Volume 7 No. 3

Reviewed In This Issue

2 The Way We Interact With Music
Editorial By Paul Messenger

4 STAN'S SAFARI No23
Stan Curtis examines the theoretical and practical issues surrounding the idea of a digital loudspeaker

6 THREE DSD DACs
Computer-sourced DSD is the new hi-res download. Andrew Harrison tries three relatively inexpensive DSD-capable DACs, the TEAC UD-501, the Benchmark DAC2 HGC and the Mytek STEREO192-DSD

10 STREAMING KRELL
Krell's first streamer/DAC, the Connect, is scrutinised by Martin Colloms

12 FLOATING THE SPEAKERS
Speakers and stands need spikes, right? Max Townshend disagrees, preferring to control them with springs. Paul Messenger investigates the Seismic Corners

14 CLASSIC BURMESTER
Stan Curtis tries out Burmester's latest power amp – the ten-year-old 036

16 NAP300 REVISITED
Martin Colloms discovers the benefits of running in a Naim NAP300 for an extended period, and is driven to review it again

22 AURORASOUND VIDA
A radical Japanese high quality phono stage examined by Chris Bryant

24 HIGH CLASS INTEGRATION
Roksan's Caspian set a quality integrated amp agenda more than a decade ago. This latest M2 variant is well worth a close look

26 AVALON COMPÁS
Avalon's new Compás floorstander puts the emphasis firmly on dynamic performance

31 PANDA FEET!
Martin Colloms tries out a unique accessory component for the serious enthusiast

32 FOUR DACS (AND MORE!)
Chris Bryant gets to grips with four very different D-to-A conversion approaches: the Audiolab M-DAC, Musical Fidelity's V90-DAC and M1CLiC, and the Resolution Audio Cantata Music Centre

41 RING A DING
Paul Messenger tries out the Ring Audio Master Horn-Jazz, a unique part-active speaker system from Croatia

44 LONG TALL SPENDOR
Martin Colloms uncovers hidden depths in Spendor's unassuming looking D7 floorstander

47 NACA5 REVISITED
Given time, Naim's speaker cable proves capable of some surprising results

48 STILLPOINTS
Martin Colloms tries out these costly – some say controversial – range of US isolators

49 THE AMBIENT ODYSSEY
The first part of Mark Prendergast's history of Ambient music runs from Mahler to Eno

52 FAVOURITE THINGS
Jason Kennedy struggles to sort out his favourite ten discs

54 JAZZ PICKS
Greg Drygala's six interesting Jazz releases

56 THE BEST OF CLASSICAL
Colin Anderson discovers a new handful of classical releases

58 ROCK, POP & OTHER NICE MUSIC
Nigel Finn of the Chord Company with six new releases

60 SUBJECTIVE SOUNDS
Paul Messenger gets stuck into speaker cables

 

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