Відео

For the 1st time in 20 years I popped into a HiFi shop, and was looking at many of the smaller speakers and subs, I am not too fond of the branding and logo's on the Rel. On one model it looks like a cabinet handle on the side. These classic models are visually more appealing, but we now have this preference for two subs, and the larger classic will be great if you are wanting it to sit somewhere looking like furniture, but may well not be so straightforward if your after dual subs simply due to height. Still struggling with what direction to take myself after 20 years of hifi being in storage. Certainly a lot more WAF options available these days.

On the A6 you disliked the coaxial output, but I didn't hear whether you thought they'd fixed that issue on the A8. Do you recall testing the digital out coaxial vs USB on the A8?

Thank you, excellent reviews! I would love to hear your thoughts on the Epos ES-7N.

Revela ll Master Tarun … in light of the Ones being a rival to your Proacs. Dave

A big thank you Tarun, for navigating the ship through the often murky waters of the HiFi community and industry. I am very grateful for your reviews and opinions, that are very much respected. I watched your review on the Cambridge AXA35 Amp with great interest while in search of a second system. On your views, I then bought the Cambridge AXA35 and AE100 Mk2 speakers. I use a Bluesound Node X for source. I am absolutely delighted with the results. Over the past 20 years I have owned Sonus Faber Concerto and KEF R100 speakers, and have never enjoyed an entirely satisfying listening result from them, almost certainly due to incorrect pairing. I also trialled several speakers more recently ranging from £300 - £1000 pairing them with a Rotel A11 Tribute, with mixed results and lacking confidence in my ability to chose wisely. I was astonished therefore after following your video, to discover the best performance that I have ever enjoyed with the AXA35 and AE100 Mk2, when compared to those I had previously owned since beginning my modest audiophile journey. That is no exaggeration. Your review was a great combination suggestion, without seeing it I would not have tried it. Thanks to you, I now have a great sounding system for the first time ever, and the proposed second system is now taking pride of place in my lounge and providing me with a very enjoyable music listening experience as my primary system. Amazingly, also one that I have spent the least money on, in my experience. I would recommend this combination to anyone who has been frustrated with the performance from their system. And this I have realised, is a perfect example of the importance of appropriate matching of components, and not what you pay for them. My own question for the day is... What other similarly good pairings can you recommend as a next step-up from the AXA35 and AE100 Mk2? Just curious. :) Many thanks again Tarun, and keep up the great work.

I've follow your reviews sinnce the pandemic that lead me to aquire the Audiolab 6000A and the Triangle Comete 40thA, really happy with them, recently I started to look for an upgrade as I think a next level amplifier will be a better match with the more expensive Triangles, but I'm in a dilemma between the Audiolab 7000A and the Hegel H95, as the first has more watts, features and newer but the Hegel seems very well recognized as a great one. Living in Mexico makes impossible to have auditions and hard to buy any of those so I need to import it, I really appreciate your thoughts if what I'm looking the most is sound quality vs features, independent of the price, do you think the Hegel could do better sinergy with the Triangle's than the 7000A? Thank you very much.

Why do you have the speakers in this video's thumbnail pushed to the back of the surface they're resting on? Do you like all the reflections and distortion that surface injects into the music?

Just when I was about to press the buy button on Pontus II, this brilliant review came out. So, if budget allows, which one should you recommend - Pontus II, Spring 3 L2, AN 0.1x Please help

Great review, how do these compare to the source point 8's? Would it be worth switching from s400mk2 to the sp8?

Hi Tarun. A great analysis and review as always. I have a question for you. I have just come across in a shop in hong kong the proac response 1sc final edition. I was informed that it is new and current production. Have you heard of this at all?

If 70 is the best possible score, and 50 is the best achieved here, that means the <$1000 (US) cable managed to achieve a score of 71%, barely a C in academic terms. The Belden and the Mogami both scored 66%. At a decent graduate school, all of these would be required to repeat the course. All purely subjective, and ranked against each other rather than against an objective standard; that is, on a curve. The two second place cables achieved ~92% of the performance of the top scorer for ~6% the price. For me, $60-ish US is still a lot to spend on RCA interconnects, especially given that my components are closer to what audiophiles would at best call mid-fi and at worst utter garbage. I could equip my entire primary and secondary systems with Mogami and/or Belden for the price of one set of Chord. Absolute no-brainer. In truth, I keep several sets of super-cheap, give-away interconnects around for function testing, length checking, and the like, and accidentally leaving a set between my DAC and preamp went unnoticed until I dusted the room -- a couple of weeks later. I wonder how those would have scored here...

great review!

Tarun, are you going to get in for review the V3 Mono's? Mine arrive soon and for giggles, I'm going to briefly stick them into the main system instead of my usual amp running a set of Graham Audio LS6/f speakers to see how good they are.

What do you think of the speakon high level connection set up, i just saw another you tube review where he says that type of connection just adds distortion to the subs signal.

I always used rubber feet under my turntable but the biggest effect on a regular priced turntable is getting rid of the rubber mat if it has groves and getting a polymer cork mat and a cheap record clamp . The quiet background is amazing

Hi.. recently I bought REL ‘Britannia B1.. paid a premium price because for its deep accurate bass

Yamaha NS 5000. Immense technical ability behind it.

I use my r8 almost 90 percent of the time, the other 10 percent is a denond rh 800h solid state amp for radio. i just purchased a R800i and connot wait for its arrival.

Hallo Sir, i own this amp for about one year, and im so far satisfied. I hear it with Unison Research Max1 speakers( 5.500 euro). Now Im a little bit confused about some people saying , that i use to have a better amp with those expensive speakers. Do you agree? Does the Atoll give me all music informations or should i upgrade, maybe exposure 2510-3510, or a used accuphase e280 ? Kind regards from Germany

Hello again Mr British Audiophile, hope youre doing great. Im looking to buy my firts DAC. Im worried if a R2R DAC ( musical,warm) is going to be too much of the same sonic characteristic, combined with this CHoco or maybe is better match a Digital amp from the likes of topping D90? Please advise, i don't want to buy blind 😊. Im very comfortable with "musical and warm" but i want to balance my CHoco Sound with a good match DAC. My speakers are mostly neutral. Thanks again.

Great review. Definitely going on my shortlist. I’d love to see you review Karl-Heinz Fink’s new Epos ES-7N bookshelf speakers in the same/similar price point.

Never had an amplifier that lied to me. Bright recordings sounds bright, warm recordings sound warm. They are amps, not speakers.

Nice review I have recently purchased a in300. A good upgrade on my old denon pma1500r.

Solid review. I’d love to see you review Karl-Heinz Fink’s new smaller Epos ES-7N bookshelf speakers at a bit lower price point. Wouldn’t mind a review of his Epos ES-14N too. Like these Castle’s, they may be a bit larger than I need for my space and at a higher price than I’d prefer to pay but they sure are interesting and not getting the attention they deserve on UA-cam.

Great review. Definitely going on my shortlist. I’d love to see you review Karl-Heinz Fink’s new Epos ES-7N bookshelf speakers in the same/similar price point.

I really like Audio Note’s approach to the market. I could definitely have benefited from it 3 years and several $1,000’s [$10,000’s!] ago.

Interesting review, and I was able to follow the discussion fairly well, but I would appreciate a matrix summary with boxes on the screen: 1. speaker1 + amp1 + = amp1 2. speaker2 + amp2 = amp 2 3. Tie breaker: Fill in the blank In sum: While I know your review followed a logical pattern, and I followed your review; it would help me to see the logic and you conclusions graphically represented. But I admit to not paying the closest attention, being distracted by a big steak dinner and a glass of wine at the time.

I was so confused on which retro speaker to buy, I grabbed both! - JBL L 100 Classic and Heresy IV

Thoroughly enjoyed this review. Thank you. I would look forward to your review of the new SVS ultra evolution bookshelf speakers.

Hi Tarun. I found that group test really interesting. Nice job. As for your question… I’m really interested in electrostatic and open baffle speakers - like Spatial Audio - with valve amplification and I’d love to watch a review of something along those lines 🎵👊🏻

Speakers I love to see you review are Revel M16, M106. and Acoustics Sierra LX.

Thanks for your hard work Tarun. How about a review of the new Wharfedale Super Denton.

No doubt this system will need a couple of RELs. So add 1.5k And no high res streaming? Almost all new classical is HR. Just discovered the BS Node2i can be set to lower res (Fidelity) streaming. But thats Folly! Peter??

Excellent review and this sounds like a quite interesting amplifier. Perhaps such a neutral and resolving amp would do well with fullrange planar speakers such as QUAD or Magnepan. As for the style preferences you asked about, I personally like an unfussy but still classy look, such as Exposure or QUAD gear (there mainly the old 2 & 4 series) or 'studio chique' styling such as Audio Research of the 80s or the Revox gear of old.

You can make a SUPERBLY performing cable for next to NOTHING - Neutrik REAN RCA connector $1.50 x2, Professional 75 Ohm video coaxial cable $1.50 per meter.... Even the "cheaper" cables on display in this video are actually sold at a huge markup too. Anything more than $50 - no matter what kind termination is on it be it XLR, RCA or BNC is just nonsense.

The TDA 1543 has DC on the output, so I suspect the large special caps are there to remove it. I've mentioned this DAC chip before to you, my Lite AH-DAC has 8 of them in parallel, so I'm not surprised they chose it. But as you say, it's partially the implementation, I'm very tempted to try one out to compare.

there are a few vintage speakers that can still compete with current ones. my Fried Model RIIs with KEF b139s, B110s, and T27s (one of each per speaker) and the loaded with a foam damped line tunnel rather like the Dynaco A25 of yore, does a fine job at that. not as sensitive thereby requiring much beefier power. their transient response and imaging/soundstaging is topnotch. probably not considered to be vintage albeit of 1976 hatching. in reference to paper driver and low distortion bass, the aforementioned Dynaco A25s had a nice stiff paper cone woofer that was as tight as I ever would want. again, it is a significantly lower in sensitivity performer which may explain the similarity in hefty ampage.

Nice dac but only one input so that means switching by wire if you have more gear. Forget about the Ares and Eversolo dacs then better try the FX Glass dac or Cyan 2 or the Teac RN 505 with volume control and remote 🤔

I would have expected the CD device to be a transport, and use the stand along DAC?

everyone is saying how fast Dacs are evolving and yet this old DAC is able to beat R26 . My mind is blown😅

loved the review sir, looking forwards to part 2 m

Curently thinking of getting rid of all audiophile/hifi cables and going with a studio basic, I am fed up with dust on Chord Anthem and having to polish silver on the RCA cables, I sold my Chord Signature some years back simply because almost 5m per speaker with 2.5m doubling back from the mid point looked daft, and it kept bending banana plugs, and the hifi forums were claiming it was a con. I have loads of various brands and price ranges of cables, some easy to work with, some super stiff, some now too short, others now too long, all seem overpriced, some I thought were great value in their days, Ixos Digital RCA with WBT and an orange jacket lol. Most of my main system is XLR though, and I really should get rid of the TV cabinet and locate the power amp between the speakers. Another thing to remember as debunked nonsense is matching speaker cable lengths.

This is old school philosophy of if you buy all the the matching components and speakers you get a “Better Sound “ Another gimmick to take our hard earned money

@ 9.23. You have a pair of soeakers in the background. What are they ?

I officially switched from a NAD658 to a HiFi Rose 250. Testing the difference as we speak 🎉

How does this DAC compare to the Merason Frerot with external power supply?

Hi Tarun, great review! In a comment on of your previous videos I asked if you would consider testing the new Epos ES-7N. After seeing this video I want to point that out again. The speaker has a 87-89 sensitivity (depending on switch in the back) and can be run with low-powered tube amps. LowBeats tested it with an 8-watts Fezz Mira Ceti tube amp. So potentially it could be a match with the Audio Note amp and considering you have that in house that might make for a great comparison. I also matches the price of the amp at around 2000€. I also think that the speaker might interest a lot of people considering not only the price but also the fact that it has a switch that makes it suitable to be placed close to a wall. It is made by Karl-Heinz Fink and has an interesting story behind it, both of which might make for an entertaining video. I would love to watch your take on it. Kind regards

Yamaha-ha A-S1200 Crutchfield 3000.USD-

Très bonne vidéo explicative.

Thanks Tarun, really interesting for me as I demoed the Audio note DAC a while ago. You may remember? The only shortfall was lack of inputs for me. Things have changed as to what I am needing now so I might have to revisit this!