LATEST ADDITIONS

There’s something very reassuring about a high-end integrated amplifier. While stacks of black boxes might have been the done thing in the early eighties, in today’s world, the trend is to downsize, but music fans don’t want to hear anyless of their beloved recordings. The so-called ‘super-integrated’ breed ticks all these boxes; it’s big but not too big, and promises a sound to rival some more expensive pre/power amplifier combinations. Roksan, lest we forget, has always made fine-sounding amplification; it has a distinctly muscular-but-musical character that covers more bases than some rival designs, many of which tend to be one or the other.

David Bowie fans will delighteed to learn that The Man Who Fell To Earth will be returning to UK cineams in September. Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, Nicolas Roeg’s iconic movie will be screened in cinemas nationwide in 4K from 9 September. STUDIOCANAL has announced that it is near to completing a new 4k restoration of the cult classic. Meanwhile, The Man Who Fell To Earth will also be released on DVD and Blu-ray on 10 October by STUDIOCANAL as part of the ‘Vintage Classics collection’ – showcasing iconic British films, all fully restored and featuring brand new extra content.

Taking its BE6 earphones as a starting point, Optoma has uneviled its new NuForceBE6iwireless in-ear earphones. Apparently the only Bluetooth in-ear to be fully crafted from aluminium – which is claimed to deliver crystal-clear sound in an elegant lightweight design – the BE6i offers a claimedbattery life of up to 8 hours. Bluetooth comes in the superior aptX form, with a range of 30m claimed by Optoma whileAAC compatibility is also on hand for superior quality audio streaming. Each earphone has a 10mm driver, claimed to eliminate unwanted reverberations for distortion-free sound even at high volume levelsby using a high-grade titanium, magnesium and inert metal to form a thin nano-layer over its surface.

Introducing Clearaudio's latest addition to its entry-level family of moving-coil cartridges, the Essence MC. Clearaudio has been researching into moving-coil technology since 1978 and the design team found itself facing quite a challenge when tasked with developing a brand new cartridge that would improve on the existing entry-level Concept MC, without breaking a key price point. By taking the essence of the Concept MC design and applying even more stringent parameters to key elements of its construction, the German manufacturer believes it might just have come up trumps. Like the Concept MC, the Essence MC’s body is constructed from a high-density aluminium-magnesium alloy, which is then coated with a ceramic layer to minimise resonance.