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50 Articles

Back to AI again

EDLINES I'm being a little careful about how exactly to write this comment piece, because I can imagine how some music fans will react to it. But not knowing your particular preferences, I'll plug on. OK. So in the last month, I'd say about 80% of all my music listening has been to music that was created by artificial intelligence. And if I didn't review hi-fi for a living and also have to get songs together for a Friday night radio show, then that number would be a lot closer to 100%. Yes, I'm back on AI again. AI, artificial intelligence, continues to arrive in consumer products, of course, and especially televisions, as you'll find in our round-up of new releases on p24-27. Some of this is just marketing spiel,…

Back to AI again

Vivid goes large

news What did you do during the pandemic? Fix up the house? Get into a bit of basket weaving? Vivid Audio's Laurence Dickie spent his hotel isolation designing his dream loudspeakers. You might expect something extreme, given that Dickie's creations as an engineer of 50 years include the iconic Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus and all his Vivid Audio creations as technical director of the brand he founded. And you'd be right: what emerged from his quarantine was this five-way, 13-driver design, Vivid Audio's new flagship, the Moya 1. There are eight proprietary side-firing bass drivers per tower, horizontally opposed on either side of the cabinet, with each capable of handling 800W. Vivid Audio found that extending the speakers’ bass response also improved the perception of higher frequency bands, so these…

Vivid goes large

Suprema & Sonneto

Visitors to the Australian Hi-Fi Show in Sydney voted the room with Sonus faber's $90k Stradivari G2 loudspeakers to be the best-sounding room of the whole show. One has to ponder what greater wonders of sound could have emerged had another of the company's 40th anniversary creations been present — the Suprema. A Sonus faber Suprema system comprises two main speakers (the larger of the two shown left), an electronic crossover, and either one or two subwoofers, for a price of… $1,300,000 the lot for the 2.1 system, or $1,400,000 for the Suprema 2.2. Got back on your chair? That doesn't include the silver cable and grille options, let alone the various customisations available, but the good news is that installation is included. Let's dive into the details… Sonus faber…

Suprema & Sonneto

A different kind of soundbar

Paradigm first launched its Decor range of passive soundbars back in 2017, and now there's a V2 Series, using a revamped acoustic platform to deliver even greater clarity, bass response and power handling, says the Canadian company, as well as making the new Decors among the thinnest high-performance speakers available. The originals were ambitious, primed for the trend to larger TVs, and in the US and Canada promising customised builds to installers within just three days of request. This cleverly offered customised expansion of a Decor bar or vertical speaker to fit almost any size of television perfectly, and quickly. In the new Decor V2 series there are standard models which require no wait, with a total of six different models and up to 16 different driver configurations for up…

A different kind of soundbar

Hideaway AV power

The Paradigm soundbars are passive: you will need amplification to drive them. Paradigm does have its own rack amplifiers which could do the job, but fellow Canadians Anthem may have just the thing: the MRX-SLM, a remarkably compact five-channel AV receiver (more strictly amplifier, since it has no radio tuner), also available from the Australian distributor Audio Active. It is, astoundingly, only 28mm high without feet, or 44mm in a rack-mount configuration, and versatility is certainly the name of the game. “Hide it, Mount it, Stack it, or Rack it!” enthuses Anthem of the MRX-SLM; the company even offers a pre-made In-Wall Media Box to embed it vertically in a wall space behind your equipment; you could equally attach it to the back of your TV, or rack it, and…

Hideaway AV power

Meze rewrites the Lirics

It's an invariable delight to park your ears behind a pair of Romanian Meze Audio headphones, the brand ranging from relatively affordable 99 Classics to the decidedly high-end Empyrean II. The latest is the company's secondgeneration iteration of its Liric headphones, Liric Gen 2 — though apparently we shouldn't call them ‘new’. Antonio Meze, the company's founder and lead designer, scatters deep bon mots across the company's website. On the Liric page he reminds us that “Every ‘new’ thing is not only strongly dependent on existing context, it is born out of it to the point that it is in a way incorrect to call it new.” Er, OK. So these not-new headphones are isodynamic (planar magnetic) designs, thus entirely different from the usual dynamic cone design, using instead a…

Meze rewrites the Lirics

PSB re-Imagined

Another launch product that was on demonstration at the recent Australian Hi-Fi Show was the latest generation of the Imagine speaker series from Canada's PSB Speakers. PSB's best-value speaker series, the range comprises two new towers, the T65 at $3599 a pair and the T54 towers at $2699, plus one ‘bookshelf’ design, the $1249 B50 model. The B50, smallest of the new line, has a 2.5cm titanium-dome tweeter with a ferrofluid-cooled neodymium magnet, alongside a 13.3cm woofer with woven carbon-fibre cone and rubber surround, together in a two-way bass reflex design with a rear-facing slot port (so perhaps more standmount than bookshelf). PSB's specs give in-room sensitivity at an average 87dB, impedance of 8 ohms dropping to a minimum of 4 ohms, and low-frequency delivery down to 45Hz -3dB and…

PSB re-Imagined

news Two new products from Stax, sold separately though they could be certainly be paired together. First is the new SR-X1 earspeaker (left), priced at $1100, following in the footsteps of the previous SR-1 and the SR-X but having newly-engineered circular push-pull electrostatic drivers with precision-etched electrodes promising a frequency response down to 7Hz and up to 41kHz (no envelope stated). They are housed in open enclosures with a meticulously-crafted back slit structure, while comfort is assured by genuine sheepskin leather for all skin contact areas. Stax earspeakers require special drivers to supply their high (580V) bias voltage, and that's the purpose of the second release, the new SRM-270S driver unit (below) priced at $960. It keeps things simple in input terms — just a single pair of RCA analogue…

B&O respins a classic

Oooh, and ahhh — back in the day the sliding motorised lid of the Beosound 9000 CD player was a party piece. Its touch-sensitive buttons, its playback mechanism which glided between CDs to swiftly switch between discs and tracks in seconds: it was half hi-fi, half robot. Flanked by a pair of Bang & Olufsen's vertical speakers, it was a vision of the future, and a celebration of the compact disc's digital purity of reproduction. Hard now to believe it was only 1996. It might seem now a funny time to revisit a multidisc player as a vision of the past — but compact disc is slowly gaining traction as a revival format, as resale prices on auction sites now attest. Besides, this time the system isn't solely CD-based. The…

B&O respins a classic

Meridian Ellipse

Meridian's all-new Ellipse is announced as the company's first wireless speaker system — although we still remember the Meridian F80 back in 2006, in its variety of bright Ferrari colours which led to Stereophile’s memorable description that “it resembles half of a very large M&M”. But the F80 wasn't wireless, other than receiving radio; instead it played DVDs, in addition to CDs, and rather shocked people by being a compact sound system priced around $5000, back in the days when that seemed ridiculous. By a non-inflationary-adjusted coincidence, the new Ellipse is also arriving around $5000, although it lands today in a market where high-end all-in-one systems are not such a rarity, though one could hardly say two-a-penny, given the price of such luxury continues to nudge upwards. This new Ellipse…

Meridian Ellipse

California streaming

WiiM, a brand from California-based Linkplay Technology, has two more high-value boxes to tempt those in the market for streaming components. The first is the $599 WiiM Ultra (above), a touchscreen-equipped music streamer that can also handle preamp and headphone amp duties. Its aluminium casing and premium design are more substantial than the smaller plastic-cased Pro Plus, while the DAC is upgraded to the ESS Sabre ES9038QM2 DAC, which can handle hi-res audio files up to 32-bit/384kHz PCM and DSD512. Connectivity includes an HDMI ARC input, one pair of RCA line-level in and out, optical in/out, USB-A, and coax, sub and trigger outs. There's a 3.5mm headphone output on the front panel. Streaming options on the Ultra are ample when networked: AirPlay 2, Google Cast, DLNA, Tidal Connect, Spotify Connect,…

California streaming

Mixing with gamers

With feet in both consumer audio and professional music, Yamaha was well-placed to come up with this neat little audio mixer to handle audio for gamers. The ZG02 compact game audio mixer takes inputs from microphones, games consoles and fellow players, with outputs to headphones, an external system and your online audience. This is all heightened by Yamaha's ZG Controller software, with compressors, limiters and EQ for the microphone, plus set-up of preset modes for the quick select buttons found on the mixer. You can also spatially select where you want in-game chat to come from, thereby limiting distractions from the game sound itself. Far more fun to be had here, and a pleasing price of $299.99. More info: au.yamaha.com…

Mixing with gamers

Samsung's Frame TV has been joined by an audio sibling, the Music Frame, a wireless speaker that can hide among your picture frames. It's a 35cm square with just over 5cm in depth to service its six rear-firing drivers, which claim Dolby Atmos support but deliver in stereo, leaving the front free for your art of choice. It's not an electronic display, so you get the picture supplied and you can slot in your own 8 x 10-inch inserts, and so change your art whenever you like, or order a custom acrylic panel which fills the Frame almost to the edges; these can be created online from MARPPLE at $48 + postage. While the art is manual, the music comes with all mod cons: AirPlay, Google Cast, and other protocols.…

news Genelec's active studio monitors are legendary in studio control rooms and mixing suites. I visited recently the impressive facilities of JMC Academy (“Australia's leading Creative Industries Education Provider that nurtures your passion for Music, Animation, Film, TV Production…”), located right opposite the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. I was there at the behest of Genelec's distributor, Studio Connections, to see and hear a new pair of Genelec speakers, the 8381A SAM Adaptive Point Source Main Monitor. I've reviewed medium-sized Genelecs before; they work just as effectively at home once you sort out their pro-type connections, and I've heard them doing a great job in home cinema installations, as well as in studios, where Genelec's monitors often flank or float above desks and studio windows, as they do in the control…

HIGH END MUNICH 2024

news ESD Super Dragon No shortage of giant horns at Munich, but the colossal ESD Super Dragon speakers were a highlight, a cool €811,111, loud and proud, although using a rather odd version of the German national anthem as a demo… Stein Music TopLine Bob L Stein Music TopLine Bob L speakers in ‘toffee apple red’, each side packing an integrated, DSP-controlled active subwoofer and 1500W of amplifier power: price around $200,000. More big horns were at Munich courtesy of Avantgarde Audio's all-new Mezzo G3 active loudspeaker system — which we Australians had already enjoyed at their global debut in bright orange at the Australian Hi-Fi Show in Sydney, thanks to Maxmedia. TAD Labs TAD Reference 1 speakers in a stunning metallic deep blue were on the end of a…

HIGH END MUNICH 2024

Big sport on the big screen

bigscreen champions 2024 TV releases Before going large… As you'll see in this round-up, this year we'll see 100-inch TVs landing in Australia priced as low as $5999. How can you resist? Well, there might be a few reasons. First, measure out a 100-inch TV on your wall. It's around 2.3 metres wide, and 1.5 metres high. Doesn't sound too big, so can you live with it? Yes? Thought so. Now check the size of the packaging for a TV you're interested in. Chances are this will not be just a few centimetres more than the TV itself. Once televisions hit 75 inches, there's a rigidity problem in transport, and packaging must be significantly upgraded. The TVs themselves also mushroom in weight for the same reason of requiring more solid…

Big sport on the big screen

Hisense UX & U8

Hisense's toppermost TV models for 2024 are in the UXAU range, which features the company's top ‘Mini-LED X’ technology, they are available now in 65-inch ($3999), 75-inch ($4999) and 85-inch ($9999) models, while a monster 110-inch version is due “later this year”, price yet to be determined. Mini LED X is the top tech among the often bewildering variety of different Mini LED versions from Hisense, the explanations of which can also vary in definition from market to market. But there is simple ‘Mini LED’ in the U6K and U7K models, ‘Mini LED Pro’ in the U8N series, while the top new UX series (UXAU here) gets that Mini LED X. The differentiation is primarily down to LED size and the number of zones into which they're grouped — and…

Hisense UX & U8

Samsung 8K and 98-inchers

bigscreen champions 2024 TV releases Samsung continues to champion the release of 8K televisions, in two ranges for 2024, the QN900D and QN800D, both in 65-inch, 75-inch and 85-inch sizes and using the NQ8 AI Gen3 processor with its Neural Processing Unit. While 8K material remains mighty thin on the ground, Samsung's 8K AI Upscaling Pro technology aims to deliver lesser material at the higher pixel count backed by tech including AI Motion Enhancer Pro and Real Depth Enhancer Pro. The AI extends to gaming modes and to sound as well, with multiple audio technologies adjusting the audio to the content and room acoustics. The 85-inch QN900D has an RRP of $11,999, and the 85-inch QN800D is $8999. Of course there is no shortage of new 4K models, including new…

Samsung 8K and 98-inchers

Sony A95L QD-OLED

Our UK colleagues have already reviewed the A95L, Sony's next-gen QD-OLED TV, successor to the widely-lauded A95K. It's not yet in Australia, but we believe pricing will be $5999 for the 65-inch, and $9495 for the 75-inch. It's not clear if the 55-incher will be available here, though we'd be surprised if not. Our colleagues went on a rave about the A95L's additional brightness and colour vibrancy, despite no loss of black depth, just brighter highlights to reinforce edges and textures, giving everything an even more solid and threedimensional appearance. To achieve such brilliance, Sony says that to Samsung Display's QD-OLED panel it's added its own heat diffusion sheet (a heatsink) and bespoke thermal analysis via the set's Cognitive Processor XR, which enables the panel to be pushed to higher…

Sony A95L QD-OLED

TCL C855 & 115-incher

TCL's C855 Premium QD-Mini LED 4K Google TV (below) is the replacement for last year's award-winning C845, the new model starting at 65 inches ($2999) and rising through 75-inch ($3999) and 85-inch ($4999) models to a 98-incher at $9999 (noting again that we're already seeing substantial street discounts on these prices). As for big screens, TCL has been the leader in such giants, and there are currently no fewer than six TCL ranges in which you can buy a 98-incher, including some of last year's models. It's a sign of how prices fall that on TCL's website last year's C845, C745 and C735 all show 98-inchers priced at $9999, the same price as this year's more advanced C855 98-incher, while the new 98C755 drops to $7999, and the 98C655 to…

TCL C855 & 115-incher

LG 97-inch OLED & beach TV

LG continues to lead on OLED, and is using AI from the company's latest α11 AI processor to get the best from the tech: there's a Personalised Picture Wizard, AI Brightness Control, AI Super Upscaling, Brightness Booster and Brightness Booster Max. The company's webOS 24 is celebrating its 10th anniversary with further smarts, including up to 10 individual profiles with recommendations according to taste, and even recognising users’ voices to access these profiles even if another profile is in use. Spooky! There's also improved Multi View, which can show up to four different sources at the same time (on the OLED M4 and G4 models). The top models are also Matter compatible, for Matter-compatible smart home devices. The OLED M4 is the world's first OLED TV capable of wireless video…

LG 97-inch OLED & beach TV

BenQ W5800 4K DLP projector SUMMARY BenQ W5800 Price: $8999 + Powerful pristine images + Excellent motion handling + Screen sizes up to 200 inches + Great remote control – No built-in smarts or speakers (which is OK) – ‘True 4K’ claim Anyone who attended Wavetrain Cinemas’ demonstration at April's Australian Hi-Fi Show in Sydney will already have experienced this BenQ W5800; it was the visual star in one of the Show's top attractions, blazing spectacular images on a 158-inch Severtson screen, accompanied by equally thrilling sound from the Wavetrain-related Elementi speaker brand. Three clips — Barbie, Bond and The Last Showman (Loren Allred's vocal performance of Never Enough for Rebecca Ferguson's Jenny Lind) — proved both sound and image to be of the highest calibre. So we are rather…

Beaming baby box

Hisense C1 4K DLP projector SUMMARY Hisense C1 Price: $3499 + Premium solid construction + VIDAA interface & streaming + Automagic set-up & sound options + Does OK against ambient light… – …but best-quality images come after dark – Some signals arrived in HD only Hisense terms the C1 a TriChroma Laser Mini Projector — but we reckon only half of that description is accurate. It's certainly got trichroma lasers, which we'll come to shortly. But it's understating the case to call it ‘Mini’, because it's really moderately large and long-throw, and an understatement also to call it merely a projector, because the C1 brings more than mere projection to the party. It's got built-in smarts, both in easing the set-up with near-instant calibration and in providing a smart interface…

Beaming baby box

Reference receiver

audiovisual multichannel receiver Marantz Cinema 30 multichannel receiver SUMMARY Marantz Cinema 30 Price: $7900 + A genuine reference + 13 channels of processing + 11 versatile channels of Class-AB power – Quite the size Since a recent reinvention as the ‘Cinema’ series, the numbering of the AV receiver range from Marantz has become a convergent sequence. It starts at the lowest end with the highest number, the ‘slimline’ Cinema ‘70s’ model down at $2000, then rises through the increasingly less slimline Cinemas 60, 50 and 40, to this new and definitely full-fat Cinema 30. These ever-lower numbers indicate ever-higher models, and these have been arriving on the market roughly in order of complexity. You might think that with only two lower/higher numbers left before they zero out, they must be…

Reference receiver

JBL Bar 300 soundbar SUMMARY JBL Bar 300 Price: $529.95 + Affordable yet feature-rich + Atmos in 5.0, calibration and Wi-Fi streaming + Full bass without a sub – Weak in the mids – Not the best with music We were extremely impressed last year by the JBL Bar 1300. It is a soundbar with removable ends that become wireless rear speakers, thereby going a long way toward answering a common criticism of soundbars, which is that they're often little more than stereo devices in a box poorly shaped for audio reproduction, sold to people who might really do better with nice standmount speakers either side of their TV, driven by a decent separate amplifier. Soundbars nevertheless became widely popular, a growth sector for many years, which encouraged investment in…

Naia goes higher

hi-fi turntable Rega Naia turntable SUMMARY Rega Naia Price: $19,999 / $24,999 with cartridge + Exceptional clarity and detail resolution + Transparency and naturalness + Brave styling – Foam edges look a little underfinished At $19,999, the Rega Naia is the best turntable that UK company Rega knows how to make in production form. Add the recommended factory-fitted Aphelion 2 moving-coil cartridge, and the price rises to $24,999. For such a price you might expect some hefty great turntable covered with bling. But that is very much not the Rega way. The philosophy of the UK company, based and manufacturing in Southend-on-Sea, is to achieve low mass with high rigidity. So the more money they apply, the better and stiffer materials they use, and the more turntable they can remove.…

Naia goes higher

hi-fi loudspeakers Yamaha NS-2000A stereo loudspeakers SUMMARY Yamaha NS-2000A Price: $9999 + Genuinely ‘natural sound’ + Stunning piano-gloss finish + Matching driver materials – Nothing at the price As you'll see in our little Yamaha history later in this issue, Yamaha's first ‘Natural Sound’ loudspeakers appeared in an electronic organ, the Electone D-1, released in 1959. The drivers were subsequently developed into high-end hi-fi speakers bearing the NS-20 and NS-30 model names, released some eight years after the electric organ, and usually presented as Yamaha's first ‘Natural Sound’ speakers. Both those early ‘NS’ designs were three-ways, with the NS-30 using a bass driver that measured 890 × 630mm (!) and the NS-20 using one that measured 680 × 500mm (also !). The very large and odd-shaped diaphragms of both speakers…

X hits the spot

Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro ‘X’ Limited Edition headphones SUMMARY Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro ‘X’ Limited Edition Price: $349 + Open and full sound + Solid build & comfort + Limited Edition cachet + Mobile-friendly, if best at home – Nothing at this price Beyerdynamic celebrates 100 years in 2024, and these headphones are part of the celebration, an ‘X’ edition of the DT 770 Pro. The standard model is normally $299, while this X version is $349, bringing the company's low-impedance STELLAR.45 driver technology (see panel), as well as a pluggable cable, and ‘improved wearing characteristics’. This ‘X’ edition (they could have gone with X2 for a centenary) is a Limited Edition headphone — but ‘time-limited’, rather than quantity-limited, emphasises the company, though it comes to much the same thing,…

X hits the spot

Ace in the hole

Sonos Ace Wireless NC headphones SUMMARY Sonos Ace Price: $699 + Style and Sonos links + USB-C playback – Price – Safe sound – Features held at launch Sonos created and perfected the technology of multiroom audio, before expanding into wireless speakers, soundbars, and by extension, home cinema. It's done very well, of course. But what next? Headphones are a pretty brave choice. It's a wildly busy sector, packed with competition, some of them headphone or speaker specialists, and many with long track records in headgear large and small. But everyone wants to keep customers within their own eco-system, so headphones it is — the Sonos Ace wireless headphones. And they're $699. Looking at them, it seems likely that Sonos have taken note of the Apple AirPods Max at $899,…

Ace in the hole

Compose yourself

Austrian Audio The Composer headphones SUMMARY Austrian Audio The Composer Price: $3999 + Our favourite sound ever from production dynamic headphones + Beautiful build + Among the most comfortable ever + Versatile with sources… – though best with a good amp, balanced if possible – Not cheap! There's every chance you haven't heard of Austrian Audio. The company is only six years old, and the vast bulk of its catalogue is professional gear: microphones and studio headphones. When we received these headphones they didn't yet even have official distribution in Australia. But that's now changed for two reasons: firstly because Audio Tuning (the company behind Pro-Ject and Musical Fidelity) is taking on their global distribution, and secondly because of this product, the high-end Composer headphone, the company's first consumer model.…

Compose yourself

headphones true wireless earbuds Wireless earbuds, often called ‘true wireless’, can be difficult things to choose. The choice is wide. It's hard to audition them to check for ‘fit’. And they're perhaps the shortest-lived product in hi-fi: two to three years is the expected lifespan for your new music-makers, through a combination of wear, tear and gradual decline in battery capacity. With careful use, you might get as long as five years, but nothing like the span you can expect from over-ear headphones, let alone home hi-fi headphones, many of which continue to make music long decades after their production. Keeping that lifespan in mind might suggest spending less and making do with a non-premium product, since you'll likely need to buy another in a few years. But then again,…

Earfun Air Pro 3

headphones true wireless earbuds Earfun's formula is to load its earbuds with features and functionality, then somehow price them way below more high-profile and credible rivals. It's a clever trick — if they can pull it off. The Air Pro 3s are made of glossy plastic: black for the body and driver-housing (they also come in white and blue variants), grey for the dangly stem. The charging case, too, is plastic, and so usefully light, all perfectly acceptable in the context of the asking price. Earfun provides four different sizes of eartip in the packaging, and once sized up the Air Pro 3s fit snugly, and are unobtrusive — not sports-buds, but they stay in position if you have to break into a jog. They're comfortable enough, and thanks to…

Earfun Air Pro 3

headphones true wireless earbuds With these WF-C500 headphones, Sony attempts to bring its widely successful performance in premium in-ear buds to an altogether more aggressive price. Nevertheless, the WF-C500s find themselves competing against capable rivals, some of which have definite on-paper advantages. Sitting below quite a range of higher Sony buds, the WF-C500 are inevitably not the most lavishly specified. But where the main essentials are concerned, they deliver what we'd hope for the money. The WF-C500 buds use Bluetooth 5.0, but are compatible with only the lower SBC and AAC codecs. Once your digital audio information is on board, it's delivered to your ears by a pair of unspecified 5.8mm drivers with neodymium magnets. Quoted battery life is 10 hours from the earbuds themselves, another full charge from the…

headphones true wireless earbuds We found 20 true wireless models listed on JBL Australia's website, from below $90 up to $300. So the JBL Live Pro 2 TWS, although not the latest, might be considered around the sweet-spot. With a nice glossy finish they look good enough for the money (in Silver, Rose and Black), and the earpieces slot magnetically into a nicely compact charging case with a row of lights to show battery level. JBL claims around 10 hours playback, or eight with Bluetooth and ANC turned on, but the charging case lifts those numbers to 40 hours, or 30 with ANC. JBL has gone down the tried-and-tested route of adding stems to this model, so instead of touch pads, the top section of each stem, near the 11mm…

Panasonic RZ-S500W

headphones true wireless earbuds Panasonic has been expanding its range of wireless buds recently: five models currently on the books, topped by the RZ-S500W here at $249 RRP, which was originally released in 2020 (the lower non-ANC RZ-S300W has since been updated to a 310W model). As a top model the S500W's spec sheet is pretty comprehensive, with dual hybrid noise cancelling, an ambient mode, and twin beamforming microphones for clarity during calls. The quoted battery life is only 6.5 hours from the buds but another 13 from the magnetic charging case, which is nicely pocketable and has three white LEDs to show battery life. The buds themselves have smooth, matte plastic earpieces with metallic accents, inside which is an 8mm driver with a neodymium magnet. An LED light flashes…

Panasonic RZ-S500W

Audio-Technica ATH-TWX7

headphones true wireless earbuds Audio-Technica's studio-led overear headphones have taken a number of our awards in recent years, but we've not previously heard their in-ear offerings. These ATH-TWX7 use the same 5.8mm high-resolution drivers as the company's flagship ATH-TWX9 model, here in a good-looking nicely-made pair of wireless earbuds that are light at 4.7g, and so neat and comfortable you can easily forget you are wearing them at all. The long-stem design here achieved a secure fit aided by separate three soft or three standard eartips, along with an IPX4 rating against splashing. “the ATH-TWX7s kept even the sharpest of guitar squeals in check with solid detail levels delivering the track's emphatic vocals despite the percussive thud of bass-drum kicks…” Alongside the standard SBC and AAC Bluetooth codecs, the ATH-TWX7…

Audio-Technica ATH-TWX7

Sony WF-1000XM5

headphones true wireless earbuds Changes between Sony models year on year are often iterative upgrades; you can then save money by buying last year's model without much loss in the way of features. But not this time: Sony has made big changes to its new top-of-the-line buds. But are they all positive? Both the earbuds and the charging case are noticeably smaller than the previous XM4, the buds down by 20-25% in size and weight, less chunky, with better integrated mikes and a less protruding profile (which reduces the effects of wind noise). They're more comfortable and more liveable than the WF-1000XM4, though they rely on four tip sizes and a twist technique for their fit, which we found less secure than some rivals, notably the Boses, with their wings.…

Sony WF-1000XM5

Apple AirPods Pro 2

headphones true wireless earbuds Apple's early AirPods were one step behind the competition when it came to sound quality. That all changed with the latest AirPods Pro 2 model, the second generation of Apple's flagship wireless ANC earbuds. These brought a more powerful processor, with advancements in active noise-cancelling, longer battery life, new features and, most importantly, better audio performance. They launched in September 2022 with the original Lightning case, while the updated AirPods Pro 2 with the USB-C case came in September 2023. You can't buy the USB-C case separately, and that's the only difference (software updates apply to both), so don't feel shortchanged if you are happy with your original model! Meanwhile the price of $399 puts these AirPods at a competitive price, right on top of Sony's…

Apple AirPods Pro 2

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbud

headphones true wireless earbuds Bose's QuietComfort ‘Ultra’ Earbuds replaced the QuietComfort Earbuds II when they were barely over a year old. So what changed? The design is pretty much identical save for a couple of things: a tweak to the finish on the outer stems, a new metallic treatment, plus a tweak to the way the stability bands attach, with a small notch added which helps line up the bands more easily to lock them in place. We certainly recommend experimenting with them to optimise fit, because once you get it right, comfort levels are first-rate, just like their predecessors, and more comfortable for us than the Sony WF-1000XM5. Unlike many rivals, the Bose tips are super soft; they don't burrow into your ears, yet maintain a great seal. You…

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbud

Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4

headphones true wireless earbuds The latest Momentum True Wireless 4 earbuds look near-identical to the True Wireless 3: the same ovular shape, the same touch-sensitive surfaces, albeit with three new colours: metallic silver, graphite, and black copper. Inside each earpiece, though, there are plenty of changes: new antennas to improve stability, and dynamic load switching so that the closest bud to your phone is always connected to it, a bonus for robust connection. The drivers are said to be similar to those used in the company's wired in-ear IE 600 and IE 900, but with extra tuning. Eartips are now washable, with a new plastic guard at the end to keep the ear tubes clear. The headline news is Qualcomm's S5 Sound Gen 2 processor and Snapdragon Sound Technology bringing…

Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4

headphones true wireless earbuds Denon's premium true wireless earbuds offer something different: a personalised listening profile tuned to your hearing, using something called Masimo Adaptive Acoustic Technology (AAT). With Denon and its stablemates now owned by medical company Masimo, that makes obvious sense. But Australians may also note a second connection when they see the colourful splodges that represent these profiles, as they originate from nurasound, a Melbourne company founded in 2015 which carved itself a nice niche here, a great fanbase and a Sound+Image Award before being bought up by Masimo. Indeed the Denon PerL and PerL Pro appear pretty similar to the earlier NuraTrue and NuraTrue Pro models. We see nurasound's vestigal website refers to the PerLs as ‘the next generation’ of nurasound. So as with Denon's HEOS,…

How do we tune to Auracast?

feature Auracast Bluetooth LE is rising as the new low-energy version of the ‘Classic Bluetooth’ wireless technology, and in our group of ‘true wireless’ earbuds this issue we have seen some of the first products to support the new standard. For now, devices will support both Classic Bluetooth and Bluetooth LE, with a gradual handover to the new version. LE is more efficient, if generally limited to lower bit rates for audio, although the key codec designers from Fraunhofer have promised us, back in issue #355, that it will sound great! Compared to a default SBC Bluetooth stream, we'd hope that to be true. Against higher-level third-party codecs hitting CD quality, that remains to be seen. Besides, there's no denying that Bluetooth LE will sell itself on a number of…

How do we tune to Auracast?

Reflections on Sennheiser

interview Sennheiser Hearing You'd think it would be easy enough to find a box the size of a shipping container sitting in the middle of Darling Harbour's Tumbalong Park. But being entirely mirrored, other than a logo and new slogan ‘Hear More’, Sennheiser's Mirrorbox was remarkably discreet (and almost impossible to photograph). Besides, it was the insides that counted. During the night hours of Vivid Sydney, long queues of visitors along the festival's Light Walk formed outside the Mirrorbox to enjoy Sennheiser's “immersive AI audio experience that blends sounds with emotion to create a musical journey for participants”. We took the journey ourselves — and no need for a spoilers alert, as Vivid will be over by the time you read this. A group at a time entered to sit…

Reflections on Sennheiser

70 years of ‘Hi-Fi’

Yamaha makes one key claim to its position within the original Golden Age of post-war audio, when the very concept of “high fidelity” was first being established through a string of technological and material advances in the late 1940s and into the 1950s. In 1954 it released the ‘Yamaha Hi-Fi Player’ (above), claimed to be the world's first audio component bearing the word ‘Hi-Fi’ in its name. It's a product remembered by the company as delivering “sure sound and durability”. But by 1954 Yamaha had already been in existence more than half a century. The founder was Torakusu Yamaha, who built the first reed organ in Japan after learning how to repair a broken one, and founded the company as a manufacturer of reed organs and pianos at the end…

70 years of ‘Hi-Fi’

The NS-1000 loudspeakers

In 1974 came the NS-1000 loudspeaker — of which we heard much in recent years when it inspired the modern NS-5000 speakers launched in 2015 as the start of a new 5000 Hi-Fi series. The great innovation back in 1974 was the introduction of beryllium vacuum deposition. Beryllium's properties were well enough known — it had the classic combination of stiffness and lightness desirable in a loudspeaker cone, its ‘numbers’ superior to other options such as titanium, aluminium or magnesium. But its resistance to stretching or bending caused it to split under any attempt to form it into a shape for use in a loudspeaker driver. Yamaha managed to overcome the problems by electro-beam vacuum deposition and a special alloy technology developed in its piano frame building. With an aluminium…

The NS-1000 loudspeakers

‘NATURAL SOUND’

It's quite a pedigree — Yamaha's latest loudspeakers carry the same ‘NS’ prefix as the company's first ‘Natural Sound’ speaker back in 1958, the NS-20 (pictured overleaf), which used the principles of a piano soundboard in a speaker for the home. The ‘Natural Sound’ slogan has since been affixed to everything from CD players to receivers to in-wall speakers — indeed it began with the speaker for Yamaha's Electone organ series (the 1959 B-1 is pictured). There's no single philosophy behind it, except perhaps a regard for simplicity in achieving purity of sound. “It means just what it says — Natural Sound”, as one Yamaha Music Australia staff member once sagely told us.…

‘NATURAL SOUND’

THE GK CONNECTION

While Yamaha dates its ‘Hi-Fi’ birth to the Yamaha Hi-Fi Player, there is another product of the same period which looks far more ‘Yamaha’ than that Hi-Fi Player — the Hi-Fi Tuner R-3, above. Both products enjoyed design input from GK Design, then a young group of industrial designers calling themselves Group Of Koike (GK), born only a year earlier from a community of Tokyo National University of Fine Arts students who advocated industrial design ahead of more traditional crafts, and aiming for “democratisation of beauty” and for “democratisation of things”. Among the GK group was Kenji Ekuan, who went on to lead GK and design the iconic Kikkoman soy sauce bottle, more for Yamaha — and the classic Akita Shinkansen Komachi bullet train, before his death in 2015. “I…

THE GK CONNECTION

music & movies interview The voice of Robby Krieger on the phone sounds like Travis in Paris, Texas. One note. Bone dry. Exhausted and burned by the whole sentenced-to-life séance that the story of The Doors has become. Yet quite cheerful. Robby was always the most easy-going in The Doors. After Ray Manzarek, who spoke of golden vibrations yet jumped at shadows. Far behind John Densmore, who was still calling Jim “a psychopath, a lunatic” the last time anyone heard from him. Jim Morrison was all fucked-up, of course, but in a good way, at first. Then in a bad way, soon after. “When he was doing the acid and marijuana, he was great,” Robby says. “No problems. It's when he started drinking, then he would just turn into an…

music & movies new music from old names

PAUL WELLER 66 Britpop's favourite grumpy uncle channels Bowie, Bacharach, Blur. Against the odds, Paul Weller has entered a liberating new creative phase over the past decade or so. Once the unchanging man, obstinate brand leader for rootsy Real Ale Rock, the former Jam and Style Council frontman has broadened his sonic horizons significantly on recent albums, making some of the most adventurous and kaleidoscopic music of his long career. Embracing lavish orchestration, experimental soundscapes, left-field collaborators and electronic textures, Weller seems to have finally twigged that the great flowering of ’60s pop gave him a set of tools, not rules. Titled to reflect his upcoming landmark birthday, ‘66’ sports a striking Pop Art cover painting by 91-year-old legend Peter Blake, his first for Weller since 1995's ‘Stanley Road’. Lyrical…

music & movies new music from old names

CLASSIC TRACK Meat Loaf – Bat Out Of Hell 1977

music & movies classic track First of all, Bat Out Of Hell isn't even the best song on the album. But it is the title track, and therefore the most representative of that mammoth, life-changing, world-eating magnum opus. Is there any other album ever produced that is viewed so favourably as one recognisable, self-standing entity? Did it even need singles? It was meant to be devoured in one ravenous sitting, and that's exactly how we all did it. If anything represents the concept of ‘album rock’, it's 1977's ‘Bat Out Of Hell’. It defines album rock. And it's probably the greatest standalone rock album ever made. It's also completely ridiculous — albeit in the best way possible. Consider the source: Meat, a sweaty, overweight leather-lunged theatre kid hungry for an…

CLASSIC TRACK Meat Loaf – Bat Out Of Hell 1977

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