The Latest
KEF’s New Q Series Gen 8 Speakers
Advance Audio headquarters in Sydney’s Leichhardt was the venue for the Australasian launch of KEF’s new Q Series, now the company’s eighth generation of the highly popular line.
Sydney Audio Club (SAC) Celebrates 10-Year Anniversary Milestone
Despite the city’s thoroughly enticing distractions in the urban surf beaches and countless water-rimmed parks, Sydney, Australia has a vibrant audio enthusiast community. This was evidenced with the strong attendance at the Sydney Audio Club’s (SAC) 10th-anniversary barbeque and music meeting that took place on Sunday, July 9, 2017.
New McIntosh Super Integrated Amplifier
McIntosh has informed us of the impending release of its biggest integrated amplifier, the new MA9000 super amp featuring a host of connectivity options and bristling with many of the company’s proprietary technologies.
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- Written by Edgar Kramer Edgar Kramer
- Category: Ed Comment Ed Comment
- Published: 01 July 2017 01 July 2017
SoundStage! Goes Down Under
G’day! Welcome to SoundStage! Australia! As editor-in-chief, I’m extremely proud to be a part of the world’s leading online audio publication network and thrilled by the opportunity to bring to you the cornucopia of wonderful products, people and events from this great southern land and the world. The SoundStage! Australia bureau operates from the World Heritage Blue Mountains, home to the Aboriginal Darug and Gundungurra people for 40,000 years and where, in 1836, after his famed journey to the Galapagos Islands, a mesmerized Charles Darwin walked.
Top Gold Note Analogue Shown for First Time in Australia
Melbourne high-end specialist-retailer Sound Gallery has just received the top analogue turntable from Gold Note. On display are the Bellagio Reference turntable, B-7 Ceramic tonearm, and Donatello Gold cartridge from the Italian company’s pinnacle in analogue playback.
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- Written by Josh Givorshner Josh Givorshner
- Category: Reviews Reviews
- Published: 01 July 2017 01 July 2017
Magico S3 Mk.II Loudspeakers
It’s often thought that loudspeakers are the easiest component to evaluate. Why? Well, I find that all other variables (electronics, cables and ancillary equipment) kept constant, a swap-out for a different set of speakers almost invariably makes a profound and manifestly apparent change in the performance of the system. As the final step in the reproduction chain and the acoustic transducer (responsible for the conversion of electrical to sound energy), the speakers act as a bottleneck to what the system, however good it otherwise may be, can achieve.
Harbeth Celebrates Its 40th Anniversary
UK speaker manufacturer Harbeth has celebrated its 40th Anniversary in the loudspeaker manufacturing business by releasing a stream of ‘Limited Edition’ models, the latest two additions being the M30.2 and flagship M40.2 speakers announced recently at High End Munich.
Tub's Audio Frequinox Speakers
New Zealand’s Tub’s Audio has recently announced its newest creation, the Frequinox, a speaker promising wide frequency response and high efficiency via a time-aligned horn hybrid design. The company is ramping up for production later in in 2017 with availability slated for early 2018.
Boulder 1160 Stereo Amplifier First in New 1000 Series lineup
Boulder Amplifiers has announced the 1160 stereo high-power amplifier, which is the first model to be introduced in the new 1000 Series.
While featuring aspects of the company’s previous offerings – mainly the unique heatsink configuration, which has been refined with radii and curves, and massive three-phase-style AC inlet – the new 1160, however, features a host of new technologies and circuit refinements.
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- Written by Edgar Kramer Edgar Kramer
- Category: Reviews Reviews
- Published: 01 July 2017 01 July 2017
Redgum Audio Magnificata Preamplifier and Mono Amplifiers
Australia’s wide land may be rich in ‘golden soil’, parched across its deserts and ‘girt by sea’ around beautifully picturesque beaches but it’s also opulent with unique flora in dense forests sprinkled throughout the continent. The tree species are countless and varied and, for example, if you make your way to Far North Queensland, up in Cairns, you will find the planet’s oldest rainforest, the Daintree Forest. It’s a precious and astonishingly beautiful World Heritage treasure teeming with living and breathing wildlife.
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- Written by News Editor News Editor
- Category: Features Features
- Published: 01 July 2017 01 July 2017
Devialet and Interdyn Present Sarah Vaughan's Lost Live Recording
On a wintry night on June the 23rd at one of the premier live music venues in Melbourne, the Melbourne Recital Centre, Devialet in conjunction with its Australian Distributor Interdyn held a gala event to present, for the first time in this country, a lacquer pressing of what was thought to be a lost and forgotten piece of music history – Sarah Vaughan live at the Laren Jazz Festival.
- Details
- Written by Edgar Kramer Edgar Kramer
- Category: Reviews Reviews
- Published: 01 July 2017 01 July 2017
Axis Voicebox S Monitor and EBS Extended Bass System
Many audio enthusiasts and music lovers will agree: There are obvious merits to a high quality small speaker and, indeed, many purists eschew physically large designs with their potentially difficult to tackle room-coupling issues, in favour of a small monitor’s ease of placement, accurate soundfield recreation and other convincing attributes. These qualities may be related to the actual form — fundamentally, a small speaker’s cabinet will be inert even with relatively modest bracing — or performance related due to narrow baffles providing inherent diffraction characteristics resulting in very precise image focus. Having said all that, full range sound reproduction (wide frequency response with bass below 40Hz), when competently designed, is undeniably closer to the real thing therefore providing an overall more satisfying experience.
