Come alcuni dei miei 18 lettori ricorderanno, un modello di IEM Intime mi ha particolarmente colpito in passato: le SORA 2, a cui ho dedicato un pezzo circa un anno e mezzo fa. E’ alla fine questo il motivo per il quale quando l’estate scorsa ho avuto notizia che Watanabe-san aveva rilasciato alcuni nuovi modelli,…
Intime Miyabi – uniquely special
As some of my 18 readers may recall, I’ve been quite impressed by a prior Intime IEM model called SORA 2, which I wrote about one and a half year ago. That’s surely why when last summer I got notified that mr Watanabe had released some new IEM models, and in particular one supposed to…
iFi GO Bar review – feature packed
GO Bar is iFi Audio’s first and long awaited take on a battery-less mobile dac-amp (a “dongle”). As I will try to outline, from multiple standpoints GO Bar fully partakes into iFi’s overall general product philosophy both in terms of components and general application. It promises outstanding results, and surely comes with a price tag…
E1DA 9038SG3 and 9038D – they know what they are doing
I took my sweetest time on this, but here I finally am with my first article about E1DA dongles. This one is about the two models called 9038SG3 and 9038D. A subsequent article will cover PowerDAC V2.1. 9038SG3 is E1DA’s latest iteration of the 9038S model, which over time went through 3 generations – this…
Reconstruction Filters For Dummies
Where the dummy is me! It took me so long to make myself a decently clear idea about this topic that I eventually took a breath and put it down in form of a single (hopefully) organised story. Enjoy! The problem we have, and how does it matter DACs’ business is receiving digital files and…
Apogee Groove Anniversary Edition
A few of you may know that Apogee released an “Anniversary Edition” of their Groove DAC-AMP dongle in conjunction with the company’s 30th year in business, back in 2015. Originally priced at a substancially higher level compared to the regular version – which still retails for $249,00 – such Anniversary model is now discontinued. Externally…
RHA CL2 – surely best planar yet
I never fell in love with the planar timbre, neither in the end I did this time. It’s just not precisely my cup of tea. Yet this time it was a much closer call, really. What I heard is no doubt a full class above any other chifi planar I auditioned to date. This piece…
KZ CRN
I have no direct experience with KZ products. Most of all, as my 15 readers know very well, I’m never enticed about overhyped products in general. If something, hype works towards distancing me from something, not the other way around. That being said, I’ve recently been sent a pair of privately owned KZ CRN with…
iFi GO Blu
GO Blu is iFi’s entry-level DAC-AMP, primarly focused on Bluetooth connectivity, high miniaturisation and straightforward operation. It retails for just below 200€ and I got a temporary loan unit for review purposes which I analysed for quite an extended time. Here’s my report. At-a-glance Card PROs CONs Outstanding DAC reconstruction quality Unimpressive Single Ended output…
An LMS infrastructure (update)
A bit more than a year ago I published a piece describing features and benefits of my home LMS (Logitech Media Server) infrastructure. Over time my setup has evolved a bit and this is an update to the original article. Logitech Media Server is a piece of software and it well described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logitech_Media_Server The…