still a worthy contender for your hi-fi rack. Even the analogue input is impressively musical and fast. This could easily be the basis for a complete hi-fi outfit, just requiring a power-amp and speakers.

Audeze’s LCD-X is a very efficient planar design which worked extremely well in the V2+. The slightly bass forward design allowed the punchy ‘Learning to Fly’ (Pink Floyd Momentary lapse of Reason) to take off and sound authoritative with clear ride cymbal strokes, and with the vox-pop under the guitar riffs equally clear and meaningful.  The wafer thin diaphragms and double-sided magnet array ensures a near zero distortion and uniform sound across the entire diaphragm, an ideal partner for this 3-in-one Melbourne-made kit, and this enabled a tight, and detailed sound. Unfortunately I had to give back the headphones so continued with the closed-back AT W1000’s I know so well. These are very efficient cans, and the most comfortable ones I have, but I have to admit the best sound I heard was from the less comfortable Sennheiser and Audeze.

CONCLUSION

This is a very detailed, powerful and quick sounding unit covering all frequencies and all types of music play with musicality and sensitivity. For a three-in-one box the V2+ is a very able and well thought-out product that also looks A+. That magical display and overall build well belies its price point, and the choice and design of components make it highly desirable. The amount of detail and power available per pound should make it highly desirable, particularly for inefficient planar headphones. Its sensitivity towards inefficient planar headphones is perhaps only slightly let down by the lack of sensitivity in some of the music I played, sounding a tad too clinical in the higher regions, but at this price I really won’t be complaining.

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality: Excellent bullet-proof build with that magical display of volume level through the silver or black facia. Internally well-presented using top end components, including ESS Sabre DAC.

Sound Quality:  Impeccable resolution with an open yet tight and detailed presentation. Sound might be a little too bright for some.

Value For Money: At £1590 for a DAC, preamplifier and headphone amplifier this is a very competitively priced unit.

Pros: Very detailed and tight performance at all frequencies, particularly bass
Will easily drive the most inefficient Planar designs
Excellent build
Three units in one
Love the magical volume display

Cons: Top end can be a little brittle at high frequencies with some music

Price: £1590

Janine Elliot

Stuart and Linette Smith have had the Chord DAVE DAC sat on their rack for the best part of a year now and don’t want it to go home. Find out why. 

I remember being at the High-End Show in Munich a couple of years ago and John Franks the MD and Chief designer from Chord Electronics announcing the launch of their new DAC, DAVE in a hail of superlatives which frankly I greeted with a degree of caution. Indeed, the name alone screams overkill, with DAVE standing for Digital to Analogue Veritas in Extremis…digital to analogue truthful in the extreme. I needn’t have been so concerned and I’m going to do this review, to use the vernacular of my home town, a bit arse about tit and say that Chord Electronics’ DAVE is indeed the most accurate DAC I have had the pleasure of using in our system – you can, if you like stop right there. My current reference, the fully loaded Lampizator Big 7, is certainly no slouch in terms of sheer musical enjoyment, but when it comes to accuracy and High-fidelity it is left somewhat in DAVE’s wake…but more on that in a short while.

CONSTRUCTION AND FEATURES

DAVE arrives in excellent packaging, has an easy to follow set up guide and within seconds it was on the rack and looking a little lost in the place where the Lampizator had sat – DAVE is not a big bit of kit in its raw form measuring just 333.5mm wide, 71mm high, 154mm deep and weighing in at 7kg – I had some pretty hefty cables hanging out the back of DAVE and it never budged a millimetre. You can of course add the dedicated rack which adds to the cost but, in fairness, I think adds to the aesthetics of the unit. Speaking of aesthetics, DAVE does divide opinion somewhat with its rounded off, oblong shape of its Choral range counterparts and porthole style LCD display. I like its looks and it is frugal on rack-space-taking should you be limited in that department. On the top of the unit you have a wave shape of holes drilled in the aluminium chassis that presumably allow heat to be dispersed. You have four solid buttons that move you around the LCD display, allowing you to select which settings you would like, change input and screen colours and a volume knob which can be used to mute DAVE when pressed. It’s simple, it’s intuitive and it all feels very well put together.  On the front is a properly sized quarter inch headphone output and that’s your lot.

Also included in the box is a remote which is functional rather than anything glamorous and I would have liked the option to have a remote that echoed just the functions of DAVE itself and perhaps made from the same materials, but I’m guessing that the included remote will also work with other Chord Electronics’ products and adding a posher unit (I was thinking along the lines of the Devialet remote) would inevitably add substantially to the cost. Needless to say, Chord Electronics are not alone in skimping a little on the remote but it does work fine.

Round the back of DAVE and reading left to right you have a pair of balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA outputs, A USB 2 input, 2 BNC Coax digital inputs, an AES balanced XLR digital input, a pair of optical inputs, two more BNC inputs, four DX digital outputs and then the power input and switch. The DX digital outputs are for use with Chords digital amps, but were not used here.

The bright and very easy to read LCD display shows in the top left the sample rates and changes colour accordingly, whilst also displaying the chosen input. Next to this quarter of the display you have the volume in dB and then a centre area where you can choose which of the four menu options you want to change – these are PCM/DSD, the Phase, HF filter and display mode. At the bottom of the screen you are shown whether the DAVE is in headphone mode, DAC mode or Digital Pre-amplifier mode, which is again all pretty logical and easy to fathom after only scant perusal of the user manual. Hit Display Mode and you get to choose between the four modes, with mode 1 being the one I favoured and is broadly outlined above. Switch to mode 2 and the screen goes to black with white text where you don’t get to see the changing colours for sample rate or volume. Mode 3 looks like mode 1 only with a blue background rather than black and mode 4 which is the same as mode 1 but switches off to save the screen after 30 seconds and until you press one of the function buttons. The modes are interesting to have a bit of a play with but to be honest the review unit was left in mode 1 for the duration.

The HF filter I’m not even going to try and pretend that I understand any of and will refer you to Chords comments

“This turns on a sharp high frequency cutoff filter set at 60kHz. This filter bandwidth limits higher sample rate recordings to reduce noise shaper noise from the ADC. You may find that the noise will degrade the sound quality by increasing noise floor modulation as the out of bandwidth noise causes intermodulation distortion with the wanted audio signal in the analogue electronics.”

I have quite a lot of hi-rez files and whilst the effect of switching the HF filter on is not night and day, there is a positive impact that is there but hard to put your finger on.

You have the option to change the signal phase of the XLR and RCA outputs but again I left it in the positive for the vast majority of the time and you can of course toggle between DSD or PCM mode.

The final mode is Dual Data Mode as this acts only on the BNC inputs and I used AES, Optical and USB only having no relevant sources for BNC, but will again turn to Chord for an explanation

“Dave supports dual data mode on its BNC inputs. This is where a 176kHz data rate is supported by sending a left 88kHz signal and a right 88kHz signal via separate BNCs. For example, this function is supported with our Blu CD Transport. To operate DAVE in dual data mode you should connect the left BNC to ‘input 1 BNC’ and the right BNC to ‘input 2 BNC’. Following this you should select BNC1 on the menu and, upon successful pairing, a letter ‘D’ will appear with the sample rate. To operate a second dual data input please connect the left channel BNC to input 3 and the right channel BNC to BNC input 4.”

As mentioned DAVE can be used as a straight up DAC or as a DAC/Pre to go straight into a power amp. To use DAVE in DAC mode and use your own pre, as I did much of the time, press the left and right cursor buttons around the volume knob at the same time and you are in DAC mode. Output is fixed to 3 volts unbalanced and 6 Volts balanced and obviously the volume knob on DAVE is deactivated. Turn DAVE off and on and handily it will remember this mode’s settings without resetting. Conversely press the two cursor buttons together again and wait for the display to read Digital Pre and you can hook DAVE up to your power amp. As soon as you plug in a pair of headphones DAC mode turns off and the volume knob works again so you can adjust the volume of music on your headphones. You can also have a play with 4 “crossfeed settings” in headphone mode using the up and down buttons. This essentially slightly changes the sound and is interesting to play with to find what you prefer.

I used DAVE with a laptop running a variety of players and you can download the relevant drivers from the Chord website and all is relatively painless. Download the driver, connect DAVE to your computer using a USB (there is one supplied but I chose to use a couple of boutique cables I own), go to the control panel of your computer and select DAVE as the audio device, hit play and et voila, music. However, I also have a Melco Library, which is basically, and without going into too much detail, a clever NAS drive that you can connect directly to DAVE via USB. I loved this option. Go to your player on your smartphone or tablet, I simply used BubbleUPnP, select MELCO DAVE as the media renderer and select the MELCO as the library and off you go. You can also use this to stream from online services such as Tidal of course.

The tech inside DAVE is probably best described by them but differs from normal chip DACs in that

“At its heart lies a new version of the advanced Spartan 6 Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) with 1,000x the processing power of the traditional mass-produced chip DAC. DAVE’s FPGA is loaded with over a million lines of code to confront complex timing issues head-on, with speed and precision.”

Basically, and as far as my tiny little mind will allow me to understand, this is a processor from Xilinx that Chord have written specific code for, and as such sets DAVE apart from the norm immediately. It will decode any of the files I had to hand and some that I don’t have, or even knew you could get hold of including: 44.1Khz – 768Khz, DSD64,128,256,512, native DSD + DoP …that should cover pretty much any eventuality.

SOUND QUALITY

Now this is usually the bit of the review where I start to tell you about all the different genres and tunes I listened to and try to convey a sense of what I am hearing using descriptive words and comments, but it’s not quite that easy. My notes, and I have sat down for literally days if not weeks in front of DAVE, rarely get further than “The best thing I have ever heard” or “Wow” or, more often than not, absolutely nothing written down at all as I just got lost in the tunes.

Our Lampizator is musical, it is a thing of great beauty and it connects me with the music on an emotional level in a way I had never experienced before, DAVE is just like that, only more so. More accurate, more connecting and just breathtakingly good. Everything is of course there from the highest tops, the lowest bass and everything in between and I truly believe that what DAVE is giving you is the best (that I have so far heard) conversion of those zeros and ones into sound. I have played literally hundreds upon hundreds of tunes through DAVE and so long as the recording is good, DAVE delivers. Play badly recorded, badly enregistered tunes and DAVE is pretty unforgiving.

Great recordings on hi-res formats just sound incredibly good and whereas some bits of kit can err on preferring one style of music over another (when listening to the Lampizator for the first few times I found myself wanting to listen to jazz or classical music more than I would normally) DAVE just gets on with getting on with the conversion of those ones and noughts, whatever the style of music.

It’s an utterly pointless exercise me trying to tell you that the bass guitar line on Smoke On The Water from Live in Japan has the right amount of growl, it’s meaningless for me to speak about the crisp hats flying about the mix and sounding just as they should on Once Again Back by Hardfloor before the huge bassline kicks in and destroys you. I genuinely believe that what you have with this product is as faithful a translation as currently possible of digital bits into something your amplifier and speakers can make sense of and I loved it. Add to the fact that you get a pretty stunning headphone amp that will drive anything and, unless you really want, you don’t need a preamp Chord Electronics DAVE is without peers in my estimation. One thing I did find, and I do love my Baby Reference II pre-amplifier from Music First, is I enjoyed the slightly, ever so slightly, softer feel I got from going direct to the power amps, but this will be down to personal taste.

I never go online and look at reviews of products we are sent before i sit and write my own… and this was the case here too. However, once it was was written I searched online and came across Alan Sircom’s review which is VERY much in the same vein as my review here in saying it is simply the best DAC he has heard. I have considered long and hard whether to add more to this review to distinguish it from Alan’s, but I believe in doing so I would not have been honest to my true findings about this exceptional product. Alan’s a nice guy anyway and certainly knows his onions and so it is good we concur.

CONCLUSION

Pop DAVE Into a great system and you will be rewarded with what I consider to be the best DAC I have ever heard. Will it shine in a less than great system, I don’t know, DAVE went in our reference system and has sat there ever since. If you have the required money DAVE is simply a no-brainer and will reward you with whatever your files are made up of for years to come. I prefer the black unit in its rack, but that is down to taste.

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality: Rock solid and very well put together. The looks do divide and the remote could be more in keeping with the unit itself

Sound Quality: I have never heard better

Value For Money: It’s a DAC, It’s a pre, It’s a headphone amp and it sounds freaking awesome. It is a lot of money but it is worth every penny

Pros: Stunningly faithful to the recordings

Cons: The remote is a bit plasticky and there is no digital RCA input

Price: £8500

Stuart Smith

Review Equipment: Laptop and various players, Melco Library, Merrill Thor amplifiers, Avantgarde Duo XD loudspeakers, cables by Tellurium Q, Chord, Atlas and o2A, balanced mains unit DIY.

And now Linette’s thoughts:

Chord Electronics are a brand that divide opinion. Personally, I love the space-age, glowing look of their gear, but like any brand with such a distinctive appearance, they are not everyone’s cup of tea. What Chord do is make Hifi fun. They make solid, well made gear that works, they give their gear quirky names and raise a smile…who else would call their DAC DAVE? I am always impressed when I hear their gear at shows so it was nice to get our mitts on DAVE to sit in our own system. There is not really that much more that I can add to Stuart’s comments.  DAVE does exactly what it says on the tin, he delivers a truth in the sound that I just love.  He is quite a diminutive little guy, he fitted into the system without any problems and is somewhat more user friendly than many DACs, that seem to have to be coaxed into working. I think that a DAC is really one of the most important parts of a system, get a good DAC and you have the ‘brain’ of the system sorted, it’s worth spending money to get it right and I think DAVE justifies every penny of his purchase price…he’s not a cheap date but you probably will be together for life. DAVE makes listening to music an absolute pleasure, he does his thing time after time and doesn’t grumble.  He really is a fantastic guy, faithful, hard-working, good-looking and honest…what is not to love about him? One of the easiest ‘Outstanding Awards’ to decide on.

Linette Smith

The Bakoon Satri DAC-21 D2A DAC is diminutive in size, but does it make up in sound quality what it is lacking in stature? Janine Elliot finds out. I have played with a number of DACs over the years of reviewing hifi, some of which I would actually rather have DUCked from from doing if truth be known. The Bakoon is something different; not only is this Japanese/Korean product cute and small, and therefore very unimposing, but it uses a technology I wrote about before with the Questyle QP1r DAP. Using Current Mode Amplification there are distinct advantages over conventional voltage transfer of signals. The latter can be very sensitive to outside noises such as RFI/EMI interference, largely because output impedance is low and the input impedance is high.  With Bakoon’s own “SATRI” circuitry supplied from a 5^th generation chip on the distinctive purple PCB the reverse happens; the input to the device has impedance very low (around 3 ohms) and with higher output impedance (we’re talking mega ohms), with the circuitry working with the current signals rather than the voltage. Using basic physics, if resistance is negligible then voltage is converted straight into current. The DAC output stage does not include a conventional OP-amp, rather it takes the DAC chipset’s current signals directly into a SATRI circuit. Although the beginnings of SATRI go back to the 1980’s the first chip only appeared in 1998, a simple epoxy moulding, with SMD dual transistors and carbon resistors. The latest generation has a total of 48 micro-sized transistors, achieving even higher level of linearity and precision.   As well as a conventional RCA output (voltage controlled) the DAC-21 also has a BNC SATRI-LINK (current controlled) output to connect with other Bakoon products (the AMP-51R), and consequently it allows cable runs of 100m with minimal signal loss and RF/EM interference, should you happen to live in a stately home. This will be familiar to Krell owners using their C.A.S.T. technology (Current Audio Signal Transmission) where connection between components is current based rather than voltage. The DAC-21’s DAC chipset’s current signal enters to the SATRI Circuit, where it is converted to voltage by the analogue filter network for conventional voltage outputs (RCA), plus the signal is also converted again to current by a set of resistors for the SATRI-LINK output via the BNC sockets.

The DAC-21 is also a zero negative feedback design, which gives it an accurate and fast response with the lowest distortion. On top of this, the Bakoon uses their latest buffer circuitry. What makes the DAC-21 even better is that the design is pure DC, the device running on a total of three internal Li-ion batteries, meaning there is zero noise interference, nor the need for tons of smoothing capacitors. The batteries are recharged in 3 hours for 80% capacity or 6 hours for full charge, and give up to 12 hours operating time. The batteries in the Bakoon are controlled fully in the analogue domain, which again reduces noise interference. The power supply which runs the digital, USB, and analogue circuits are controlled independently of each other, which – yes you guessed it – reduces interference. Finally the circuit grounds of all sections are separated from each other and this reduces that interference further and boosts performance. All in all, nearly four years of development bringing to fruition a product that any company would be really proud, as long as (of course) the audio is just as sound.

The Japanese company Bakoon, run by inventor Akira Nagai, might not be too well known here in the UK but this brand is becoming more international as the years go past. With big sales in Korea it has now become ‘Bakoon International Corp.’, interestingly set up by a South Korean gentleman called Soo In Chae.  They now have an R&D centre in Kagoshima, Japan, with their director of engineering Keng Koe Ho (formerly from Sony), and a local corporation in Silicon Valley, USA. This DAC-21 might be mid-price at £2775 + VAT, but it is very high on design features and design engineering.  The unit is available in Black, gun-metal or silver. The front panel is very simple; just two switches, one is a power off/on and the other is to select between USB and Coax inputs. To the right of these is the now popular idea of six LED lights, the top three to indicate PCM 44.1, 48 and DSD64, and the bottom three indicating x2, x4 and x8. Therefore a DSD256 would indicate “DSD64” plus “x4”, and a PCM 32 bit 384kHz signal would indicate “48” and “x8”. The unit will play up to 32bit/384kHz and DSD256 (Windows) and DSD128 (on a Mac), and whilst the conventional and now popular USB input works a treat, the coaxial input is done via a BNC socket, meaning I needed to get a converter to RCA to operate from my portable DAP. The rear side is well laid out with good connectors, though it is a shame there is no Toslink or AES/EBU connection. There is no reference in the instruction manual to suitable drivers for WIN or IOS, but the website does provide a Windows driver, should you need it (though my Norton security didn’t actually want me to open it). There are two outputs; conventional RCA and also a BNC SATRI-LINK should you have a Bakoon amplifier. Perhaps a disappointment is that there is no volume control, something appearing in many DACs these days, but I didn’t feel this was an issue affecting my judgement of the product. This is a simple featureless product with no need for a remote or toggle on/off switch at the back (hurray!) All it needs is two switches; one for on/off switch and the other to toggle between USB/BNC. USB seems to be the preferred playback system for music files, and so will meet the needs of most audiophiles. If you want Toslink, AES/EBU, balanced outputs or volume control, then you will need to look somewhere else.

This half-width unit is impressively engineered; with straight-lines to the front and sides, but a curvy lip at the rear to hide the cables entering the back. Some might find these looks too conservative compared with a curvy Chord or dCS separate, but it is still a highly stylish but minimalist miniature unit, and the design and build reminded me of Nakamichi’s penchant for straight lines. Only the thin felt feet are an afterthought, unlike the massive stilts holding up their larger and impressive AMP-51R SATRI amplifier, which also interestingly work as additional heatsinks.  It did mean I needed to add my own KM Sounds ceramic isolating feet to raise it above the unit on which it was sitting at the time of the review.

It’s always in the Name

I always like to examine the names of manufacturers and their products as it often enlightens me as to what is going on in the minds of the designers. Imported into the UK by Martin Gateley from SoundKaos (whose company name and “Liberation” speaker, recently reviewed in HiFi Pig, gave insight into what he was aiming to do in that product), it is equally the case here with Bakoon. A Baku is a supernatural creature from Japanese mythology associated with dreams, and the word Un means ‘luck’. Whilst ‘lucky Dreams’ would probably be more suitable as a manufacturer of mattresses, the term ‘SATRI’ means “Enlightenment”, and I was certainly educated whilst listening to my prized digital files; a sense of detail and precision that gave me new insights into much of the music I played through it.

The Music

This is no Baboon, but nor is it anaemic in its portrayal of the music. The output into my Krell/MFA amplification was very quick and controlled; this animal was being very well behaved. Nothing stuck out either as OTT or conversely missing. I did wonder if the unit would cause me problems working for 12 hours and then needing to be charged for at least another three, but this was no less inconvenient than the portable DAP and DAC I use

Initial listening was from 1bit DSD256 recordings I had obtained. The Dvorak New World Symphony was clear, if not a bit clinical, though the depth between instruments front and back was delivered with startling realism.  This recording was a simple coincident pair of microphones, void of complex multitrack mixing, which often make things less musical particularly in the digital domain. The Bakoon had a great deal of warmth and emotion sounding less ‘digital’ than many DACs at higher price. Turning to Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman (Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Yakov Kreizberg) the music was forceful but well controlled, as Wagner should be. I only wish I could have used the SATRI output into a Bakoon amplifier, but the quality did not suffer at all. The design means for a very quiet operation however it is connected, and a clarity and analogue finesse missing in many DACs.

The attention to detail in the music is met equally in the metalwork, something typical of South Korean audio products particularly their DAPs, and in the use of components, including the inclusion of an ESS Sabre ES9018S chip. As well as a very simple operation using the machine, the charging is just as well thought out; the three white LEDs at the top start to blink when the battery level is low, and the unit will automatically turn itself off. The circuitry also determines which of the three battery packs, positioned on the underside of the purple PCB, need to be charged.   The charging will only start when the power switch is turned off, though I did feel it a pity that it couldn’t just do it automatically, though of course such a feature might have affected the sound. To show state of recharging of the batteries the three lower white LEDs change to red lights, and only turn off one by one when fully charged.

As well as USB and DAP sources I also decided to use the digital output of my loved antique Philips DCC900, playing Gershwin “An American in Paris” (Andre Previn/Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra). This might well be highly compressed audio, but the clarity and sense of control make this a very enjoyable and surprising listen for me. ESS DACs can at times sound rather “digital” and lack realism that is abundant in analogue reel to reel and vinyl, but what the Bakoon does is bring in a very natural realism into the music. Listening to Van Morrison Avalon Sunset “Whenever God Shines His Light” showed not only the clarity, speed and separation of all instruments, giving a good wide soundstage, but also that the DAC-21 is very sensitive to vocals, even to Cliff Richard’s voice pairing with Van in this toe tapping track.

Turning to USB and Nirvana 96/24bit remaster “Smells Like teen Spirit” from the album (Nevermind), suddenly all let rip as if the DAC had just woken up. However, it didn’t sound as brittle as it can from other DACs I have tried.  “In Bloom” bloomed with boisterous bass drum and sizzling cymbals, but less digitised as I have heard it. The bass is extremely well catered for in the DAC; plenty of energy when needed, but never ‘over the top’. Mid voices are also clear and fast.

Conclusion

This is a well thought-out unit, with many years going into its design, which ultimately works its way through to the music it plays. Music has sensitivity but also emotion, clarity and determination, nothing is too much and nothing missing. However at £2775 + VAT there is great competition out there, so it is well worth auditioning along with a few other designs in this price point. I wasn’t able to use it with their SATRI amplifier, but there were no issues with noise or interference, as I wouldn’t expect to hear in my well designed music room, so this will work very well with any amplifier. Being small means you could fit more audio into your shelving, which could be a good or bad thing.

AT A GLANCE 

Build Quality:  Good looks, an excellent minimalistic design only as big as it needs to be. No screws or joins to spoil the looks. Very well put together.

Sound Quality:  Clean sound, will good bass and vocals.

Value for Money:  At £3260 including VAT this is in the mid-range for DACs. It certainly warrants this price but worth listening to other DACs at this price to decide your ideal partner.

Pros: Design and SATRI system ensure well controlled and pure sound at long cable runs, with minimal EMI/RFI
Dynamic and detailed, with excellent bass and mid-range.
Minimalist and clean looks.

Cons :Only 2 input choices
No balanced output

Price: £3260

Janine Elliot

Crosby, Young, Gifted and, er, not Black…John Scott hangs out with M2Tech’s Rockstar separates and finds himself helpless to resist their charms.

Italian manufacturer M2Tech’s Rockstar series of audio components consists of the Young MkIII DAC/preamp, Nash phono preamp, Crosby power amp, Joplin MkII DAC/phono and Van Der Graaf MkII power supply.

When I was originally asked to review the Crosby, Young and Van der Graaf units, Bill Leigh of UK distributors Auden Distribution explained that he would be arranging for a set of equipment to be shipped over from Italy to me.  I prefer to carry out my reviews without doing too much research, or reading other people’s opinions, beforehand, so, other than a quick glimpse of a photograph, I had no preconceptions of what to expect when the kit arrived.  The result of this was that when I got my hands on the units a few weeks later, I was confronted with three small cardboard boxes – I had assumed the units would be full-sized but that was clearly not the case.

Unboxing, construction and appearance

The Crosby, Young and Van der Graafs arrived, each in their own snug cardboard packing box and were accompanied by the requisite power cords and interconnects along with a remote control (more on this later).  Measuring just 200x200x50mm each, the Crosby(first pic), Young (second pic) and Van der Graaf (third pic)are elegantly constructed from a matt aluminium chassis and possibly Perspex front piece; the Young has an OLED display, power button and volume knob which doubles as an input and other functions selector whereas the Crosby and Van der Graff panels are relatively bare, with no more than a few LEDs (hopefully, you will only ever see one as the others indicate overloads) on the Crosby and a selection of small buttons and LEDs adorning the front of the Van der Graaf.

Set Up

I decided to initially audition the Crosby and Young as a duo, rather than pairing the Young with the Van der Graaf straight off the bat; as standard, the Young is powered by a 15v wall wart.  The rear panel of the Young provides a variety of inputs: Toslink, S/PDIF, USB 2.0 and AES/EBU cater for digital signals while  a pair of RCA inputs handle an analogue source, if required.  Additionally, the Young is Bluetooth compatible, allowing streaming from portable devices for added flexibility.  Outputs come in one flavour only – balanced XLR – although a pair of RCA adaptors are supplied.

The rear panel of the Crosby is a fairly straightforward affair: power switch and socket, choice of XLR or RCA inputs and a pair of speaker outputs. One small switch toggles between balanced or single ended input and another enables two Crosbys to be used as a bridged pair.

I opted initially to bypass the Allo Boss DAC in my Raspberry Pi streamer and connect the Pi straight to the Young via USB cable.  I then used the XLR/RCA converters to connect the Young to the Crosby.  The Young can be controlled either via its front panel, an Android app or the supplied remote control.  Apps and remote controls are both things that I am quite fussy about; I expect their quality to match that of the products they support.  In this instance I found both the app and the remote to be satisfactory, allowing the full functionality of the Young to be easily accessed.  The remote, although a fairly lightweight plastic affair, was well laid out and responsive and was M2Tech branded which was a nice touch –  not the best remote I have seen but by no means the worst.

Sound Quality

If I was surprised and slightly disappointed by the size of these little boxes when they arrived -and I was – those feelings turned to very pleasantly surprised then highly delighted once I started to pass some music through them.

I can’t imagine why but as I powered up the Young and Crosby units I was in the mood for a bit of lumberjack-shirted protogrunge.  The one-two punch of Cortez The Killer and Powderfinger from Neil Young’s live album Weld really hit the spot.  I have always harboured a suspicion that Neil’s cheap and dirty distorted guitar sound is probably the product of thousands of dollars of investment, and the Young/Crosby combo lays bare Old Black’s overdrive in all its carefully sculpted, ragged glory.  The Crazy Horse rhythm section are present and correct, harmony vocals still easily discernible despite the six string squall.

Like its namesake, the Young is nothing if not versatile, switching with ease between a variety of different “genres”.  PCM is supported at 16 through 32 bits at frequency rates from 44.1 to 384 kHz; DSD is catered for from 64x to 256x and MQA is also supported, as is Bluetooth.  I’m not a fan of adding a laptop or desktop PC into my Hifi setup but I plugged my laptop and connected it to the Young via USB to try out the DAC’s MQA capabilities.

Giving Your Song from Elton John’s debut album a spin (or more accurately, a stream) in MQA, DSD and CD-quality FLAC, both the MQA and DSD versions were clearly preferable to the FLAC, offering a more detailed and finessed performance.  Differences between MQA and DSD were less easy to determine; as far as Your Song was concerned, DSD scored a narrow win but further comparisons (Eagles’ Hotel California and Eric Clapton and B.B. King’s Key To The Highway) came out in MQA’s favour.  You pay your money and take your choice; MQA is not for me at present – if Tidal can deliver it without the need for their desktop interface, I’ll reconsider – but it is good to know that M2Tech’s Young DAC can deliver it if you want it.

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Time to bring the Van der Graaf into play.  Like me, you are probably wondering why this unit wasn’t christened the Stills.  I can only guess that the progtastic idea of a Van der Graaf (power) Generator was deemed more appealing.  Upgrading the power supply to the Young brings all the anticipated benefits: a quieter background and more focused soundstage.  Simply put, the Van der Graaf lets the Young DAC/preamp perform to the best of its capabilities.  The Van der Graaf can power up to four M2Tech devices and, powering them up and down in whatever sequence you prefer.    Fortunately, if your budget doesn’t stretch to the Van der Graaf you will be far from disappointed with the Young’s performance in its standard form.

Conclusion

In essence, M2Tech’s Young, Crosby and Van der Graaf combo forms a high end system that you can carry home on the bus.  Size, as they say, isn’t everything and in this case it is certainly  true.  The sound quality of these little boxes is reflected in their price. This isn’t a cheap alternative to a full-sized system – the three units won’t give you much change out of £3,400 – but unless you measure value for money in terms of hifi rack real estate, they are well worth considering against other products at a similar price point.  I’d certainly be happy to live with them.

AT A GLANCE 

Build Quality:

These are well-made, solid little units.  Visually, they are attractive in an understatedly stylish kind of way.

Sound Quality:

It’s impossible not to be impressed by the sound that this set of little boxes can produce.  Even without the addition of the upgraded power supply, the Crosby and Young are capable of truly excellent results.

Value for Money:

Physically , you may not get a lot for your money but in terms of sound quality and appearance, the Crosby, Young and Van der Graaf system represents really good value for money.

Pros;

Full-size performance from  pint-sized boxes.

Supports an excellent range of audio formats.

Cons

Let’s be honest, their size will be an immediate turn-off for some potential purchasers.  For those that can see past this, it’s all good.

Prices

Crosby – £1150

Young – £1275

Van der Graaf – £950

John Scott

The Cyrus OneHD is an integrated amp and DAC with a whole host of connectivity for what looks to be a very reasonable £999. Alan McIntosh takes a listen. 

Having never been introduced to Cyrus before, when the OneHD integrated amplifier arrived I was looking forward to a test with completely fresh ears. Add to that the Cyrus OneHD adds even further inputs and versatility (including the new AptX HD Bluetooth technology deriving its moniker) to the previously reviewed Cyrus One – all for under a grand – I was very, very much looking forward to seeing if it could deliver.

CONSTRUCTION

Picture the bridge of the Death Star in the film Empire Strikes back. Picture Darth and his crew, in their 70’s version of high concept sci-fi – all gloss black and red, dotted around with blinking console lights and you have my first impressions of the OneHD – and I loved it! Arriving very well packaged in a double skin box, packed out well and with a simple “get started” leaflet and CD of full colour info and instructions, it feels Cyrus see quality as important. Unveiling the well-known “shoe box” form factored black amplifier your immediately struck by 3 things – Firstly its diminutive well machined metal body (a dense 5.6kg), its positively bristling input panel to the rear and to put the icing on the aesthetic cake a gloss black, with only 2 oversized “frog eye” rotary wheel controls (subtle power button under one of these) with just ONEHD in small white and red writing and a headphone socket – as I sat it out my wife entered the room and for the first time I heard the words “that’s a sexy amp!” – off to a good start then – on the deign front at least!

It may be a niggle for some that not included, is a remote – that however is covered via the very slick and intuitive ONE Remote app available for both iOS and Android.

On power-up you get a rather snazzy light display (LEDs are dimable) round the dials and a brief hint of a “fizz” through the speakers which Cyrus assure is normal for the OneHD and is such a low volume that it’s nothing to be concerned about.

Turning first to that forest of connections at the back we have a plate packed with every conceivable input with bi-wire capable outputs either side offered up via sturdy binding posts and a pre-out for feeding a power amplifier if desired. Only thing lacking here I think is better labelling of sources.

Included is a passive RIAA MM phono stage which Cyrus have now separated from the main circuit, aiming to lower the noise floor and making it very turntable ready. Streaming options are via Digital Coaxial/SPDIF input, USB 2.0 for laptop streaming and Toslink, all being fed into an ESS 32bit DAC helping to earning the Cyrus that “high definition” tag. The Asynchronous USB handles up to 32/192 and DSD 64 and 128. The Coax and Toslink options both managing 24/192. Three line level inputs include an AV integration option for running a simple 2 channel home cinema rig or use the OneHD as a pre amp to drive a bigger system. Add to all of this the latest aptX HD Bluetooth which the makers (Qualcomm) suggest is “better than CD quality” if fed a good source (Tidal HiFi for example) and you can start to see the possibilities this integrated amp could offer. In fact, we may need to invent a new class – HyperIntegrated! (I’m trademarking that).

Cyrus 4^th Gen Class D in nature, with a large toroidal linear power supply, it outputs at 100w to 6ohms. Distortion is listed at 0.1%, but we have to consider that in the context of the mighty power combined with the versatility it offers at a very reasonable price point. Output is already regulated via Cyrus’ Speaker Impedance Detection (SID) system. The Headphone stage when activated has all power driven to it creating a Class AB delivery with power to drive even power hungry headphones.

SOUND QUALITY

Before I begin I think it’s worthwhile discussing who I believe the target user for the ONEHD is. It’s not going to be the heart of a pure audiophile setup, instead I think this amplifier will appeal massively to someone who needs a small footprint and extended versatility, perhaps listens to vinyl or CD on occasion, but often as not streams their music or wants to run an AV or games console – basically a do it all, and do it well enough to enjoy and not have to faff with different components – rather than “do some” at a higher delivery point – Cyrus have plenty in their other range for this. In that vein I’ve tested with components I feel would be a good balance.

Vinyl first– using the integrated MM stage I set up some usual reference tracks with my reference Fyne 500 standmounts, which despite their size are both revealing and have good tight bass and so give me good feel for any source or amp. Using an Ortofon 2M Red the sound achieved isn’t perhaps as refined as that achievable using a dedicated Class A amp and MC capable phono and cart, but it sure is musical and easy to listen to and given the versatility on hand this little guy really does impress me, especially with some volume behind it. Onto the Arcam CDS27 CD/SACD (pretty uncoloured signature) and again I’m finding I’m just enjoying the music, almost forgetting to “listen” for sound which I guess is what’s it’s all about – strong staging and drive. Hint of warmth in the bass, perhaps wanting a smidge more resolution and brightness in the mids compared to more pricey Class A amps, so you may want to choose pairing with a little care if you prefer a clinical sound. Staging is open and dynamic – the 100W driving the Fynes with ease.

Streaming from my Pioneer N50 via the Coax input and same story, fun to listen to, no obvious detractors and already I start to realise the flexibility of one box, controlled with one remote is very much growing on me! Laptop via the USB2.0 delivered similar results. I didn’t have DSD files to test but at FLAC quality it performs well.

Next, I move the OneHD to my new LG HDR TV and take the Toslink route to set up a simple 2.0 set up. I also switched to Dali Zensor 3’s. Musicality again is pleasurable, warming a little more (the Dali’s have that signature) but I can also hear a slight loss of refinement in mids and highs, staging a little further back, to be expected that this price point and via Toslink. Feeding it with the Arcam and the effect is consistent, suggesting you might want to audition with different speakers for your preferred pairing.

Lastly Bluetooth via that aptX HD technology. It should be noted you need an aptX HD compatible handset top take full advantage of this (I had to borrow one – Android has well embraced it but Apple not so…). I have to say colour me impressed! “Better than CD” I can’t confirm or deny, but it’s not lacking in detail or musicality. In fact, I’ve found myself spending more time on streaming via Bluetooth on this amp than ever before – again a nod to simply how extensively versatile it is. 

CONCLUSION

If you have a budget of a grand and are seeking a true all in one amp that offers the latest quality Bluetooth is turntable ready and with good power output, a very respectable headphone amp and decent DAC to stream from laptop or phone and seek a small footprint or want to use your AV or games console and don’t need the latest word in high resolution and refinement, then you simply need to audition the Cyrus ONEHD. I kind of fell in love with it for its simplicity and can see it spurring a lot of other manufacturers to consider this level of integration as a new generation of listeners return to vinyl and CD as well as streaming. I may just find a spot for this and keep it!

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality: Designed well, solid unit, high quality materials and strong aesthetics – if a little busy at the back

Sound Quality: Fun! That’s overall my impression. It’s not going to beat some of the better quality and purely integrated amps where you seek resolution and refinements. The Cyrus has some warmth overall but its power drives speakers with ease and listening is a pleasurable experience – and remember the sheer number of inputs that very few, if any can rival means far less components to faff with

Value For Money: At an RRP of just under a grand I think Cyrus have worked wonders here – I’m genuinely feeling sad to see it go, It’s just so easy to set up and listen and jump from one source to the next.

Pros: Sheer versatility, inclusion of latest aptX Bluetooth, great looks and ease of use as well as good fun musicality, linear power and great power delivery and high-quality headphone stage

Cons: If I’m being hyper critical labelling of the many inputs could be easier as looking from above its hard to see L+R, number on the input etc

Price: £999

Alan McIntosh

Review Equipment Used : Unmodified Technics SL1210Mk3D, Ortofon 2M Red, Arcam CDS27, Pioneer n50K, Cambridge Audio DACMagic Azure, Ecosse 2.23 and MS4.45 bi wire Speaker cables, Chord Clearway + Shawline Interconnects , Fyne Audio 500 and Dali Zensor 3’s. Tidal HiFi streaming via HP Laptop and iPhone 8 / Galaxy S9

Specifications :

– Class D Amp: Cyrus 4th gen Hybrid
– Out: 2x 100W (6Ω @0.1% THD+N)Pre out: connect to power amps
– Headphone Amp: High voltage class AB
– Binding posts: Bi-wire compatible

Inputs
– USB Input: Asynchronous USB
– Dig: Optical Toslink + Coax SPDIF
– RCA: to built-in MM phono stage
– Bluetooth: aptX HD compatible
– Line Level: 3 incl AV integrated

General
– SID: Speaker Impedance Detection
– AC: Linear power supply
– Dimensions (HWD): 85 x 220 x 390mm
– Weight: 5.6kg

Italian brands Gold Note IS-1000 Streamer and Integrated Amplifier does what it says on the tin and has an impressive range of connectivity, high power output and even has a built in MM/MC phonostage. It costs £3820 (around $5000) as tested in the UK (a version with an updated DAC is available for £4500) but does it all add up to a great deal in the final analysis? Stuart Smith finds out. 

CONSTRUCTION AND FEATURES

When a product arrives well packaged there is an immediate sense that you are dealing with a company that takes pride in its products, trust me many even supposedly high-end products arrive poorly packed and it’s a major gripe of mine, but I needn’t have worried with this unit – purpose made side cheeks slide into an inner box and there is a second box for extra protection… so we are off to a good start.

Take the IS-100 out of its box, it’s a heavy beast but on the shelf is the epitome of understated Italian class. The chassis is an all-aluminium affair with nicely carved air vents on the top and sides and the Gold Note logo on the top. On the front panel we have the power indicator, a screen and a single knob that is used for navigating the screen and changing source etc. It’s all very uncomplicated and simple to get your head around even for someone like me who tends to (initially) by pass the manual and jump straight in. A remote control is included and is functional in that it gets the required job done but I would have like to have seen the remote match the IS-1000 itself.

Around the back it’s a lot busier, but it is well set out. Left to right we have: XLR balanced inputs and two pairs of RCA inputs. One of these RCA inputs can be used for line or phono (MM or MC) whilst the second can be used for line or AV inputs. You then get a couple of pairs RCA outputs with one being fixed and the second variable. There’s a pair of good quality binding posts above which sits the digital input area. There is an RF in to connect the included WiFi antenna, a mini-usb for firmware updates, a firmware button for manual update, 3 TOS Links, an RCA coaxial input, an ethernet port for a wired connection to your network and a USB in port. Finally, you’ve got the master power switch and the AC input.

To be honest and primarily for the sheer convenience, I mostly used the IS-1000 in wireless mode and to control the unit in this mode there is of course an app for both Android and iOS devices called Mconnect Control. Set up is a doddle with great guidance from the logically put together and not over-complicated handbook that comes with the IS-1000. The app lets you access your favourite streaming services including Deezer, Tidal, Qobuz as well as internet radio stations and music stored on Dropbox or One Drive. I used Tidal as that’s what I have a subscription for. The app also allows users to add favourite musical choices to a favourites folder and to make playlists.

Turn the IS-1000 on, the screen lights up and you are presented with a very simple and well thought out navigation that uses, as mentioned, the control knob. Top left and right of the screen you have balance (a useful feature often lacking in integrated amps), centre top you can turn the display off, bottom left and right you choose source and switching between MM and MC cartridges. Also on the screen and not immediately obvious as to what they are is DF-High/Low and Booster On/Off.The DF button is a nifty and I think pretty clever idea as you can change the damping factor of the amp to suit your particular speakers. Set it to high (250) for speakers that are low to mid sensitivity and low (25) for higher sensitivity loudspeakers. Gold Note claim that in low mode the IS-1000 will act as a low powered valve/tube amplifier. As I said, I think this is a useful feature and makes good sense in that it widens the potential user-base for this unit. It’s also very useful for me with my reviewer’s hat on as I do like to put kit that arrives for review through as many speakers as I possibly can at the time.

The other virtual button, the Booster, acts as far as I can tell like a bass boost that used to be pretty common on amps but seems to have fallen out of favour.

Of course, all the above can be done from the comfort of your armchair.

The IS-1000 supports, as mentioned, Tidal plus MQA via Tidal, Qobuz, Spotify, Spotify Connected and Deezer with Roon but you can also connect to your NAS drive, Hard Disc Drive and also to USB sticks. It allows for DSD 64 native and via DoP on USB and LAN and PCM upto 24/192. File-wise it plays all the usual suspects.

Worth noting is the fact that the IS-1000 does have cooling fans inside the unit but I can honestly say I never noticed these running at any time during the review period and it is worth noting the “Updates Since This Review” section at the end of the review. 

SOUND

We’ve got a pair of Pure Audio Project speakers open Baffle speakers in for review (they have been here a few months so we know them pretty well) and to be honest I wasn’t really getting the sound I was expecting from them with a pair of 50W monoblock amps we have at the relevant price-point. However, hooking them up to the IS-1000 set to high damping factor really got them on-song and with the amp feeling to have much more grip and control – it’s a simple matter of fact that these speakers needed the extra power the Gold Note was able to provide -it outputs 125 Watts into 8 ohms. I’m not going to the sound of the Pure Audio Project/IS-1000 combo as they are not part of our reference speaker compliment and I really only mention this point to highlight the Gold Note’s ability to bring these open baffle speakers alive. I had a similar experience when connecting the amp to a pair of Boenicke loudspeakers (Review here) – in fact I’d suggest that the Gold Note/Boenicke combo were a very good partnership and I spent a good couple of days simply enjoying music through this pairing.

Connecting the Gold Notes to the Avantgarde Duo XDs and switching to low damping factor I was rewarded with a mid-band that was sweet and slightly on the warm side when compared to the class D amplifiers we use as reference. I don’t really see this is a criticism of the Gold Note as the amps we use for reference have been chosen specifically to be analytical and somewhat clinical in their presentation – they are after all a review tool and some people will prefer the more relaxed yet powerful sound of the Gold Note. Female vocals were presented really beautifully with bags of detail and no harshness in the upper frequencies. Instruments sat properly and stable in the stereo mix and I really do think that the IS-1000 played to the Duos’ strengths giving a highly enjoyable and engaging musical experience that was somewhat addictive. A good sign of something being “right” is when you stop actually analysing the sound and just sit and enjoy the tunes you are playing.

The Duos are active in the bass department and so out came our hORNS Mummy speakers and I heard that same feeling of grip in the bass I’d heard with the Boenickes. Dub reggae and other bass heavy music sounded great, but then popping on Concierto De Aranjuez showed the IS-1000 to be a deft performer with classical music, being fast and dealing with dynamic changes without missing a beat.

Up to now I’d been using Wi-Fi or wired ethernet connection and also attached a hard drive and found the flavour of the IS-1000’s presentation to be consistent across the board. Connecting a CD player with balanced outputs and I had the same experience of a dynamic if slightly warmer presentation that is easy to listen to and certainly non-fatiguing. If you are reading this and think my calling the Gold Note slightly warm in its presentation is suggesting that it’s woolly and a bit lacking in detail then don’t – what you have here is power with a certain amount of grace.

Sadly, I only had access during the review period to MC cartridges and so was unable to make use of the MM part of the phonostage but found the stage to be very, very, very quiet, again with a dynamism that really let you get into the records you were playing and it’s pretty transparent allowing the music to flow. Is the phonostage as “accurate” or as good as our reference, well no, but that costs pretty much the same as the whole of the IS-1000 so we’re really comparing apples with oranges. Do I think the phonostage could hold its own with competition up to the £750-£1000 mark? – I’d certainly say so. The phonostage here isn’t going to satisfy the die-hard vinylista who has spent thousands and thousands on their record players, arms and cartridges, but it is well good enough for the market that I believe this unit is aimed at – those looking for a nice looking, well connected all in one streamer and amp that also has the option for playing records.

CONCLUSION

The Gold Note IS-1000 is stonkingly well built and looks the business. It offers those looking for a one box/just add speakers solution a great product at a price that I believe to be very reasonable for what you are getting.

Connectivity is comprehensive and I can see many having the IS-1000 as the hub of their entertainment system and having it not only for playing tunes saved on NAS/HDD or from streaming services, but also for putting the television through.

It’s a fab product that is most definitely in the mid-fi audio bracket in the way that it plays music but also caters for those that just love music, want great sound but really don’t want to go down the whole multi box route.

The inclusion of a phonostage is a stroke of genius and whilst not everyone will have the need for it, many will given the seemingly unstoppable revival of vinyl.

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality:

Very, Very nice and solid. Needs a nicer remote.

Sound Quality:

Grippy and controlled in the bass, erring on the slightly warm side of neutral in the mids but nice and detailed in the upper frequencies with plenty of power and dynamic range.

Value For Money:

You are getting a lot of product in the one box and fit and finish are very good so I think it offers very good value for money.

Pros:

A highly connected and good sounding bit of kit that is simple for non-technophiles to get to grips with.

Cons:

I did have the app crash on me a few times when using Tidal. You are paying for a phonostage whether or not you want or need it. The unit did need resetting a couple of times when left on and we had an electrical surge – though this could also be sen as being a positive point from a safety/protection point of view.

Price:

£3820

Updates since review:

The Roon Nucleus + is essentially a Roon specific dedicated network streamer costing £2500, but what does it bring to the whole Roon experience sonically? John Scott finds out. 

Way back in the mists of time – in 1983 to be precise – home computers were all the rage and, jumping on the bandwagon, I bought an Acorn BBC B microcomputer.  The BBC B was the undisputed king of home computers; it has a massive 64 kilobytes of memory, half of which was taken up by the operating system.  Being a music geek, it wasn’t long before I decided that I wanted to put this titanic computing power to use by compiling a database of my 200-odd LPs.  I spent the then not inconsiderable sum of £25 – I could easily have got 5 or 6 LPs for that – on a database programme for the computer and immediately set about planning the structure of my database.  I figured that if I included all the information about all the musicians that played on each album, the producer etc. then I would eventually have a deep insight into my collection.  I’d be able to tell, for example, not only how many Brian Eno albums I had (in fact I already knew this – even I could count to 4 without the aid of a computer) but I’d also be able to call up a list of any other albums he’d been involved in.  Similarly, who knew how many albums I owned that Phil Collins drummed on?  After only a couple of hundred hours of my one-fingered typing I would surely have the answer; perhaps – my imagination was running away with me now – I’d even be able to identify the albums that had both Brian Eno and Phil Collins on them!

And so I set to, building my database 5 or 6 albums at a time.  It all went splendidly until I reached my 24^th LP at which point the BBC B politely flashed up a message to say that it’s memory was full.  And that was the end of that, for a while anyway.  Fast forward almost 20 years and the itch to catalogue my music collection had returned; it was CDs by now, of course.  As a present to myself for my 40^th birthday I bought a programme for my PC for £40  – I could easily have got 5 or 6 CDs for that.  This programme read the contents of any disc inserted into its CD drive and magically retrieved information from the internet, automatically updating its database.  Okay, so it couldn’t tell me how many albums Phil Collins drummed on but it could tell me how many versions of Elvis Costello’s  Watching The Detectives I owned and which CDs they were on and that kept me happy for a while.

Before another 10 years had passed, I’d ripped all my CDs to a hard drive and banished them to a cupboard.  I’d discovered the joys of streaming and by using a Squeezebox Touch and the excellent Squeezepad app I was able to call up any of my albums at will using my ipad.  Not only did the music flow straight into my hifi, but there right in front of me on the iPad screen was the cover art, all the album tracks and, at the press of a button, links to further information on the internet about the album or the artist.  I couldn’t be happier.  If you’d asked me the Collins Question I still wouldn’t have been able to tell you the answer but with all my music instantly at my command I was pretty much past caring.

And then along came Roon.  If the BBC B had been the undisputed king of the microcomputer then Roon aimed to be the undisputed champion of music library management systems with built-in streaming capabilities to boot.  There was only one problem: Roon required a high-spec computer  with a solid state hard drive to run its software.  While I was happy to use a NAS drive to store my music files I had no desire to involve a PC or laptop in the playback process, and mine weren’t up to the job in any case.  Roon, it seemed, was not for me.

Perhaps recognising that I am not alone in wanting to remove the computer, in the traditional sense, from computer audio, Roon have now produced the Nucleus and the more powerful Nucleus+.  These are computers, albeit computers disguised as highly stylish metallic bricks, designed with one purpose only – to deliver everything that the Roon experience has to offer, both now and in the future, as a plug-and-play, no hassle option.

Before sending out the Nucleus+, UK distributors Henley Audio were keen to emphasise that they were looking for a review of the Nucleus+ as a product in its own right rather than a review of the Roon library management software.  I’m more than happy to oblige but having said that it seems like a missed opportunity not to at least give an overview of Roon’s cataloguing capabilities.  So, the following review of the Nucleus+ will touch on all aspects of what Roon has to offer.

UNBOXING, CONSTRUCTION AND APPEARANCE

The Nucleus+ is housed in an elegant Roon-branded black box, well cosseted by foam protection and accompanied by a power lead and a quick start guide which, naturally, I promptly ignored. Externally, the Nucleus+ is a solidly built not-quite-black metal box measuring 212mm (W) x 156mm (D) x 74mm (H) with fins running along its width to act as heat sinks. A small embossed, almost imperceptible, Roon logo adorns the front panel.  The unit weighs 2.5kg but it’s solid appearance makes it somehow feel more massive; like a heavyweight boxer, it just seems to exude heft and a sense of purpose.  The back panel features an on/off button which glows white when powered on, a power input (12-19V DC via the supplied switching transformer), 2 USB 3.0 input/outposts, 1 HDMI stereo/multi-channel audio output and 1 gigabit Ethernet LAN port.  There is also a Lightning port but this is currently disabled – presumably Roon have some plans for it in the future.

Internally, the Nucleus+ houses an Intel I7 processor and 8GB of RAM on an Intel NUC motherboard.  Internal hard drive storage is not included but can be added if desired.  2.5” SATA drives (SSD preferably) up to 9.5mm in height are supported.  Alternatively, your music files can be stored on external hard drives attached to the USB ports or on a NAS drive located on your home network.

SET UP – PART 1

Set up of the Nucleus+ was incredibly simple.  Firstly I downloaded the Roon Continues app to my iPad, then plugged in the Nucleus+, attached it to my network via the Ethernet port and plugged my Spectra DAC to one of the USB ports; Roon recommend connecting a DAC via Ethernet using one of their “endpoints” for best performance but I’ll come back to that.  For now, the USB connection was what suited me best.  I switched on the Nucleus+, fired up the control app and watched as the magic started to happen: the Nucleus+ was detected on my network and the Roon software set about cataloguing my music library and analysing each track to determine the audio format and dynamic range.  This happens remarkably quickly but if you have a large music library it will take several hours to complete both the import of the files and the audio analysis.  The good news is that it runs as a background process so you can happily listen to the files as they are imported while Roon get on with the job of adding more.  For best results, directly hardwire the Nucleus+ to your router via Ethernet cable.  I started off using power line adaptors and while these did work, the process was noticeably slower and I later encountered drop outs when playing DSD files. If you are going to be investing in a Nucleus or Nucleus+ then I would seriously recommend running Ethernet cables from your router to any locations where you will be streaming music if at all possible.

Fast forwarding in to the point where all my files were imported, I was able to browse the vast majority of my collection in all its Roon-enhanced glory complete with cover art, artist/band biographies and album reviews.  Clicking on a band/artist name brings up all their albums in my collection along with any other albums that they have been credited as contributing to.  At last, the answer to those elusive Brian Eno and Phil Collins questions were just a couple of taps on my iPad screen away*. The Roon software is, of course, not perfect; if you have multiple versions of a disc or CDs by particularly obscure artists then Roon might identify them incorrectly or not identify them at all.  Similarly, it can struggle with box sets and classical collections.  Fortunately, the manual overrides to correct these errors are fairly simple and intuitive to use.

As this isn’t supposed to be a review about the Roon cataloguing software, I’m not going to go into anymore detail about the myriad ways in which Roon will allow you to slice and dice your collection but I will say that its ability to highlight connections between artists and/or pieces of music shone a whole new light on my music library and was an enduring source of joy; a genuine enhancement to my listening experience.

NUCLEUS + FUNCTIONALITY 

Okay so leaving behind Roon’s cataloguing capabilities, why should you buy a Nucleus+?  Well, Roon describe the Nucleus+ and its little brother the Nucleus as the best way to experience Roon.  Yes, you can run Roon on a suitably spec’d PC, Mac or laptop but the Nucleus products deliver the Roon experience from one little box that just sits silently – utterly silently – getting on with its job.  And that, to me, is a very attractive proposition.  Suitably connected to your home network, you can position the Nucleus along with the rest of your hifi kit or you can hide it in a cupboard, in the basement or the attic.  Wherever it sits it will be the heart and brain of the digital audio set up throughout your home. The Nucleus supports up to 6 simultaneous “zones”, potentially either playing the same music or working completely independently of each other; the Nucleus+ supports more than 6 zones.  The other main differences between the Nucleus and the Nucleus+ are that the less powerful Nucleus supports music libraries of up to 100,000 tracks with the Nucleus+ supporting larger libraries – Roon say that they haven’t yet found an upper limit to the more powerful unit’s library handling capabilities. Also, the Nucleus + will handle, if required to do so, all of Roon’s digital signal processing (DSP) capabilities while up-sampling audio to DSD 256 whereas the Nucleus can carry out most of the DSP functions but will struggle with simultaneous up-scaling.

These DSP functions, and the dedicated processing power required to carry them out, are really what you are paying your money for. The Nucleus+ detects the playback capabilities of whatever DAC is connected to it and, if desired, up-scales or down-scales the audio files to suit.  For example, if your DAC is able to handle DSD 256 files then the Nucleus+ can convert all your files to DSD 256 on the fly before sending them off to your DAC.  Other DSP functions include parametric equalisation, speaker set up, and the ability to carry out room optimisation.  Also included are a set of optimisation filters for a range of Audeze headphones which I imagine is similar in concept, if not execution, to Diavelet’s SAM speaker matching technology.

SET UP – PART 2 

Having achieved a fairly basic setup of the Nucleus+ by plugging my DAC directly into one of its USB ports, it was time to take things a step further.  Roon’s preferred method of connection is via Ethernet into what they term an endpoint.  This allows Roon functionality to extend anywhere in your home that you have an Ethernet or wireless connection.  Taking this further, I was also able to use my iPad as an endpoint, allowing my to play music anywhere in the house on my iPad or alternatively to send the signal on to a Bluetooth speaker.

Scores of audio manufacturers including, Linn, Naim, LUMIN, Auralic, Novafidelity and many, many others have worked with Roon to classify their devices as “Roon Ready”.  If, like me, you use a Raspberry Pi in your system then then are a couple of options for updating your device.  I used the incredibly quick and simple Ropieee update.Using Ethernet and power line adaptors – as mentioned above, these are not ideal but they do the job – I very quickly had two “zones” set up, one in the living room and one in a smaller sitting room.  This was then expanded into a third zone in my son’s bedroom using his TV sound bar and my iPad served as a fourth zone being used either in the kitchen, bathroom or my bedroom along with a Bluetooth speaker.  I was even able to press my old Squeezebox Touch into service as Squeezebox devices function as Roon Ready endpoints.  In normal use the Squeezebox Touch is only capable of passing through files up to 24/96 to an external DAC – although an unofficial software hack extends this to 24/192.  Using the Touch as an endpoint though enabled it to pass through DSD files as well.

As a result of me inputting the distance from each speaker to my sitting room  listening position and measuring the output of each speaker individually using a SPL meter app on my iPad, (there is a setting within the Roon software to mute each speaker channel and therefore allow it to be independently measured)  the Nucleus+ carried out a simple speaker adjustment; increasing the gain of the left hand speaker by 1.1dB and introducing a tiny time delay of 0.29ms to the right hand speaker.  Did it sound better?  Yes, it did; vocals were positioned more to the centre and there was a definite broadening of the overall soundstage. And no, before anyone writes in I’m not suggesting that I could hear the 0.29ms delay.

Currently, more complex room compensation adjustments are possible by using external measurement software to build a “convolution” filter which is then imported to the Nucleus+.   Unfortunately, I didn’t have the equipment required to try this out at the time of the review.  I believe, however that Roon are actively looking at ways of building this kind of adjustment into the Nucleus as a native process.  I did have a few plays with the parametric equaliser – adding a bit of bass, rolling off a bit of top end – and there is no doubt that it is a sophisticated tool that can tailor the sound of your hifi to your individual tastes.  I was happy however to leave this function disabled for the most part.

SOUND QUALITY 

Ah, sound quality.  Following previous reviews of digital music servers I have been castigated by readers for suggesting that certain products have a “sound” and, on other occasions, been berated for suggesting that other products have no perceived sonic impact.  My time spent with the Nucleus+ left me in no doubt that it improved the performance of whatever kit it was partnered with;  it was as if the Nucleus+ was lining up the little ones and zeros, straightening their clothes, wiping their cheeks with a hankie and giving them a pat on the head before sending them off to the DAC to do their best.  A fairly modest system made up from my elderly Linn Keilidhs, an Audiolab 8000A integrated amp and the Spectra DAC was greatly improved by the introduction of the Nucleus+ as was my reference system (Etalon SuprA amp, Audio GE Sincerus 80 speakers and Raspberrypi/Allo Boss DAC).  In both cases, and without enabling any of the Nucleus+’s DSP features, the soundstage was greatly enhanced, taking on a more three dimensional aspect and overall the music was simply more involving and exciting than before.

I also had a brief opportunity to try out the Nucleus+ in combination with an Audio Note Jinro integrated amp, a pair of ART Dram Monitors and a COS D1 DAC.  At a total cost of over £45,000 this was, as you would expect, a highly performing,  revealing system and the Nucleus+ had less to offer in terms of improvement.  Nevertheless, while the difference was nowhere near as dramatic as with the other two systems, I still preferred the sound of the system with the Nucleus+ rather than without it.  My brain still tells me that all the Nucleus+ is doing is moving a digital signal around my house but my ears tell me otherwise.

THE FUTURE 

Whether you run Roon through a PC, laptop, Mac mini, through a Nucleus or Nucleus+ or even build your own NUC-based box – and if you want to do this, Roon will happily supply the software free of charge – then you will still need to purchase either an annual or lifetime Roon licence.  I’ve heard it said that Roon should include the cost of a lifetime licence in the purchase price of the two Nucleus products; before trying out the Nucleus+ I’d run that thought through my head a few times myself.  However, you don’t have to spend very much time at all on the Roon community internet forum to realise that Roon are deeply committed to ongoing enhancements of the Roon experience.  If you want a great example of a company actively inviting feedback from its user base, carefully considering it and then, when they consider it the right thing to do, implementing a change then you need look no further.  Of course, everyone has ideas about what they would like to see Roon do in the future and some of these ideas are better than others; the tact, patience and restraint shown by the company from the top down when presented with some of the suggestions is quite admirable.   The upside of all this feedback is that Roon does improve iteratively.  It is clear from all the online discussions that Roon won’t make a change unless they believe it is a genuine enhancement and they won’t do it until it is fully ready to go.  They don’t set timescales for changes as they would rather not implement a change than release a fudged update just to meet a deadline. As an example, lots of people asked if Roon could be integrated with voice-activated products such as Amazon’s Echo range.  Roon looked at it, worked on it and decided that it could be done but not very well.   So, it’s not happening; not yet anyway.  One of the things that is under consideration at the moment is a mobile version of Roon, able to offer the Roon experience for music streamed to devices outside your home network.  Will it happen?  As ever, there are no promises but the discussion on the community forum suggests that it is likely.  When will it happen?  True to form, Roon aren’t saying (I asked; their answer: ”Watch this space.”)  This continuous improvement takes time and resource which is why the annual or lifetime subscription is a necessary expense.

CONCLUSION 

The Nucleus+ provides an elegant, unparalleled plug and play one-box solution to digital library management, digital signal processing and multi room capability.  It’s undeniably expensive and to be honest, unless you have, or plan to have,  a really huge music library or need to play music in more than 6 zones in your house then the cheaper Nucleus will probably serve you more than adequately.   I didn’t particularly feel that I needed a Nucleus in my life before I carried out this review but now I don’t want to live without one so I’ve put my money where my mouth is and the Nucleus+ is now a permanent part of my set up. And that’s the best recommendation I can give it, there was no going back.

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality: Solidly built, the Nucleus/Nucleus+ is simultaneously elegant and unobtrusive

Sound Quality: Sophisticated DSP and up-sampling ensured an improvement in sound quality in whatever system Nucleus + was used in

Value For Money: At £2500 the Nucleus + is not cheap and then there is the added expense of the Roon subscription, but I believe this is money well spent for the overall experience and improvements in sound quality, plus there is the advantage of the online forums and support

Pros: Ease of use.  Plug it in, connect it to your network, power it up, fire up the control app and you are good to go.

Sophisticated DSP functions provide the ability optimise your DAC and to tailor the sound of your system, should you wish to do so.

Cons: Did I mention it was expensive?  It is (you could buy a lot more than 5 or 6 CDs) but if you want to get the most out of your digital music collection then it is, in my opinion, definitely an investment worth making.

*Currently I have 11 Phil Collins solo albums in my collection – don’t judge me – along with 16 as a member of Genesis, 5 with the jazz/rock band Brand X  and 20 as a player or producer on other people’s albums.  As far as Brian Eno goes, I have 21 of his albums and another 21 as a contributor or producer.  Phil Collins and Brian Eno together? – 4 albums.

John Scott

Review Equipment: Linn Keilidhs, Audiolab 8000A integrated, Spectra DAC plus Etalon SuprA amp, Audio GE Sincerus 80 speakers.

French company Metronome Technologies make a whole host of kit for the digital domain, here Stuart Smith tries out their AQWO CD/SACD player and DAC with valve output stage costing £13,870 Euros as tested.

Metronome Technologies is a French brand you may or may not be aware of, but they have been in existence for over thirty years, they were founded in 1987, and if you have ever seen the Kallista DreamPlay CD (yes, that’s one of theirs too, though you won’t find it on the Metronome website oddly) you will certainly remember its massive aluminium and methacrylate structure – it’s one of those “once seen, never forgotten kind of products” that just screams high-end luxury. Despite having manufacturer amplifiers, speakers and other products, they now concentrate on products aimed at reproducing high-resolution music and formats with their product range including DACs, CD Transports, Integrated DAC/CD Players and in 2016 they launched new servers, all of which are distributed in the UK by Absolute Sounds (interview with Ricardo of Absolute Sounds here). The philosophy here is to produce high-quality products capable of reproducing to the highest standards the latest, and legacy, formats. All Metronome’s products are hand-crafted and overseen by the company’s engineers to ensure the best performance and build quality.

BUILD AND FEATURES

Here with the AQWO we essentially have a CDC+SACD/CD drive along with a DAC which will handle DSD up to 512 (x8) – actually this is the first time Metronome have ventured into the realms of an SACD player. It’s a top loader that uses a professional drive mechanism from D & M (look them up, you may not know the name but you will know the brands) that has been breathed on by Metronome’s engineers, with the mechanism being centre of the top plate and using a Delring clamp that clicks beautifully and securely into place with a magnetic snap. It’s that kind of feeling you get when you move from a good but basic car when you close the doors to a quality car whose doors close with a reassuringly solid feel and satisfying clunk. Certainly, the unit oozes quality from the outset of the package arriving – packaging is great and fantastically secure, internal packaging is likewise beautifully done ensuring that the machine arrives in one piece and ready to play music. Taking the AQWO out the box is no mean feat as it weighs a not inconsiderable 15Kg.

Inside the beautifully finished aluminium box, you have two internal DACS (AK4497) made by Asahi Kasei Microdevices Corporation from Japan. The chips were introduced at CES in 2016 with full production beginning in the Summer of 2016. The AK4497 uses new circuit design techniques and manufacturing processes and has onboard six different digital filter types which are selectable according to user/system preferences.

Special attention has been given over to the power supplies used in AQWO using separate power regulation lines and individual toroidals with the aim being to protect from EMI and RFA, decrease vibration and aid rapid power transitions. Indeed, there are three toroidals with no less than ten independent regulation lines. All PCBS used are soldered in Metronome’s own workshops.

The review unit arrived in silver but a black version is also available. Round the back and looking left to right you have:

Master power switch

IEC Inlet

2 x AES/EBU XLR inputs

2 x SPDIF RCA inputs

2 x Toslink inputs

USB Input

Outputs include:

Toslink, SPDIF, AES/EBU and HDMI12S plus balance and single-ended analogue outputs using the usual RCA and XLR connections.

All inputs and outputs are well labeled and easy to read in a distinctive blue on black livery.

This comprehensive array of inputs and outputs allows the AQWO to be used in a variety of configurations: All-in-one SACD/CD and DAC player, dedicated standalone SACD/CD transport or standalone DAC. For most I think the unit is likely to be used either as an all in one DAC and transport with the added benefit of being able to use the onboard DACs with a host of other out-board devices, be that a laptop running your favourite music software (the unit comes bundled with drivers for Foobar), and external CD player/games machine/streamer/whatever. It’s a well-connected unit that offers itself up as the hub of your digital universe. The only thing missing, and this is catered for with other Metronome units, is a network connection to allow direct streaming from a home network…but then add a computer and you have that anyway.

The unit measures 425 x 130 x 415mm with the front panel being dominated by a large 6.5” touchscreen which I personally thought was a very nice touch (no pun intended) – more on this later. A nice and simple remote control is also included.

So, before you even think about plugging in the AQWO to the mains supply, the vibe is positive with a feeling of over-engineered loveliness that is the epitome of understated yet solid design and engineering. When you take a step back to admire the unit on the rack, it is only then that you notice the massive spiked feet which support the AQWO’s mass.

SOUND QUALITY

I wanted to use the AQWO in the way that I think it will be most likely used and in the first instance this is an all in one CD/SACD player and DAC to my mind. First on the platter is the musically superb Babes Never Die by Honeyblood whose first and title track sounds fab in the car, but on any system that has any resolution at all sounds muddy, muddled and generally horrible. With the AQWO I was as disappointed as I have previously playing this CD in the house, suggesting that the Metronome unit isn’t going to allow a sow’s ear to be magically crafted into a silk purse – perhaps I’m missing the production values in this record, though I strongly suspect not! I don’t like products that make clearly badly produced records sound somehow and magically better – this suggests to me that a product is not truly High Fidelity and is fudging something along the way.

Changing discs is an absolute pleasure on the AQWO, with the sliding top mechanism having that same satisfying expensive car door closing feel to it as I mentioned. And the remote is perfectly useable too – simple, nice enough, not too generic looking (we’ve had some horrors arrive at Hifi Pig Towers) – it does its job.

And so, in comparison to the above, we have the brilliant Leftfield and their Rhythm and Stealth. It’s a very well-produced record that demands to be listened to on a great system to get the very best from it. It’s deep, complex and with textural elements that can become lost on lesser systems. What the AQWO manages to do is bring out the layers of the mix and present them in a cohesive and intelligible stream for the speakers to project into the room. And it’s all there too, micro-detail is probably what more verbose review-bods may likely call it, but I like that the AQWO is able to bring a feel of texture and detail to proceedings with you being able to hear what effects etc have been added to certain sounds such as electronic kick. This kind of music can often become muddled on some systems, it’s not the recording, rather it is the electronics used to decode those zeros and ones’ inability to make sense of those digits that makes a mess of it. The AQWO performs brilliantly here portraying and laying before the listener coherence and subtlety, whilst at the same time not getting phased by the dynamic shifts in the music. There is a feeling of solidity to proceedings with this kind of program that inspires confidence and, it must be said, to shake one’s ass! This is a good thing! Often a piece of electronics can come in for review and whilst it sounds accurate and whatnot it doesn’t make you want to move and really get down with the grooves – not so here.

On acoustic material, I’ve plucked Neil Young’s After The goldrush out of the many albums I played for the purposes of the review, and again the AQWO shines. There is detail and accuracy in the, let’s face it, less than perfect voice of Young that lets the emotional feel of this record come to the fore and AQWO hides none of it, but without that overly bright trick used by some to highlight upper-end detail – another pet hate of mine. To me, the music should be presented to you as near to the original as is possible and I think this is what this box of tricks manages to achieve. DAVE from Chord Electronics is perhaps more detailed in a real sense than the Metronome unit and the Lampizator Big 7 is perhaps more musically engaging, but what the AQWO manages to do is fall somewhere in the middle, allowing for an emotionally engaging listen that sounds very detailed and resolved without being too much – to these ears anyway. Don’t get me wrong, DAVE is THE best DAC I’ve heard in our system and the Lampizator BIG 7 remains our reference in the big system, but this is a very enjoyable CD/DAC to listen to. Easy going and yet detailed is perhaps the best way to describe it.

TUBE OUTPUT

On the touch screen is a little virtual button in the shape of a vacuum tube/valve which is used to engage or disengage the tube output section. “The tube output section consists of 2 JAN6922 using a Class A polarisation diagram with a high bandwidth,” says the bumph from Metronome. Push the button and there is a more “rounded” sound without it being rolled off in the top-end if that makes sense. I confess to having preferred the sound with the tube section engaged, feeling that it seemed a little more natural sounding – I categorically refuse to say it made it sounds more analogue, but I know for certain that that is exactly what some reviewers will say about this.

FILTERS

To access the available filters on the AQWO simply press the logo for a second or two and the menu page opens up – you can also change the voltage output here as well as the main colours of the screen. A short press on the logo allows you to dim or turn off the screen. It’s on this screen you can enable or disable inputs too. Filters available on the AQWO are a Sharp Roll-Off, Slow Roll-Off, Super Slow-Roll-Off, Short Delay Sharp Roll-Off, Short Delay Slow Roll-Off and Low Dispersion Short Delay which each have an effect on the final sound – though I’ve tended to find that digital filters on DACS tend to be useful in “taming” the digitalness ( I know it’s not a real word) of hi-resolution recordings and the same is here. Users will find one they like and tend to stick with it I would suggest.

USING AN EXTERNAL CD TRANSPORT

This is an interesting one for me as I had in the dim and distant past been of the opinion that the most important bit of a CD was the DAC being used, and I do believe that this is true – to an extent. In recent years I’ve played around with a number of transports into our DACs and each has a greater or lesser effect on the overall performance. Using our Leema Elements CD player and Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista 3D as transports into the AQWO highlighted that whilst the DAC on the AQWO does, in my opinion, have the biggest effect, the transport used betters the two transports we have to hand and by a good margin. The effect I got using the transport in the AQWO over the other two was a perceived increase in stability of stereo image and a “cleaner” overall presentation. With this in mind, I cannot wait to hear what the company’s bigger (and much more expensive) transports are capable of. So, if the onboard transport is so good then why bother having the digital inputs (I’m not talking about the USB input here)? Well, they are useful if you have other digital sources that you want to put through the AQWO – I’m thinking DVD players, games consoles and the like as I mentioned earlier. This way the AQWO becomes more than a CD/SACD drive, it becomes more of a digital hub for your home.

USB INPUT  

Download the drivers (usual procedure), select the relevant output on your Windows machine and off you go. I sued to have a great deal of trouble with drivers but once you get your head around having to install them then all is good.

Playing DSD files (I only have a few to be fair) from the computer and via USB is pretty revealing. The detail and depth of the files are well evident and sound fabulous. Jazz At The Pawnshop (yeh, I know it’s a cliché) is brilliantly portrayed on DSD and there is that real “I’m in the venue” feel. The recording is like that anyway but the AQWO adds another layer of realism to the recording – or perhaps that should be the Aqwo strips way any layers that are getting in the way of the realism of the recording.  Again we have beautiful depth to the recording which envelopes the listener and transports them to 1976 and the venue – I’ve never seen pictures of the inside of the venue but sat here listening to this album on the AQWO I see in my mind’s eye a fairly intimate and smoky venue, that is warm and buzzy to combat the cold December weather outside. And here is one of the key characteristics of the AQWO – it has an uncanny ability to make sense of a recording and to set before the listener a realistic portrayal of the space and music without taking anything away or embellishing it.

Other files of varying resolution all play perfectly and are converted to music without hassle and with the same kind of results I’ve outlined earlier.

CONCLUSION

The AQWO is a fine machine that sounds absolutely wonderful. It is accurate without being fatiguing on everything we threw at it other than poorly recorded music which it makes no excuses for – if you have a load of dodgy MP3s etc then this is not going to be for you – that said, you are unlikely to be the kind of person to spend this kind of money on a CD player and DAC and then go steal dodgy files. Hi-resolution music sounds sublime on the AQWO and it is to this market that I believe it is aimed.

CD, it is often claimed, is a medium in decline but I’m of the opinion that CDs often represent great value for money and I’m still out there buying them in larger numbers than I ever have and I believe they will be around for a good deal of time to come. It is fantastic to see a company have such dedication to the format and to include the SACD format too, which sounds great to these ears. However, what Metronome has done is incorporate so much more into this unit taking it beyond mere CD/SACD player and to the realms of being, as I’ve mentioned a couple of times already, the heart of a digital playback system that is as up to the rigours of dealing with the new-fangled hi-res file formats as well as playing the CDs and SACDs you already own or will own.

I highly commend the AQWO and in many ways wish I could have justified having another CD player and DAC in the system – actually I did justify it but was told we need a new kitchen…

If you are in the market for a DAC then check the AQWO out. If you are in the market for a CD/SACD player then check the AQWO out. Really, this unit offers so much in terms of sonic enjoyment and flexibility that t should be high on anyone’s list of must audition pieces if you have the price of entry.

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality: Superb. Not a lot to add other than to say this is like stepping into a Mercedes after being in a Peugeot.

Sound Quality: Unforgiving on poor recordings but fantastically engaging and connecting on well-recorded files and CDs. Fatigue-free listening whilst being wonderfully detailed.

Value For Money: It’s not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but then neither are Mercedes.

Pros: Build quality. The flexibility of inputs and outputs. SACD onboard. Great sound.

Cons: All I can genuinely think of is its price which may be off-putting for some.

Price: 12,800.00 euros, and the tube output option is 1,070.00 euros

Stuart Smith

Review Equipment: Merrill Thor amplifiers, Music First Preamplifier, Avantgarde Duo XD speakers, Tellurium Q speaker cables and interconnects, Quadraspire rack. Leema Elements and Musical Fidelity Tri Vista CD pLayers, Xavian Perle loudspeakers, Graham Slee Proprius Amplifiers, Lab 12 preamplifier, Chord Company interconnects and speaker cables, Hifi Racks Racks.

Dan Worth takes a listen to the catchily named x-odos – xo|one CD Ripping Streamer costing £7500 and hailing from Germany. 

German-based x-odos is a relatively new manufacturer in high-end streaming. Owner and IT expert Christof Poschadel is well known in his country’s industry for application-specific programming. Christof was a natural in programming from a young age and although obtaining degrees in History and Archaeology his talents for programming were never overshadowed and he became Network Administrator at his University.

Christof, a lifelong HiFi enthusiast decided to take on the task of building his own music server which soon attracted friends and acquaintances attentions and requests for units were made.

Following his heart and passion for music Christof founded x-odos in 2014 and along with two colleagues produced the xo|one music streaming server and ripper. 

THE UNIT 

The xo|one is a seriously sturdy heavyweight piece of equipment made from thick panels of well-finished aluminium for resonance control. The front of the unit is very simple, which I like very much. Too often digital streamers have a plethora of buttons, flashing lights and unnecessary adornments, which make them look slightly on the cheap and tacky side. The xo|one has a slot for ripping CDs, one captive touch sensitive button for powering on and off and just above this and centre stage is the CNC machined-out, led-lit, user-dimmable X branding, which is pretty cool looking and adds a smart look to the sleekness of the front fascia.

To the rear is a Furutech power inlet IEC socket, two Neutrik USB 3.0 sockets which are backward compatible with all USB 2.0 DACs, matching high quality locking Neutrik Ethernet and AES/EBU sockets and a single WBT RCA digital out. Isolation is provided by the use of SSC supporting feet.

INSTALLATION 

If streaming worries you somewhat, then worry no more! Installing an xo|one is so simple you could probably have your cat do it for you!

• Plug in an Ethernet cable to your router, if you want to stream from the likes of Tidal or Qobuz this is your connection to the internet and also links the xo|one to the WIFI signal of the iOS or Android device you wish to use to control the unit.
• Choose whether you wish to connect the xo|one to your DAC via a USB, AES/EBU (XLR) or Coax (RCA) via a digital cable – all of these outputs send a signal at all times, so there is absolutely no configuring of outputs.
• Attach a power cable

• Download the x-odos app
• Open the app and a window will find the unit you have installed, connect and have it ready for use

Note: an installation and operations manual is included with the xo|one – this will explain how to configure any Network Attached Storage devices – it’s simply a case of opening a webpage and entering the unit’s IP address, selecting the stream tab and entering the IP of the NAS along with its username and password and  then selecting SMB from the drop-down menu. Follow the simple steps outlined and this task is completed in just a couple of minutes. 

xo|one CONTROL APP 

The control app for the xo|one is an absolute joy to use! I’ve used many apps in the arena of streaming, probably 90% or so of them, and the xo|one’s app is up there with the very best in terms of GUI layout, ease of use and complexity.

Covering all basics such as internal drive storage selections, Tidal, Qobuz, Radio, HirezAudio direct library download and streaming, along with the ability to simply configure and add an existing Network Attached Storage device, the xo|one already makes strides to becoming a very well thought out and intuitive platform for covering all of your digital music requirements.

The GUI itself is a very creative platform to use. Unlike some other very well-regarded control apps, xo|one’s on the iPad has absolutely everything you require for fully complex control that is neatly laid out on one screen to save the constant rigmarole of flicking backward to previous page menus, other windows, and essential options.

When selecting an album from the chosen page (whether headed as album, artist, genre etc), a colourful and high-resolution window opens an alongside curtain with all album options, leaving the ability to change one’s mind from the initial selection and still visible centre screen. Once an album or artist is selected a smaller overlaying central window shows available tracks with a begin to play button. Tapping the screen anywhere off of this forefront window makes it disappear, leaving the left hand upper fixed pane with the current playlist available for viewing, editing or clearing with a simple option button within its borders. Any further selections during playback simply adds to the length of the current playlist, which again can be edited and condensed if you wish to do so. Saved playlists can be created in this pane, whilst having every available option present to build and create playlists without any disruption to the music.

Underneath this pane in the lower left is always the current albums cover art. A tap of this opens a new full-screen window with play/pause etc buttons to the right and the larger cover art to the left. Along with the backward and forwards navigation buttons, the user has the ability to slide the cover art up or down to select the next or previous track, which is instantly responsive. A further tap on the window opens up a full-screen album art page and a swipe left or right will change tracks. Hitting the X in the corner takes you back to the multi-pane view, where the top bar on this page has track navigation buttons.

This page is what I tended to use the majority of the time as I just found every option so easily accessible and readily available, although for deep listening sessions of created playlists I would move forward into the simpler, album art plus condensed navigation window. Talking about condensed, the iPhone version of this app has all features present with a slightly more user-friendly layout to maximise screen size and user ability, never sacrificing functionality or features.

RIPPING FROM CD 

xodos has made this task very simple. Just pop a CD into the slot on the front of the unit and let the xo|one do the work for you. The unit will find all the metadata for album information and artwork, as well as dropping it into your music library when complete and kindly handing your CD back to you for storage.

THE SOUND

One of the first points I’d like to address with the sound quality of the xo|one is its tonality. Firstly, it’s completely analogue, full stop! If anybody can hear digital harshness from this unit then there’s something wrong in your system! I’ve rarely heard a digital source sound so organic, maybe some of the older proper Levinson products, like the 360S DAC I’m using connected to the xo|one here or a CEC belt driven transport possibly, but let’s not get into too many comparisons here, tonally the xo|one is immediately impressive, engaging and toe-tapping.

Listening to Rachelle Farrell’s ‘I Can Explain’ explained this all for me…firstly the intensity of her dynamic range was less forceful and I felt as if there were more prominent momentary steps into following notes which gave more realism to the human voice.  I could hear her throat and chest better between breaths and also during climbing notes, making for an effortless and silky, yet still immensely powerful tonality to her voice.  Pleasantly accompanying her vocal, which demands a lot of focus normally, was the grand piano. I was actually drawn to its tonal accuracy without giving it any real consideration as I was assessing the vocal, but due to its new found positioning in the overall image, it was hard to miss. Overall it was richer, far more accurate and decayed more interestingly.

‘Temptation’ by Diana Krall – although not as powerful a vocal, had a similar effect on my listening experience, the natural balance her vocal took on was a clear step up from my normal listening. Bass, tambourine and piano were all able to convey their individual tones with no smearing and again, just so analogue-like and natural in presentation and with more of that “sat in front of the live performance” feeling.

The xo|ones ability to soundstage is exceptional, from emerging trombones to wavering low bass notes which sweep into the room – it structures events with complete believability, with three-dimensionally as a byproduct that the xo|one has in spades. Its soundstage compliments its tonality and the two characteristics combined to forge a fantastic partnership – never forward or rushed and the way it swings dynamics is incredibly realistic.

Great recordings really thrive here and the music has a way of carving into the listening space making vocals truly “in the room” and each and every instrument claims its own spot within a presentation which is simply captivatingly musical. I adore how well the xo|one has such a black background and yet keeps everything together and flows without any detachment. It offers performances the rare ability of real spaciousness yet retains the collaborative effect the artist intended.

I’d often just forgot about all the electronics and simply sank into my seat lost into the music. Then at times the xo|one would all of a sudden have me really sitting up in my and taking real notice of certain passages.

Smaller secluded events seemed to be happening throughout my listening space at varying volumes and intensities, again I kept thinking to myself “how on earth is this voiced so tonally accurately”. Characterisation is determined simply by genre and recording, not by an overzealous engineer who believes he knows better. There is no misplaced ego here, rather the foresight to let the music speak for itself. Every piece of music sounds different and very true to the music – if a track has more perceived height when recorded then that’s what you get, if it has wider proportions then that’s what you get and if it has a deeper or lighter bass quality…you guessed it, that is simply what you get.

Now alongside the Melco N1/a2 and quite honestly any other streamer I have had here to a certain degree, the xo|one betters them in most areas in my opinion. I feel the Melco has less opportunity in allowing the music to be as playful or abundant of character and tonality, less analogue, relaxed and toe-tapping. The xo|one has an ability to just simplify everything and open a window which allows a stuffy room to breathe and this is reflected in the sheer amount of time I sat in front of my system listening to album after album.

The ease of how the xo|one conveys tone and timbre is exciting in itself – its midrange clarity is staggering at times, for example when I listened to ‘Little Zing’ by Andy Erin & Valerie Joyce and Valerie’s vocal was just sublime with the accompanying guitar sitting a shade or two darker and a foot or so back, five foot to the right-hand side of centre stage. Neither instrument nor vocal was overshadowed in any way and the full organic nature of the performance was nothing short of gorgeous. I listened to many blues and trad-jazz tracks which all had the same appeal. I found tone in abundance, speed and control of leading-edges accurate and just so damn playful and bouncy into the Levinson DAC – I actually haven’t been this invigorated by my music for some time and if I’m completely honest I really believed that the xo|one was going to be an item from a company who had simply jumped onto the streaming band wagon attempting to drive into the slipstream of the likes of Innuos or Melco, but they really have hit the ground running in my eyes…and ears, and really deserve some serious attention.

My time with the xo|one continued on from here from a reviewer’s perspective to a “sit back and relax and just put your feet up and enjoy forgetting everything else situation”. Enjoying long listening sessions and re-finding that spark again that made me want to spend any free time I had listening to music again. The review took a backseat for a while, while I simply became engrossed in my system as a whole, putting all my hard work in redesigning my speaker crossovers and system isolation to one side and realising that I have actually found a place in my heart where music makes sense again. I even spent one entire evening listening to classical music which isn’t generally one of my favoured picks, although I appreciate many performances, I tend to not give the genre much time when I have a few hours to spare. What initially began as “I’m going to investigate some classical music due to the abilities I’ve come to love about the xo|one” soon migrated into albums being played right through. It was at this time where I really found how in-depthly playful the xo|one was with the smallest of nuances dancing through my listening room and all around me. The evening was young and atmospheric noise was very much diminished from the hustle and bustle of a daytime session, but nonetheless the inner-detail and micro-dynamics again just had incredible tonal qualities that made me smile again. And huge dynamic swings never (and I do mean never) squashed them – yes, they would drown them out in hugely dynamic and busy passages but that’s the reality of a large performance. Even so, I was still very much aware of their presence.

Even listening to the likes of ‘Chasing Cars’ by Snow Patrol during some daytime frolicking (Daytime what? – Ed) I hadn’t had ever appreciated so many layers of music within the performance. Fond memories of top Lampizator DACs I loved the abilities of come to mind, they can allow fantastic shape and layering of music and their tube tones made for such enjoyable grain-free listening sessions. I went on to listen to Amy Whinehouse, Adele, Phil Collins, One Republic, Fleetwood Mac and many others who I listen to as more of a fun timeor background music session. The type of artists who I enjoy singing along to and not really paying an awful lot of attention to the reproduction or mastering of the recording. Time and time again I was caught off guard by details, rich tonality or shaping of the soundstage without any intention of close inspection whatsoever and that’s when you know that you have found something a little special in my opinion.

CONCLUSION 

I can’t inform you of what recipe of hardware components or software the team at xodos use to produce the xo|one, all I can do is speculate that they are built and configured in such a way that it reflects the intentions of an individual or individuals that understand how music should sound.

The voicing within the xo|one is simply moving! It’s not a cheap product by any means coming in at £7500 but I have heard units costing more which just do not stack up in terms of tonal accuracy, soundstage shape, overall realism or form and function.

The app is an absolute joy to use and again is so thoughtfully presented that it just ties the entire package together, complimenting aural appeal with visual appeal. The physical unit isn’t too shabby looking either! A very heavy for a streamer design, made from thick panels of aluminium, keeping everything rigid and vibration free. The single captive touch sensitive front button, cool looking led lit X branding and top-quality rear connectors from Furutech, Neutrik and WBT are sweet little cherries on top of a delicious cake.

I urge anybody with a system warranting a streamer of this ability to get some hours under their belt with one. If you have strongly considered streaming but are afraid of typical digital and pride your turntable as the one and only source, then give the xo|one a try, you may be surprised!

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality: Very nice thick aluminium, well-finished paneling and top quality sockets.

Sound Quality: Analogue, fantastic tonality, wonderful soundstage shaping, and top quality layering.

Value For Money: In comparison with everything else I’ve heard, value for money is appreciable.

Pros: Utterly musical and analogue presentation, great voicing and build quality, with the addition of one of the best streaming apps I have ever had the pleasure to use.

Cons: A little pricey but in comparative terms not so.

Price – £7500 in black or silver finishes.

Dan Worth

Review Equipment: Audiobyte Hydra Z Clock, DiDiT 212SE DAC, Mark Levinson No.360S DAC, Audio Music Reference T1 Preamp, Gamut D200 Mk3 Power amp, Ayon Seagull Ceramic Speakers, Studio Connections Black Star/Gobel High End/Mundorf Cables, Balanced Power power supply

In which John Scott confronts a philosophical pachyderm, feeds it a bun, pats it gently on its trunk and sends it on its way. Or John Scott takes delivery of the Micromega M150 Integrated amp/DAC/streamer costing £5499.

Let’s try a quick magic trick: Think of a French amplifier manufacturer.  Have you got one in your head?  Now think of a French amplifier manufacturer whose product can be placed on a shelf or hung on the wall.  Does that change anything?  Now think of the name of that manufacturer and the letter of the alphabet that it’s name begins with.  It’s D, isn’t it?  Thank you ladies and gentlemen and good night.

I hadn’t been aware of Micromega’s M series of amplifiers before I was asked to review them but as I read the marketing material, I couldn’t help but think that there were, at first glance at least, a number of obvious similarities between the M150, and it’s little brother the M100, and Devialet’s Expert series.  Both have a similar form factor and footprint – more like a large laptop than a conventional amp.  Both can be hung on the wall.  Both incorporate a DAC and streaming technology.  Both can utilise speaker-correcting software. When I took delivery of the M150, it seemed like an elephant had also slipped into the room; an elephant that sat balefully in the corner, silently willing me to make continuous comparisons between Micromega and Devialet. The M150 is distributed in the UK by SCV Distribution.

UNBOXING AND BUILD 

The Micromega M15 arrived in a sturdy cardboard box inside of which was another sturdy cardboard box.  Opening this revealed the M15 firmly snuggled within a polyurethane (I’m guessing) liner, keeping it safe from any bumps.  The liner also held a remote control, power cord and microphone, lead and mini-tripod in separate boxes.  A quick set up guide was also included with the full manual available online.

The case of the M150 is machined from a solid block of aluminium and as a result it feels satisfyingly solid.  Two grooves cut across the width of the top face, dividing the top into thirds and adding a little bit of character.  The amplifier has two LED displays: one on the top face and one on the front edge; this ensures that the display is easily  visible regardless of whether the amplifier is wall or shelf mounted. Control of the M150’s functions is via 4 small buttons – one at each corner of the top face display.

At the rear of the amplifier is a comprehensive range of inputs along with a pair of high quality speaker terminals. The top surface of the amplifier overhangs at the rear which hides the inputs from view and makes connecting inputs and speakers slightly more tricky than it otherwise would be.  Given the dimensions of the unit, space on the real panel is at a premium but the layout of the various inputs and outputs is logical and uncluttered.I placed the M150 on a soft towel on the floor in front of the shelf I wanted to place it on then tipped the unit onto its front edge so that the inputs were facing upwards.  After I made the connections I was then able to place the M150 on the shelf.

While the elephant settled itself in the corner, I got on with setting the amp up, which was as straightforward as you would expect an integrated amp to be, once I’d got my head around the rear overhang.  I expect that if you wanted to mount the M150 to the wall, this would add a level of complexity but I didn’t, so I can’t comment on that.

The M150 is available as standard in silver or black finish.  I was supplied with the black version which I liked it a lot. It looked really classy, in an understated and elegant way, sitting on my shelf.  Custom colours are available at additional cost so if you have ever wanted an amplifier in Hifi Pig Pink, the M150 could be just what you are looking for.  Additionally, through a partnership with French loudspeaker company Focal, if you own a pair of Focal speakers your amp can be matched exactly to the colour of your speakers.

The M150 is supplied by a solid remote control that echoes the shape of the amplifier.  The surface of this features 17 little buttons which control power/standby, volume, mute and Bluetooth connection.  In addition, each input has its own button.  This makes changing inputs straightforward but I might have preferred a less cluttered layout where one button cycled through the input options.  Also, not all of the amps functions, for example balance, sensitivity and room equalisation, are controllable from the remote.

A BRIEF TECHNICAL INTERLUDE 

First and foremost the M150 is, as the name implies, a 150 watt per channel amplifier (at 8 ohms).  I mentioned earlier that the M150 is not only an integrated amplifier but also contains a DAC and a streamer.  I’ve reviewed a couple of amp/DAC/streamer all-in-one boxes before and as good as they were, something about their design made me think that compromises were being made by bundling all three elements together.  The design and build of the M150 seems to put the emphasis on this product very much as an audiophile integrated amplifier.  Throughout the time I spent with it I found myself forgetting that it was actually carrying out DAC and streamer duties as well.  This is a product that truly is integrated; integrating  not only pre and power amplifier functions but everything that you need for digital playback. Your turntable hasn’t bee forgotten though, a phono input, switchable for both moving magnet and moving coil cartridges, is also included.

You would be forgiven for thinking that with a height of only 56mm, including clearance provided by spiked feet,  the M150 must be a class D design.  Class A/B amplifiers are big, thick, chunky things aren’t they?  Well, not this one.  A combination of dual power supplies – one per channel –  and a cunning heat dispersion system allows a class A/B design to function efficiently in a smaller space.  Heat is dissipated not only through the aluminium casing but also through a convection tunnel that runs across the width of the unit, drawing in air at one side and expelling with the aid of a magnetically levitating fan at the other.  Any concerns I may have had about fan noise were quickly quashed; the fan is inaudible at all but the closest distance.

Streamer duties are handled by a downloadable app.  The M150 can stream digital files from UPnP servers or via Bluetooth.  Up to 32 bit resolution is supported at sampling frequencies up to 768KHz for PCM and 11.2 MHz for DSD.  If you’ve read any of my previous streamer reviews you will know that I am particularly fussy about streamer apps – even more so since becoming a Roon user.  Micromega’s app is not the most elegant I have seen but it is far from the worst and it does the job adequately as well as mimicking the functions of the supplied remote.  I have to be honest though and say that for the majority of the review period I bypassed the M150’s streamer and used my Raspberry pi as a Roon endpoint into the M150’s USB input.

The Micromega Acoustic Room System (M.AR.S) is Micromega’s Room equalisation system which comes as standard on the M150 and is available as an extra on the M100.  Micromega claim that M.A.R.S “…irons out any incidents in the amplitude/frequency response coming from reflections, absorption’s or resonances in the listening room [and] it also corrects imperfections in the speakers”.

I glanced over at the elephant.  Maybe I was imagining it [You think? – Ed] but it was beginning to look a bit uneasy.  Perhaps it could tell that I was quickly coming to the conclusion that comparisons between the M150 and any other French amplifier were really not necessary.

SOUND QUALITY 

Time to get down to some listening.  To begin with, I connected the M150 to my Linn Keilidhs, streaming from my NAS into the M150s LAN input and using the inbuilt streamer.  Trust In Me from Bria Skonberg’s Bria album immediately impressed with robust but realistic upright bass, delicate percussion and vibraphone, and Bria’s smokey vocals and elegant trumpet.  Spraying with female vocal, I moved on to The Jungle Line from Joni Mitchell’s The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, noting some extra grunt in the Moog bass and lots of detail in the Burundi background chants.

It was time to try out the M.A.R.S room equalisation system.  This involves connecting the supplied microphone to the M150 and taking three readings of the full frequency sweeps that the M150 produces from the speakers – one reading from the centre listening position followed by one from around 20cm to the left and then 20cm to the right.  Two equalised settings are then available – Auto and Flat.  I replayed the same three tracks with the Auto setting engaged and found that the bass frequencies had been tightened up considerably.  There was still oodles of bass but it seemed faster and more musical.  On the other hand, the Flat setting took too much away from the music for my liking leaving it sounding exactly that – flat.  Perhaps in other rooms it might come into its own but not in this room.

I swapped the Keilidhs out for my Audio GE Sincerus 80 floor standers.  These are larger than the Keilidhs and front ported, and generally sound better in this room, with a more controlled bass. The same tracks were played again, with and without the room correction (the calibration measurements have to be redone whenever speakers are changed).  As before, I preferred the corrected sound in the Auto mode although with the Sincerus 80s, there was less of a difference between the uncorrected and the corrected sound.

Finally, I hooked up a pair of Sonus Faber Sonatto II stand mounts that I had in for review.  Yet again, the corrected sound was my preferred option and I suspected that the combination of the M150 and the Sonatto IIs really might be something special.

I looked the elephant squarely in the eye.  It looked back, slightly sheepishly I thought.  “Time to go?” I said.  It nodded, packed its trunk (sorry, not sorry) and saw itself out.  I wasn’t sure whether the absence of a philosophical construct would require me to re-run the room calibration but I did – just in case.  The Sonatto’s stayed in for the remainder of the review period.

While I was satisfied with the M150’s streaming capabilities, I was missing the versatility of my Roon Nucleus+ streamer so I switched it in.  I also wanted to see how the M150 shaped up purely as an amplifier so I bypassed its internal DAC and tried my Spectra portable USB DAC.  At around £100 this couldn’t hope to compete with the Asahi Kasei AK 4900 “Velvet Sound” DAC chipset used by the M150 but the underlying qualities of the of the amplifier shone through and I found myself not in any particular hurry to swap it back out.

Finally, for headphone users there is a 3.5mm output on the front panel which uses binaural technology to provide an enhanced headphone listening experience.  I don’t do a lot of headphone listening and it didn’t particularly encourage me to swap headphones for the Sonattos but if you are a headfi fan it might well float your boat.

CONCLUSION 

Over the time I spent with the Micromega M150 its qualities shone through a variety of music from jazz to heavy rock to classical to electronic.  It is not a cheap option but given that it is an all in one amplifier,  DAC and streamer, I think it represents a solid investment that you would be unlikely to want to replace in a hurry so will give years of pleasure.  Also you may find that the less powerful, and cheaper, M100 might meet your requirements.  I was, however, so impressed with the M.A.R.S EQ system that I would definitely recommend adding that to the cheaper model.

My only real regret is that the M150 is not “Roon Ready”, and therefore requires a separate endpoint to enable it to work with Roon.  I really think they have missed a trick here.  Had it been Roon Ready, I’d have been setting booby traps up the garden path to prevent the courier from taking it away.

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality: Machined from a solid block of Alumunium and reassuringly solid feeling.

Sound Quality: Excellent and flexible with the on-board M.A.R.S speaker correction software.

Value For Money: Given it’s an amp and DAC (and a very good one too) this represents a solid investment.

Pros: Stylishly designed all in one audiophile unit. Effective room equalisation software. Plenty of power.

Cons: Idiosyncratic remote control (not a big deal though). Streamer app could be better. Not Roon Ready.

Price: £5499

John Scott

Manufacturer’s Specifications 

Width : 430 mm

Depth : 350 mm

Height (with spikes) : 56 mm

Gross weight : 11 kg

Power Consumption

Standby : 1W

2 channels -1/8 Pmax under 8 Ohms : 185W

Rated output power

PRMS under 8 Ohms : 2x150W

PRMS under 4 Ohms : 2x300w