Table of contents for December 2018 - January 2019 in Sound + Image

Hisense has made good on a promise from CES in January that it would have OLED TVs here by the end of the year. The new Hisense OLED is now available in 55-inch and 65-inch models at $3499 and $4999 respectively. They deliver Wide Colour Gamut, High Dynamic Range (HDR10 but not Dolby Vision) and a 200Hz Smooth Motion Rate from a slim metal-framed UHD panel. But the company is keen to differentiate OLED from its ULED models, which may remain a better pick for use in open-plan well-lit rooms. More Hisense OLED info at oled.hisense.com.au…

At Sound+Image we always recommend buying from a proper hi-fi shop which can recommend the right gear for you. This issue we talk with Bill Mclean, from Mcleans Smarter Home Entertainment in East Gosford, where Bill and Margaret Mclean have been servicing the audio & AV needs of the Central Coast and beyond since opening what was one of Australia’s first audio-visual home entertainment stores in 1982. SOUND+IMAGE: What’s exciting you in the industry at the moment in terms of what’s happening, what’s changing? BILL MCLEAN: Back to the 70s! — with young people coming and buying turntables; that’s the exciting thing that’s happening. And they’re buying records secondhand and new, doing what we used to do — reading the covers and learning about the musicians and the mastering…

Panasonic takes an LG.Display OLED panel and makes it greater still by applying its legacy of image processing expertise, plus all its latest TV technologies, led by the 4K Pro HDR suite. This includes its HCX (Hollywood Cinema Experience) processor, able to optimise brightness, colour and contrast on the fly using a completely new system of dynamic Look-Up Tables. Also making its mark is the Hexa Chrome Drive Pro, which claims more accurate colour reproduction by breaking colours into six components rather than just RGB, before displaying them using, er, RGB, plus white, since LG.D OLED has that extra white pixel. TV tech is laced with such claims, of course, but Panasonic’s top TVs truly deliver on their promises, and this $5299 65-inch FZ950 sets the benchmark for image quality.…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “No ‘bare bones’ player despite its low price, Sony nails the basics and then adds extensive networking extras.” As a new optical disc format, one might have expected early UHD Blu-ray players to be pricey. But to support its success, a strong set of relatively inexpensive models have emerged, notably from Panasonic and Sony. The X700 is no ‘bare bones’ player either, having extensive network and online abilities in addition to playing CD, SACD, DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray, with both HDR10 and Dolby Vision supported. It has a second HDMI output for audio only, plus optical digital audio out, plus network streaming functionality that includes high-res audio via DLNA, Spotify Connect, YouTube, Netflix, Foxtel Play, iView and SBS On Demand... and the choice of Etherent or…

This is largely an iterative advance on the HW-K950 soundbar system which Samsung introduced last year, and which won our top soundbar category in our 2018 Awards. It is, in fact, rather more than a soundbar, since the system includes wireless rear speakers (wireless in signal terms; they each require a mains socket) in addition to the front bar and subwoofer. So that’s true physical surround being delivered, not the more common ‘virtualisation’ used in soundbar solutions, which rarely works effectively. And further, each rear speaker plus the front bar have upfiring drivers to deliver the height component of soundtracks in Dolby Atmos or DTS:X, both of which are supported by the N950. The result is genuine 7.1.2-channel home cinema delivery from the grand total of 17 drivers, and genuine…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “Space-saving size is just the start of this five-channel Marantz receiver with full-UHD compatibility plus HEOS streaming and multiroom abilities. If you’re not going Atmos, it’s a bargain.” The AV receiver of today is a long way from the AV receiver of old, which provided just amplifier channels and a radio tuner, with inputs for other sources (with up to five cables per source!). HDMI has simplified the input process, while the use of more efficient Class-D amplification has made it possible to reduce heatsinking and therefore size. Yet most receivers are still double the height of a hi-fi stereo amplifier. Marantz is among the few to take advantage of this to deliver an AV receiver which is described as ‘slimline’, although since it’s the height that’s…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “A solid and upgradeable seven-channel amp with an onboard BluOS module.” This NAD was reviewed only last issue in Sound+Image, and we praised it then for its combination of purity and power, along with extras that include high-quality DIRAC sound optimisation, plus the BluOS multiroom platform. BluOS, the platform behind and so compatible with all Bluesound products, comes as a module included in the $2399 price. And indeed these modules are one of the things we love about the T 758 v3 and other NAD products — they can allow hardware-level upgrades at a later date, keeping your product current without having to buy a new one. We’d note that the digital AV module used here is fairly short on HDMI inputs (just three), and that some…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “A turntable that performs far above its price, whether playing through its own built-in phono stage or an external one. It makes your vinyl sing.” Our sibling magazine Australian Hi-Fi recently splashed this turntable on its cover with the headline “Best Value Turntable Ever!” — with not so much as a qualifying question mark, so impressed were they with its performance and price. Indeed audiotechnica has been nailing a rising range of turntables — the AT-LP5 won an award two years ago at $799, and we’re fans of the $469 entry-level AT-LP3 as well. Meanwhile this AT-LP7 sells at $1399. It’s a two-speed (33⅓ and 45rpm) belt-driven deck that comes fitted with a J-shaped tonearm that has a removable AT-HS10 headshell. Naturally the headshell itself is in…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “The Solo proved a fine and reliable base-level moving-magnet phono stage, delivering clean and clear amplification.” If your amp doesn’t have a phono input, or if you want to upgrade it (few things affect the delicate output of a turntable like your phono stage), the UK’s Cambridge Audio released this excellent entry-level phono preamp this year, the $299 Solo. It’s almost black-box simplicity in terms of use — it’s for moving magnet cartridges only (a ‘Duo’ is available if you also need to handle moving coil cartridges), and it has a non-defeatable rumble filter which we found assisted its clean and clear amplification, especially for turntables with any bearing noise. Despite fears of bass loss or phase distortion from such a rumble filter, the Solo delivered no…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “Yamaha has created something entirely new, hiding the MusicCast streaming & multiroom platform inside a turntable. Radical!” It is hard not to love a turntable that does Tidal... and Spotify and internet radio and high-res network streaming... a turntable that has AirPlay and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and Ethernet. You can plug it into an amplifier, but you can equally send its output wirelessly to speakers all around the home, and have everything under app control. Gee whizz. For such is Yamaha’s new $899 Vinyl 500, into which the company has installed its MusicCast streaming and multiroom platform – so it’s a turntable which has a fully-equipped streaming source hidden within. If you do plug it into an amp, there are two separate outputs which can be switched…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “A difficult dual brief delivered to Wavetrain’s usual spectacular standards.” Wavetrain Cinemas is no stranger to our Awards, or indeed to others — it announces itself as Australia’s most awarded cinema design company. And we were particularly impressed this year by a challenging project delivered with great success. We had the full story in Sound+Image only last issue, describing how it combines two projection systems on the one screen — firstly a high-level 4K home cinema projector for the delivery of movies, but also a second system using a commercial projector fitted with a short-throw lens in order to achieve an image across the entire width and height of the room, to create an ‘art wall’, a full seven-metre-wide feature wall to show projected art. The challenges…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “If you want neatness and style in a unit that has streaming and networking along with external inputs and your amplification, Denon’s DRA-100 is a must-audition.” First question here is how to describe this unit which includes so many functions? Is it a stereo amplifier (the group into which we’ve lumped it) or is it a system? Denon, of course, has a long and illustrious history in producing very conveniently-sized micro systems, though this is something rather larger, between those offerings and full-sized component hi-fi. And in many regards it is the quintessential modern amplifier — handling conventional analogue inputs, plus digital inputs handled by an internal DAC, and then transformed by Wi-Fi and Ethernet, Bluetooth and Spotify into a streaming networking music player as well as…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “Arcam brings its successful implementation of Class-G amplification to its classic style of integrated amp with impressive results — you can enjoy the quality of Class-A for most listening, but with a big bucket of additional power in reserve when using the amp in anger.” The latest HDA range from the UK’s Arcam is the first since the company was acquired by Harman (which is itself owned by Samsung). Yet the new range — two integrated amplifiers and a CD player — confirm that Arcam isn’t about to change its ethos under new ownership; they conform to classic Arcam values, though of course updated for the demands of 21st-century users. Our winner is the higher of the two amplifiers, which is distinguished not so much by additional…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “The biggest McIntosh integrated amplifier ever, the MA9000 is an investment in sheer pleasure.” It looks pretty darned serious. And it is serious; this is the largest integrated amplifier McIntosh has ever built. But it’s also some of the the best fun you can have sitting on a couch — it’s no wonder that McIntosh has such a highly developed brand loyalty, because what the brand offers is unique. There’s the look, there’s that wonderful teal glow from the meters and emerald back-illumination to the logo. But there’s also a remarkable level of versatility and connectivity that is often missing from such high levels of amplification. For example, we seriously doubt you’re ever going to use all the inputs that McIntosh has fitted to the MA9000. There…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “A stereo preamp and stereo power amp that not only deliver the very heights of hi-fi performance, but look awesomely desirable into the bargain.” We could fill this small space left available by the product’s enormous brand plus model name in talking merely about the needle displays, or the best-looking volume control we’ve ever seen (black surround and copper-coloured inlay, and actually a rotary encoder that drives a stepped precision resistor ladder via high-linearity relays). The Progression Preamplifier has a DAC option, which is a first for Dan D’Agostino, while its main circuitry is all discrete, fully-complementary and balanced from input to output, and negative feedback is not used, yet the circuit is so clean that Dan D’Agostino says its bandwidth extends beyond 100kHz, and that THD…

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Not voice-controlled but certainly smart in the way it does things, the $699 Music 1 is the smallest of Dynaudio’s Music range, and proves a fine small wireless speaker which delivers big bass and level enough even to take outside to the patio to party (for which it can operate on battery power). Being only 22cm high, you can’t expect the full hi-fi qualities of agility and tunefulness, and it’s a surprise to find Spotify Connect omitted, while DLNA and high-res are available only by third-party apps. But with Tidal the Music app is smart and neat, and the speaker highly musical. More info: www.busisoftav.com.au…

He is, of course, far too young, really, for a Lifetime Achievement award (although he had a stint developing software for bionic engineering, so that some suspect he may now be augmented). But Mark Döhmann has an impressive CV as a turntable designer that stretches back to 1982. Of course there’s no forgetting the Continuum Caliburn, which offered a performance benchmark for vinyl arguably not seen since the days of the big Rockport turntables and the Micro Seiki 8000II. Then in 2014, he was enlisted to spearhead a new statement turntable project, under the stewardship of the Audio Union company, accompanied by other key leaders including tone-arm designer Frank Schröder; Allen Perkins, designer of the multi award-winning Spiral Groove SG1 turntable bearing; and Dr. David Platus, founder of Minus K…

Aa surprise hit at the cinema when it was released late last year, managing a US$700m international box office from a budget of US$35m, It was also something quite rare — an excellent adaptation to screen of a Stephen King horror novel. Most of the finest King-based movies have been from his relatively small number of non-horror stories. The Shawshank Redemption still sits at #1 on the IMDB chart, ahead of the two Godfathers. Apart from The Shining and the first Carrie, though, King horror has worked best on the page. Part of the problem has been ratings watchfulness. ‘It’ appeared on the small screen in 1990 as a three-hour miniseries. There are themes in this movie that certainly couldn’t be done on TV then, and still can’t be with…

Google’s Home Hub (above left) will be bringing the idea of a screen-equipped smart speaker right to the forefront of Australian consumers’ minds heading into Christmas. Promoted as a ‘Connected Home Display’, it delivers useful (hopefully) visual information via a seven-inch touchscreen. But it is far from alone. JBL/Harman previewed its JBL Link View (below) at IFA in Berlin back in September, and as our Award in this issue indicates, we reckon it’s got the edge in at least one key area. Amazon has just made the Echo Show officially available here in Australia (pictured above right), joining the Echo Spot, with its small circular screen. And outlier Lenovo in fact beat them all to market here with its large 10-inch Smart Display; an 8-inch version is also available. GOING…

Australia ranks fourth for cumulative DAB+ digital radio sales, with an impressive 4,444,000 units entering the market since 2008, bolstered by the 60% of new cars sold here which have DAB+ receivers, and the 4800km of roads on which they can receive signals. But the figures from World DAB show that our coverage is not growing much — from 63% of the population in 2013, it has risen only to 65%, since it is limited to five metropolitan areas. Norway remains the only country to have turned off FM entirely, with the UK and Switzerland both reviewing the possibility.…

In this category we’re looking for quality and abilities at the right price, and that’s exactly what was delivered by our winner, from TCL, currently the world’s third biggest TV maker, and a company that had 8K models on show at IFA in Berlin this year, and supposedly on the way (yes, even to Australia) for the middle of next year. But our ‘Best Buy’ LCD TV of the year delivers QLED quality and Android smarts at the right price — currently listed at $2199 but (as with most TV models) often available significantly below that. Its 55-inch panel offers Ultra-HD resolution and supports incoming HDR signals; TCL brands the TV as HDR800, which we take to mean a maximum brightness of 800 nits, but it uses QLED technology, and…

Already recognised by our colleagues at EISA, through whom we enjoyed early access to this player, Panasonic’s high-specification universal disc player has come to market at the perfect time to benefit from Oppo’s ending production of what have for many years been the ‘go-to’ high-end disc spinners. In comes Panasonic $1649 UB9000, similarly high-spec for video and for audio as well, with balanced output connections, multiple high-end DAC channels operating at 32-bit/768kHz (playing WAV files up to 32/384kHz), isolated power supplies for analogue and digital sections, and a two-layer chassis using thick steel plate and aluminium for high rigidity... more like a high-end hi-fi audio player than your average Blu-ray player. For video it plays UHD Blu-rays with HDR10 and Dolby Vision for High Dynamic Range, in addition to standard…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “Ultra-HD projection using TI’s clever XPR tech, solving the frame-rate issues, all at an amazing price.” After we’d reviewed a series of projectors based on Texas Instruments’ clever XPR technology, which creates Ultra-HD resolution from multiple hits of a lesser-resolution panel, BenQ’s TK800 is the first we’ve seen to nail not only 4K resolution but also the frame rate — some others seem inexplicably unable to deliver 24 frames per second or a direct multiple, resulting in judder. The TK800 avoids that (excepting only 50Hz interlaced material, which is converted to 60fps — but give it 50Hz progressive output and it’s fine), and given it’s also currently one of the least expensive 4K XPR projectors at $2199, we’re delighted to give it this award. As with many…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “As an AV receiver plus multiroomcapable audio hub, the AVR-X2500H is quite the achiever, with eight HDMI inputs, seven channels of Atmoscapable power, and the HEOS platform as a huge bonus.” It has been suggested that the annual upgrades for AV receivers are a bummer, because a year out from purchase, something better is sure to come along. While undeniable, the improvements are invariably useful, and thus worthwhile, since the value equation rises ever upwards, while prices tend to remain constant. So as with the Marantz on the previous page, the inclusion of the HEOS platform in this Denon receiver delivers all manner of streaming and multiroom abilities, including high-resolution playback, while this year’s model also gains a turntable phono input over its predecessor, recognising the apparently…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “Seven channels plus the versatility of Scene switching and MusicCast make this a contender.” Compared with the category winner opposite, the RX-A1080 has seven rather than nine channels, each rated at 110W rather than 150W, and a lower level of ESS Sabre DAC for the audio conversion (but hey, still ESS Sabre). There are a few more limitations on its video processing (such as resolution changes when invoking menus over scaled video). But with its lower price of $2099, it makes a strong case for those who don’t need quite the power or flexibility offered by the top-level integrated Aventage. Nine sets of binding posts allow useful flexibility in setting up different ‘Scenes’ to switch between, there’s still Alexa compatbility and Yamaha’s MusicCast multiroom streaming platform to…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “A processor offering the ultimate in home cinema flexibility, with a multichannel power amp offering the quality of the very best in stereo hi-fi.” As comprehensive as the winners of our top AV receiver awards are, there is a level above to which the finest home cinemas can aspire. As with pre-power amplifiers in stereo hi-fi, the top level of cinema sound is delivered by separated processors and power amplifiers, and this year we spent time with a combination which is now being widely praised as the ultimate home cinema processing solution. Indeed the French company Trinnov also makes units for the professional market, where they are used in real cinemas as well as such places as Fox Studios, the BBC, NHK and, naturellement, France Télévision. Such…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “The Planar 6/Exact combo is tight, accurate, musical and friendly to use, while the offboard electronic speed control carries accuracy to the next level. A wonderful turntable.” The UK’s Rega will need no introduction to vinyl fans — this turntable brand survived through the supposed death of vinyl by expanding its electronics offerings, but now finds itself in an enviable position to service those rediscovering the black arts with a series of new and upgraded turntables. Last year its entry-level Planar 1 took out one of our awards; this year we were transported by the delivery from the $1999 Planar 6. You might think this looks a fairly bare-bones kind of turntable for the price (which doesn’t include cartridge: the two standard offerings are the pictured and…

JUDGES’ “ COMMENT “The JC 3 Jnr shows the value of a fine phono stage — superb stereo imaging and impeccable (often breathtaking) musical delivery.” It’s 10 times the price of the phono stage above, but as noted, the phono stage is a critical element in vinyl replay, not only amplifying the tiny signals a thousand-fold, but also in charge of the crucial RIAA EQ applied to vinyl recording and reproduction. This is the third iteration of the JC 3 from Parasound’s owner Richard Schram and his designer John Curl, a full-width and full-depth component with all the options you should need for mm or mc cartridges — indeed the $2995 JC 3 Jnr allows a simple selection (via toggle switch) between ‘fixed’ input impedance (47kΩ) and ‘variable’ input…

It wins our CD Player of the Year, but in fact it’s rather more than that. Indeed the CD mechanism gets a pretty brief description these days in Marantz literature next to all the other digital goodies, though it is of course a high-quality tray-loading transport mech with all the accuracy you’d expect from Marantz’s 30+ years of experience in control and stabilisation. It plays CDs and recordable CDs (and MP3, WMA and AAC files burned to CD, if you must), though we note no SACD compatibility here. But it can also be used as a DAC, with two optical inputs, one coaxial input, a USB slot on the front for sticks or drives, and the essential USB-B socket on the back for playing direct from your computer. There is…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “A thrilling system in a dedicated architectural space, for a long-term client who describes the result as ‘transformational’.” A slight change to our installation awards, this year — they’ve been dominated by home cinemas in the past, and we continue to recognise those, as featured in Sound+Image and our Yearbook, but we were keen also to recognise hi-fi stereo installations. So we have two sections this year, in which we are giving Sound+Image Gold Awards for the highest levels of custom installation. And our first Gold Award goes to Audio Solutions in Sydney’s Mascot, for this stereo installation in a purpose-built space. The home-owner here is a longterm customer. “He has been a client since the beginnings of Audio Solutions, so that’s more than 15 years,” says…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “A theatre of dreams for a home cinema fan who achieved his plans with help from the industry’s best.” This is the second time WestCoast Hi-Fi Midland has collected one of our Installation Awards — and both times it has been for a cinema incorporating the remarkable Krix Series MX ‘Real Cinema at Home’ concept — a unique modular behind-screen speaker system which has been nicknamed the ‘wall of sound’, using Scott Krix’s infinite baffle wall with modular speaker units and with thick, acoustic absorption material built into the construction. We should also give credit to the owner, who was so keen to get his home cinema right that he knocked down his previous house and redesigned a new one, working everything outward from the new cinema…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “Remarkable at the price, given it comes loaded with abilities including the MusicCast streaming & multi-room platform, and still delivers a clean musical output.” When we reviewed this smart amplifier back in our June-July issue, we spent much of our time trying to work out what was wrong with it. It’s loaded with networking abilities including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, AirPlay, Spotify and all the benefits of Yamaha’s MusicCast multiroom system; it even looks pretty good, presented with the design cues of Yamaha’s finest stereo components. Yet the price is just $699. Something has to give, right? Of course there is more available in the world of amplification in terms of sheer drive and headroom, and those seeking the finest expression of music may wish to expend further funds…

JUDGES’ “ COMMENT “It’s not for making Class-D sound this good that we give the award, but for such a superb amplifier regardless of type. The ACI 600 is a near-faultless high-end design.” It’s hard to imagine greater contrast between the McIntosh on the previous page and the ACI 600 from another American amplifier brand, Bel Canto. There isn’t a single knob or button to be seen on the expansive front panel — and it’s certainly expansive since the ACI 600 is 483mm wide, though only 97mm high. The decision is surely aesthetic, since there can be little other excuse (we’re rejecting cost, given the RRP of $36,900) for putting the 6.35mm headphone socket on the back. Indeed aesthetics factor into the whole concept of this integrated offering from the…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “This is multiroom done smaller, neater, and in several significant ways, better.” It might be considered brave to come to market with a new multiroom platform when so many rivals are now in the market. But then Meridian is no newcomer. It had Sooloos as an app-like control system before there were really such things as apps. The wonderful Roon software platform (see p86) began as a development right out of Sooloos. So the company’s new 200 Series is more a case of delivering smaller and installation-friendly ‘zone’-based devices which can easily spread Meridian’s existing expertise into multiroom zone-based audio. And it has the significant advantage of having high-quality and high-resolution embedded into its DNA, as it were. The $2679 ‘251’ is a zone controller with amplifiers;…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “Not only the simplicity of an active speaker solution, but expandable inputs and outputs, with Bluetooth convenience when you need it, and best of all they sound great when you crank them up.” The Xeo 20s not only look stylish and sound fabulous (especially when you turn them up), they offer the simplicity of an active speaker solution, with Bluetooth convenience when you need it, while providing best quality from the flexible and high-quality inputs, both on the speakers themselves or by adding the Dynaudio Connect box, from which they can stream connected sources at high-res quality. Dynaudio has made sensible changes with its latest iteration of the Xeo concept — the Xeo 20s are prettier, more curvilyedged and without the IR receiver that sat atop the…

Our Multiroom System Award has previously gone to platforms which are primarily hardware-based, or at least purchased as part of a device — think Yamaha’s MusicCast, or Bluesound, or HEOS, or Sonos. Last year we gave it to Chromecast, which had snuck up on everyone by stealth and created a multiroom audio system in many homes without people even realising it was there. That won’t happen with Roon, because it’s software, for which you have to subscribe at $119 per year, or a lifetime purchase of $499. And in this day and age, many people don’t see the value inherent in software. But Roon is remarkable in three key ways. Firstly it combines all your own music, wherever you might store it, in iTunes or Windows or on a NAS…

Our Judges’ Choice Award is not necessarily presented every year — it is reserved for something which doesn’t quite fit into a conventional category, but which the judges want to recognise as something special. And from first announcement of the JBL L100 Classic, through to their recent time in our test rooms, these speakers have been a ‘wow’ — not for everyone, but sure to excite a certain subsection of fans of a certain age, those perhaps who always lusted after the original and iconic L100, which was released in 1970 and became the company’s best-selling speaker ever. “Not only JBL’s all-time best-sellers, but, from all indications, they were the best-selling loudspeaker system of the decade,” Harman International’s Jim Garrett told us back in January at CES in Las Vegas,…

KEF has popped out a colourful family of LSX wireless stereo speakers, which roughly halve both the size and price of the company’s successful LS50W model. It’s even less in volumetric terms, indeed — the LSX is 24cm high rather than the LS50W’s 30cm, and its width is more than halved, making it slightly slimmer from the front, and reducing its final volume to around a third that of the LS50W. But it is “not simply a baby LS50W”, insists Ben Hagens, KEF Product Specialist (pictured below), who spoke at the launch of the LSX in the trendy Smart Artz Gallery in South Melbourne. This is about KEF changing what hi-fi can be — a product for the 95%, not the 5%, he said, noting wisely that “You shouldn’t have…

How can a Loewe be one of our ‘best buy’ TVs? Aren’t they German premium tellies? And this an OLED TV as well — the cream of TV technology, and therefore pricier (given only LG.Display can yet supply the panels, and recently raised its prices). So yes, the ‘best buy’ here is relative, with the bild 3.55 OLED having an RRP of $4499 for the 55-inch. But we think it’s justified, as it recognises the remarkable achievement of bringing a premium German brand all the way to Australia at a price which competes with and in some cases beats LG’s own mass-market models. And the tech is strong, with, for example, full support for High Dynamic Range not only using the base-level HDR10, but also the dynamic metadata of Dolby…

By ‘TV Recorder’, we mean personal video recorder (some say digital video recorder), as used for recording TV shows to watch later. While there are some pretty smart ‘go-to’ solutions in the PVR market at the moment, Panasonic’s third award-winner this year really does deliver something different, effectively combining five functions into the one box — this is not only a digital TV receiver and a twin-tuner personal video recorder, it also includes a 4K Blu-ray drive for playing UHD Blu-rays, supporting all the standard UHD Blu-ray features, although not Dolby Vision. This disc drive can also record to recordable Blu-rays at full-HD, or to DVDs at a variety of qualities — a useful bonus for archiving things you really want to keep when you’re running out of hard-drive space…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “True 4K resolution, laser light source, brilliant processing. Sony has high-end home cinema nailed.” While Ultra-HD projection is now available at lower prices thanks to various solutions, the use of genuine UHD or 4K panels is still relatively costly, though the main brand to do so, Sony, has been introducing true 4K models at ever more affordable prices. This VW760ES is up at $22,999, yet has proven the installation projector of choice for many home cinema installers in larger spaces, combining as it does the benefits of 2000 lumens brightness from an advanced laser-diode light source together with the same 4K SXRD panel technology found in Sony’s professional cinema projectors. Laser sources deliver far longer life than a bulb, while Sony’s MotionFlow and other image processing remain…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “Solid performance, fine facilities and a satisfying user experience — Yamaha’s top integrated receiver keeps its crown.” As noted by Yamaha Music Australia’s Simon Goldsworthy when collecting this Award, this is the ninth year running that Yamaha’s RX-A30X0 receiver (where X gets one bigger each year) has won our award in this price category. Indeed as you can see opposite, the lower-level RX-A1080 (at $2099) also gets a Highly Commended award within this price bracket. What gives the Aventages their advantages? Overall it’s the way this range, and this the highest integrated receiver model within the range, continues a tradition of solid performance, fine facilities and a satisfying user experience. For $2999 the RX-A3080 gives you the versatility of nine high-quality amplifier channels, so that’s all you…

JUDGES’ “ COMMENT “A new breed of receiver with 13 high-quality channels of power, but also superb connectivity and HEOS streaming & multiroom. A beast!” So here we see a genuine evolution in AV receivers, brought about by the rise of immersive soundtracks using height channels, notably Dolby Atmos, but also DTS:X and Auro-3D. These soundtracks are also delivered in a new way – not using a fixed channel count but having beds and objects which a receiver can render out to whatever system you have installed. Since this might be a 7.1- or even 9.1-channel system with either two or four height channels, that’ll require 11 or 13 channels of amplification, more than any AV receiver could deliver. Until now! This is a new awards category for a…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “For getting back to the black stuff, to hear the way vinyl can deliver ‘mood’ better than digital, we salute this exceptional-value performer.” The Music Hall mmf 1.5 is a three-speed (33⅓, 45 and 78rpm), belt-driven turntable — with dustcover — that comes complete with a tonearm into which has been pre-installed a ‘Melody’ moving-magnet phono cartridge. And it also has a built-in phono preamplifier, so the mmf1.5 can be connected directly to the line input of any amplifier… quite handy given that in recent years not a few amplifier manufacturers have done away with phono inputs on their products (though most are now rushing to put them back again!). If you don’t think there’s anything at all remarkable about the previous paragraph, it’s because you haven’t…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “The Innovation is a magnificent turntable from Germany’s clearaudio — showing how fine engineering can culminate in thrillingly musical vinyl delivery.” In this category of ‘Turntables over $3000’, the sky is, clearly, the limit, and the clearaudio Innovation as we reviewed it in our high-end publication Audio Esoterica (below) was a combination including tonearm, Concerto V2 cartridge and Absolute phono stage which totalled $52,480, of which the turntable itself and the phono stage account for $19,995 each (the deck is $15,995 in its black/wood version). The Innovation is the second-tier model in a range of four similarly-designed turntables, the others being the Master Innovation, Innovation Compact and Innovation Basic, with this range sitting just below Clearaudio’s top-line model, the Statement. The platter on the Innovation is enormously…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “The X45 is a rare do-it-all source, and importantly aims to do it all at an audiophile level of reproduction. Whether streaming, ripping CDs, playing high-res from its internal drive, or recording and editing vinyl, the X45 is a delight to have in control of your music.” What do we even mean by ‘Music Player of the Year’? Well with so many paths to playback of music these days, we can give awards to CD players, to streamers, to a turntable — but how should we recognise a box that attempts to do pretty much everything in one unit? That’s certainly where Cocktail Audio sits with its do-it-all solutions, some of which even include the amplification as well. The X45 is more the do-it-all source, and importantly…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “A pro digital company turns to the audiophile market and delivers a doozie of a DAC in the Callia. Its conversion of digital sources is thrilling to hear. There was a little category confusion around here this year — so many products doing more than one thing, and later on you’ll encounter another ‘DAC’ in our preamplifier category, because amongst other things it has inputs and a volume knob, so it’s clearly more than just a DAC. Nor should one describe the $2695 Prism Sound Callia as “just a DAC” — the UK digital specialist knows a thing or two about digital conversion, being an old hand in the professional audio sphere. Prism Sound’s first professional DACs and ADCs rapidly became popular in recording studios around the…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “A world-first solution in doubling up on Naim’s Statement power amps in a staggering hi-fi system that aims for the ultimate in performance.” This is a system which the owner has grown over many years, with the last eight years or so working with the team at Sydney’s Len Wallis Audio. The speakers are Soundlab Ultimate electrostatics, while the Esoteric brand dominates the Finite Elemente Master Reference Pagoda equipment racks (right), with transport, twin mono DACs, power supply and clock. An Aurender server/streamer is bottom centre, with Shunyata Hydra power distributors on the right. Until last year the amplification had been Krell, but after long discussions and much listening to Naim Audio’s Statement pre-power amplification, the owner decided to make the change. But this wasn’t to be…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “A new drum-skin ‘cell’ take on electrostatic headphones together with its own headphone amp and some wildly effusive packaging — the Sonoma is a remarkable debut.” Any fan of high-end headphones will be unlikely to require conversion to the joys of electrostatic headphones, which are an aspirational high for head-fi lovers everywhere. Renowned for speed and detail, electrostatic designs replace the usual cone speaker inside a headphone with a flat diaphragm held at a fixed charge, while a dedicated headphone amplifier biases and modulates the voltage across perforated metal grids (stators) on either side. (Not to be confused with planar magnetic designs, in which the signal is applied to the diaphragm itself, positioned between fixed magnets.) At least, that’s how electrostatics have worked for the last 60…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “A truly special stereo hi-fi amplifier from Italy, the AAcento combines clever design and tech with a thrilling performance.” If amplifiers were listed in a phone book, this one would clearly be at the top of the first page. It would be an Italian phone book, of course, with the brand being designed and manufactured entirely in Italy, near Pisa. The new AAcento bears many similarities to the company’s Maestro Anniversary released a few years earlier, but it is significantly less expensive at $5590 (compared with over $12,000). One of the key differences is its lower power rating of 100W per channel into eight ohms compared with 150W from the Maestro — though as our colleagues at Australian Hi-Fi comment, that difference is less than many will…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “It’s a DAC, it’s a headphone amplifier, it’s a phono preamplifier, and since it has a volume control, it’s reasonable to label the combination as a preamplifier. As for performance, list your favourite characteristics for a piece of high-fidelity equipment, and we reckon the Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ will meet or exceed them all.” James A. Michener in his 1971 novel ‘The Drifters’ indulges in a bit of cheap psychologising, suggesting hi-fi fans are principally interested in a sense of control. That flies in the face of the minimalism of the past few decades: the shedding of tone controls and graphic equalisers, and the preference for having only a volume knob for control. That said, when it comes to digital audio there are things that are worth controlling.…

JUDGES’ COMMENT “Beautiful finish, clever driver technology and simply sensational sound for the size and price.” In our first loudspeaker price break, we have separate awards for standmount and floorstanding speakers — it seems likely that most people will be looking for one or the other. And for standmounters it was an easy call once we’d spent time with Definitive Technology’s Demand series, a trio of standmount models in which this pair, the D9, is the middle child, between the smaller D7 and the larger D11. The Demands are unusual in several respects. With their magnetic cloth grilles on, they’ll blend quietly and effectively into any décor. But things are transformed visually if you choose to use them grilles off, as you then face that full silver baffle with…

Installation speakers are made to be heard, not seen. So while we (as fans of audio tech) would rather enjoy peering at the pair of 61cm planar magnetic film membranes and the eight more conventional racetrack-shaped woofers in each of these 131cm-high Wisdom Insight L8i speakers (they’re priced at $12,000 each), you’re never going to see that in any self-respecting home cinema. At most you’ll see them grilled, but more likely they’ll be entirely hidden away in some barnstorming home cinema such as the one below. We’ve long had a great admiration for Wisdom Audio’s line source speakers, of which the Insight range is three from the top, though the L8i maintains the principles behind the highest models, and the technologies too. A line source is very different to the…

The smart speaker market has just graduated to include screens — Google’s Home Hub and the Amazon Echo Show have both arrived... but neither company has a good record when it comes to sound quality. JBL, on the other hand, is a loudspeaker company that has got smart, selling frankly astounding numbers of its wireless speakers, then being very quick to implement Google Voice Assistant into its Link smart speaker range, and now bringing this touch-screen Link View to market in Australia at a remarkable price of just $349 (and as we write, available for $80 below that). It is a useful thing? Hell, yes. It has an audio Chromecast inside, so it works within the Google Home app, streams Spotify, and groups with other rooms. It has Bluetooth as…

This Award is decided by our readers, as it recognises the review which had the most reads on AVHub.com.au (often including downloads of the original magazine pages, which we load up as PDFs with many online reviews). And this year the most read review was for Sony’s STR-DN1080 AV receiver — and it’s still there to read, so feel free to add to its numbers! The others in our top five were the Cambridge Audio CXA-80 amplifier, our First Listen report on the B&W 700 Series, Yamaha’s RX-A3070 AV receiver, and another Sony, the UBP-X800 UHD Blu-ray player. These weren’t our most-read of all, though — the list was topped by several pieces that have been running for more than a year, including ‘How to play Tidal Master high-res files…

In 1997 Ben Affleck won the Oscar for the Best Screenplay with his friend, Matt Damon. Affleck’s role in Good Will Hunting was as supporting actor. Following that he appeared in a range of movies, including the astonishingly silly Armageddon, the underwhelming actioner Pearl Harbor, and the weak Marvel comic Daredevil. But it was Gigli — a romantic comedy/crime movie from 2003 that made Affleck, it seems, almost a laughing stock. Gigli scores 2.4/10 on IMDB. Affleck is a smart man. (Reference: Oscar for Good Will Hunting). In 2008 he started creating a redemptive trio of movies. He didn’t even appear in the first, Gone Baby Gone (2008). He directed it and the next couple, but left his brother Casey to star. The third was Argo (2012). That, of course,…