Hi-Fi Choice

Voice control was among one of the biggest advances in 2017, and it hasn’t taken multi-room giant Sonos long to bring this functionality into its ecosystem. The new One is the first Sonos multi-room speaker to include Amazon Alexa voice control (and from 2018, Google Assistant) built in. The speaker uses six far-field microphones and voice capture technology with echo cancellation tech to ensure it receives voice commands clearly. A volume ‘duck’ feature drops the music level as soon as you start talking.

Pioneer has announced details of its new reference disc spinner in the form of the PD-70AE. Able to play CD and SACD via its large aluminium drawer-loading mechanism, the player promises to be a usefully flexible CD source and also act as a DAC via optical and a coaxial digital inputs at the rear. Decoding is handled by a pair of ESS9026PRO DACs and the entire circuit has been assembled to be fully balanced. A three-mode adjustable filter fine tunes the presentation with a choice of Slow, Sharp and Short settings.

Inside the January 2018 issue we take anexclusiveIn-depthlook at Auralic’s Aries G2 network streaming transport, whileExoticafeatures Yamaha’s NS-5000 standmount loudspeaker. Regular review pages feature VPI’s Player turntable package, Chord Electronics’ Poly wireless streaming add-on, T+A’s Cala SR one-box system and Bowers & Wilkins’ PX wireless noise-cancelling headphones. Plus,Beautiful Systembrings together US and Canadian brands VPI, Simaudio and Totem Acoustic whileMusic Legendscharts the life and times of the original king of rock and roll Fats Domino, and our six-wayGroup Testlooks at six in-ear headphones from Final, NuForce, oBravo, Oriveti, Sennheiser and Westone. Plus: Get our AVTech Awards 2017/18 supplement absolutely free.

Electricity is a vital ingredient in any home hi-fi system of course. But while on the one hand it’s essential in powering our music systems, on the other it can affect hi-fi performance if not handled properly. Think of it as the fuel that’s required to get a car running – if you want to get the best performance, you need to ensure that its being fed the cleanest ‘fuel’ possible. Our mains supply can be affected by numerous factors, whether it be the journey it takes from the power station to your home, the other components that are in the vicinity of your system or air-borne signals from smartphones, wi-fi or Bluetooth devices.