Stellia, Focal’s flagship closed-back high-end headphone, was released earlier this year to resounding applause at the CanJam Global festival in New York and, in the months that have followed, reviewers and end-users alike have set about clamouring to get their hands on a set.
For many years Bricasti Designs have maintained a line of innovative, powerful and achingly good-looking power amplifiers designed for the Hi-Fi market - the largest of which (the Bricasti M28) offers an almighty 800W to a single mono channel with a 2 ohm load.
The popularity of Hi-Fi loudspeaker isolation has exploded. Now more than ever, audiophiles and listeners the world over are appreciating the importance of a properly decoupled underlying surface to ensure a solid soundstage and achieve flourishing openness in sound.
Each year at the NAMM show in Anaheim California, Audix Microphones review the previous 12 months past and recognise a number of key partners with awards reflecting truly exemplary performance. At this year’s show, SCV was honoured to accept the award for Distributor of the Year 2018!
In a recently published review from Hi-Fi Choice (issue 446) Editor Lee Dunkley turned his attention to one of Novafidelity’s most compact streaming devices: the X14. Dunkley was quick to note the growing popularity of one-box music systems and the role that Novafidelity and other key manufacturers have been playing.
At Musikmesse 2019 this month Chicago-based studio outboard and modification wizards Black Lion Audio introduced yet another innovative vintage outboard reissue with a little help from Chris Lord-Alge’s studio – Mix L.A. Lord-Alge is a long-time user of the original UA 1176 FET limiting amplifiers and has used them on countless mixes.
Following the huge popularity of Meze Audio's flagship Empyrean headphone product release in mid-2018, the Romanian audio manufacturer is now making a triumphant return to the Head-Fi market - this time with their sights set on in-ear monitors.
Last month Hi-Fi expert reviewer Jay Garrett featured Meze’s flagship isodynamic Empyrean headphones in a review for digital consumer audio publication StereoNET. During the article Garrett takes an expertly deep dive into the Empyrean’s technical specifications, along with the recent history of Meze.
At the NAMM show in early 2019, Black Lion Audio CEO Nate Bierdeman unveiled a pair of new products which extend the scope of two revered preamp models. Over the years Black Lion has earned a flawless reputation for designing high performance preamps in affordable price brackets, and the new B173 Quad and B12A Quad models are no exceptions.
Bricasti are no strangers to the high-end audio market. This year with the introduction of the M3, Bricasti introduce a brand new digital to analogue converter pitched at a more affordable price bracket – everything is high-end, except the price.