August 2011
Hi-Fi World is packed with some really great bits of kit!
Editorial By David Price

 

  It is not every month that we give five pages to a single product review, but sometimes, when we feel something really warrants it, that’s precisely what happens...

On p12, you’ll find the brand new Audiolab 8200CDQ CD player/DAC/preamp – a £950 product that forms the heart of a digital system. Some other silver disc spinners have this functionality, too but not at this price – and it’s the performance that makes it special. A wealth of engineering knowledge has gone into it, and frankly it shows!

It is not the only especially interesting product we’ve got for you this month, either. Meridian’s Sooloos Control 15 is the Huntingdon high end specialist’s latest hard disk-based digital music server, and offers true 24/96 hi res playback and a user-interface that is second to absolutely none in the hi-fi world. See it on p46.

T.A.C.’s V-60 valve integrated amplifier is a curious confection of valves and transistors; it uses the latter to make the former work in a more modern way. It has a distinctive sound that’s down to its unusual approach; read all about it on p20. AMR’s AM-777 integrated (p50) is another tube/transistor hybrid, this time more straightforwardly using glass bottles in its preamp section and solid-state in the power amp; we think it’s a great package.

Rega Planar turntable owners can now send their decks off to Inspire Hi-Fi, and for around £320 it will come back with the mother of all facelifts; it gets a chunky new real wood plinth, acrylic platter and mat! Read all about the Quest mods package on p100.

With their lovely ribbon tweeters Mowgan Audio’s huge Etain loudspeakers (p80) aren’t your run of the mill floorstanding loudspeakers either, whilst Bricasti’s M1 DAC (p66) is that rarest of birds – a studio DAC that is if anything euphonic and romantic in its presentation. And don’t forget the unusual Cambridge Audio NP30 (p24), which is a serious grown up network music player for the price of a cheap imitation.

All in all, August’s Hi-Fi World is packed with some really great bits of kit, each of which stands out from the crowd in its own special way. Enjoy!

 

David Price, editor

 

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