August 2024

Stereo Sources And Electronics
Plus how important good grounding can be.
Editorial By Alan Sircom

  As one of the few issues we've ever run that is completely free of loudspeakers (in preparation for our next issue, that focuses exclusively on loudspeakers), it gives a fascinating insight into the state of the rest of the audio art.

Suddenly, the focus is placed on the sources and electronics, and it's clear there are trends in audio electronics. The trend away from digital disc players seems set to continue, judging by the difficulty we got in trying to secure a new one for review. This is at once odd (CD sales are rising for the first time this century) and understandable (good CD transport mechanisms are increasingly thin on the ground). Meanwhile, DACs without streamers are seeing something of a resurgence.

Vinyl continues to be a strong performer in high-end audio, and even of some of the momentum has gone out of new vinyl sales (LP sales are still growing but not at the blisteringly fast rate they did seven or eight years ago).

Amplifiers are in a bit of a state of flux. Higher end designs tend to fall back on traditional circuit topologies, whereas smaller, more affordable designs are building Class D models. This might be down to high-end inertia; Class D is less than 30 years old and early samples rarely sounded good. However, things are changing fast here and fine-sounding high-end Class D designs are proving popular. That trend looks set to continue. Meanwhile, there seems to be a slight lull in sales of tube/valve amplifiers. Whether that's due to power consumption issues and rising energy costs, or ongoing availability issues due to boycotts of Russian goods – or even a combination of both elements – remains unclear.

At the periphery, 'grounding' is this year's 'radio frequency interference'. A non-cynical reading of that is that the performance benefits we saw in taking electromagnetic and radio frequency interference into account all opened the door wide enough to see just how important good grounding can be, but a number of brands are branching into that increasingly important field of system architecture tuning, often with excellent results.

Keen-eyed readers might notice that last month's Next Issue page featured the Linn Klimax 800 Mono as a main feature for this issue. Sadly, illness got in the way of expediting that feature in this issue but we hope to review the Klimax 800 Mono in Issue 236. Our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

Congratulations: Jon Woolrich from Jersey is the lucky winner of a superb Computer Audio Design USB Control high-frequency signal-ground noise controller and filter, worth £675. Well done!

Alan Sircom, Editor hi-fi+

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