Perreaux Audio 200iX Integrated Amplifier

Many high-end audio companies have flourished as a result of the unwavering vision of one passionate person. A single-minded entrepreneurial idealist developing product/s with a self-fulfilling desire to primarily express creativity or to manifest a subjectively superior conception. It may then also bring about an innovation or fill a niche perceived to be open, or all of those reasons and more. In the case of Peter Perreaux’s ambitions in the mid-1970s, his development of seemingly unbreakable, high performing Hi-Fi and professional amplification products led to forming New Zealand’s famous Perreaux Audio. It’s the story of a ‘Kiwi’ audio company reaching unprecedented global success. Perreaux Audio’s recent renaissance has seen the company offering a growing range of products of which the subject of this review, the comprehensively-featured 200iX integrated amplifier, is its newest star.

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Soulines tt42 Turntable

It's always exciting to receive a set of top flight turntable components to assemble, set up and review and the following are quite out of this world! Put together with suggestions from premium retailer Sydney Hi-Fi Castle Hill the Soulines tt42 was supplied as a package including the unique Sorane TA-1 tonearm and Soundsmith Sussurro mk II cartridge. All these are individually highly-capable solo artists but how will they perform as a tightly-knit ensemble?

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Holbo Airbearing Turntable System MK2

Some truisms, of course, so encapsulate the described concept they become clichéd. But if any axiom totally captures the expression of Holbo’s Airbearing Turntable System MK2, the most resoundingly precise would be Einstein’s oft misquoted (as indeed I may have here too) “Genius is making complex ideas simple, not making simple ideas complex.” Examine and engage the functionality of this remarkable design and you’ll admire it, truly grasping the purity of that statement. Holbo may be a relatively new company, yet its singular creative expression screams maturity and is bound to run tingling goosebumps on music lovers’ collective skin while raising the eyebrows of the competition.

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Grimm Audio MU1 Digital Music Player

Grimm Audio was founded in 2004 in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, the original home of Philips. Grimm Audio was started by Eelco Grimm with Guido Tent, Bruno Putzeys and Peter van Willenswaard. Bruno Putzeys departed to concentrate on Class-D amplification, and Peter van Willenswaard has since retired. Grimm Audio’s first product was the AD1, a DSD64 output A/D convertor designed and developed for the pro-audio industry. In 2010, ‘Grimm’ diversified and embraced the home consumer market when it introduced the LS1 digital active speaker system. In late 2019 Grimm launched the MU1 music server/player which can directly connect to the LS1 to create an elegant music system. Here, we’re examining the MU1 as a high-end standalone digital music player.

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AudioQuest William Tell ZERO Loudspeaker Cables

In general, audio signal transmission suffers from the tyranny of multiple individual fundamentals and even varied combinations of one-and-all. The tri-axis of impedance, resistance and capacitance form the elementary foundation for the conductors themselves, be it copper, silver, gold or cocktail combinations. Add the effects of the components’ own electrical parameters, the environmental effects of interference and, down the line, the loudspeaker’s own inherent demands and you have a whole lot of variables which the signal conduit must address, adapt and comply to. Permutations of these factors are the reasons why cables can sound different from one system context to another. When it comes to signal delivery, AudioQuest knows its LCRs. The company offers a profound level of choice covering every possible scenario. Do the upmarket William Tell ZERO loudspeaker cables sling the signal-arrow straight to the heart of the music?

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Vermouth Audio Studio Monitor Loudspeakers

A few years ago, for another publication, I reviewed a pair of studio monitor speakers which bridged the divide between the professional and consumer spaces. This super-accurate speaker from Australian company Grover Notting managed to provide both a forensic tool for the studio and a musically involving sound capable of pleasing the discerning audiophile. Much time has passed since that delightful encounter. Now, I find myself once again assessing a loudspeaker design with the balance to adeptly surf the swells between the studio and the home.

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Duntech Audio Senator Loudspeakers

Many, many moons ago – I’m talking a full lunar-solar cycle… oh, how time slips by – an Australian loudspeaker singularity big-banged with unprecedented disruptive force. Duntech Audio emerged in the last quarter of the previous century with a line of speakers soon to be widely hailed as exemplars of transducer accuracy and peerless engineering. I wanted them. Any model. Badly. Alas, out of my reach was the majestic Sovereign, a design which even today is lauded as one of the world’s best, bar none. In fact, many of the world’s finest recording and mastering studios still employ Sovereign speakers as the main monitors of choice. Today, the Senator loudspeakers, an entirely new design following Duntech Audio ideologies, is a mid-point beacon by which the revitalised company, once again, partakes in the competitive waters of the high-end audio seascape.

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T+A elektroakustik MP 2500 R Multi-Source SACD Player and PA 2500 R Integrated Amplifier

For more than 40 years German High-End audio manufacturer T+A has been attempting to push the limits of what technology can deliver across its range of audio products – which are all built in Herford, Germany. In the company’s words, “We don’t build mass products, we build acoustic treasures, we build heartbeats, goosebumps and enthusiasm”.

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Mark Levinson № 5105 MC Turntable

The № 5105 is Mark Levinson Brands second ever designed turntable after the critically well received № 515 turntable. The № 5105 turntable is designed as an almost plug and play system, especially so under the MC suffix. So, before I get to plug and play with this gorgeous design, let me paint a backdrop to this current canvas…

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Rogers E20a/ii Integrated Amplifier

Rogers… the august brand name which invariably conjures the infallible LS3/5a, that BBC-commissioned little over-performing icon, that endearing beacon of small 2-way loudspeaker design. Less famed is the company’s release in the mid-1990s of the E20a, a bespoke valve amplifier targeted to wring the very best from the LS3/5a and, indeed, the company’s then growing stable of loudspeaker offerings. With the new E20a/ii, Rogers modernises the original concept while preserving the vacuum tube design that made its speakers truly sing. So now, going on 30 years later and in a far more expansive audio landscape, will the new iteration become a universal loudspeaker-driving companion?

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Stax SRM-400S Solid State & SRM-500T Tube Headphone Amplifiers

I don’t know about you, but recently I find myself having to contemplate things that only a few short years ago would have been considered utterly unthinkable, pandemics included. If, for a moment (and strictly for the purposes of this review), one decides to extrapolate the current unfortunate experiences, it shouldn’t be too hard to imagine the following: The civilisation as we know it is no more. You’re cooped up within your ever-narrowing four walls by a rampant deadly virus, while an unruly mob pouring down the street in front of your house is baying for blood and declaring unyielding allegiance to all kinds of snake oil remedies and salesmen of salvation. When you really think of it, the only reasonable action anyone could take in that situation would be to put on some music and enjoy whatever the time is left to be had. On the other hand, you wouldn’t want to draw too much attention to yourself (mobs are, after all, fickle and easily provoked) so you’d probably decide against blasting the neighbourhood with your fancy speakers and you’d therefore reach for your fine headphones instead, and in this case, driven by inimitable Stax amplification.

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Estelon X Diamond Mk II Loudspeakers

“He who sows the wind will reap a storm” (kes külvab tuult, lõikab tormi) asserts an Estonian proverb. That country’s Estelon, producer of uniquely-styled high-end loudspeakers, has been sowing… and sowing. And the company is reaping… while ripping through the high-end space like a hurricane. Category 5. In a relatively short time, Estelon has raised its profile to a helluva-a-high perch. Deservedly so too. It produces highly desirable and uniquely styled speaker systems which, I’d wager, have raised the eyebrows of the industry’s most robust high-end brands. The winds are about to blow a gale and the impressive X Diamond Mk II heralds the calm before the storm.

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