The iFi ZEN Blue is a wireless Bluetooth DAC costing just £129. Janine Elliot gives it a 
whirl.
Janine Elliot takes a listen to the iFi Zen DAC that boasts a whole load of features in a diminutive package and is priced at just £129. More »
Leema Acoustics’ Elements High-Resolution Streamer is the Welsh brand’s mid-level streamer. Here Alan Mcintosh puts it through its paces.
Fresh out of Florence, Gold Note’s new Streamer/DAC aims to bring versatility and sophistication to your digital setup. John Scott sets out to see if it succeeds in this, the first English language review of this product. More »
Auralic’s Aries G1 Wireless Streaming Transport costs £1899 in the UK and is, surprisingly enough, a wireless (and wired) streamer, Stuart Smith puts it into the Hifi Pig mid-priced reference system and gives it a listen. More »
iFi’s xCan at £299 offers a portable headphone amp with Bluetooth connectivity, whereas their £399 xDSD focuses on DAC duties with a headphone amp, Bluetooth and lots of digital inputs. Janine Elliot puts them head to head for this in-depth review.
Hifi Pig’s Millennial Scribbler Harry Smith takes a look at American brand Russound’s MBX-Amp, a one-box streamer and amplifier costing £599 in the UK. More »
In which John Scott confronts a philosophical pachyderm, feeds it a bun, pats it gently on its trunk and sends it on its way. Or John Scott takes delivery of the Micromega M150 Integrated amp/DAC/streamer costing £5499.
Dan Worth takes a listen to the catchily named x-odos – xo|one CD Ripping Streamer costing £7500 and hailing from Germany. More »
French company Metronome Technologies make a whole host of kit for the digital domain, here Stuart Smith tries out their AQWO CD/SACD player and DAC with valve output stage costing £13,870 Euros as tested.
The Roon Nucleus + is essentially a Roon specific dedicated network streamer costing £2500, but what does it bring to the whole Roon experience sonically? John Scott finds out. More »
Italian brands Gold Note IS-1000 Streamer and Integrated Amplifier does what it says on the tin and has an impressive range of connectivity, high power output and even has a built in MM/MC phonostage. It costs £3820 (around $5000) as tested in the UK (a version with an updated DAC is available for £4500) but does it all add up to a great deal in the final analysis? Stuart Smith finds out. More »
The Cyrus OneHD is an integrated amp and DAC with a whole host of connectivity for what looks to be a very reasonable £999. Alan McIntosh takes a listen. More »
Crosby, Young, Gifted and, er, not Black…John Scott hangs out with M2Tech’s Rockstar separates and finds himself helpless to resist their charms. More »
The Bakoon Satri DAC-21 D2A DAC is diminutive in size, but does it make up in sound quality what it is lacking in stature? Janine Elliot finds out. More »
Stuart and Linette Smith have had the Chord DAVE DAC sat on their rack for the best part of a year now and don’t want it to go home. Find out why. More »
Australian manufacturer Burson’s Conductor Virtuoso V2+ comes with a DAC, a headphone amp and doubles the output of the original version to 8W into 16 Ohms. Janine Elliot dons her cans and takes this £1590 unit for a test drive. More »
Based around Auralic’s Lightning DS Streaming Platform, which is one of the most intuitive and responsive software systems around for devices of this type, Polaris incorporates a wired/wireless streamer, a music server – via additional HDD/SSD, a DAC, a moving magnet phonostage, a preamplifier and a stereo power amplifier. Dan Worth tries out this £2875 box of tricks. More »
Musical Fideity’s M6 Encore Connect is a ripper, streamer and preamplifier all in one handy, if substantial box. It costs £3629 and Lionel Payne hooked it up to his system to see if it came up to scratch. More »
Linn’s Klimax DS is a dedicated streamer with just an ethernet input to connect to your music library and yet it costs almost £16 000. Can Linn justify this high price with an equally stunning performance? Dan Worth finds out. More »
Costing £3995 the AVM Inspiration CS2.2 packs a lot under the hood. It’s a streamer, a CD player, DAC, FM radio, Internet radio player, it has an on-board MM/MC phonostage and outputs a healthy amount of power. For those looking for a one box plus speakers solution it looks the business, but does it cut the mustard? Dominic Marsh finds out. More »
Dan Worth plugs the £900 MUTEC MC-3+ Smart Clock USB into a couple of his systems with some interesting results. More »
The N1A/2 from Melco is intended to improve on the originals sonic performance, particularly for those using USB DACs. It can store a whole library of your music on its on-board drives and costs £2099 as tested. Dan Worth plugs it into his network and assesses its attributes. More »
Auralic refer to the Aries as a “bridge”; basically a digital device which refers to a networked music library from the likes of a NAS drive, or by use of an external USB hard drive, connected directly to the Aries. What we have come to know more lovingly as a streamer – although you could argue that they are usually an all in one device, often with an on-board hard drive and with analogue outputs from it’s on-board DAC. Dan Worth takes this £1495 box of tricks for a whirl. More »
