It has been a great year for small, affordable audio – long may it continue!

[What Hi-Fi?]

2023 has been a fantastic year for products – be they headphones, streamers or DACs – that give plenty of clout for very little cost.

It has been a great year for small, affordable audio – long may it continue! : Read more

 

[Combat]

Hats off for writing an article like this because I know I've been quite negative towards you in some articles because of your lack of focus on the budget end. My view is that HiFi is similar to dining out but is a few years behind the trend in dining. The times when we aspired to eat out at restaurants with as many Michelin stars as possible are fading. And so is the "superstar chef". The innovation in the last 5-10 years has come from chefs and restaurants at the budget the mid-market end and diners no longer see Michelin star restaurants of worthy of the extortionate prices that they charge. In HiFi the superstar chef are the traditional brands who are now being out innovated by these new brands at the lower end of the market.

Case in point. The WiiM Pro Plus has parametric eq to allow room correction (with the use of an appropriate mic and eq software). Looking at all other brands, who else offers that? Almost none.

So I'm ditching my Bluesound Node N330 (which until this year was considered a disruptor but is now being disrupted itself) in favour of the WiiM Pro Plus that will feed in to my sub and then (using the high pass filter) back out to two Aiyima A07 Max amps (running in mono mode and using the upgrade 48v power blocks to give out 200w each) and then on to my speakers. The total cost for the streaming DAC and two mono block amps is £350 (£310 for me as I found good deals) . My sub is a £1600 Kef KC62 and the £1200 Kef LS50 Meta. Is that imbalanced and can the DAC and amps be the equal of such esteemed company? I have no doubt in my mind! In fact I'm fairly certain they will wipe the floor with DAC/amp combos costing 10 times as much after I've done the room correction.

 

[FreakyDeaky]

I am sure they will! Sounds like a great set up, chip amps and cheap streaming has truly come of age. For my office system I am building a stereo power amp (TPA3255 based) as they simply sound amazing and lots of tinkering can be done. Enjoy!

 

[Combat]

I am sure they will! Sounds like a great set up, chip amps and cheap streaming has truly come of age. For my office system I am building a stereo power amp (TPA3255 based) as they simply sound amazing and lots of tinkering can be done. Enjoy!

Nice! DYI. I never considered that you could do that. I actually had one of these nearly 20 years ago. For £50 you got the amp and a pair of fold out pyramid speakers. I ended up selling my £750 rotel amp and was driving my 4 way Morduant Short floor standers using this tiny plastic thing. I though that was going to be the start of a budget explosion but it took nearly 20 more years for it to really kick off!

T-Amp - Class T integrated amplifier - [English]

 

[Ian AV]

Hats off for writing an article like this because I know I've been quite negative towards you in some articles because of your lack of focus on the budget end. My view is that HiFi is similar to dining out but is a few years behind the trend in dining. The times when we aspired to eat out at restaurants with as many Michelin stars as possible are fading. And so is the "superstar chef". The innovation in the last 5-10 years has come from chefs and restaurants at the budget the mid-market end and diners no longer see Michelin star restaurants of worthy of the extortionate prices that they charge. In HiFi the superstar chef are the traditional brands who are now being out innovated by these new brands at the lower end of the market.

Case in point. The WiiM Pro Plus has parametric eq to allow room correction (with the use of an appropriate mic and eq software). Looking at all other brands, who else offers that? Almost none.

So I'm ditching my Bluesound Node N330 (which until this year was considered a disruptor but is now being disrupted itself) in favour of the WiiM Pro Plus that will feed in to my sub and then (using the high pass filter) back out to two Aiyima A07 Max amps (running in mono mode and using the upgrade 48v power blocks to give out 200w each) and then on to my speakers. The total cost for the streaming DAC and two mono block amps is £350 (£310 for me as I found good deals) . My sub is a £1600 Kef KC62 and the £1200 Kef LS50 Meta. Is that imbalanced and can the DAC and amps be the equal of such esteemed company? I have no doubt in my mind! In fact I'm fairly certain they will wipe the floor with DAC/amp combos costing 10 times as much after I've done the room correction.

Hats off to you for understanding the importance of room correction to remove colourations that lesser equipment fail to address no matter how much you spend. Very important when a sub is included too which is a must for most, especially when just running stand mounts, to maintain the full frequency range of music and not just for movie use.