Recent content by Johan Bottema

A very underwelming list. None of this stuff is “hifi” … it is sevenoaks bestsellers. The product of the year has to be the KEF LS60 …

Wow. I had de Grado SR325. A total misbuy. Not much bass. After a while the rigid cable pushed into one of the pods and damaged it. So here it is what is missing. Philips Fidelio X1 & X2, Hifiman Sundara, Hifiman H400S & H400SE, AKG 702, Sennheisser HD650. And then the best high end headphone...

Why on earth would you still buy a CD player if you are on a budget. A streamer service is so much cheaper than buying new CD's. Hook your laptop up to a cheap DAC (they all work fine, easy to find a good measuring one).

For iphone users it may not be beneficial as the £9 DAC is, tested by various people, really good already.

How much profit will they make on this cable? This is snake oil. There is no tangible evidence that this cable is better than any cheaper OFC cable.

Yeah but the Uni-Q meta drivers are so good already ... what would they increase cost on to make it sound better?

Apart from the metal front plate the KEF R3 Meta and the KEF Ref 1 Meta look exactly the same. Also the drivers seem to be the same? How do these 2 speakers relate and is the Ref 1 worth the extra thousands?

"Headfi>Hifi" The boldest statement ever in audioland. Clearly the author has never heard the limitations of a headphone. And clearly the author has never heard a good hifi audio set.

WH says it is worth it? So how does it compare to Hypex based amps or Purify based amps? These are currently the standard for 1/10 of the cost?

The author of this article erroneously mentions that McIntosh is a British audio brand. This brand started in 1949 in the USA!

This is competing with the very perfect NAD C298 power amp with Eigentakt technology. The winning solution is simple .. add a DACMagic 200M and you have a better system for 66% of the cost.

Will it be any better than the Burmester 151 MK2 Music center and worth its 3 times more cost? No.

There are plenty of articles that show measurement of these kind of applications. First of all the mains power is converted to DC in all Amplifier circuits with rectifiers and capacitors sequences ... and it is therefore impossible to occur, yes: it is strange & asburd to think that any noise...

For less than £4100 I could buy the following system with much better accolades ... Spend £3000 on some Genelec 8350APM. Forget the turntable ... Digital is the only way Cambridge Audi CXN v2 streamer and you have a cheaper system with far superior audio quality.

At the current standard of DAC from chinese manufacturing I believe that it is not justified to pay more than £300 for a DAC. A DAC of £500 should be at least 32bit 384Khz, 256DSD and should have USB-C, Optical, SPDIF, XLR balance out, High current headphone output, volume knob and a remote...