This year marks 110 years since Denon started, something the company celebrates with special models of four popular high-end products with new technology and the best components they have acquired. Among the selected products is the surround amplifier AVC-A110. A real flagship, based on the home theater monster AVC-X8500H, with as many as 13 amplifier …
Half a minute into Keith Jarrett’s Cologne concert, I realized why I have always been weak for Marantz integrated amplifiers. The brand new Marantz Model 30 has much of the same sound signature, an easy-flowing, well-resolved and effortless sound, which is so easy to like that it quickly becomes addictive. It also looks like a …
Simple, inexpensive and well-playing amplifiers are not easy to find. Ever since NAD turned the market upside down with the 3020 in the 80’s, there has always been a selection of bargains in the very lowest price range. But lately, the selection has shrunk as prices have risen, and the good old 3020 is long …
Japanese Denon can celebrate its 110th anniversary this year. It’s a respectable age for a hi-fi manufacturer – and not much younger than the electricity grid itself! To celebrate the anniversary, Denon has made a series of special editions of some of its best models. The models have received extra care on the audio side …
Electrocompaniet is first and foremost a high-end manufacturer specializing in large, heavy amplifiers. Although the company has recently shown that they master the art of making multi-room speakers . With the amplifier ECI 6DX MKII, the manufacturer has taken it all out, where the goal has been to pack as much quality from the more powerful preamplifiers and …
The easiest way to get better sound in your headphones is to buy a headphone amplifier. Even affordable headphones can suddenly sound much better. Exactly how much money to spend depends on how good sound you want, and of course what kind of headphones you have. The cheapest headphone amplifiers are not powerful enough to …
For many, serious is high-end, whether English, American, German or Norwegian. Few people think of Japan as a country where high-end producers are flourishing. But that is only partially true. Japan has a long tradition of exotic amplifiers in particular, and they came from the most unlikely manufacturers. For most people, Yamaha is synonymous with …
The sound is as one would expect from a massive monster amplifier. Powerful, dynamic and vibrant, almost physical, and with extreme goosebumps. But there is no monster amplifier in the room. Instead, it is barely visible from the couch. Even the remote control is not as expected. Like the amplifier itself, it is minimalist, shiny …
Until now, Marantz has not been among the major investors in digital amplifiers with streaming. And this despite the fact that the twin company Denon launched the power system Heos several years ago. It is only in the last couple of years that Marantz has implemented the Heos system in some of its amplifiers. With …
The doubt disappeared after the first two or three songs. After that, it was a pure Tour de Force for Rotel’s stereo amplifier in the resurrected Michi series. It happily sounds as good as the two 1.08 kW powerful mono stages in the same series, costs half and has enough power galore for most speakers …
Who would have thought that a stripped-down, analog analog amplifier would trigger the drooling reflex? An amplifier that has neither DAC, streaming, not even turntable input? Not me. The elusive Rega Aethos amplifier has a design that few will remember. It costs a lot. And unless you only have analog audio sources, CD player, cassette …
Hi-fi manufacturers can mainly be divided into two camps: those who use their ears in the search for products they think sound as musical as possible, and those who are looking to make the components that measure the best. Distortion should not just be tuned to the most ear-friendly area possible; it must be eliminated! …
The most iconic Norwegian hi-fi export is still called Electrocompaniet. Now it is admittedly a worn-out hi-fi story that Michael Jackson himself gave the producer a “Special thanks” in the cover of the releases History (1995) and Invincible (2001). Electrocompaniet was also another company at the time, with Per Abrahamsen as founder and chief designer. …
Now that soundbars come with both five, seven and nine channels – many of them with the 3D audio formats Dolby Atmos and DTS: X – who needs a big and ugly amplifier with a dullion channels, like the Denon AVC-X6700H? And a bunch of speakers that belong? I’ll tell you this: It’s the one …
The Masters series is NAD’s bid for equipment in the most prestigious class, and while the cheaper models in the hi-fi market come and go with the change of seasons, years can pass between the replacements in the high-end segment. One of them is the integrated amplifier M33. We first wrote about it in connection …