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Review: Zu Essence
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In a hi-fi world largely populated by loudspeakers that stick pretty close to the marketplace stereotype, it's always interesting and challenging to come across something that is very different and which quite deliberately flouts normal loudspeaker design conventions, such as these Zu Essence loudspeaker. Founded in Utah around the beginning of the century, Zu Audio is a young company with a radical – one could even say iconoclastic – attitude to hi-fi sound reproduction. Its main activity is concerned with loudspeakers, but it also has a comprehensive collection of cables and a handful of other bits and pieces, including modified versions. Zu's principals reckon things have gone wrong with ...
Review: Electrocompaniet PC-1
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In this review we have the new Electrocompaniet PC-1 CD player. Actually, it's not really new, in the sense that big consumer electronics manufacturers use the term, having been around for a couple of years. But for one thing, it was new to us (partly because Electrocompaniet's UK distribution, which had had a slight hiatus, was newly established only last year) and for another this particular manufacturer likes to keep models around a for while rather than change them at whim. Given the status it has long enjoyed as aspirational audio devices (thanks, not least, to some of our own reviews down the years) this seems eminently sensible. In fact, the whole Prelude range is a fairly recent addition to ...
Review: Digital Do Main B-1a
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Digital Do Main is a high-end company that's still unknown outside of Japan, but we'd be surprised if that remained the case after word gets out about the B-1a power amplifier. Apart from being an oddly proportioned, but superbly built and finished integrated power amp with one input and a volume control, this is the first amplifier that we've seen that uses V-FET output transistors. The V-FET is not a new type of transistor, but it has not been used in audio components since, at least, the early eighties. As a result the few amplifiers that have employed it have become cult classics with a few select online forums filled with discussion about their various merits. The way in which Digitial Do ...
Review: Leema Acoustics Element
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Leema Acoustics has been punching well above its weight recently. Initially recognised for its loudspeaker designs, the Welshpool-based company now produces three ranges of electronics to partner them. The Elements Phono is the latest arrival and is intended to partner amps in the first two ranges. Leema claims that the Elements Phono borrows heavily from the flagship Agena phono stage, which is no mean feat given that the Agena is nearly six times the price. The Elements phono supports both moving magnet and moving coil cartridges. The specifications suggest that few cartridges of either design will present the Elements with any real difficulty. The single input is changed via a push switch ...
Review: PMC fact.8
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It's roughly 20 years since PMC – the initials abbreviate Professional Monitor Company – first appeared on the Hi-Fi speaker scene. Since then, the company has enjoyed consistent growth alongside a steadily enhanced reputation in both the Hi-Fi and studio monitoring fields, with an inexorably expanding range of models to suit all manner of listening environments and requirements, such as the new fact.8 loudspeaker. Apart from obvious distinctions in surface finish, some are more clearly oriented towards home use and others towards the studio. Despite this, plenty of common ground has given the brand a solid and coherent identity that treads a well-judged line between performance and value for money. ...
