Hi-Fi Choice

Looking to spruce up the vinyl replay chain, UK distributor Henley Audio has introduced the SugarCube SC-1 from Californian-based firm SweetVinyl, designed to digitally remove pops and clicks from any record in real-time – “playing older records like they’re brand new”. Sitting between a phono stage and amplifier, it’s built around a Asahi Kasei analogue-to-digital converter (ADC), digital processor and an ESS DAC. It offers iOS and Android app-based control of the 24-bit/ 192kHz digital process and a Strength dial gives up to 10 ‘clean-up’ levels. The process claims to remove only the unwanted elements on the vinyl and that the audio signal retains all the space, depth and clarity of the original recording.

Few hi-fi components read from a more conflicted job sheet than the standmount speaker. Put yourself inits place. Number one, you need to persuade your owner that, however tempting, being tucked away on a bookshelf isn’t that great an idea if you’re expected to give your best performance. Second, having avoided that dusty corner cosying up to Ian McEwan, the stout pillar you’re now perched on eats up as much floorspace as a floorstanding tower so, yes, the pressure’s on to deliver sonically.

Late summer is the time of year that Worthing-based Bowers & Wilkins likes to make announcements about changes to its loudspeaker lineup, and this year is no exception. In last year's October issue (HFC 428) we brought news of the then all-new, mid-priced 700 Series that replaced the company's long-running CM Series. Fast forward 12 months and summer 2018 sees another announcement, this time with the unveiling of the sixth iteration to its 600 Series entry-point range. The updated seven-strong loudspeaker range has adopted a similar model-naming structure to align it with 700 and 800 Series offerings.

Using a poor-quality USB cable to connect a computer to a DAC can result in effects that will interfere with the quality of the audio signal that’s transmitted. These unwanted effects manifest themselves as errors in the digital data stream, which the DAC has to correct and can introduce jitter and other issues that can degrade the audio signal. What’s in a name? The Blue USB cable is the baby brother of TQ’s Black USB cable, which employs a special blend of materials for both the conductors and insulators and aims to minimise phase distortion. We reviewed the original back in 2014 (HFC 383), but the construction has been “tweaked” despite the name staying the same.