October - November 2018

Sound and Image

Australia's No 1 Audio Visual guide

Sound and Image1 min read
The Hi–fi Headlines
The resurgence of Vinyl has given a new lease of life to many turntable manufacturers of yesteryear, with companies such as Rega, Thorens and Linn experiencing a return to the good old days. The company that has reaped the greatest benefit is a relat
Sound and Image1 min read
NEWSLETTER No.240
As this resurgence of vinyl continues, old records are being pulled out of storage and put on the platter only to cake up the stylus with years of gunk and mould. The Kirmuss KA-RCM-01 record cleaner is fast being accepted as an essential addition to
Sound and Image3 min readTechnology & Engineering
On Inverted Worlds And Corrective Audio
I am completing this issue cursed with a dreadful cold, so I’m away from the office, working down the wire from a room strewn with tissues and Lemsip sachets. Nobody likes a cold, but they can be particularly onerous for a hi-fi reviewer, because one
Sound and Image2 min read
Arcam HDA
Arcam’s reputation was built on its amplifiers, and particularly this breed of high-quality midrange integrated amplifier. They remain instantly recognisable in this new HDA range, which was previewed back at CES in January as a replacement for the c
Sound and Image4 min read
IFA 2018
IFA 2018, “the Global Innovations Show” as it’s currently tagged, the leading showcase for the global technology industry, delivered on its promise of both more product launches than any previous event, and more digital lifestyle products in one plac
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8K TVs – The Story So Far
So Sharp had its 8K monitor at IFA 2018, which launched in Europe earlier in the year (pictured with Miss IFA above). Samsung had the Q900R QLED 8K TV range (above and right), promising it will be on sale “within weeks”, in four sizes from 65-inch to
Sound and Image1 min read
4000 Nits, Baby!
One corner of TCL’s large hall had this 4000-nit display in operation. Nits are a luminance unit quaintly defined in terms of candlelight — your average wax candle produces one candela of light (candela is an SI unit) and your nits are equal to one c
Sound and Image5 min read
The Full 5000
They’re “disrupting the Hi-Fi space”, says Yamaha of its new 5000 Series components, which were on show and on demonstration at IFA 2018 in Berlin, along with two other new turntables, which include the radically wireless multiroom MusicCastequipped
Sound and Image2 min read
Tiny Hi-fi, Big Hat From IFi Audio At IFA
At the IFA booth for the high-end desktop/portable specialist iFi audio, we enjoyed a briefing from their ebullient Head of R&D Thorsten Loesch (pictured), who was on hand to show us not only his fine hat, but also the early version of an all-in-one
Sound and Image2 min read
HK Citation multiroom
Back in the day, harman-kardon used the Citation name for some serious amplification, but now it’s to become the banner under which the company is launching an ambitious and wide-ranging set of multiroom audio products, using Chromecast as their kick
Sound and Image1 min read
TCL Stunners Not For Oz?
We went to TCL’s press launch ast IFA 2018 to get the deets on the new 8K TV (see p12), but left more captivated by a series of new models that TCL has created under the banner of ‘Living Window’. The four models are each inspired by a particular s
Sound and Image2 min read
Loewe Brings Mimi And Portable Klang
We found Loewe’s stand at IFA 2018 all in a breakfast bustle just as the Show opened its doors, and the friendly and attentive staff showed us the German TV-meisters’ latest innovations, which included what it’s describing as “the world’s first telev
Sound and Image3 min readTechnology & Engineering
Beyerdynamic Rebrands For Consumer Focus
Beyerdynamic unveiled a new corporate identity and six new product launches at IFA 2018, along with an interesting take on audio personalisation, called MOSAYC, which turned out to leverage the same Mimi Defined technology which Loewe is installing i
Sound and Image2 min read
Mimi Defined
“It has taken us a long time to come to the realisation that we are not all the same,” Dr Henrik Matthies told Sound+Image at IFA 2018. Dr Henrik is the MD of Mimi, whose ‘Mimi Defined’ powers the sound personalisation in beyerdynamic’s two new MOSAY
Sound and Image1 min read
TDG’s World-first In-ceiling ‘Skybar’
We’d rather hoped the ‘Skybar’ might be a place for sipping cocktails while looking down on Darling Harbour, but TDG Audio’s Skybar is almost as exciting in being a new idea claimed as a world-first — an in-ceiling (or in-wall) soundbar, with associa
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INTEGRATE: Alexa Smart Homes
While Alexa’s late arrival in Australia has given Google Voice Assistant the lead among consumer smart speakers here, the dominance of Alexa in the US market has given it pole position as the voice assistant of choice for smart-home solutions. This w
Sound and Image2 min readAutomotive
NEW HEIGHTS for Klipsch Reference Premier
Klipsch has launched a new Reference Premiere series of speakers, and quite the collection of high-efficiency horn-happy stereo and home cinema speakers it is — a total of 16 new models, including the introduction of Atmos-enabled height speakers to
Sound and Image3 min read
Talking Shop Tivoli Hi-fi
At Sound+Image we always recommend buying from a proper hi-fi shop which can recommend the right gear for you. In the first of a new series of chats, we talk with Geoff Haynes from Tivoli Hi-Fi in Melbourne, which is celebrating its 45th anniversary.
Sound and Image2 min readComputers
Alexa Voice Control With Heos
The HEOS multiroom platform was also showing its new Alexa skills at the Integrate Expo, and QualiFi’s Joe Salamanca talked us through the new abilities. “We’re showing Amazon Alexa capabilities in the HEOS range — and also that covers any of the HEO
Sound and Image6 min read
Do You Need More?
How much of an AV receiver do you need? If you’re shopping for one, it’s a real and fundamental question, together with your price level. Clearly we’d all love to have the very top-of-the-line stuff, like Denon’s delicious AVC-X8500H home theatre amp
Sound and Image6 min read
Up To Eleven
Those who watch the annual refresh of AV receivers will know how incremental the changes can be — a new format here, improved calibration there. But the last few years have seen the increasing acceptance of immersive sound formats, and that has broug
Sound and Image6 min read
Purity And Power
It’s been six years since we reviewed NAD’s T 757 receiver — has it taken so long for the T 758 to appear? That seems like a long time between models. But it turns out that this is not just a NAD T 758, but a NAD T 758 v.3. And apart from amplifiers
Sound and Image2 min read
Dirac Correction
The Dirac room calibration used here is a bit more complicated than the normal systems on AV receivers, because you have to run it on a computer — though either Windows or Mac is fine. You can not to use Dirac at all, and just set the distances and l
Sound and Image6 min read
Finding A Voice
Yamaha’s latest top-of-the-line Aventage integrated AV receiver has now dropped. The Aventage RX-A3080 sees essentially the same performance as last year’s RX-A3070, but with some welcome enhancements. The amplifiers themselves here appear to be the
Sound and Image1 min readComputers
Musiccast Surround
Yamaha’s MusicCast platform has proven one of the most successful at connecting together multiple devices in different rooms for multiroom music playback. With its receiver ranges this year, the company has extended the system to the movies, connecti
Sound and Image5 min read
A larger Home
While talkative smart assistants can be handy around the house, smart speakers have always been underwhelming in terms of sound quality. The standard Google Home is enough to make an audiophile frown, as are Amazon’s Echo and Echo Plus. Meanwhile the
Sound and Image5 min read
Taking It To A Different Level
You might call it a home cinema, you might call it a media room. It’s certainly a unique space — combining two projection systems on the one screen — and also a successful one. But the project, part of a larger home renovation, was not without its ch
Sound and Image6 min read
From The Workshops Of Q…
In an old land like the United Kingdom, full of famous, longstanding loudspeaker brands, you’d think that it’d be hard for a newcomer to find any space. But Q Acoustics managed it, starting up only a dozen years ago, and since receiving accolade upon
Sound and Image4 min read
New Angles
It looks like Astell&Kern is going affordable. Well, a little bit anyway. Rather than a portable media player priced at $5000+, this Astell&Kern SR15 is available in Australia for $999. Its full name is the ‘A&norma SR15’, presumably to contrast it m
Sound and Image5 min read
Getting Meshy
If your home is a wireless disaster area, with streaming video reduced to a trickle, then it might be time to open the floodgates with a mesh Wi-Fi network. Just because your home Wi-Fi network is good enough for checking your email and surfing the w
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Die Hard
Sometimes it’s troubling to revisit a loved movie from the past. Especially one that originally came out when you were yourself much younger, and when you first saw it close to its release. A competent movie will strike all the right cultural notes..
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Special Attractions
In a Show Exclusive, songwriter-guitarist Mary Webb will be appearing live in the CHAPEL SUITE each day of the Australian Hi Fi & AV Show, performing songs from her latest album ‘Love Like Planets’. Mary is a shining light in Adelaide’s folk scene, c
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LCD With Super Powers
It is very easy to get so smitten with OLED technology that one neglects to pay as much attention as one should to what remains the entirely dominant TV panel technology — LCD. Indeed with the price discrepancy between the technologies not likely to
Sound and Image3 min read
Measurements
There is no dedicated line output as such on the SR15, but it doesn’t really matter because there’s a ‘line out’ mode using the regular headphone socket. You enable this in the settings menu and choose the preferred level — 0.7 volts, 1 volt, 1.25 vo
Sound and Image5 min read
The ‘wow’ within
Well, in one respect, this is rather dull. Sony’s A1 OLED last year was a spectacular television, a design statement, a slab of OLED leaning back on a giant picture-frame support. We loved it, gave it our Best Television of the Year award. This A8F —
Sound and Image5 min read
The Art Of Cancellation
Noise-cancelling (NC) and Bluetooth together of course deliver the ultimate in convenience — hands-free without cables, noise-free by cunning cancellation of lower frequencies. Yet it’s notoriously hard to achieve with distinction. As we’ve seen on m
Sound and Image3 min read
Room With A View
A Swedish headphone reviewer, an American headphone reviewer and an Australian headphone reviewer walk into a bar. As the drinks evolve into dinner, talk turns, unsurprisingly, to headphones. “If you could have only one pair of headphones,” asks the
Sound and Image2 min read
Personal Tao
The arrival of Amazon in Australia may not have shaken up the audio retail sector quite as some had predicted (yet, anyway), but it has given more direct market access to brands hitherto unknown in Australia. We were contacted by Taotronics, which is
Sound and Image5 min read
Hall Of Fame
SOUND+IMAGE: So what’s happening with Music Hall, what have you brought here today? ROY HALL: What we’ve brought here is our latest range of turntables, which is the .3 series. The series before was the .2 series — we come up with these fantastic
Sound and Image5 min read
Our Secret Sauce
I noted with interest that Sony’s latest Master Series TV advertising campaign was heavily pushing the link between program creators, notably Netflix, and the Sony Master Series displays that feature a “Netflix Calibrated Mode”. The advertising procl
Sound and Image4 min read
Cinema With The X Factor
We recently featured a home theatre installation which used Krix’s Series MX “wall of sound”... but Krix has one level above even these in its home range (and of course, real commercial cinema speakers above that). The toppermost of Krix’s home speak
Sound and Image3 min read
Deadpool 2
I rarely go to movies at the cinema. A movie on Blu-ray, and better still UHD Blu-ray, looks better and sounds better on my home theatre system. Yes, the screen is bigger at the cinema, but it isn’t size that counts. It’s angle of view. The 65-inch L

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