Sound + Imageの May - June 2021 の目次

Pretty much 18 months ago, I spent an evening in a cliff-top house in Sydney. When I stood in the lounge room, to the east was the unending Pacific Ocean, while to the west, against the wall, was a 100-inch ‘TV’. That was the $19,999 100-inch Hisense 100RXL Laser TV, the first of its ilk, combining ultra-short-throw projection with all the conveniences of TV-like operation. This time around I spent 90 minutes in a Sydney office — there was no view in any direction — with another 100-inch ‘TV’. This one was the $6999 100-inch Hisense 100L5F Laser TV. Prices, clearly, have come down for this new breed of home entertainment. Equipment Let’s remind ourselves exactly what a ‘Laser TV’ is. Instead of a direct-view TV panel, it consists of…

Sony VPL-VW790ES 4K projector So while Ultra High Definition resolution is now the norm for TVs (exceeded by the somewhat superfluous 8K indeed), this is not the case in projection. As we’ve seen on the preceding pages, affordable projection may be described as 4K, but it invariably uses pixel-shifting of lower resolutions to deliver the 3840 × 2160 pixels emerging from an Ultra High Definition source. Such techniques inevitably have side-effects, including a reduction in brightness, even a slight time smearing of image delivery. And for sport in particular, such things are best avoided. The answer is native 4K projection. But this answer doesn’t come cheap, or small and neat. The use of larger image panels, along with light sources capable of filling far larger screens at higher brightness: these…

wireless music streamer Another streamer — another wireless multiroom system, this time HEOS, the platform now widespread throughout Denon and Marantz products, so that this little box can connect an existing audio system not only to the world of streaming music but with any other HEOS-equipped Denon and Marantz products in your home (such as the CEOL N11 reviewed in this issue on page 68). This Link HS2 updated the original Link unit to HS2 status, which added both high-res support and Bluetooth, including the ability to forward an incoming Bluetooth stream to other HEOS devices in the home. The high-res capability allows USB playback or network streaming of WAV, FLAC and Apple Lossless up to 24-bit/192kHz. DSD is also supported. That’s the new stuff, which is added to the…

The element of the Element i which first attracted us was its headphone socket. This little mini component can, like any streamer, deliver an analogue output from its rear sockets to an existing audio system, here via a choice of unbalanced RCA outputs or balanced XLR. But you can also switch its output to the headphone socket and then listen privately. With the Element i being able both to stream from Tidal and be addressed by Roon’s software, how great would it be, we thought, to use this as a streaming headphone amplifier, small enough to sit conveniently near a sofa or study desk, controlled by app, delivering a world of private tunes, wirelessly. The unit itself is small, friendly and neat at just 24cm wide and a mere 45mm…

BluOS Streaming DAC NAD has become curiously picky of late over how its kit is described: its M33 must be called a ‘BluOS Streaming DAC Amplifier’, when ‘smart amp’ would sufficiently tell the tale. The C 658 is not a mere streamer, which everyone would understand, but rather a ‘BluOS Streaming DAC’, which presupposes knowledge of both digital-to-analogue conversion and BluOS (and judging from prototypes, it seems the most useful of those words, ‘streaming’, was added only late in the process, likely when the product passed from the engineers to the marketers). Still, don’t judge it by its name, or its rather plain NAD looks and build; judge it rather on abilities and performance – because you’re highly unlikely to be disappointed. With the NAD C 658 priced at the…

It’s now more than 40 years since Québécois audio and music engineer Victor Sima created the first product of Sima Electronique in the borough of St. Hubert, across the mighty Saint Lawrence river from downtown Montreal, just a 20-minute drive from the company’s headquarters today. Those earliest products were intended for professional audio, but their performance was of such a high level that audiophiles began using them at home. Sima became Simaudio, and then the brand of ‘Moon’ (or more precisely ‘Moon by Simaudio’) was introduced to distinguish its highest reference levels of equipment. Its first streamer arrived in 2012, the Moon 180 MiND, the ‘MiND’ being an acronym for MOON intelligent Network Device, now used to describe the smart streaming system and control app used across all Moon’s smart…

It is a curiosity of the turntable market that often the more you pay, the less you get. Down at the entry level, the hands of vinyl newbies may be held by such conveniences as automatic operation, where the arm is mechanically dropped onto the spinning record and lifted again at the end. There may be a phono stage built-in, so such decks can plug straight into any amplifier without the complications of an external phono stage. In recent years the turntable zone just above entry-level has been ablaze with new bonus offerings — being able to plug into a computer to record your vinyl, or to stream from the turntable via Bluetooth. But if you decide to make the sensible investment in a higher level of vinyl replay, such…

CLASSIC TRACK: Neil Young — Like A Hurricane “I was so jacked I couldn’t stop playing”, says the godfather of grunge. In keeping with Neil Young’s spontaneous nature, Like A Hurricane was written on the fly. Young and some drinking buddies were bar-hopping in La Honda, California, in the summer of 1975, when they stopped off at a local scenic spot to do a few lines of cocaine. “I wrote the Like A Hurricane lyrics on a piece of newspaper in the back of [friend] Taylor Phelps’ 1950 DeSoto Suburban, a huge car that we all used to go to bars in,” Young explained in his memoir, ‘Waging Heavy Peace’. When he got home, the Canadian worked out the chords on a keyboard mounted in an old pump organ in…

Key W = Sound+Image Award Product of the Year HC = Sound+Image Award Highly Commended Stereo amplifiers Amplifiers are all about the power to drive your speakers, and different amplifiers use different technologies to do that. Also you can’t just compare power ratings, because these are quoted in a myriad different ways (often overly favourably). And now amps are smart, with digital inputs and often streaming, so there’s much to consider. Here are our award-winning picks. BLUESOUND POWERNODE 2i W2020 / $1549 / www.bluesound.com.au The benefits of NAD-derived power allow Bluesound to take the Powernode 2i’s streaming performance to the next level. CYRUS ONE CAST W2021 / $1999 / www.indimports.com With streaming, HDMI audio and voice control, the Cyrus One Cast is smart, while delivering power aplenty for a solidly…

This issue we talk with Tony Stantzos of Audio Solutions, the destination hi-fi store in Mascot, Sydney. SOUND+IMAGE: The challenges of the last year have been huge for everyone. How did you fare? TONY STANTZOS: For us, to be honest, look, we can’t really complain. We had a very reasonable year. We were pretty much open all the way through — we obviously followed the protocols, you know: sanitise your hands, only a few people in the shop in any given room at any time. But what changed was the balance between the three sides of the business — two-channel, home theatre and the real custom stuff. I’d say that 20% of it was in theatre and custom, and the other 80% was in mid to high-end two-channel. That’s a…

Let’s start with Samsung, which has plunged its fingers into the pies of multiple new screen technologies in recent years — and now has a potential ace up its sleeve for 2022. This year will see the launch of the first consumer model using the front-emissive Micro LED technology, along with ‘Neo QLEDs’ using astonishingly small Mini LED backlights claimed to be a mere one-fortieth the size of current LED backlights. (Look for ‘QN’ model numbers for the TVs which use Neo QLED.) Plus there’s finally news of the long-awaited QD-OLED front-emissive technology TVs getting into production late this year. The 110-inch Samsung Micro LED pictured above is certainly groundbreaking, taking the technology used in the previously available modular commercial ‘The Wall’ screen and using it in a single-panel TV.…

Ultra-short-throw projectors have been around for many years in commercial environments where the issues of image uniformity were outweighed by the need for brightness and near-wall mounting. Only in the last few years have they come into their own as consumer projectors, and only in the last two of those as ‘TV-like’ packages with smart interfaces, TV tuners and speakers built in. The original Hisense Laser TV was the first we laid hands on (other than at shows like CES and IFA), and the proof of concept was impressive enough for us to give that original Laser TV the first Sound+Image Award for this new breed. Epson 3LCD ultra short throw This year, two issues back in our Awards Special, our 2021 Award for Ultra Short Throw projection went to…

When one screen isn’t enough — go for three! This converted double garage is the perfect place to get some well-earned R&R. The end wall features a 125-inch Screen Technics MicroPerf screen, illuminated by a 4K Sony VPL-VW760 laser projector, while on each of the side walls the team installed Sony 85-inch 4K HDR TV screens which extend into position on swing arms from Ultralift. And if there’s not enough live sports to keep all the screens busy, you can get gaming instead — the TVs and the projector each have their own gaming console connected. For the sound Len Wallis Audio supplemented some of the clients’ existing equipment (Jamo speakers and Onkyo electronics) with new product, including high-quality Inakustik cabling throughout, and complete system control by an RTI programmable…

wireless streaming adaptor The first five streamers in our round-up are each part of a particular company’s streaming multiroom platform — in this case Yamaha’s MusicCast. So by plugging the box into a spare input on an existing hi-fi or wireless speaker, you gain both the ability to stream from online music services and the possibility of playing music in many rooms at once by having other equipment from the same ecosystem linked via your home Wi-Fi. Yamaha has clearly gone for minimal pricing here by putting their MusicCast module inside a simple box, so it’s nothing much to look at — not ugly, just fairly plain, and curiously with a few connection buttons positioned on the bottom, but no other external controls needed because you’ll be operating it via…

network player While the streamers in our round-up so far have all been small little boxes aiming to add these abilities with a hideaway unit of minimal aesthetic impact, here we have a proper hi-fi sized source, and we reckon a bargain at $699 for a versatile streamer together with AirPlay and Bluetooth. As with the smaller Yamaha WXAD-10 on page 44, it harnesses all the abilities of Yamaha’s MusicCast multiroom platform, which means easy paid access to Spotify Connect, Tidal and Deezer, plus network streaming at up to high-res 24-bit/192kHz. Where this NP-S303 scores over the smaller unit is not only in terms of build quality and rack presence, but also in the provision of digital outputs and in the quality of its analogue circuits, which Yamaha has stocked…

Cambridge Audio’s CX Series is classic hi-fi made modern, the second of Cambridge’s four ranges of separates — above the recent entry-level AX range, below the 851 series, and looking very much the classic yet modern hi-fi units. With amplifiers at this price it’s all about balancing the right features with the best possible amplification, and Cambridge proved itself in that regard with the CXA81 amplifier from this range, which took out a Sound+Image Amplifier award for its solid Class-AB power coupled with a good set of inputs — although it has no networking, no Wi-Fi or Ethernet, nor any USB-A slot to which you could attach a stick or drive of files. This last omission is likely a byproduct of the first, since file playback needs an app for…

network audio player You know a good DAC the second you hear it. Here we were listening to a very good DAC. We had attached a hard-drive of high-res music to the N-70AE during set-up, but our first experience of its output came from an accidental selection of a 320k MP3 of Leonard Cohen’s Going Home, and we froze in outright wonder to hear such a thrillingly rendered Leonard, the gravelly richly-edgy vocal, his interstitial lipsmacks and swallows audible, the simple arrangement and outright divine backing vocals laid out across the soundstage in a flowing carpet of loveliness. It’s this level of musical performance which explains why network music players can rise to this price level. Indeed the label of ‘network audio player’ underplays the abilities here. The N-70AE can…

We confess that as we lugged three boxes — two large heavy ones, and a medium lighter one — from the car up the many steps to the music room, we couldn’t help thinking that this seemed a lot of weight for a streaming source. The heavier boxes contained not one but two required components — Naim’s top-of-the-heap ND 555 network player itself ($26,700), and the 555 PS DR ($15,800), the required standalone power supply. Bought together they confer a small saving, totalling $41,000. The third and lighter box contained two black accessories boxes, one of which yielded a pair of finger-thick cables terminated in large multi-pin Burndy ring-locking connectors, and the other opening to reveal a remote control, documentation, three antennas, and an extremely highly engineered version of a…

Remember when we used to record stuff? Put vinyl records on, make mixtapes to cassette, play them in the car, give them nervously to prospective girlfriends with a carefully hand-written case insert, wondering if that track near the end isn’t a bit much for that stage of the relationship? Where has it all gone? These days you’ll be lucky if your hi-fi amp even has a ‘record out’ round the back. It almost makes us chuckle when we review something which still has an input labelled ‘tape’. It was compact discs which did for recording, of course, because once you could copy digitally and burn your own CDs (though heaven forbid we should suggest you so much as think of copying digital music in any way because we get rude…

“Rock’n’roll smells phony and false,” Frank Sinatra said in the late 1950s. “It is sung, played and written for the most part by cretinous goons.” Thirty years later, Frank may have felt vindicated when some of those cretinous goons began to cover his kind of music. Although there were a few early examples in the 60s (The Supremes and Aretha Franklin among them), the phenomenon of rock and pop singers recording albums of standards began in earnest, as many things do, with The Beatles. Ironically, the Beatle who might have seemed least qualified to tackle great American songwriters such as Cole Porter and Johnny Mercer was the one who started the trend. While Ringo Starr’s debut solo album ‘Sentimental Journey’ (1970) didn’t exactly open the floodgates, it drew up a…

This award-winning installation by The Digital Picture in Queensland’s Gold Coast delivered the ultimate ‘man cave’ with a 174-inch screen for watching sports and movies. The acoustically-transparent screen allows a discreet installation of three Krix Pix speakers behind the screen, along with two Cyclonix Passive subwoofers which were mounted to the ceiling at midpoints on the left and right sides of the room, and Krix Megaphonix speakers for side surround and overhead. Megaphonix Centres were mounted inconspicuously at the back of the room as rear surrounds. Trinnov processing and Emotiva/Yamaha amplification complete the 7.2.4-channel sound system (which can also play two-channel music “to immense sound pressure levels”). For more examples of thrilling custom installation havens perfect for sports fans, turn to page 34. We live in interesting times, as the…

LG Electronics has Mini LED as well, under the name of ‘QNED’ models that combine Mini-LED backlights with Quantum Dot and NanoCell technologies (shown above). Top of the range will be an 86-inch 8K model claiming nearly 30,000 Mini LEDs and 2500 independent dimming zones, also featuring the top-of-the-range Alpha 9 Gen 4 processor, which will also provide the smarts for the newest LG OLED TV models in the Z1, G1 and C1 series, and in two LG NanoCell models (without the micro LEDs). It’s perhaps ironic that LG’s QNEDs add quantum dots to the existing NanoCell structure, given rival Samsung has always led the QD charge, while LG has championed OLED. By next year Samsung should have QD OLED (under the altered name of QD Display), while with QNED…

Adding a streamer updates any hi-fi system with the ability to play from online subscription music services, internet radio and a whole lot more. But which to choose? Streamers are the newest breed of hi-fi component — like a CD player or a turntable, but instead of playing a physical disc they specialise in going online and playing music from free and subscription streaming music services like Spotify and Tidal, from internet radio and podcast providers. As such, a standalone streamer is most often used as an additional source for an existing system, adding the modern wonders of these streaming sources to a ‘dumb’ amplifier or all-in-one system. If you’re building a system from scratch, you may instead opt for a ‘smart amplifier’, which has a streamer built in, rather…

Sonos defined the concept of wireless multiroom when it first arrived in 2004, and its third product (in 2006) was the ZonePlayer 80, a streamer which connected to existing hi-fi, as opposed to the ZonePlayer 100, which had amplification onboard so you just added speakers. The ZP80 evolved into the Connect, which subsequently begat this Sonos Port, introduced at the end of 2019. The brief is the same — this is a little box of Sonos streaming and multiroom which can bring that whole app-controlled ecosystem to anything with an analogue or digital input, be that full-size hi-fi, wireless speaker, or even soundbar. With this being another unit, like the Yamaha, which will be controlled entirely by app, you don’t seem to get much in physical terms for your $599…

One of the key advantages of the Bluesound ecosystem (and the BluOS streaming and multiroom platform within) is the company’s co-habitation with stablemate NAD. Each company benefits — NAD has produced a string of stunning smart amplifiers which use the convenience of BluOS to bring in streaming and multiroom operation, while Bluesound-branded boxes have had access to NAD’s amplification expertise to help them sound fabulous. But of course this Node, from Bluesound’s ‘2i’ tweaked second-gen, doesn’t have any amplification: it’s again a streamer which plugs into an existing system to bring it into the 21st century. And yet even without that power advantage, the Node 2i proves an absolute little beaut of a product. The Node 2i’s upgrades began with trickle-down high-end circuit design and architecture from those higher-end NAD-developed…

streamer Meridian’s 200 Series is something different in the world of wireless multiroom audio. Many companies have had a go at the market defined first by Sonos, delivering their own ecosystems of wireless speakers, soundbars and streaming electronics, and most follow a similar formula. Meridian, a company which operates at the highest levels of hi-fi, has done things rather differently. For starters it has gone small. While high-end Meridian components routinely tip the scales over 20kg, the 210 Streamer reviewed here weighs just 660 grams, a ‘half-width’ component which is only 4.2cm high. It joins the rest of Meridian’s 200 Series, a set of compact yet capable multiroom-equipped units that can deliver a whole house of audio, designed to do so while being hidden away, controlled via an app on…

network music player with Katalyst Linn was very early in deciding that the source of the future was definitely not the CD. It stopped making CD players back in 2009. But with turntables not yet revived to their present level of resurgence, that left a question. The ‘source-first’ philosophy, as defined by Linn with its Sondek turntable in the 1970s, was by then accepted the world over, but what exactly was the source of the future? Linn reckoned it was music streaming — originally file-based, more recently supplemented or supplanted by online music services. And the company was, of course, absolutely right. Even the very first Linn DS network music player could play ‘Studio Master’ quality recordings up to 24-bit resolution and 192kHz sampling frequency — indeed Linn Records was…

Back in the elder days of hi-fi, there was an ongoing war of words and, indeed, a philosophical chasm between two breeds of music-making equipment. In one camp stood hi-fi separates — the true path. In the other: midi systems, the great hulking all-in-one stacks which came topped with a turntable, under which were ranked successive layers of twin cassette, graphic equaliser and amplifier, sometimes with more than their fair share of flashing lights, and partnered with huge but often lightweight speakers of fairly thin MDF. Later, as CD players replaced turntables, these midi systems shrank down into mini systems and ultimately micro systems (and even, for a while, micro separates), until the whole all-in-one genre was eventually supplanted by the one-box wireless music systems of today. Denon’s CEOL N11DAB…

True wireless in-ear buds may be bouncing up the hit parade as far as street usage goes, but they’re not perfect, and they’re not for everyone. So while here you won’t be getting the same set of features as a similarly priced set of true wireless noise-cancelling headphones, that’s not the focus of the Sennheiser IE 300. At this price point, it’s clear Sennheiser isn’t trying to directly compete with the more affordable wireless alternatives, nor with industry-level professional in-ear monitoring solutions used by performing musicians. Rather, this is an attempt to bridge the gap and offer audiophile-grade sound quality in a focused and relatively affordable package (when considering those professional IEMs) to tempt you away from true wireless. Construction here is excellent, with gold-plated connectors and para-aramid (Kevlar-like) coating…

Traditionally, an amplifier’s job was simply to take the small signals from your sources and make them big enough to drive your speakers. That’s what amplification is. And in the world of hi-fi purism, that may be still pretty much all an amplifier does – those expensive often hulking mono power amps, for example, may have just a single input at one end, and outputs to a loudspeaker at the other, aiming as best as they can for the classic definition of “a straight wire with gain”. Of course back when Quad’s Peter Walker (supposedly*) came up with that phrase, it was assumed that the wire itself didn’t affect the sound – whereas these days that’s a whole other discussion. But amplification is the heart of an amplifier, and generally…