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Every serious hi-fi product carries the sonic signature of its designer. The question is, does the designer have a good ears?



The design
The Apparition 12 tonearm from Analog Instruments Ltd, is made in Pukekohe, New Zealand by James Grant, formerly a manufacturing engineer.

Technically this is a 12-inch unipivot tonearm (approximately 310mm from ...

There are many things you can do with small white cubes. You can paint dots on all sides and use them for games, sometimes involving drinking, or no clothing, you can put cushions on them and use them as footstools or you can drop them into cups of tea to make them drinkable. REL chose to do none of these, rather taking the route of putting a small diameter long throw driver and some tricky electronics, ...

Avril Lavigne, Ministry Of Sound, Robbie Robertson and Soundgarden

Avril Lavigne: Goodbye Lullaby
26 and a failed marriage behind her, hasn’t made Avril all that different really, except that she cares a little more. I love pop music, and to these sugary-inclined pop ears, I’d rate Avril up there with Gaga and Perry. She gets bonus points for writing her own songs.

...

I remember, maybe fifteen years ago, trying to resist the charms of a big silver Myryad amplifier while standing in a long-gone hi-fi shop in downtown Auckland. I liked its name, all those ‘Y’s, and I liked its British poise, its power, and its styling, which was distinctly different from the Japanese machines stacked on the shelves around it. However, as I was shopping for a pair of speakers, it ...

For Krell fans the good news is the first real New Zealand distributor for Krell (the Audio Reference Company) and the launch of the latest entry level components; the S-300i integrated amplifier and the S-350a CD player. These products carry added significance as the first Krell made in China. Unlike many manufacturers who have product made in the PRC, Krell gets double bonus points for clearly naming ...

I was asked to review the recently released Mitsubishi HC9000D 2D/3D home theatre projector where they have adopted Sony’s new SXRD panels into the design, capable of 3D and promising to be very capable projector, I of course said yes please.


First contact:
When the projector arrived my first impression of the box was that it was so big and heavy I thought for a ...

It’s been a long time between AudioEnz columns. But I couldn’t let the 25th anniversary pass without one more contribution.

Michael Jones and I first came together around 1987. I’d finished building student radio (Contact 89FM) in Hamilton and was writing a music column for The Waikato Times.

Hi-Fi was a big part of my personal interest and this new audio magazine Zounds ...

Ah, memories! It's the people I've dealt with, as much as the products I've reviewed, that stay in the mind.

When approaching the 25th anniversary of AudioEnz I realised that there were only a few still in the industry today that were there when AudioEnz started way back in 1986.

I asked these people if they could write a few paragraphs on the changes they've seen in ...

Once upon a time there was a young man who thought he would publish a hi-fi magazine for New Zealand. Some 25 years on he's still around – but older now – and the magazine is still published – but on the internet now, not on paper.

It's been quite the journey since 1986 and one that is far from over.

When I first started with the idea of publishing a hi-fi magazine it seemed ...

She is back, telling stories of raw human emotions of betrayal and rejection, in her sultry and timeless, husky yet smooth voice. After ten years of calm, she has released The Ultimate Collection, two discs, comprising 29 tunes, four of which have not been heard before.

The first disc features selections of classic Sade songs, Your Love is King, Smooth Operator, Sweetest Taboo and others ...

Well... this should have been a no-brainer, really. Off the back of a world tour and the massive selling The End album, The Peas were the biggest thing in music. The main problem though, rests with the last albums superb I Got A Feeling single. Those sort of singles only come along maybe once in a bands career... if they are lucky. It was the soundtrack to 2010. A huge radio hit, helped also by a ...

Long-time Wellington hi-fi retailer, Soundline Audio, have moved premises into a swish new showroom.

Store manager Darrin Leong says that Soundline moved from their old premises in the Capital Gateway Centre as the market had changed. The new location in Thorndon Quay offers some much-appreciated road exposure and around 300 square metres space for the display and demonstration of quality ...

Danger, excitement, romance. Ah the life of the globetrotting ‘Foreign Correspondent'. Actually, when your esteemed editor filled out the press pass form he used the uninteresting title of ‘Staff Writer’. Maybe he knew that the most danger I’d face attending the UK National Audio Show was the crowd around the bar or perhaps the occasional dangerously aggressive tweeter.

As it turned ...

At the start of the year, the Minister of Finance approved the purchase of a new projector and screen for home, I was extremely excited by this as it had been four years since I shifted away from Auckland and my much loved PTAE700 and screen.

De-screened
At the time, the screen I purchased was a non-branded manual 92 inch pull down screen, to be partnered with a Panasonic PT-AX200 ...

A few years ago I was working in a hi-fi store. Actually, that’s not completely true.

John, the owner, was short-staffed one day and on his own in the store. I went in there to help out, answering the phone to say “John’s with a customer right now. Can I take a message?” And when John was with a customer demoing equipment I kept an eye on the store to make sure nothing walked. ...

There’s an aural equivalent of The Seven Year Itch that strikes some users of flat panel speakers like Magneplanars and Quads et al. For years they have been seemingly oblivious to the limitations of their beloved panels. Limitations like vague imaging, restricted dynamics, reduced bandwidth, low playback levels and the dreaded head-in-a-vice listening position that is all part of the charm of using ...

It (almost) always comes down to the arrangement aesthetic, particularly for a jazz chanteuse. And here the ‘control’ group of Te Reo-translated standards, honed under the direction of pianist Kevin Field to a lean but often too ambivalent timbre, is overshadowed by the enterprise and charm of the Joel Haines-led session.

It more than helps that Haines walks the talk with guitar that ...

Think of the simplicity of Gillian Welch meets the voice of James Taylor with a sprinkling of good old bluegrass come trad Irish thrown in for good measure and you start to draw a picture of the sound of Daniel Martin Moore on this, his second solo album.

A Kentucky lad who is busy touring and making a name for himself it is no surprise to see Sub Pop have signed him on to join their ...