KEF

Leben CS600X

Our Verdict Pamper the Leben CS600X and you have one of the most musically beguiling integrated amplifiers money can buy For Detailed and expressive sound Beautifully made Lovely to use Against No remote Speaker matching requires care Leben’s CS600X integrated amplifier could be described as distinctly retro, if you’re being polite, or old-fashioned if you… Read more

How Rogers Hi-Fi is bringing back some iconic BBC speakers

Home Features (Image credit: Rogers Hi-Fi) To the younger hi-fi enthusiast, of whom there are undoubtedly some among our ranks, it might come as a surprise to learn the BBC once designed its own speakers. The same licence fee that’s now used to fund new series of Mrs Brown’s Boys was once invested in what… Read more

KEF Mu3

Our Verdict KEF’s first noise-cancelling wireless earbuds make a positive impression, even if they fall short of being best-in-class For Refined, mature balance Weighty bass Good battery life Against Beaten for dynamics and expression Call quality could be better KEF has dabbled in the headphone market since 2013, experimenting with both over-ear and in-ear models… Read more

12 of the best Cambridge Audio products of all time

Home Features (Image credit: Cambridge) In the early 1960s, before it became known as ‘Silicon Fen’, the small university city of Cambridge, long a magnet for scientists and engineers, started to attract a new breed of technologically minded entrepreneurs. It was in this stimulating environment, with networks of like-minded people, that a group of young… Read more

17 of the best British speakers of all time

Home Features (Image credit: ProAc) We’re celebrating all things British hi-fi this week on What Hi-Fi?, so we had to include our newly updated round-up of our favourite sets of speakers to have emerged from these isles. This list includes some big, some small, some heavenly high-end, some much more affordable – but all straight… Read more

12 of the best KEF products of all time

Home Features KEF is one of the most well-respected British brands in world hi-fi and has been for well over 50 years. The company’s ethos is based around engineering, design and development found in trademark technology such as the Uni-Q driver, which still features heavily in its products today. In recent years the brand hasn’t… Read more

Welcome to What Hi-Fi?’s British Hi-Fi Week!

Home News (Image credit: Future) It’s time to dust-off your union jack, give any British hi-fi you own an extra workout and polish, and celebrate the best of British hi-fi with us. This week we’re saluting some of the most influential British brands, products and technologies to have appeared in What Hi-Fi?. We’re also speaking to… Read more

6 of the best British hi-fi innovations and technologies

Home Features (Image credit: Bowers & Wilkins) Cambridge Audio’s inaugural P40 integrated amplifier was the first-ever amp to use a toroidal transformer – a significant innovation in 1968. It’s still a standard component inside high-end amps today, irrefutable proof that what Gordon Edge, Peter Lee and a few other noted individuals tried out in their… Read more

What Hi-Fi?’s British Hi-Fi Week kicks off on Monday!

Home News (Image credit: Future) It’s time to dust-off your union jack, give any British hi-fi you own an extra workout and polish, and celebrate the best of British hi-fi with us. Next week we’ll be saluting some of the most influential British brands, products and technologies to have appeared in What Hi-Fi?. We’ll also be… Read more

10 of the best books about hi-fi and audio

Home Features (Image credit: Rega) We’re glad people still enjoy reading about hi-fi; it’s what keeps us in a job, after all. There have been plenty of insightful words committed to paper about our industry and the technologies, brands and history that define it, so we’ve listed some of our favourites in a hope that… Read more

Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite on turntables, soundtracks and live church recordings

Home Features (Image credit: Brian Sweeney) This interview was originally published by What Hi-Fi? in March 2016. It is easy, often and now especially, to become consumed by technology. It is easy to allow the romanticism of music, the entire grounds for that technology, to be camouflaged. That is why, speaking with Stuart Braithwaite, guitarist,… Read more

Amphion Argon1

Our Verdict You’ll struggle to find a pair of speakers as easy to accommodate as the Amphion Argon1 at this price, and that is reason enough to celebrate For Fast and clean presentation Well balanced Versatile with placement Against Not expert timing Dynamics lack some punch Tough competition A great-sounding pair of speakers is one… Read more

That Was Then… Sonus Faber Extrema

Home Features (Image credit: Sonus Faber) Launched back in 1991, Sonus Faber’s original Extrema were seen as the culmination of everything the Italian manufacturer had learnt in its first decade. Up to that point, the brand had carved out a useful niche at premium price levels, with a limited range of compact standmounters that were… Read more

OnePlus co-founder to launch wireless earbuds under new Nothing brand

Home News (Image credit: Nothing) The brains behind smartphone brand OnePlus has created a new London-based consumer tech outfit. Nothing – for that is the name of his company – is expected to launch a slew of devices this summer including a pair of wireless earbuds. “We’re building an ecosystem of smart devices,” Carl Pei… Read more

High-resolution audio: everything you need to know

Home Advice (Image credit: Astell & Kern) After years of niche positioning in the music world, “high-resolution audio” (or “hi-res audio”) finally hit the mainstream, thanks to a huge raft of support in streaming services (such as Tidal and Amazon Music HD) and products (from smartphones to most digital hi-fi components). So why should you… Read more