News

If you follow the mag on our Twitteror Facebooksocial media pages you will have undoubtedly taken part in our recent opinion polls asking about your favourite hi-fi sources and preferred music formats. The results have been extremely enlightening, and while physical formats are very much in demand for fellow audio fans, on-demand streaming services are also becoming increasingly popular as a way of instantaneously accessing millions of tracks and albums at the click of a touchscreen or keyboard. On-demand music streaming is a massive growth area, and with Apple Music and Google Play joining the ranks it’s rapidly becoming the preferred route for music fans to access their favorite material and artists – with each service offering its own brand of curated and exclusive content to appeal to its particular demographic of listeners. As many readers will know, it’s a continuously evolving area, with providers updating platform features and new services appearing all the time.

As Bat For Lashes, Natasha Khan earned Mercury Music Prize nominations for her 2006 debut Fur And Gold and its follow up Two Suns. Her third album, 2012’s The Haunted Man, a set of beguiling art-school pop on which her lofty soprano floated beguilingly above her characteristically dreamy soundscapes gave her a first American chart entry. Yet despite such critical and commercial success, a feeling persisted that she had more to give and we were still awaiting her first truly great album. At 36 and no longer the fluttering ingénue, The Bride is that record, destined to catapult her into the premier league.

If you’re in the market for a high-end cartridge, Audio-Technica’s AT-ART1000 at £4,100 could be for you. The hand-crafted design places the moving coil directly on top of the stylus tip, meaning that signal transmission from the stylus diamond to the moving coil are direct rather than transmitted along the length of the solid boron cantilever. Eight turns of 20um-diameter PCOCC wire create coils of 0. 9mm diameter.

If your aspirations extend beyond conventional solid-state hi-fi components but at more real-world prices, then this tube series from the US-based audiophile specialist Audio Research may well grab your attention. The Foundation ‘entry-level’ series is from the same engineering and design team responsible for its aspirational Reference series, and the three-strong range (for now) includes the LS28 line stage preamplifier with four balanced and four single-ended inputs, PH9 phono stage with five different impedance settings for cartridge loading – which can be changed on the fly with the included remote – and the DAC9 384kHz and DSD-compatible digital-to-analogue converter. All three models are built around the same chassisand 6H30 vacuum tubes, with four in the LS28 line stage preamplifier, three in the PH9 phono stage and a pair in the DAC9. Available in both black and natural anodized aluminium finishes, each unit comes with its own custom metal remote control.

Danish audio brand Copland has been absent from these pages in terms of new product launches for some time, but now it’s back with its long-awaited DAC 215 USB DAC/headphone preamp fed by a pairof ECC88 tubes. Described as a “Universal high-resolution DAC, preamplifier and headphone amplifier” it can be used as a headphone amp, preamp or as a pure DAC – the choice is yours. The Copland DAC 215 looks set to be bang on trend with its retro styling thanks to the rotary front panel controls for the volume level and input selection, and the faint glow of the valves from the headphone amp output section lurking behind the slatted grille will undoubtedly enhance any likely old-school feel for potential purchasers. But at the heart of the DAC 215 is a digital-to-analogue converter with multiple S/PDIF inputs, PCM, and DSD capabilities using the ES9018 Reference 8-channel DAC used in double-differential mode.

If the Scansonic name seems vaguely familiar it's because the brand has an illustrious history, being deeply rooted in Danish loudspeaker design and engineering. Scansonic goes back some 45 years to whenit was introduced as the name ona then-new line of loudspeakersfrom famous Danish drive-unit manufacturer ScanSpeak. Now owned by Dantax, the same parent company as Raidho, the brand’s loudspeakers are designed by the creator of the renowned Raidho range, acoustic designer Michael Børresen. As a result, Scansonic has plenty in common with the respected Raidho family DNA and pedigree, but at a fraction of the cost.

Subscribe today and get a FREE pair of Denon headphones worth £199! denon. co. uk Hi-Fi Choice is the essential guide to getting the best possible sound from your hi-fi, whether you're buying, tuning or tweaking. .