Do You Need a DAC in your Hifi set up?
A DAC converts digital audio into an analogue signal that an amplifier can work with, and without one you cannot hear any digital source at all. The question is not...
Brian Holden |
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Do You Need a DAC in your Hifi set up?
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The Linn Sondek LP12: Why the World's Most Upgraded Turntable Is Still Worth Buying
The deck you buy second hand today and the deck Linn delivered to its first owners fifty years ago share a plinth and a basic architecture. Everything else can be...
Brian Holden |
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Rega: The British Hi-Fi Brand That Does Everything Well
And yet the Planar 3 turntable has been in continuous production for nearly fifty years, the Brio amplifier regularly beats rivals costing twice as much, and used Rega equipment holds...
Brian Holden |
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Why a £400 pair of used speakers beats a £400 pair of new speakers
The cabinet is the same. The drivers are the same. The crossover components have aged gently. And the sound is essentially identical to what you would have heard in the...
Brian Holden |
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What to Look for When Buying a Used Turntable
The challenge is knowing what to look for. A turntable has more variables than most other hi-fi components, and a few of them are genuinely expensive to fix. The goal...
Brian Holden |
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The vinyl vs streaming debate. An honest answer.
On the other: the technically minded who will produce measurements demonstrating that a good digital source outperforms vinyl on almost every objective metric, and conclude that vinyl is nostalgia dressed...
Brian Holden |
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The amplifier serious listeners keep coming back to
That word keeps appearing. Alive. It is not a technical description. It is an experience, and it is the reason a second-hand Nait holds its value better than almost any...
Brian Holden |
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The Phono Stage: The Most Overlooked Component in Your Vinyl Setup
This is understandable, because the phono stage is invisible. It does not have a tonearm to admire or a driver to inspect. It is a small box, or sometimes no...
Brian Holden |
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Ten Records That Reveal Themselves on Vinyl (and a Proper System)
That is not nostalgia. It is physics. Vinyl carries a wider bandwidth of information than standard digital streaming. The groove physically encodes high frequency detail, ultra low bass, spatial information...
Brian Holden |
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What to Look for When Buying a Used Amplifier
But knowing what to look for makes all the difference between a great purchase and an expensive disappointment. Here is what we check before an amplifier goes on our shelves,...
Brian Holden |
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Why a Warranty Makes All the Difference When Buying Pre-Owned Hi-Fi
There is a moment most hi-fi buyers know well. You find something on eBay. Thelisting looks good, the price is right and the photos are decent. But then thequestions start....
Brian Holden |
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How to Build a Pre-Owned Hi-Fi System from Scratch
Neither approach is quite right, and both tend to produce systems that underperform what the money could actually achieve. Here's how to do it properly, at four budget levels, with...
Brian Holden |
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Buy Used Hi-Fi Without Taking Risks
But here's what experienced buyers know: every one of those risks is avoidable. They're not inherent to used hi-fi, they're specific to where and how you buy it. Buy correctly...
Brian Holden |