HIFICRITIC Vol 09 No 2

The MQA front has been uneventful for the past three months so we have held our further investigation while waiting for significant developments to occur such as the availability of an Explorer 2 and comparison tracks.

Nevertheless this is a fantastic issue including truly in-depth coverage of the amazing NAIM Statement pre power amplifier NAC S-1 , NAP S-1 which has already revised our expectations about what is truly possible from Hi Fi amplifiers, even though there is still more running-in to complete. There will be a follow up to settle the matter in the next issue but a massive chunk of the evaluation is here now. This is the longest review published so far by hificritic

We cover three ‘moderate’ price moving coil cartridges, if you can call a grand or so moderate. While presenting variations on a very capable theme one example is truly outstanding, impressing our critic highly.

In our Industry Greats interview series Chris Frankland tackles Ivor Tiefenbrun, founder and now chairman of LINN. Martin Colloms reviews the Aurorasound PREDA line preamp which adds electronics to a transformer controller. Adding vibrating ‘sound boards’ to a loudspeaker might be controversial, but Paul Messenger finds interesting characteristics nonetheless for the Brodmann review.

The Vertex Aletheia dac-1.5 is both one of the simplest and most costly DACs around, as Paul Messenger explains in his review of this latest high end DAC which paradoxically incorporates quite the cheapest DAC chip. And Martin Colloms tries out Naim’s latest SUPER LUMINA cables speaker and interconnect, intended for the Naim Statement pre power pairing but finding applications elsewhere too.

Not to be outdone Paul Messenger tries out Ted Jordan’s Aurora,a speaker with reflectors which takes a very radical approach to stereo imaging.

On the news front Jason Kennedy spends a couple of days at the biggest hi-fi show on the planet with his HIGH END MUNICH 2015 report, while there are yet more reviews, Paul Messenger covering a
NAIM/FOCAL combination the Naim UnitiLite with Focal ARIA 905 loudspeakers. He investigates this complete budget music playing system from the Naim/Focal alliance.

Then Paul does the Royd Troubador with the Royd brand revived and this model replacing the older Minstrel.

For this issue we introduce blog extracts form well known writers and Andrew Everard, Malcolm Steward, Jason Kennedy and Paul Rigby all summarise their recent web-blogs. Music coverage includes a special feature from guru Mark Prendergast ‘1967 – THE YEAR OF PSYCHEDELIA’ which analyses Psychedelic 1967: the year that changed the history of music.