Hifi Pig

The London Audio Society will be holding its inaugural meeting Wednesday, July 24th from 6:30 pm to 9 pm at Swiss Cottage Sound and VIdeo. The topic of the meeting will be DACs and how they differ across manufacturers and price points.

The evening will feature a double-blind listening knockout tournament where the attendees get to decide between 7 DACs from 5 manufacturers across 5 price points and see/hear which one TO THEIR EARS is best. If they were to replace their existing DAC which one of the lot would they choose? There will be refreshments and a good deal of good natured conversation to be had and new friends to be made.

Swiss Cottage Sound and Vision, 21 Northways Parade, Finchley Road, NW3 5EN

Some of our UK readers may have seen the Rinz Sound loudspeakers on the recent Channel 4 “Four Rooms”. In a nutshell Rinz Sounds design and manufacture ultra-contemporary Hifi  loudspeakers made out of recycled glass and are the first company ever to do so.

Arina Sprinz is the designer of the loudspeakers and she is a graduate of London’s South Bank University where she read product design.

The bespoke loudspeakers are entirely hand-made in Britain, using patented manufacturing technology. Each pair of Rinz Speakers is unique and takes 4 weeks to engineer from locally-sourced glass to each customer’s specific colour-matching specification.

The sound reproduction system itself is housed within stalagmite-like cabinets comprising 95% recycled glass with a unique organic resin.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Type: Three-way, rear-vented loudspeaker

Driver Complement: Aluminium Dome Tweeter/5”Kevlar

Midrange: 6.5” Woven Kevlar Woofer

Frequency Response: 62Hz-22kHz +/- 3dB

Sensitivity: 88dB

Impedance: 8 ohms

Power Handling: 150w

Dimensions: 130cm x 33cm x 33cm

Weight: 23kg each

The Unilet Sound & Vision PMC Open Day on Saturday 13th July will be the first opportunity in the UK to experience new fact.12 loudspeakers from PMC.
Tom Barron, UK consumer sales manager for PMC, will bring the fact.12s to Unilet’s New Malden storewhere Tom’s demonstrations and talks about the development of the new fact series flagship model are sure to attract a good crowd. Presentations will take place at 10.30am, 12.30pm, 2.30pm and 4.30pm and places must be booked in advance by contacting Unilet.

The fact.12 will take the main stage in the primary listening room and will be powered by PMC distributed Bryston BP26 and 7BSST2 amplification, fed with source material through the Bryston BDP-2 Music Player and BDA-2 DAC.
Downstairs in the renovated main showroom, visitors will be able to experience the PMC MB2SE speakers.
Home cinema enthusiasts are not forgotten, with the THX certified cinema room hosting another PMC speaker system.

CA-Electronics whose ceramic feet and loudspeakers we reviewed sometime ago have announced that they have appointed Dutch based Audio Distribution Europe as their distributors.

Rogier van Hoof, owner of CA-Electronics, sees a change in the way audio products are distributed “There is a need for coordinated European distribution/price strategy and a more direct contact to the whole chain of national distributor, dealer and the end-user.  Distributors will remain to be of  high importance, but to add value in a shrinking world they must rethink their role: Delivering up-to-date market information and keeping an active contact with dealers and potential buyers in the buyer´s own language”

ADE will manage the commercial,logistical and service side of the business, allowing CA-Electronics to focus on product development and production.

This partnership with ADE not only allows CA-Electronics to increase the market share of their ceramic audio accessories (cones, feet, pucks etc), high end connectors, damping plates and loudspeakers, but also opens up the door to the lifestyle market where products like the CAE headphone stand and designer tablet stand fit in.

Townshend Audio has announced a new generation of “Seismic Isolation” devices which the company say will dramatically improve sound quality of all high-end audio systems.

There is a range of equipment all centred on the Townshend Seismic Load Cell, an alloy steel compression spring covered with a synthetic rubber jacket and with two end plates – have a look at the photo.

The Cells allow movement in three dimensions and “blocks all deleterious vibration from 2.5Hz upwards and from every direction”. Basically this means that any suspended bit if hifi equipment is isolates.

That’s the basis for the range but Townshend have created several interesting products around the cell including speaker platforms, an isolation pod which can be used in lots of circumstances under any hifi equipment, equipment platforms, equipment stands and isolation corners that you can put on the corners of your existing hifi rack.

Prices start at £100 for the individual Pod, £999 for speaker stands, £500 for the platforms, £1500 for the stands and the isolation corners start at £800 for a set of four.

This looked like a nifty bit of kit for those wanting to have music with them wherever they are in the house. It will play music directly from your laptop, tablet, smartphone or any other Bluetooth-enabled wireless device and doesn’t require any special wires or docks -it’s also a FM/DAB/DAB+ radio.

You can operate the Model S with the touch of a button, stream music wirelessly to the Model S Wireless DAB+ from your iPhone, iPod, or any Bluetooth-enabled smartphone, tablet, or laptop. Select input, FM/DAB/DAB+ preset and volume via the remote supplied, or use the onboard ‘touchlight’ controls. The Model S Wireless DAB+ also doubles as  alarm clock.

It’s available in white, black or red, has 2 x 3″ full range drivers, two bass ports and two class AB amplifiers with 2 x 11 watt output.

Available from July it costs £329

First revealed in May at High End, Munich, the new CodeX from Chord Electronics is the latest edition to the company’s  Choral range and brings music streaming to the line-up for the first time.

The CodeX features much of the technology implemented in the DSX1000 (£7,500), including the same front end and control processor. The CodeX offers DSD 128 playback over USB, as well as PCM decoding at up to 384kHz, making it compatible with DXD (Digital eXtreme Definition) recordings.

The new CodeX has both USB and coaxial inputs to take advantage of the device’s FPGA-based D/A stage, which has been taken from the QuteHD DAC. It also offers Chord Electronics’ proprietary remote motor-controlled analogue volume potentiometer, as seen in their flagship CPA8000 Reference preamp (£25,500) and DSX1000 streamer.

The device’s network connection uses a fixed-wired approach, due to the bandwidth limitations of Wi-Fi for 24/192kHz support. The CodeX’s Ethernet connection offers DSD 64 and up to 192kHz PCM, and its USB input offers DSD 128 and PCM at up to 384kHz (Digital eXtreme Definition).

The CodeX is compatible with numerous file types including: MP3; WMA; WAV; AAC; ALAC and FLAC files, with 24-bit/384kHz support where available. DSD support is available using the DSD over PCM standard (DoP).

CodeX specifications

Analogue outputs: 2x XLR and 2x RCA (all with remote volume control)
Digital output: from ethernet input only (this output can be fed into another DAC or audio system with its own volume control method)
Supported frequencies: 44.1,48,88.2,96,176.4,192kHz,DSD64 (DSD128, DXD via USB)

Inputs: 1x USB digital inputs for both PCM and DSD formats to 384kHz; 1x coaxial automatically-selecting input up to 384kHz. (Note: these additional DAC inputs cannot be controlled by tablet-type devices unless a PC/laptop is in the system

The CodeX will be available in August priced at £4,495.