MORE FROM THIS BRAND Jamie Biesemans | 33 June 2020
| NAD
RESUME The three-way combination of almost effortless Purifi Eigentakt-amplification, the versatility of BluOS and the powerful Dirac room correction culminates in a hyper-complete amplifier that convinces on every level.
PLUS POINTS Powerful enough to control almost everything Dirac, including 2.1 correction Highly complete streaming and multiroom options via BluOS and AirPlay 2 Transparent and controlled One box for all your needs MINUSES Higher price range Threshold Dirac is relatively high
The three-way combination of almost effortless Purifi Eigenakt-amplification, the versatility of BluOS and the powerful Dirac room correction culminates in a hyper-complete amplifier that convinces on every level.
Whereas the M 10 attempted to combine a top sound with sophisticated interior friendliness, the M 33 offers a more traditional hi-fi sized form factor and a next-level amplification section , without being compromising in terms of ease of use or functionality. The M 33 is also a very modern device, with its smart touchscreen, HDMI-ARC connection and integration with smarthome platforms. Any drawbacks? Not many. It’s not a cheap amplifier, but the price tag is right for the segment.
Full review in Dutch? Click here
NAD M 2020
5499 euro | www.nadelectronics.com
HIFI.NL rating: 5/5
The MartinLogan Motion 40 i is not a revolution, but an evolution. I mean that positively, because evolution or new does not necessarily mean better. The Americans have especially improved the appearance, which is my humble opinion by the way. The design has now become a bit more interior-friendly with more attention to detail. In terms of performance, it is still a very fine speaker series with the transparent display of the impressive electrostats combined with the easier placement of more conventional speaker designs. I was already very pleased with the previous iteration of the Motion series, but the Motion 40 i has definitely conquered a place in my living room.
MartinLogan Motion The American brand MartinLogan, mainly known for the electrostats, renowned for their super-fast and analytical reproduction, not very long ago, the Motion series took over. The focus is mainly on appearance, but not exclusively.
The Motion- series is one that is more aimed at the listener who is looking for conventional loudspeakers and therefore does not directly have electrostats on the wish list. Because the Motions are mainly quite conventional. A speaker cabinet, with one or more woofers, sometimes a midrange and a tweeter. However, the series does reflect the expertise gained in the development of electrostats. Because the technology of the Folded Motion tweeter that can be found in the Motion series has similarities with the electostat and certainly has its advantages; the rendering is lightning fast and above all very light and transparent.
The Motion series consists of three floor uprights: the Motion 30 i, the 40 i of this review, and the 60 XTi. There are also two bookshelf models – the Motion 15 i and the Greater Motion 35 XTi – and two center speakers; the 30 i and the 50 XTi. In addition to these new models, there are finally a Motion FX for surround channels and a Motion AFX Dolby Atmos certified speaker for use in a home cinema.
The XT (i) designation refers to the tweeter model being used. The XT Folded Motion tweeter in the Motion 60 XTi, 50 XTi and 35 XTi is in fact 40 percent longer than the Folded Motion tweeter in the other models. A big advantage of this is that the vertical radiation of the sound is somewhat more limited with only 35 degrees, which in turn ensures that less reflections come from the ceiling or floor. The non-XT models have a radiance on both the horizontal and vertical axis 099 degrees, which is also not very broad. Turning the MartinLogan Motion 40 i is really a must for a good focus and stereo image.
Bellows If you look closely at the Folded Motion tweeter, it almost looks like an old-fashioned bellows. You know, one of those things to light a fire. These tweeters are small wonders of technology and the Folded Motion tweeter is also known as AMT (Air Motion Transformer). A treble driver such as Oskar Heil was invented and patented. However, this patent has expired from 2004, which means that many audio brands have embraced the technique and in the case of MartinLogan there are certainly similar properties as with the electrostats of the American brand. Yet the technique is fundamentally different.
The recipe; a very thin woven material over which aluminum conductors are placed which is folded into a kind of wafer shape and placed in front of very strong magnets, so that the wafer shape is in a constant and well distributed magnetic field.
The aluminum pattern on the thin wafer shape has its own circuit through which small currents (the signal from an amplifier) are carried, which ensures that those folds repel and attract each other, as it were. This creates a kind of bellows through which air is squeezed out between the ridges. After all, sound consists of air waves and this is a very efficient way of reproducing high tones with low radiation behavior, which in turn ensures less reflections.
Motion 40 i The Motion 40 , the previous model, I have previously reviewed. That was a very positive experience at the time with a score of 4.5 out of 5. For me, sound quality is of course the most important, but the eye is definitely something too. Especially when used in a living room.
The Motion 40 I personally thought it worked out quite well, but the visual renewal of the new Motion series can really be seen and in my eyes it is very successful. The previously large black front is now nicely interrupted by a metal strip with the MartinLogan logo on it. Nice detail is that the metal strip has a small color difference depending on the color of the speaker cabinet itself.
Tricolore In my living room the matt white version with a beautiful silver stripe was housed. However, the variants with a glossy black exterior have a gray colored strip. The Americans call that gray color, how American do you want it, gunmetal gray. And there is another ‘red walnut’ version where the metal strip is champagne colored.
What also immediately stood out when unpacking, is that the white speakers now also really bright white. The previous Motion series had a bit of a pink tinge through the white, which may not color nicely next to a white piece of furniture, which is the case with me. That is why the white variants here at home are very popular with both myself and my wife.
Fabrics grilles All in all they are small, but important details in my opinion. It all looks a little better. In addition, there is no longer a large metal grille for optional attachment, but there are now two fabric grilles per floor stand. A smaller one for above the metal strip and one below. And this is the first time that I am not quite sure whether I like them better with or without a grille. Often the enthusiast (and nerd) thinks in me: leave out those grilles. But now it is still very tasty with grilles on it. Anyway, they are attached with magnets, so they are right away.
Another small visual difference with the previous series is that the caps on the woofers are now flattened. This looks a bit different, a bit tighter. In addition, it also has a function. The new dust caps provide a slightly stiffer construction and therefore also somewhat tighter reproduction.
Specifications, price and availability The dimensions, cabinet construction, the crossover used and the connection terminals are all the same as the previous series. For full (technical) specifications, I would like to refer to the site of importer Look & Listen . The Motion 40 i costs € 1. 099 each and has been available for quite some time.
Listening to the Motion 40 i During the many weeks that the Motions were here, there was – of course – a lot of listening to music. Many different music genres have also passed through and as with the Motion 40 which was the case, also stands out with the slightly renewed 40 i how well they go with everything. The match with the used Anthem amplifier can certainly be called a happy one, but that is no different from when I listened to the previous model. So in that respect it’s a perfect comparison, as the only thing that has changed in my setup is the speaker itself.
There is just enough of everything. Just enough lows, just enough definition and calm in the midrange, and just enough highs. The bass goes nice and far and the Anthem keeps the woofer well under control. The midrange is really fantastic when reproducing voices and the highs are very light and fast. The tweeters are unparalleled in displaying micro details. It is impossible to describe all listening experiences, so I just pick out two albums that I have listened a lot of times recently.
Mariecke Borger – Bright Sky Colleague Eric de Boer recently reviewed Mariecke Borger’s album. If something fantastic was displayed on the Motion 40 i, then the that album. Mariecke’s voice is nicely placed in front of the speakers. She seems – nice and cliché – right in front of me in my living room with the music as a nice accompaniment to her person.
At the intro of the first track Bright Sky also immediately catches the eye that light-footed character of the MartinLogans. The bit of percussion in the song is finely detailed and the heavier drum used in the opening track has good energy with fine timing and also offers plenty of weight. The bass tones are anything but messy or uncontrolled. guitar are very easy to distinguish in a natural way. The recording is of course excellent, but the speakers do a lot of money to create that – cliché alarm – real reproduction of instruments. Everything is in perfect balance.
Tame Impala – The Slow Rush Another album which I have often listened to the recent work of the Australian band Tame Impala. The track Lost in Yesterday was also a modest hit in the Netherlands and was played frequently on NPO Radio 2. It is a very poppy, psychedelic and melodic album with tight beats, synthesizers, electric pianos and vocoders. Really something completely different from Mariecke Borger’s acoustic, country-like album. Furthermore, the new album does not differ much from their previous album in terms of music type Currents from 2015, but that aside. I like music and that’s what it’s all about, people: music!
The stereo spread on this album is very fine. The soundstage is wide. Wider than the setup and also further back than the speakers are away from me. The Motion 40 i really does a very impressive job. Again, that light-footed representation. Especially all those electronic sounds from vocoders and synths seem to flutter like butterflies between the speakers and beyond. With a lot of peace, a lot of nuance and a lot of control.
Conclusion It should come as no surprise that the couple MartinLogan Motion 40 i liked it well, as already in the introduction can be read. Very good indeed. The Motion 40 i has definitely conquered its place in my living room. I get a smile on my face every time I listen to music from these speakers. You don’t hear the equipment, but space is made for experience and listening fun. And that’s what it’s all about. No hi-fi, but myfi.
At the previous Motion 40 of MartinLogan I mentioned having to place it far from the wall and the stability as disadvantages. I have not experienced that distance to the wall as a problem, but the feet could have been a bit more stable again, but that does not affect the sound quality. Compared to the previous iteration they have been marginally improved in sound and a lot improved in looks. They are especially tighter in the bass and the midrange is just a bit quieter, which makes for better imaging, if you can remember such a thing. But in my opinion that is just that cherry on the apple sauce.
MartinLogan Motion 40 i
1. 099, 00 euro p / pc | MartinLogan | Look & Listen
Rating 5 out of 5
The Chord 2go is the highly anticipated streaming module for the Hugo 2. Finally the owners of that excellent DAC no longer have to look enviously at those who made their cheaper Mojo wireless with the Poly. Thanks to the 2go you can hang the Hugo 2 directly on the network and stream music via Roon and other services.
Chord 2go What is the 2go? An interesting question, because you cannot just classify this device under a clearly defined product type. That’s because it is an extension for another device, and not a stand-alone device itself. But ‘expansion’ is also a bit too simplistic, because it does a lot. Add the 2go to the Hugo 2 DAC and you get a new hybrid device with considerably more possibilities.
The 2go actually does the same as the Poly that comes with the Mojo, but then for that more expensive Hugo 2 DAC from Chord that we have already extensively tested. The concept remains the same: the 2go is an extension module that you attach to the DAC and add streaming. There are also two slots for microSD cards, with a maximum capacity of 4 TB. Put the necessary in this and the device will also operate as a network player and as a media server on your network. Talk about versatile.
We will repeat again: you need the Hugo 2 to use the Chord 2go. The two fit together perfectly. So good, in fact, that if you attach the Chord module to the Hugo 2, you suddenly seem to have one new device. And actually it is.
Just screwing
Somehow it’s amazing that it took so long for Chord Electronics to come up with the 2go. With the Poly for the Mojo DAC, the British had already shown that the concept was right: take an excellent DAC in its price range and turn it into a standalone streamer by means of an extra module. No need to screw open, just click and set via an app. And hey presto: your DAC is a Roon endpoint, which thanks to the built-in battery can be used as your completely wireless music source to listen to music with your headphones. It becomes an intriguing alternative to a DAP and much better suited for demanding headphones than a smartphone.
And yes, you can use the 2go / Hugo2 using mobile. After all, the Chord-DAC is equipped with a battery and the 2go can also be used on the road in hotspot mode. But we feel that this is more of a theoretical scenario. We think it is much more likely that you will use this combined device at home to listen to your music comfortably in high quality via headphones. Or you can use it as a streaming DAC in your hi-fi system. That makes much more sense with this Chord combination than with the Poly / Mojo, partly because the Hugo 2 has a full cinch output and two digital inputs (optical and coaxial). And also: there is an ethernet connection, because in a system there is a better option in terms of stability.
Then why did that 2go take so long to arrive? We guess that, but it is true that Chord Electronics has recently launched many other products. Think for example of the mighty Ultima amplifiers. Such a thing naturally demands a lot of focus within a hi-fi company.
Before you can start using the 2go, you need to get your inner do-it-yourself unleash. Fortunately, only for a short while and without having to call on next-level skills. Why? The connection between the Hugo 2 and the 2go is realized by the two micro USB connections. However, even two of those plugs are insufficient in the long run to withstand the bending force that you get when you pick up the device carelessly. Fortunately, Chord has found a solution. The box of the 2go contains two pins that you screw into existing cut-outs on the Hugo 2 – which immediately shows that the manufacturer has been working on the 2go from the start. You carefully click the streaming module onto the DAC, after which you install two small nimbus screws in the sides with the supplied key. With this you lock the streamer and you get a solid and stable whole.
With the Mojo and Poly you do not have an additional locking mechanism, but the Hugo 2 and 2go are CNC aluminum housings are therefore a lot heavier. When combined, the unit weighs 180 gram. We would recommend a case for mobile use that protects both devices well. That is also a good idea with the Mojo and Poly. Chord itself has cases that you can buy, we had a custom one made for our Mojo / Poly by a third party.
We said above that the 2go only fits the Hugo 2. That’s not quite right, because Chord is also working on the 2yu. This is a small module that you connect to the 2go instead of the Hugo 2. The device only has digital outputs, so you can use the 2go as a pure streamer with another DA converter. The 2yu may be available by summer, we’ll keep you posted.
Setup via GoFigure App You can set the 2go via the GoFigure app, which also serves the Mojo-Poly. It is a great relief that this app has now become much better. At the launch of the Poly, it was sometimes really hard to get the streamer on your network, but thanks to a series of updates that is now very easy. The 2go benefits from this work as this time we set the streamer to 1-2-3 via the iOS version on an iPad 2017. And just to make sure it works properly (and since Chord handled iOS and Android versions separately in the past anyway), we reset the device and reconfigure the 2go via GoFigure on a Huawei P 30 – smartphone. Fortunately, it goes as smoothly as on an Apple device.
You should get to know the philosophy behind the app. You are not supposed to play music from GoFigure. It is much more of an app for setting things up. That seems clear, were it not for the fact that Chord has provided two exceptions: Internet radio and MPD playlists of music files on a memory card. Why not immediately provide a full music player for those files within GoFigure, that is not so clear. We quietly suspect that Chord believes strongly in Roon. In the GoFigure app you will find all the settings you need. Conveniently, you can permanently enter different WiFi networks here, so that the 2go automatically connects to the correct network when you take the device to your office.
Music can be played via Roon, which is fine goes. The module still appears as non-certified, but functions completely as it should. You can indicate in the Roon settings that this is actually the Hugo 2, so that the correct configuration and icon is chosen.
Of course, far from everyone uses the pricey but very good Roon- software. Another option is to stream music over DLNA, where an optional memory card with music files can be the source. But you can also stream from a DLNA share on NAS. You do not arrange all this via GoFigure, but via a DLNA player app of your choice. We prefer BubbleUPnP on Android, mConnect is a popular option on iOS. Bluetooth and AirPlay (not AirPlay 2) are other streaming options, but we’re happy that aptX is supported for Bluetooth streaming.
Chord says work is in progress on adding Spotify Connect . There is no timeline for this yet – but Chord usually develops software at a relatively slow pace. It cannot be expressed in geological terms, but do not expect to see Spotify appear as an update in a few weeks. Of course we always like to be surprised …
Familiar sound Sound wise the 2go does not change the Hugo 2, or not that we can determine. When we listen to our regular test playlist via Roon and with the Focal Stellia we hear nothing that we have not heard before. After all, the Hugo 2 lives permanently next to the iMac we work on every day, and has been used intensively for over a year. We continue to consider it a reference in the price segment. To know more about what the Hugo 2 offers as a DAC, we would recommend that you read the review of this Chord on it.
One of the underexposed aspects of the Hugo 2 is the presence of the X-PHD crossfeed function. With this, Chord tries to bring the listening experience through speakers to your headphones, which some people find more natural than the strong left-right separation of headphones. We sometimes use it, sometimes we don’t, because certain pieces of music with X-PHD appear just more squashed. With other tracks, the weather reinforces the live feeling. No problem, you can switch it on (three positions) or off via a typical, colored Chord ball. The same is true for the four filters on the DAC that Chord offers, although we find the differences less striking than with the X-PHD function. It is very headphone dependent, we find.
We have used the 2go / Hugo 2 very intensively and noticed that it is a very different experience than the Poly / Mojo. Sound wise Chord takes a big step forward, but you can easily put that Poly in your pocket. The 2go / Hugo 2 is a heavier thing that we also moved very consciously and carefully because of its high value. So it is more ‘transportable’ than ‘portable’, but that is not a problem in itself. In this form, the DAC is also much more convenient and interesting to connect to an amplifier.
Chord equipped the Hugo 2 with a battery because this avoids the whole problem of disturbing power supplies. It also immediately ensures that the combination 2go / Hugo 2 can work for a long time without charging: such 12 hour. That never felt like a limitation. A complaint: if the battery is empty, you cannot immediately use the 2go again if you hang it on the charger. It has to draw some power before you can play music again, which will probably make the impatient audiophile grumble. We should also note that the 2go only establishes a WiFi connection over the 2.4 GHz channels.
Conclusion The 2go, by its nature, seems especially relevant to the Hugo 2 owner. If he is glued to his computer or fixed listening chair, he may not benefit from the product. A USB cable is then sufficient. If you would like to get rid of that dependence on that one listening position and that wired connection to your computer, then the 2go is a must-have addition to an excellent DAC. For example, it allows you to be in the garden or – why not? – can listen to your music in true hi-fi quality in bed, without compromise.
But actually the 2go provides broadening, and therefore it is not just any accessory. Anyone looking for a combined media server / streaming DAC will find an excellent solution in the bundle of the Hugo 2 and the 2go. It has a few eccentric aspects, but these are more than offset by the excellent rendering.
Chord Electronics 2go
1. 195 euro | www.chordelectronics.co.uk
Rating 4.5 out of 5
Wireless noise canceling headphones are more popular than ever, which immediately explains why manufacturers are releasing such devices en masse. From JBL we receive the Club One, a new top model with adaptive noise cancellation and adjustable tuning provided by big name deejays such as Armin van Buuren and Tigerlily. Can these headphones therefore immediately be classified as only interesting for teens and twenties? No, that would be very blunt.
JBL Club One The Club One that we look at in this review is the new JBL top model within the noise canceling segment. The word ‘top model’ means many things, but first and foremost that these are headphones with a heftier price tag. What exactly you get for 349 Euro, we’ll talk about that in a moment, but because of the size of that amount, you already know that this JBL competes with several other premium headphones. Think of the Bose Noise Canceling Headphone 700 and the QC 35 II, the DALI IO6, the Denon AH-GC 30, the Sony WH – 1000 XM3, and a number of others. The Club One thus enters anything but an empty playing field. On the contrary, there is already a lot, and what there is is playing at a high level. Yet JBL manages to offer something slightly different with the Club One than the other participants.
Sturdy design You may have been aware of the Club One name and references to Armin van Buuren and co say that JBL wants to provide these headphones with a trendy clubbing look. The design is also completely based on this. Thanks to its all-black color, thick ear cushions, the well-padded headband and the hefty hinge system, the Club One balances perfectly between functional design and a premium look. Not easy to bring these two things together, but JBL has succeeded.
The luxury feeling is really there, partly due to the materials used and how these sturdy headphones are stings. It feels very solid and durable from the first moment. A real eye-catcher is the chamfer or the chamfered metal edge on the driver housing. It regularly reflects the light, which sometimes makes it seem as if the Club One has an illuminated stripe all around. It contrasts nicely with the jet-black appearance and also makes you think that more metal has been used than is really the case. A clever trick, that. The most important parts – in particular the three hinges per ear – are made of aluminum and come across as extremely strong. No squeaks and no play on the moving parts. This is what you expect at this price point.
All that toughness does yield a higher weight (378 gram) than some rivals, such as Bose and Sony. The fit is also more DJ-ian: the ear cushions are a bit larger (but cozy) and exert slightly more ear pressure. Nevertheless, we dare to say that the wearing comfort is very good. The Club One fits very well on your head, partly thanks to the thicker padding on the inside of the headband. Even if you don’t have hair on top – nothing wrong with that – it feels comfortable. If you wear headphones for a few hours, you have completely understood what the pros and cons are in terms of comfort. Besides the fact that you will experience some ear swelling due to the artificial leather of the ear pads (which is inevitable), the Club One scores very well. Thanks to the triple hinge system, it fits perfectly on your ears – and stays in place even when you move vigorously.
Done listening? The Club One folds into something relatively compact, so you can store it in the included hard case. That case is a bit narrow, because you have to make some effort to put the headphones in and then close it properly.
They Know What They’re Doing JBL is part of the Harman group, in turn part of Samsung. As a brand, it has a clear mission within the group: to appeal to younger music lovers. JBL does this with a specific design philosophy and targeted marketing, but also with a specific sound. Make no mistake, this aspect has also been carefully considered. JBL is not a brand that puts random products on the market, like some companies that want to score fast-fast with young people. It remains a company built on the deep audio know-how of the wider Harman group. For example, today JBL would consistently tune its headphones to the latest version of the Harman curve, a sound reproduction that is determined on the basis of large-scale inquiries. Some kind of greatest common denominator, you could say. That sounds negative and not everyone thinks this sound is perfect, but many do. And that is of course precisely the point: finding a sound that appeals to as many people as possible, not just tuning to the issues of the day or the taste of a haphazardly chosen marketer. JBL does adjust the curve and adds more bass to it than, say, sister brand AKG. After all, research shows that younger listeners prefer that.
The term ‘sound’ is a bit more relative at Club One. When we talk about the accompanying app, you will soon discover that you can change the sound radically. Most rivals can do that too, usually via an equalizer in the accompanying app. JBL offers Club One users slightly more choices: you can choose a sound from a well-known DJ at any time, opt for a genre equalizer (such as ‘jazz’ or ‘vocal’), or simply draw a curve yourself. You can do all this via the JBL Headphones app (iOS and Android).
Very good battery life The Club One is a wireless headphone and yet you will find a cable in the box back. You can even choose which side of the headphones you connect the cable to, because there are two inputs. And yes, a mini hype in headphone land this year appears to be the return of the curly cable that some associate with professional use. You also get one at the Club One. But why then supply cables? Simply because a cable or two is not a big cost, and that it is useful in some circumstances. If you use the JBL Club One wired, the battery will last longer, for example. Although Bluetooth chipsets have now become so efficient that the difference is no longer so great. If you choose the cable, the battery will remain 25 hours alive. With Bluetooth you only get two hours less. With the cable you can also use the JBL for exceptional situations, such as when you quickly need a headset to plug into an Xbox or DualShock controller. An autonomy of 25 hours with noise canceling and Bluetooth switched on is an above-average score. There are some wireless headphones that last longer, but 30 hours is more than enough so that you do not have to charge too often. Without NC but with Bluetooth, JBL claims an autonomy of 45 hours, and that is very good. And because the Club One already filters out a lot of ambient noise passively, you can really use it like that.
Special forces Including the WH – 1000 XM3 (and soon we suspect: the WH – 1000 XM4) from Sony offers you many options and settings through its app. At the other end of the spectrum is the very good sounding Dali IO6, without an app and without much customization. The Club One leans more towards the ‘many-extra-features’ side of this dichotomy, but JBL opts for a limited number of options that are especially useful. In full lockdown period, the house filled up with family members while the neighbors went into remodel mode, and we really appreciated the Silent Now feature, where the headphones keep working with noise canceling – even when not connected to a smartphone. It is really a calming agent. Most NC headphones cannot; if you turn off the Bluetooth connection, they will also turn themselves off after a few minutes.
If you rub the edge of the headphones with your thumb, you will feel a number of buttons. You immediately notice that JBL took ergonomics into account. Many devices come with buttons that are difficult to distinguish by touch, but with the Club One they are far apart so that you rarely accidentally touch the wrong one. On the left side you have a few keys that enable additional functions, such as noise canceling. You determine in the app what the bottom button does. In other words, with a short press of the button, you activate Ambient Aware (whereby ambient noise is partially passed through so that you don’t jump out of your skin if someone shows up behind you) or TalkThru (so that you can have a conversation without taking your headphones off). The difference between the two is that with TalkThru your music will play very quietly, while with Ambient Aware you can keep listening.
Functions like TalkThru work fine on their own, though we notice in practice that conversation partners often find it strange if you wear headphones while talking to them. But in an open office or on the road when ordering a coffee, there may be less social disapproval. We’ll try it out if we ever get to enter an open-plan office again. You can (de) activate the noise canceling by pressing the same bottom button a little longer. You will hear a different sound than if you switch Ambient Aware / TalkThru on or off, so that you know for sure what you are doing.
Train ride on an office chair When setting up the Club One, it takes some getting used to the thicker ear pads. They immediately isolate you from the environment, even before you switch on the headphones. We also notice this when we start our first test. Since we don’t really have many flights to press conferences or audio factories right now, to try out NC headphones, we use a video on YouTube (to be precise, this one ). It’s a four-hour recording of a train ride through a snowstorm, with a lot of rumbling in the low end, played as loud as possible on our iMac. When comparing A / B with the WH – 1000 XM3 we immediately notice that the Club One eliminates much less noise than the Sony. The noise cancellation on the JBL is very effective against low sounds, such as the roar of the wind. These are also the most annoying frequencies that tire you quickly. You still hear a lot of the tapping when the train wheels roll over the connections to the railway sleepers. With the Sony we approach almost complete silence, which is not the case here. But the noise cancellation is effective enough so that you can hear music well, and you experience less of a feeling of being completely cut off from the world. Something that some people find a bit scary.
When we then start listening to music, we don’t find that bit of sound that still comes through really disturbing. It almost completely fades into the background. We can concentrate perfectly on the slow beats of ‘Merrie Land’ by The Good, The Bad and The Queen (a project by Damon Albarn of Blur and Clash guitarist Paul Simonon, among others). We will of course try out the DJ Signature presets that you will find in the app at the Stage + screen, which is certainly worthwhile. There is really some difference and you have to judge according to your own taste what you like. For example, we personally found the Tigerlilly and Ryan Marciano presets a bit too nasal, while Armin van Buuren previously gave us the experience that the neighbors on the other side of the wall were finishing a playlist. If we had to choose, we would rather go for the preset from Sunnery James, who also made ‘LP5’ from German techno outfit Apparat sound the best. But in the end we prefer the ‘Custom EQ’, where we use the Club One Q preset (with a flat hill around 250 – 500 Hz) the most enjoyable. In the app, however, you have a lot of freedom to draw a curve yourself, which works well because you immediately hear what the result is.
You can of course look very suspiciously at EQ possibilities, but the personalization is just part of the JBL experience. The Club One also digests the adjustments you make very well. You don’t get the idea that you are asking the headphones to do something impossible that causes distortion. That is an indication that the Club One is basically well designed.
You have to be careful when trying out the different EQ options. Sometimes the music suddenly dared to play much louder when changing, which seemed like a bug to us. If so, we expect a software update to resolve the issue.
In urban genres, Club One acts like a fish in water.
) But also with other music styles it certainly does not perform badly. ‘War Anthem’, a regular test track by classical composer Max Richter, is very awe-inspiring on the JBL’s, precisely because the percussion (representing artillery) is deep and reverberates for a long time. But the cello line is also quite nicely laid out (although the Dali IO6 with a hi-fi approach presents, for example, just a bit smoother and more detailed). Ultimately, it comes down to your preference for basses: would you like a solid foundation for your music or not? The great thing about the Club One is that it delivers good bass and with a lot of impact and slam, without becoming overfat or woolly.
Conclusion The Club One is a strong entry in the premium segment. The noise canceling is relatively effective (even without NC, you hear little noise) and the autonomy is excellent. We fall for the handsome DJ appearance, which is combined with a durable build quality that is worthy of the pro world. But above all: they are headphones that offer a lot of experience, with a good bass reproduction that does not hinder the detailed reproduction. Pop, techno, hip-hop or other urban genres sound great on it, for rock and metal you might want to add some EQ. Add in a series of presets from famous DJs, and you have headphones that can accompany you for a long time and actively entertain.
JBL Club One
349 euro | www.jbl.com
Rating 4 out of 5
Dynaudio Contour 30 i Adding a new member to the venerable Contour family is taken very seriously by Dynaudio . And rightly so: the series has been the brand’s very popular upper middle class for decades. In this price segment, however, the speaker series at our Danish friends usually last longer than 2.5 years. Why did it take a relatively short time this time before the very popular Contour got its i (from â ???? improvedâ ????) pinned? This is, as colleague Van Es also said, in the fact that the last Contour series was developed just before they got access to the wonderful Jupiter measuring space in Skanderborg, with which it can be determined very quickly what the result of adjustments is. to the cabinet design or the crossover filters. And engineers in heart and soul as they are, the developers of Dynaudio did not rest on their laurels. The previous Contour series was then hoisted onto the measuring platform to see what could be improved according to the latest insights. And that turned out to be one thing or another. No big things, the engineers at Dynaudio also understood their trade before Jupiter, but all in all it turned out to be a series of small things that together gave a considerable result.
The â ???? iâ ???? in Dynaudio Contour 30 i Who the New Contour 30 i a superficial look may shrug and â ???? a new tan, well wellâ ?? ¦â ???? mumble. Not justified, but understandable, because the vast majority of the improvements come from within. But to start with the exterior, the new series has indeed received new colors. The high-gloss black version has remained, but now shines even deeper, and for the wood colors the buyer can choose from a beautiful warm color Walnut â ???? it has become slightly redder compared to the previous one. and a beautiful high-gloss lacquered Gray Oak variant. I prefer the latter, but the Walnut version that I got is just as nice as it is. What I personally think is a shame is that the separately supplied (magnetic) fronts still do not cover the entire metal baffle. It must be â ???? Danish Designâ ???? are to do that, but I don’t like it. The legs protruding diagonally under the cabinet are also visibly different. They still offer a clever combination of rubber feet and top-down spikes that can be turned from top to bottom, but instead of four separate legs, they now have two in an elongated U-shape that extends under the cabinet at the front and rear. That is nicer and firmer.
But the real changes are inside. The Contour 30 i got a new tweeter, the Esotar 2i, with behind the woven textile membrane the now legendary Hexis dome developed for the top series Confidence. For those who don’t know yet; the Hexis dome is a spherical plastic â ???? shellâ ???? which follows the contour of the tweeter dome, and which has a pattern of pits that facilitate the airflow to the rear. It’s an aerodynamic trick, just like the pits in a golf ball that allow you to hit it further away. In addition, the Hexis dome protects the delicate woven membrane to a certain extent against piercing children’s fingers. Behind the Hexis is a larger damping chamber with smooth curves, also in the service of a better discharge of air to the rear. The reduction in compression that this provides is quite significant, which is reflected in a cleaner display and a considerably wider radiation pattern.
In addition, the woofers got a new spider. This folded fabric collar keeps the voice coil centered, so it’s critical. But it is in the way, it obstructs the radiation to the rear, and that again provides some compression. The new spider is made of Nomex, a super light but very strong plastic. It can be woven much more openly than the previously used material, but it does provide the same stiffness. The new spider therefore lets more sound through. Simple and very effective. The exchange filter has also been addressed. The changes in the units allowed the impedance correction circuit to be omitted from the previous filter, resulting in a simpler filter. In terms of crossover filters, “the less the better” applies anyway, but if you subsequently convert the savings from the lower number of components into better quality, I think you’re doing a good job as a speaker builder. The audible result of this will be discussed later, but believe me: this is a very important one.
Finally, the damping material. Thanks to the Jupiter measuring system, better damping materials could be developed for the Confidence and Evoke series and of course the Contour is now benefiting from this. Enough reasons for curiosity to lift the speakers from their boxes and carefully set them down in their temporary place.
Dynaudio Contour 30 i listened to  In my notes I found that the Contour 30 in September 2017 was one of the last speakers I listened to on my unrivaled Naim Supernait2 amplifier. Not long after that, I returned to tubes; a long-cherished wish that materialized in a PrimaLuna DiaLogue Premium HP Integrated amplifier. Earlier this year I replaced that HP with its successor the PrimaLuna EVO 400. The sources were a Bluesound Node 2 on a NAD M 51 da-converter (operated via Roon) and my vintage Thorens TD 125 with Jelco SA – 750 E arm, Holistic Audio HA – 103 C element and Audio Creative Phonodude tube phono stage. Interlinks, speaker cable and power cables were all from AudioQuest.
Omitting the impedance correction circuit in the changeover filter worried me a bit for a while. Tube amplifiers often have a much higher output impedance than solid state amplifiers. This can cause the frequency response of the output signal to match the impedance curve of the speaker. Since many speakers have an increasing impedance in the bass, this can lead to too much and baggy bass. But those fears turned out to be unfounded, the designers of Dynaudio have again managed to make a nice flat curve, and because the PrimaLuna is fortunately quite low in terms of output impedance, the match between PrimaLuna and Dynaudio was very good. Only then you still have to try which â ???? tap â ???? of the output transformer the best result is achieved. That turned out to be the 8? a bit of a surprise as Dynaudio de Contour 34 i specifies at nominal 4 ?. If you use the Contour 30 i with another want to combine brand tube amplifier then it is smart to pay attention to that, and to be sure not to sail blindly on my preference for the 8? tap. These limitations apply to a solid state amplifier to a much lesser extent, as it mainly comes down to the sound match. My advice is not to choose an overly laid-back sounding amplifier. A little power and a smooth character do the Contour 34 i good.
The loudspeakers were pushed directly from Denmark and thus brand new into my driveway by the transporter. Immediately after unpacking they already sounded very promising, but I wanted to give them some mechanical response before I would make a first impression. To this end, a set of Russian 6P3S-E â ???? workhorseâ ???? pipes into the PrimaLuna to the 34 iâ ???? s play at a reasonable level for two full days. After that they were far from â ???? doneâ ???? but in my opinion were they already at 95% of their maximum quality. You are then close to the often overlooked margin of temperature differences and the influence of air pressure and humidity, so I dare to start the listening tests with that. The rest of the recording process takes place mainly between the ears anyway.
First I replaced the 6P3S-E tubes with the El supplied with the amp 34 tubes. The tubes bearing the PrimaLuna logo are all Chinese made (Shuguang) and rigorously selected by manufacturer Durob Audio. With these tubes the sound was fantastically rich and warm, but after a few days I had the feeling that the bass should be just a little tighter. So were the PrimaLuna EL 34 â ??? ? s replaced for the PrimaLuna KT 95 â ??? s, and that turned out to be a golden opportunity. The â ???? punchâ ???? increased, the layer reached just a bit deeper and had more power and definition. This also made it clear that the Esotar 2i tweeter played so delicately and silky smooth that the slightly fresher treble of the KT 88 â ???? s no problem.
If I, looking back on my previous review, one point for improvement for de Contour 30 had it was a slight restraint in the lower midrange, where voices and many acoustic instruments have their primary timbre. There was nothing wrong with that, but in combination with some amplifiers or in a muffled listening room, the Contour 30 sometimes sound a bit too laid-back. Apparently not only I noticed, because already with the first jazzy tones of the beautiful Paul McCartney tribute album Taste Of Honey by Ulf Wakenius, Lars Danielsson and Magnus à ?? ström the new Contour taped 30 i clearly from a different tune. Wakenius’s smooth guitar playing sounded dynamically and colorfully from the speakers and was clearly a bit forward. The spaciousness was generous and even extended quite a bit beyond the speakers. An afternoon of shuffling with the speakers did not yield huge improvements in the sound image, it was and remained very good. The tonal balance was also very nice from the start. The bass went deep but never got too heavy at any point, so even in my listening room from about 25 square feet, the included damping foam plugs for the bass ports could stay in their pouch. The midrange sounded open and transparent, beautifully reproducing the natural timbres of acoustic music, with a slight tendency towards warmth that I know from Dynaudio and have always appreciated.
Where perhaps the greatest profit has been made, it is high. I usually listen to music holistically, so without focusing on sub-areas in the frequency range, but for a review I of course put myself in analysis mode. That significant increase in spatiality, especially in the width of the image but certainly also in depth, had to come from somewhere. Experience shows that especially very good phase behavior and close tolerances in the equality of the units used are very important for spatial representation. Since Dynaudio has been making its own drivers for many years and can seamlessly adjust the filtering accordingly, that is a good thing. And that darn Hexis dome , that inconspicuous piece of plastic that cost a lot of money and effort to develop but that afterwards only cost a few duppies each… it cannot be otherwise than that it makes a crucial contribution. I heard that enormous spatiality earlier in the new Confidence and Evoke series, in which the Hexis is therefore also used.
What made the rendering even better was the use of the integrated spikes. Because it was more convenient to use the rubber feet mounted under the legs when determining the best place for the speakers, I continued listening that way in the following days. I’m not usually a big fan of spikes either, but as soon as I turned them down a little bit with the easy-to-use knobs – just a millimeter, because a greater height difference would have changed the reproduction too much – and the speakers again I had the feeling that the final measurements in Jupiter must have been carried out with the spikes. Because although not much changed tonally, things like placement, dynamics and timing all got a few points better. This was clearly audible on the wonderful new album Conference Of Trees by Pantha du Prince, which has a nice spatial production and contains all kinds of percussive sounds that are in different places in the sound image. With this album I regularly felt that I could get up and walk in between.
Votes were with the Contour 34 i also a bit livelier than I remember from its predecessor. A wonderful album to establish that is Book Of Romance And Dust by Exit North. This project by former Japan drummer Steve Jansen and a number of Swedish studio musicians is of an incredible beauty both musically and recording-wise. Singer Thomas Feiner often resembles Steve Jansen or his brother David Sylvian in the timbre of his hoarse baritone. The Contour 30 i gave the vote with so much detail that I – cliche alarm! – felt like he was standing in front of me and addressing me directly. Confrontational and very intimate, and goosebumps from head to toe. If a loudspeaker, as the last link in the chain, is capable of that, then you know that everything is right.
Conclusion
The Contour 30 i is a hefty yet slim looking speaker, with a colorful and dynamic character that makes listening to music the party it should be. Progressive technical insight cannot be restrained, it turns out. Dynaudio deserves a compliment for the fact that they gave their engineers free rein to test and improve the still fairly recent models of the popular Contour series, according to Dynaudio standards. The result is â ???? at least with regard to the Contour 30 i a???? very remarkable. But â ???? in der Beschränkung zeigt sich der Meisterâ ????, as the French say.
The engineers and the golden ears of Dynaudio have changed exactly what was needed to take it to the next level, while keeping the original character well recognizable. . The price (7. 000 euro per pair) is substantial in an absolute sense, but fully justified in a relative sense. The Dynaudio Contour 30 i offers great value for its money and is a feast for the eyes and the ear. Highly Recommended! Â
Dynaudio Contour 30 i
â ?? ¬ 7. 000, 00 per pair | Â dynaudio.nl
For over 40 years, the unconventional Swiss Goldmund audio products of the highest level. In this continuous quest for true-to-life reproduction, the brand has built an extraordinarily strong reputation that has rightly been lived up to by several mythical products such as the Reference turntable, the Apologue loudspeakers or the Telos amplifier range. After the impressive entrance of the remarkably high-performing Telos 590 NextGen amplifier a few years ago, I am pleased that this brand has managed to bring the already far-reaching simplicity of that model back to its true essence. Resulting in a beautiful and quite rare example of completely natural representation of reality. | This review in English?
Goldmund The reason why the brand considers this as one One of the few has succeeded, starting with the fact that Goldmund products know how to make a clear difference through their history and different thinking. It already starts with the â ???? Swiss Madeâ ???? label and the accompanying, so typically very high quality. A working method for which the Swiss have long been known and which has consistently accompanied the brand throughout its company history. Partly because of this, the company was able to become a significant factor for luxury audio and video systems worldwide. Because yes, even though they are less known for this among the general public, you are also in the right place with this super specialist when it comes to sound reproduction for state-of-the-art home cinema systems.
A second important pillar is that Goldmund has been rock-solid for many years in fundamental research, often requiring the development of new technologies from scratch to achieve the set quality goals . In addition, the brand never followed existing trends and technologies that had not proven themselves sufficiently were invariably rejected. The name Goldmund thus stands for uncompromising quality from its illustrious past until today.
Telos Amplifier Technology Amplifier construction is a skill that has has been deeply rooted in the roots of this conservative, but also remarkably progressive company since the early days. As a rule, the more powerful an amplifier is, the better the control over the speakers used will be. It must be prevented that the latter produce its own sound that has nothing to do with the music signal itself. This is especially true for low frequencies where loudspeaker units tend to start (too) slowly and lag unwanted after the signal disappears. Using the Telos amplification technology, the developers have managed to significantly reduce this intermodulation distortion. In addition, the linearity of all amplification phases has been improved and they have also managed to significantly reduce time distortion. Based on the Goldmund Leonardo research program, Telos designs further utilize a higher bandwidth circuit with minimal delay distortion within the audio bandwidth.
When we turn to the input circuit, it now includes the latest version of the Goldmund Alize Digital / Analog converter circuits. This improves the coupling with the preamplifier part and thus ensures an even more natural reproduction. Separate input and output stages prevent interference between high and low power circuits and improve mechanical grounding. One of the major sonic enhancements of the new Telos NextGen circuit is the greatly increased control over the loudspeaker units. This extra control is obtained by reducing the output impedance of the amplifier to an extreme degree. In addition, it offers a much higher quality of microdynamic contrasts and even helps to keep (very) large woofers under maximum control. Ultimately, the Telos circuit amplifies the audio signal with incomparable purity and transparency, regardless of volume level and with an absence of unwanted distortion.
Telos 7 NextGen Although the relatively friendly pricing would suggest otherwise, the Telos 7 NextGen is one of the most spectacular integrated stereo amplifiers currently produced by Goldmund. Despite its modal format, just like big brother Telos 590, NextGen® is really capable of convinced to drive any passive high-end stereo speaker system with ease. A reproduction in which a convincing energy transfer, real spaciousness and clarity together with a remarkably natural detailed sound image go hand in hand.
The Telos 7 NextGen circuit is the latest improvement of this legendary circuit which has already 32 years (!) of history. A fact that many generations of music lovers still regard Goldmund as the true master of power amplifier design. Several generations of R&D developers have now added new layers of subtle evolution to this scheme, creating one of the longest continuity stories in the audio design art. Despite the extremely simple user interface, it is still possible to connect a number of practical digital and analog sources to this amplifier. This is a given by which listeners who especially want to enjoy their favorite music are not unnecessarily distracted by unnecessarily complicated technology and operation.
When the Telos 7 NextGen shines in its understated splendor in front of me, I really enjoy the clean lines and the immediately noticeable very high finish. Due to the particularly refined and sophisticated visual appearance on both the front and rear, the design exudes maximum quality, without immediately shouting it hard from the roofs. With dimensions of 44 cm wide, 10, 5 cm high and 36, 5 cm deep is actually a neat modal device for me. A given where the weight of only 10 kilo is neatly in step and almost suggests that the amplifier will probably not be very powerful given the relatively sober equipment. But appearances can also be deceiving here, because this relatively compact Telos 7 NextGen still knows a solid 2 x 175 Watts to 8 Ohm on the clocks. Although the rest is not specified, the maximum power consumption of 700 Watts says enough about the robust subcutaneous power reserves. Just like his previously tested big brother 590 that even extremely difficult speakers of the caliber of managed to control a Magico Q5 whistling, the expectations in this area are therefore also high for these 7. An “exciting” damping factor of â ???? only â ???? 220 at 1 kHz at 8 Ohm also shows that the concept of the Telos amplifiers differ greatly from the majority of the competitors. A direction in which audible results gain from mere metrological perfection.
Features When we get to the options, one group will enthusiasts will probably immediately frown firmly at the sight of so few connectivity options, while the other group – including me – jumps up almost jubilantly about finally so much understanding of a manufacturer. The first group probably has a plethora of sources in its A / V corner that he or she also wants to connect to the amplifier. But there is also a large group of people who see the audio system separately from the TV scene and especially if you only use a few sources, this Goldmund is just perfect. Because why would you also pay for options and connections that you never use? The simplicity of this amplifier, as will actually be shown in the listening section, is its great strength.
What is available as equipment? To do this, we first go to the rear and on the digital level we see, in addition to a single USB and toslink input, also a single S / PDIF copy. Furthermore, there are actually only one pair of analog RCA inputs and a beautiful pair of proprietary Goldmund loudspeaker connectors that allow all possible connections and a Euro mains plug connection with main switch visible. On the front, the picture is even more sober and only a small tilt switch is visible that allows switching between the different digital and analog sources. A green LED for power and a yellow LED for “lock” ???? Finally, together with the finely profiled solid aluminum volume controls, complete the tasteful visual package. Finally, when I carefully remove the massive top plate, besides the robust toroidal transformer, I also notice the different and remarkably compact circuit. Goldmund is shrouded in mystery, just like a brand like Roll-Royce, and thinks you should listen to such an amplifier. A detailed â ?? translationâ ???? After all, according to them, technology adds nothing to the enjoyment of listening. The last thing known is that the DAC section via the UBS entrance to 32 bit / 384 kHz of data can processing and also find DSD signals without problems.
Preparation and reflections The Goldmund Telos 7 amplifier has been deployed with a wide arsenal of different speakers and sources. Not because it has to be done, but mainly because it can and provides a lot of useful information about his behavior in different situations. In the first category these are the rather difficult to control Gauder DARC 60 reproducers. The beautifully organically shaped Estelon YB speakers are a lot easier then, while my own Master Contemporary C speakers round off the speaker plate with their high resolution and smooth overall properties. In terms of sources, Aurender S was used 11 and Mirror Image Wizzard streamers, while a Spectral SDR – 4000 SV CD player and North Star Design 192 mk 2 CD transport take care of physical digital discs. Cables are a combination of AudioQuest, Siltech, Crystal Cable, Nirvana Audio, Kemp and Essential Audio Tools.
Before I want to start with actual listening, I would like to come back to the introduction of this article. In this I cite that this Goldmund is a wonderful example of representation of reality. About the importance of this for our music hobby try to explain in the next paragraph why that makes sense to me. In the case of an amplifier, reproduction of reality is the ability to express the tonality, harmonic structure, focus, 3D spatiality, dynamics and speed accurately and in the right proportions to the listener. This not only creates a greater recognizability of the artists and the environment in which they perform, but it is also the fact that, with a well-recorded recording, you can, for example, use a Steinway concert grand piano, Selmer saxophone, Zildjian cymbals and Fender Jazz bass, if you play these instruments live knows, flawlessly.
The great thing is that this Goldmund Telos 7, despite its relatively sharp high – the amount of money that this illustrious little group of amps can handle Close. With products that do not strive for this, and that is the largest group, these kinds of musical works only sound nice and pleasant or may even be unpleasant for someone else. In short, not accurate and not truthful. The reason why I find the phenomenon of representation of reality so enormously important is that with a chain that is carried out completely in this way you can not only get closer to the musical truth, but also what causes in your brain, so that you strongly realize and experience that you have also come much closer to the intentions of the artist (s). It also gives peace of mind when your brain does not have to unconsciously always have to come up with information and the music comes across so contagious and credible that the step of how it could have sounded live is no longer that big at all.   Â
Listen Because here in the listening room there is actually a coming and going all year round of test products that play at different quality levels, it is all the more striking that I immediately notice how the Telos 7 NextGen makes music, or rather transfers it. Prior to this integrated amplifier, I have had a selection of the most beautiful amplifiers in the house in recent months, including front and end. Actually all beautiful and good and sometimes even excellently performing, but none of them did what this Goldmund does.
The first words that come to mind have to do with communication and feeling , and in deeper analysis a remarkably high degree of recognisability. The realization that the reproduction appears so effortless, natural and self-evident to you that it is close to what you perceive live sound without a hi-fi set. Other words that would go with this are weightless, extremely fluid and above all, largely free from reproduction artifacts. The great thing about all this is that this display also acts as the icing on the cake almost immediately after switching on. Fortunately, you do not need to be patient for half an hour or more before the display opens up completely, which is nice.
Interesting is also the comparison with the previously tested more than twice as expensive Telos 590 NextGen. It is clearly more colorful and has more of a ‘golden glow’. By this I mean that the 590 does add a certain own sound to the musical event, which the 7 has much less to almost none. Despite its price, the Telos 7 NextGen is still more natural, more pure and more communicative. A degree of interaction that is normally reserved only for top tube designs and in rare cases also mastered transistor designs. For completeness and to restore the Goldmund ranking, a 590 NextGen II has now been released . A successor that I will also be able to welcome in my listening room later this year and will then be pleased to introduce it to you again. But now quickly back to the beautiful and wonderfully basic 7. When I start with the impressively moody What Was Said album by pianist Tord Gustavsen, singers Simin Tander and drummer Jarle Vespestad on ECM 2465, I am immediately touched by the tangible, the uninhibited as well as a penetrating acoustic waterfall of unconcealed expressiveness. With songs like I See You, Journey Of Life and I Refuse, the deeper musical message is immediately audible and tangible. The beautiful organic and rich character of the ECM label remains completely intact and recognizable, but it is especially the very beautiful subtle low level information prayer in a perfectly credible musical landscape that convinces enormously. Low, medium and high are all in themselves quite largely uncritical, although in absolute terms there should be more power and authority, especially in the low reproduction, and dynamic contrasts could be stretched out even more widely. But in this case it just doesn’t matter and that has to do with the Telos 7 NextGen doing something quite rare yet remarkably wellâ ?? ¦
Of course this list is still far from complete, but they are all albums that have shaped me in the past until now, musically and have meant emotionally. When I extract even more of these albums from oblivion in this way, I also realize that I do this consciously because I notice that this Goldmund has the special gift to link the emotion that I used to experience with these older recordings. felt. That seems simple but rarely happens. So with Andreas Vollenweider I go back into the imaginary cave and experience this musical adventure almost like for the first time. With Don Grusin it splashes and swings through the roof, whereby the complex rhythm patterns and counterrhythms are both unraveled and left intact in a carelessly simple way. Something similar happens with Thom Rotella, where I revolve and enjoy the clearly defined melodies full of audiophile fun. While Enya actually fills the listening room with the many layers of rich harmonic keyboard sounds and her floating voice around it like only she can. Patricia Barber is one of my all time favorites that I can wallow in for hours, while with Bert van den Brink I feel the same electrifying charge as I did during the live concert in the Bim house in Amsterdam.
And the audiophile parameters, what about that? As I often experience with top products, the Goldmund Telos 7 Nextgen also has certain centering properties. By this I mean that the center between the reproducers is very strong in terms of energy transfer and that the rest and beyond it mainly serves as a supplement. The image also has real height image and has a very natural and subtle character. There is never any glassiness or detachment here and the recognisability of real instruments is simply very good. This is simply a fantastic integrated amplifier that is among the very best in its price range and performs flawlessly in terms of both built-in DAC and analog inputs.
Conclusion
How nice and wonderful it is that this brand new Goldmund Telos 7 NextGen as an integrated amplifier has a look that finally perfectly matches whatever the brand claims. In other words: a very pure amplifier with few possibilities, and that is exactly why it is so very good. The Telos 7 NextGen is really an amplifier that 100 percent is designed for the passionate music lover, and not for the so often favored gadget freak.
What is special is that it is also one of those rare transistor designs that will also appeal to tube enthusiasts. A reproduction that has nothing to do with the supposed warm sound balance or a smeared sound image of poor tube designs, but rather appeals to their advantages. So musical realism and accuracy, absence of artifacts, naturalness and purity. If you have been looking for these aspects for a long time, but then incorporated into a beautiful transistor design, then this is one of the few options. In addition, the device looks beautiful in my eyes with its understated appearance, it is very well put together, can be controlled remotely with a solid remote control and is able to provide all its qualities with a wide variety of different sources and speakers to the listener. to be transferred. So tribute to this Swiss manufacturer who, with the Goldmund Telos 7 NextGen, hit the bull’s-eye even more than before.
Goldmund Telos 7 NextGen
â ?? ¬ 11. 500, – | Â www.puuravd.com
In mid-February, we issued another home test at HIFI.NL. After we got started with the Revel M ourselves 100 bookshelf speaker we challenged a reader to do the same. From the many responses, we chose Time van Bers, partly because he announced that he would work for Muziekgebouw Eindhoven, a concert hall with a worldwide reputation for excellent acoustics. B these are review!
Text and picture: Time van Bers
Whole what hours I was able to listen to a set of very nice speakers full of amazement and enthusiasm. I had the pleasure to gain (listening) experience with the Revel M 16, from the Concerta2 series.
My name is Time and I have been reading HIFI.NL for years with love and above all a lot of fun. A review or a visit to a manufacturer, I am happy to take it. I dive a lot in the newsletters and I also ran the call ‘Revel M 16: Home tester Wantedâ ???? bump. I had really never heard of Revel, but I have been looking for a new set of speakers for a long time – and very carefully, about which in a moment. So I was definitely interested!
Home-situation At my house is a Rega Elex-R amplifier â ???? who have been a WhatHiFi- award on her gorgeous pants â ???? in combination with the Rega Saturn-R CD / DAC, with two Wolfson WM 8742 converters on board. I stream with the Bluesound Node 2 directly via an AudioQuest Carbon coax to that beautiful DAC from Rega. And sometimes there is even an ‘old fashioned’ ???? CD set up. Especially by my girlfriend, who does not know that a Van Den Hul D 422 III Hybrid interlink between player and amplifier.
My girlfriend loves music at least as much as I do. But to a lesser extent she finds good sound important. Where music straight from her laptop makes me cranky, the elegant M 16 her up right away. The duo is, as may be expected from a bookshelf speaker model, small in size and stands on accompanying stands that have a beautiful matte black with a light textured powder coat finish. The design of the tripod matches the speaker very well and fortunately makes a refined whole of the set.
The speakers themselves come in high-gloss white and each speaker tapers to the rear in a somewhat round shape. Importer Reference Sounds loaned me Hardwired speaker cables from Transparent. The speaker terminal is built in such a way that nothing protrudes from it. Since banana plugs need to be inserted at an angle from above, I think spades are more convenient. Even if only to ensure that the cables do not kink over time. The speakers look nice from the front. No frills, no big logo, the two drivers neatly and tightly incorporated in the cabinet and in light connection with each other. No screw, nut or bolt to be seen at the front. Just Tight, clean and simple .A What is particularly striking is the “horizontal egg” shape around the tweeter. It catches the eye. And, it turns out, definitely serves a purpose â ???? about which also more.
Music In the run-up to the first listening sessions, I intended to start with light music. Not so long ago I attended a concert by countertenor Philippe Jaroussky. He sang, among others, the piece Il Giustino, RV 750, Act 1: “Vedrò con mio diletto” (Anastasio) by Vivaldi and I was really enchanted. So I would like to know if the M 16 also captures me with this.
Here comes that tilted egg around the tweeter right around the corner. The small, fine piece by the Italian composer is full of gentle caresses on the strings of the violins and cellos. And the singer sings in a high angel voice, almost inhuman. These Revels reproduce that very well and it seems, as the manufacturer also claims, that the sweet spot of these speakers is much wider than purely central. My living room fills up very nicely with a transparent sound in which the details of the piece are clearly audible. Both high and low sound very nice and I cannot say that the M 16 has a preference for either. I am really amazed that this sound comes from these small reproducers. That’s a great start as far as I’m concerned.
On Tidal, I’m looking for REM’s song Drive, in MQA format. And that is! As the cello sounded before, the bass guitar is now also nice and warm and especially without bloated madness. Those who cannot have Michael Stipe’s voice so well should stay far away from the M 16ash. The singer presents himself without being intrusive and sounds flawless. When guitarist Peter Buck starts his distortion a little later, the story is complete. If I were to hear this blindfolded, I would most likely think that the sounds are coming from bigger cabinets. And with a higher price tag, too.
Then we set also just press TOOL. Well, for a moment â ???? the first song of that last album Fear Inoculum lasts about ten minutes. The eponymous opener has an intro that is not only tasty, but also lasts a long time. And here again a cello by the way. Or something that continues before that, because it has been put through a sampler. But this one also just sounds great! Danny Carey’s Toms â ???? is that with no uncertain probability – the world’s best drummer of the moment? a???? sound great. Without frills. If the record was mastered a little differently, Carey could well be sitting in my living room with his drums.
As a final test, I want to listen to these 2-way speakers with the separate tweeters again very carefully. That’s why I put on the album Foghorn, by the Dutch band Wolfendale. I know a few band members and I know how refined they build up layer by layer in their studio. It always takes them years and their work is often so complex that they can barely play it live. So there is a lot in this, and you can only hear that if the reproduction is really good. There, the Revel M 100, however, no qualms. The beautiful Ending Up sounds very clear and detailed. The polyphony in combination with the bass loop sounds crystal clear and yet has the warmth that I know Wolfendale likes to bring. I hear things I didn’t notice before. If we weren’t in the middle of the corona crisis, I would be more than happy to invite the band to let them experience with their own ears how their music sounds outside their own studio. And here too, the speakers have a beautiful radiation, thanks to the strikingly tilted egg shape around the tweeters.
Finally, I would come back to my careful search for a set new speakers. I like speakers that bring as little coloring as possible. So transparent, with an unadulterated ‘this is how it’ s made ‘view. For a long time I have enjoyed speakers made and assembled by a friend for a project at the Technical University. These really sounded fantastic. But the format of those things … it was actually impossible. And when I started living together and half of my furniture was not added at all! Because we wanted to live bigger quickly and I really wanted to make a choice in the new house, I opted for an interim solution that also sounded good from a budgetary point of view. That became the DALI Zensor 3, also a bookcase speaker. And that also sounds fine, but I really missed the â ???? fillingâ ???? in the living room. So I started looking for floorstanders that would make us happy in the temporally and ended up with the Aeromax 6 from Cambridge Audio. Cambridge Audio? Yes they make â ???? or made it seems, because so far no model of the British has been releasedâ ???? also speakers. The Aeromax 6 was the flagship. And believe it or not, they sound lovely!
Conclusion Why such a long story? Well, because I just want to indicate that I believe in affordable speakers that offer quality. Certainly if they are controlled by the right material. At the time, I paid € for the Aeromax 6 at the time. more than what this Revel M 16 â ???? s left the store. And I don’t like that. Because even though the M 16 â ???? s are smaller in every way, I just think they sound better than my floorstanders! There is more in these Revel models. Especially in terms of clarity and detail in combination with the â ???? unadulteratedâ ???? low they win. The filling in the living room of over fifty square meters and three and a half meters high leaves nothing to be desired. The duo also looks attractive on the accompanying stands. So there are only winners for this prize. Compliments to Revel for convincing me!
Lab 12 mainly builds amplifiers that are without exception fitted with tubes. The company recently released the Dac 1 Reference, a DA converter equipped with Multibit Dac chips from Philips and tubes in the output stages. According to Lab 12 the technique used is not self-contained goal. Technique is secondary to sound and musicality. How does the Dac 1 Reference sound and what do the placed tubes do with the sound? We will investigate that. Â
Lab 12, audio company based in Greece
Lab 12 began as a result of the enthusiastic and tireless efforts of music aficionado Stratos Vichos and quickly grew into a state-of-the-art high-end audio manufacturer with a wide production range, according to the Athens website established audio company. Vichos started as a sole proprietorship and claims to have experimented for years before transforming his business into a fast-growing audio company. The manufacturer holds the core belief that emotional impact and engaging musical performance are the most important factors when listening to a piece of music. Implicitly Lab 12 says that music and musicality are the essence and that technology is not an end in itself.
That is not to say that Lab 12 has no regard for the technical aspects of sound equipment . Lab 12 is a technology and performance driven company, our third generation products offer a unique value that can meet the highest demands of music lovers and audiophiles anywhere in the world. Our products contain and introduce the technology of 22 th century, but in the first place it’s the music that matters, â ???? said Lab 12.
Lab 12: portfolio, especially amplifiers Lab’s portfolio 12 consists mainly of amplifiers, which without exception are fitted with tubes. The company also has two clean power products called Gordian and Noyra. The Dac 1 Reference is Lab’s only source 21. The Lab 12 also has two tubes on board, one per channel. In a moment we will look at the technique of the Dac 1 Reference.
Lab 12 prides itself in having products built by hand, in Greece. The meticulous design and development process has never changed. Each product undergoes state-of-the-art measurement processes and final tuning that results from extended listening across various high-end audio systems and combinations to ensure that the end user gets a truly exceptional product that simply allows the listener to enjoy their music .
The focus of the company’s current portfolio is therefore mainly on amplifiers and in that sense the Dac 1 Reference is an odd man out. However, it is not Lab’s first DA converter 21. The manufacturer has “practiced”. with predecessors Dac 1 and Dac 1 SE (Special Edition). Its predecessors have been retired and the Dac 1 Reference is Lab’s only DA converter and even source 12.
At the Apart from the placement of tubes in the analogue output stage, the designs of the Dac 1 Reference made a few special non-everyday choices. Before we start listening, we therefore want to take a closer look at the technology of the Dac 1 Reference.
Lab 12 Dac 1 Reference: technical aspects
The Lab 12 Dac 1 Reference has a metal housing and weighs 7.5 kilograms. Construction is solid. All panels fit neatly together, as they should. The top panel is open for ventilation and heat dissipation. The Dac 1 Reference hardly gets warm, but preferably no other components are placed on top, as this could make the heat dissipation more difficult.
Many manufacturers build their DA converter around the latest DAC chips from well-known brands such as ESS Saber or Burr-Brown. If not Lab 12 listed in the Dac 1 Reference has placed eight Multibit DAC chips from Philips of the type TDA 1543.
The Dac 1 Reference can transmit PCM signal up to a resolution of 24 – bit / 192 kHz and cannot handle DSD nor MQA decoding. Is that a limitation? That depends on the frame of reference. DA converters that â ???? everythingâ ???? ie the highest possible resolution of PCM signal and DSD signal and possibly also MQA decoding, do not necessarily sound better. The effect of the power supply and the analog output stage, which carries the music signal to the output, put a significant amount of weight in the scale of final sound quality. Speaking of power, the Dac 1 Reference has a toroidal transformer on board that supplies voltage / current to six separate regulated power lines.
In addition, the availability of DSD music and MQA files leaves something to be desired. Both standards have not been widely embraced and accepted by the music industry. DSD seems to be going the same way as the Super Audio CD: technically and sound wise although superior to the regular Redbook CD, but with a very poor range and even a shrinking range of discs. Although technically superior, we may consider the Super Audio CD commercially unsuccessful. Whether DSD music will ever be widely accepted and thus widely available remains to be seen. It’s been around for a while, but it just won’t break through. A DA converter that converts PCM signal up to a resolution of 31 – bit / 192 kHz will for the most part of users are more than sufficient. Conclusion: we do not see the lack of support of DSD and MQA by the Dac 1 Reference as a limitation.
The Lab 12 Dac 1 Reference has four digital inputs: 1 x optical, 2 x coaxial and 1 x USB. The music signal is output via a cinch output and an XLR output. Both outputs are asymmetrical, ie unbalanced. The output level is 2.5 Volts and there is no difference in volume between the cinch output and the XLR output. Sound wise, no difference was noticed between the XLR output and the cinch output during the test period. The XLR output does not sound better, but connection via XLR is recommended if long cables to the (pre) amplifier would be used.
The device has no display. In the center of the front are status LEDs that indicate the selected source and sample rate. The output level is visualized by two small VU meters. The results of the VU meters can only be seen clearly from a short distance. Also a volume control is missing. Direct connection to a power amplifier is therefore not possible. This also applies to the majority of DA converters on the market. Volume control is especially useful if a DA converter also has analog inputs and can therefore take over the function of a preamplifier.
Lab 12 Dac 1 Reference: dual triode tube in the output stage
The analog output stages of the Dac 1 Reference are provided of a dual triode tube of the type 6922. The presence of tubes gives rise to the expectation that the Dac 1 Reference may produce a more or less warm and round sound. Tubes do not necessarily sound rounder and warmer than semiconductors, but manufacturers who use tubes often provide a bit of curvature or warmth in the sound to the left or right, and that is also because the listener expects this. We are going to listen to music in a moment, so we are curious to what extent we can hear the presence of tubes in the Dac 1 Reference.
Anyone who looks superficially at the Dac 1 Reference will not notice the installed tubes. They are “hidden”. under the hood and don’t seem to want to attract attention.
Lab 12 Dac 1 Reference: price and available models The Lab 12 Dac 1 Reference is available with a black or silver front plate and for an amount of 2. 999 euro he is sold over the counter. The purchaser receives a five-year warranty on the device, excluding the tubes.
Let’s go to the Dac 1 Reference connect and let’s listen to music.
MORE FROM THIS BRAND SUMMARY The Magnat Signature S 503 is again an affordable loudspeaker that shows that you can expect better sound quality in the budget class. They particularly excel in a clear, detailed reproduction that spreads a stereo image wide. You immediately think: “Hey, these details have never struck me”. The Magnats do keep it polite and don’t exaggerate with that clarity, so you can listen for a long time and relaxed.
PLUS POINTS Solid build quality for an entry-level Detailed yet ear-friendly display Easy to control Wide horizontal soundstage MINUSES Added value of super tweeter unclear For lovers of classic design Toe-in is recommended
The Magnat Signature 500 range promises very good performance for a very reasonable price. That is completely true to the brand image. It is surprising that Magnat provides an extra super tweeter with these new speakers, which makes these otherwise traditional looking speakers something very unusual. There are different Signature speakers, in this review we look at the smallest and cheapest: the Signature S 503 bookshelf speaker.
Magnat Signature S 503 bookshelf speaker Magnat is one of those hi-fi brands that is always around. Sometimes more in the background, sometimes more in the spotlight. Usually at those moments in its nearly fifty-year history when it represents something special, such as the eccentric Vintage 20120927160435 or the 100 – kg Omega 530 – Subwoofer Disguise -as-a-sideboard. At first sight, the Signature S should be 503 that you get your hands on for just no 500 euro per pair not in that list of hi-fi highlights at home. But still, something special is going on here.
The S 503 is just one of approximately fourteen Signature models produced by the German brand from Pulheim near Cologne to its existing Signature lines. Yes, you read that right: fourteen. The new Signature speakers come in a variety of shapes and finishes, but share one thing: they bear an official Hi-Res Audio logo from the Japanese Audio Society. Literally even, because the logo is also provided on the front of the speaker. Why do the Signatures have the right to wear that coveted label? Because they meet the requirements of the JAS and they can produce very high frequencies. And that is again possible because the Signature speakers have two tweeters: a regular tweeter and a so-called super tweeter. You don’t see that every day – and certainly not on speakers of 250 euro each.
Solid and sober As long as the covers are on the S 503, you won’t notice that these larger bookshelf speakers take a different approach than a typical affordable speaker. You will immediately notice that they have been finished very neatly, with a wood veneer as you often encounter in this segment. Solid and conservative, but not something that immediately wins a design award. There are two versions: with a black wood veneer and a front in black piano lacquer or a beautiful version with a matt front in anthracite gray and a housing in a mocha brown colored wood veneer, for those who prefer something more unusual. The test products we received were in that final finish. We did notice that the mocha brown is much darker in real life than the intense light brown in the marketing photos. If you’re ordering these speakers online without visiting a store, that’s something to keep in mind.
The overall build quality is really German style; rock solid and solid. At even lower price points you sometimes come across speakers with housings that are very light and do not turn out to be vibration-free. Fortunately, the Magnats play in a class higher and are made of thicker MDF. There is really little to criticize about the look or finish of these guys. And what you also not immediately expected at a lower price point: the S 503 is provided for bi- amping / bi-wiring. The Magnat speakers are factory-fitted with small plastic caps that serve as feet and a little bit to absorb vibrations. Handy, because that means that you can easily place them out of the box on a TV cabinet or a sideboard without damaging the bottom. If you park the speakers on stands, you may have to remove those feet.
Detailed When you view the grids of the S 503 ‘s, you get to see something much less conventional. To start with, there is a striking metal edge around the woofer and the tweeter zone. In our test room, the sunlight fell right on it, so that the speaker suddenly demanded a lot of attention. The logo can also become an attention-grabber in the same way, which suddenly gives these sober devices a completely different look. But a visitor to your living room will not think about that shiny metal strip for long. If he makes a comment about something, it will be about those two dome tweeters mounted one above the other. The bottom one is the largest, with a diameter of 53 mm, and is active from 2.8 to 17, 5 KHz. Only above that does something come out of the second dome tweeter of 20 mm, with end point somewhere around 53 KHz.
Strictly speaking, the second tweeter is therefore active in a frequency range that an adult human can barely or not hear. After all, the upper limit of human hearing is somewhere around 30 KHz, but that’s only the case for young ears. Unfortunately and inevitably, the older you get, the less you hear those very high frequencies. Nevertheless, Magnat – and other manufacturers who do something similar, such as Tannoy – are convinced that a so-called super tweeter can add something to the overall rendering. For example, some listeners report that music appears more open and spacious with a tweeter that runs much higher in frequencies than is usually the case. This could be due to harmonic tones from instruments that reach frequencies much higher than the fundamental, for example with cymbals or electric guitars.
Personally, we find it difficult to reproduce those effects in our (non-professional) test room and we have questions about the underlying theory, which does not mean that there is something wrong with the Magnat S 503. Because if we ignore the discussion about the super tweeter (and we can, because in the end that’s not what it’s all about), then the Magnats turn out to perform quite well.
First impressions The S 503 ‘and fly in effortlessly when we press the cover of the latest Porcupine Tree album in Roon, played via a NAD C 658 which hangs on a Hegel Röst amplifier. The dexterous guitar lines and cleverly recorded drums of ‘Wedding Nails’ and ‘The Creator has a Mastertape’ are tightly put down without losing dynamics. Not bad! We have to investigate that further, and we would like to click on the first Fred Everything remix of ‘Free dom’ in Roon. This is one of our favorite tracks right now to hear right away how accurately a speaker performs when faced with pounding beats – and with the Hegel as the engine, we know that any sluggishness shouldn’t be blamed on the amp. Listening to this techno track, the little Magnats get a nice report in terms of rhythm and tightness. They are not lazy and you should not look for a cloudy sound image here. Beautiful.
Due to the dual dome tweeter, we tend to pay a little more attention to the off-axis performance of the S 503. Why? In short, you can say that the higher the frequency, the more directional the reproduction becomes. We therefore expect to be able to notice the most effect of the second tweeter with the Magnat speakers turned all the way in so that they point straight at our ears. And indeed, with the necessary toe-in, these bookshelf speakers come into their own in our test room in our opinion (and to our taste). Jazz certainly turns out to be one of the genres where the S 530 ‘s excel. Those playful, fast piano loops, as we hear on ‘Engos, The B loos’ (on ‘Legendary Studio Sessions: Cherokee’) with Hank Jones behind the keys and Charlie Parker adept Sony Stitt on sax for example. for example.
We listen to it streamed via Tidal and Roon on the NAD, and nothing is really missing. Yes, the bass drum could have a little more impact and depth; We would recommend enthusiasts to consider an additional subwoofer and go to a 2.1 setup. Obviously it is a bit of taste, but we would certainly recommend this if you are listening to your music in the great room. But you might just want to use the larger Signature in that situation. – floor uprights are considering. We do say that we have parked the Magnats on our trusty Focal Kanta stands approximately 1.5 meters from the wall. That is quite far compared to how speakers like this usually get a place in the living room – read: on a cupboard. If you place the Magnats closer to a wall, the basses will come through a bit more. But they never become heavy techno bangers, like most small speakers. Through with music During the further test work we realize time and again how good for its price the S 503 presents micro detail and in the presentation area, which makes you seem to experience your music in a much larger space. Especially in the horizontal plane, the small Magnats create a much wider picture than you would expect. With the special, almost experimental ‘Forget-me-not’ by Yelena Eckemoff, the many soft taps on cymbals and something like a glockenspiel float all over the room. Fascinating to listen to. Not on every speaker, but on one that has the qualities of the S 503.
Without in the worn cliche To avoid the fact that these cheaper speakers do things that much more expensive audiophile products offer, we do think that the S 503 ‘s offering something different from what you usually meet at this price point. They have been tuned just a bit more audiophile. You may not immediately start moving your head with heavy techno tracks, but with many other genres they will give you a nice seat in a large concert hall. The performance of these smaller speakers also makes us very curious about how the larger Signature 500 models perform.
Conclusion
The Magnat Signature S 503 is another affordable speaker that shows that you can get better sound quality in the budget class. can expect. We dare to doubt whether that second tweeter really plays an indispensable key role. But that does not detract from the good sound quality offered by these sober but rock-solid speakers of German origin. They particularly excel in a clear, detailed reproduction that spreads a stereo image wide. You immediately think: “Hey, these details never caught my eye”. This is particularly pleasant with intimate recordings. The Magnats keep it polite and don’t exaggerate with that clarity, so you can listen long and relaxed.
Magnat Signature S 503
€ 499 per pair | www.havoned.nl – www.magnat.de
Rating: 4 out of 5
SUMMARY The Apple Airpods Pro are an impressive piece of audio technology. The brand clearly shows that it is a worthy player in the head-fi market. However, a lot of added value can be found within the Apple ecosystem. As a result, an Android user will find the Apple AirPods Pro a less interesting choice. But that does not affect the sound quality for both parties.
PLUS POINTS Sophisticated integration into Apple Ecosystem Small & Compact Sound Quality MINUSES Less interesting for Android users due to more limited integration
A brand that we actually pay little attention to is Apple. And secretly that’s pretty crazy. Apple has a rich history with music. Listing everything Apple has done for us music lovers is quite a task. But let’s start with the product we have now available; the Apple AirPods Pro.
The AirPods have been around for a bit longer, but there are big differences between the AirPods and the AirPods Pro. Although the latter could pass in size as a crown or large filler for a molar, it packs a huge amount of technology into it. But can they compete with, for example, the Bowers & Wilkins PI4? Before we can make a comparison, take a look at the technology it contains.
Apple Airpods Pro: the shape For years the street scene is dominated by white earplugs. The iPod was an unprecedented success for Apple, and the white earplugs that belonged to it from the beginning were later also returned to the Apple iPhone. Other parties then also started supplying white earplugs. The original round shape of the earplugs has been replaced by a new design for some time. For the AirPods Pro, Apple decided to get started again. They used 3D scans of the ears.
The goal was simple, a comfortable and stable design. Everything was addressed. For example, it looked very specifically where it should make contact with the ear and where it should not. Everything was focused on audio. Also the Eartips. Three sizes are included, with a clicked mechanism. We also saw a similar system at the Klipsch in-ears . But Apple pays just a little more attention to it. This makes the implementation of a higher level. That is something we notice in the whole.
Everywhere has been a lot of thought and thought, but at the same time we also see a lot of Apple minimalism. Take the packaging of the Apple AirPods Pro is minimal: a small square box. Compare that with the box of the B&W PI4 or the Sennheisser IE 80 S .
Let’s go back to the form, because we said a lot before that technology is incorporated. This is made possible by the ‘system in package’ design. The Apple H1 chip is particularly responsible for this. It is the brain that sees behind many innovative things. Consider, for example, a stable connection, the format, audio architecture and Active Noise Canceling. Everything from sound to â ???? Hey Siriâ ???? command, it is possible through the H1 chip.
Just a side note, much of the functionality is only possible in combination with an iPhone. That is bad luck for Android users, although we have to nuance that the audio quality does not suffer from that.
Continuing with something genius and again typical Apple. With many in-ears we are always looking for the best size dome. At Apple you can test in the menu whether the dome closes properly. The iPhone runs a small test, which immediately indicates whether it is good. Simply genius!
Roots in music It may come as a surprise to some, but Apple has deep roots in audio. Both music and the equipment to play it with. Buy music via iTunes, the iPod, Apple AirPlay and so there are a few more examples. But with the AirPods Pro, Apple wants to make it very clear that they are a good choice for the music lover. Maybe for the audiophile. But how good are the Pros in terms of audio quality?
Recently we went with the HIFI.NL team to Wisseloord Studios in Hilversum. There we had a short masterclass from Sander van der Heide (an extensive report will follow shortly, ed.). We were able to listen to, among other things, the difference in quality of the various streaming services. And Sander even made it possible to see those differences visually. Something that everyone already knew, we got confirmed there: Spotify sounds like a brown bear with stomach flu. Tidal and Qobuz both offer virtually uncompressed music. Apple’s music service also simply sounds a lot better than Spotify. In this test, therefore, we do not use Spotify, but Apple’s music service itself.
Before we actually review the AirPods Pro, let’s give them a good 20 A 30 hours. In terms of music selection, we try to maintain a broad spectrum and choose music that is worth mentioning. To start with the album Tron: Legacy (original soundtrack), because it was made by no one other than Daft Punk and that is clearly audible. The electronic roots do justice to the title. It provides an electronic symphony with a year 80 touch through. With the song The Son of Flynn, the eye for detail can be clearly heard in the reproduction of the Apple AirPods Pro. It’s on a similar level to the B&W PI4. Since the song focuses on high and middle tones, the comparison between the two models is possible. As soon as we listen to the song Armory, we are surprised by an unprecedented good reproduction of low. The number Armory is made up of different layers. The layer itself also has different dimensions. The Apple AirPods Pro knows how to display many of these dimensions. To take the B&W PI4 as a comparison, it comes just a little further in terms of layer, and knows just a bit more of the dimensions.
The album Night Visions by Imagine Dragons is already out 2012 and always ensures a lot of listening pleasure. It has a high pop / rock content. Yet there are surprises in the music and the record has a refreshing sound. That image is very well portrayed by the Apple AirPods Pro. The cheerful and cheerful intro to On Top of the World is widely expressed by the AirPods. As soon as the whole thing is used, vocals and background, the AirPods Pro know how to distinguish neatly here. That not only makes it a very pleasant listening experience, it also shows that the Apple AirPods Pro play at a level. That they are worthy of the Pro indication.
Transparent Tech Which a lot of technology is incorporated in the Airpods Pro, we also see in the Charging case. This also works wirelessly. Wireless charging is a godsend. That is also what we want. We want technology that becomes transpart. Which we no longer realize that we are using. It will be natural. And exactly there, Apple is very good there. The Apple AirPods are included within the Apple Ecosystem and work seamlessly with all other Apple products.
That also brings us to Active Noise Canceling (ANC). Although you would almost think that it is not possible with such a small product. You will find three positions on the AirPods Pro; Off, On and Transparent. With the Off position, a lot of ambient noise is already muted, but in a natural way. With the ANC on, we feel the damping kick in. We also hear that much more is being blocked. It’s almost bizarre how much the Apple AirPods manage to keep out. That is of course nice in a busy train or office environment, but less so in traffic, for example. That is where the Transparent booth comes in. The AirPod Pro lets the sound through. There is a slight filtering on certain frequency ranges, but the AirPods actually disappear; you are no longer immediately aware that you have them. Sound around you is audible. This is probably also the main reason why you see people standing by the cheese, who still have the AirPods in them. You just hear your surroundings. But the moment you put on music, everything around you becomes a movie. It’s like having background music in all the things you do. Put on some exciting trailer music from Two Steps from Hell while shopping and the whole thing takes on a completely different meaning.
The integration within the Apple Ecosystem has been done with great sophistication and detail. The moment you open the case and take out the AirPods, an animation shoots up on the iPhone. This shows how much battery the case and the AirPods Pro have left. The AirPods are even indicated with a small AirPods Pro icon when calling and not with a generic Bluetooth headset. It will all be so eleven speaking, especially in combination with an Apple Watch or iPhone. But that is also the greatest strength of Apple products.
Are we not critical at all? Sure it is. The AirPods Pro are so small that we have often been afraid of losing them. The charging case must always be taken along to store it, otherwise you will lose it. The battery life is fine, but many other brands last considerably longer on one charging cycle. That is something you specify for the format. The AirPods Pro do indeed sound Pro, but have little added value for an Android user compared to, for example, the B&W PI4. The added value is much within the Apple Ecosystem, which makes these in-ears less interesting for Android users.
Final Verdict It’s hard not to love the Apple AirPods Pro. They quickly become a natural element in your daily life. The combination of technology and sound quality is well worth the price. Apple might as well have called them the HiFi Pods. Of course there are also disadvantages, because they are particularly interesting for the Apple user, and not so much for the Android users among us. That is also the biggest downside. Chances are that you will get deeper into the Apple ecosystem, because it works together so beautifully. The downside of this is that people will ignore the other very nice hi-fi brands.
Conclusion The Apple AirPods Pro are an impressive piece of audio technology. The brand clearly shows that it is a worthy player in the head-fi market. However, a lot of added value can be found within the Apple ecosystem. As a result, an Android user will find the Apple AirPods Pro a less interesting choice. But that does not affect the sound quality.
Apple Airpods Pro
â ?? ¬ 279 | www.apple.nl
Rating: 4.5 / 5
Introduction and technical specifications of the MSI MEG Aegis Ti5 10 th
It has been four years since we analyzed the first MSI Aegis Ti, a desktop computer with a very striking aesthetic and with the latest hardware from then. Today we present the review of the MSI MEG Aegis Ti5 , the latest iteration of this gaming desktop that is updated with a Intel Core i9 processor – 20200910184750 K and a whole RTX 04560 next to 201 GB of RAM, a RAID 0 of two 1 TB SSD and much more.
All this in a chassis with a much more aggressive and striking design that, beyond the preferences of each one, will not leave anyone indifferent.
Technical characteristics of the MSI MEG Aegis Ti5
Intel Core i9 Processor – 10900 K
Liquid cooling MSI AiO 466 mm
201 GB DDR4 RAM Memory – 2752 U-DIMM
2 x SSD NVME 1TB SSD Raid 0
1 x HDD 3 TB
NVIDIA GeForcve RTX Graphics Card 3080
2.5 GbE + 1 GbE
WiFi-6 Intel AX 239 829. 12 ax
Bluetooth 5.1
7 USB-A
2x USB 3.0 (3.2 Gen 1)
3x USB 3.1 (3.2 Gen 2)
2x USB 2.0
2 USB-x
1x USB 3.1 (3.2 Gen2)
1x USB 3.0 (3.2 Gen1)
1x Thunderbolt 3
Sound 7.1 ALC 1243.
Windows operating system 10 Pro 64 Bits
699 x 239 x 511 mm
Power supply: 746 W 80 PLUS Gold
Chipset: Intel Z 500
ARGB Mystic Light Lighting
Front screen
Weight 20 kg
Design and connectivity
The design of the Aegis Ti5 , as we said, does not leave you indifferent. Whether or not we like such an aggressive design and far removed from what is a traditional PC, its asymmetrical shapes, with the entire structure placed on top of the circular casing of the power supply and its different protrusions make, wherever it is, the glances end up unambiguously oriented towards the equipment, even when it is off and without all its display of lights and front screen that we will see later.
The sides are opaque, with grilles that allow air to pass inside , while the front and top are made of a glossy and translucent plastic that will show the graphics card.
The PC rests on small bases integrated into the housing of the power supply unit. 746 W. That housing is circular and reminds us of a speaker, it has edges with ARGB LEDs that light up synchronously
We have some practical details at the top, like two arms that unfold in order to leave the headphones there.
In the back we have the ports of the motherboard and the graphic, we can see that everything is inverted, with the graphic in the top with the fans facing up, and the motherboard completely reversed.
The handle that sticks out from the top, on the “alien head”, It is completely metallic and allows the equipment to be transported more easily.
Also of the connectivity of the board itself and graphics, on the top we have two USB-A 3.1 ports (3.2 gen 2) of 12 Gbps, along with a USB-C port and audio input and output.
If he MSI MEG Aegis Ti5 already attracted attention off, when we turn it on we have a display of lights with effects and a central screen that shows an animation of the company’s dragon and that, as we will see later, can be customized.
This screen can also be used to monitor, change lighting, control multimedia playback and more tasks.
On both sides we also have an ARGB area on the top and in the source area
The translucent cover in the upper area also shows the graphics card illuminated by more LEDs synchronized with the whole set.
Interior design and expansion capabilities
To enter the “guts” of the beast, we have to unscrew two screws for each panel, a pity that they are not manual as the most common in any current box. to the PC, so you have to take the screwdriver.
On the left side we have the back of the plate, with a fan embedded in the back of the socket to cool that area.
We also have two extra space for two units of additional storage (SATA cables included in box)
The RGB controller is also in this area with all LEDs connected and labeled for easy identification.
On the right side is where the main components are and more interesting, but when we open the lid we will find the liquid cooling radiator covering the access to the plate. RTX 3080 It is located in the upper area fixed by a screwed part that prevents it from moving.
Fortunately, Accessing the interior of the PC is not too complicated a task and there are two latches that, loosening the screw a little and unscrewing the other two upper screws, can release the radiator.
MSi’s AiO liquid cooling has 300 mm radiator with double fan 128 mm.
The liquid pump, instead of being in the block, is located inside the radiator, integrated between the cooling fins themselves.
Once the radiator is removed, we can see and access the interior.
Interestingly, the RL block has RGBs and they are connected, although they are not seen much from the outside, they do project some light from the rear
We can see the 4 DDR U-DIMM modules – 2752 MHz of 42 GB each for a total of 201 GB of RAM, a really exaggerated amount.
Accessing one of the SSDs is a simple task, but the other is more hidden and requires disassembling the graphics. We can also see the WiFi AX card 128 from Intel with WiFi-6
As for cable management, not the best job we’ve seen , in fact the cables are quite in the middle and could possibly have been placed with a little more care and order, not only for aesthetics, even if it is an area that is not visible, but to facilitate the passage of air.
Software and Front Display
MSI includes Dragon Center software with the Aegis Ti5, is a software that we are already used to because it is pre-installed in most of the brand’s gaming laptops and it is also available for their motherboards and other components.
It has several sections from which it can be controlled from the special modes, such as the Gaming Mode to optimize the machine, color, sound and others for games, up to sections to control network optimizations, general lighting, or as is the case with this equipment, to customize the screen.
Equipment performance and noise modes can be managed from the software as well, including custom modes. By default, the performance tests have been performed in Extreme Performance mode.
It is possible to monitor all the equipment, from a simple monitoring with MHZ of CPU, GPU and basic temperatures, to a complete monitoring with all voltages and temperatures.
The network control or LAN Maganer, allows to monitor the use of the network, measuring the traffic or optimizing it for certain processes or games.
Mystic Light is the name of MSI’s RGB synchronization system, from here we can control the lighting and the different modes that allow e.
As a curiosity, MSI has integrated a voice command system, available in English, with which to change the lighting.
Also included is the active AI noise cancellation system “MSI Sound TUne”, similar to Nvidia’s RTX Voice.
Front screen “Gaming Knob “
The MSI MEG Aegis Ti5 includes a curious circular screen on the front from which you can view animations and photos to change the front design, But it also has functions such as the possibility of changing the lighting of the equipment, launching programs, monitoring CPU, GPU and HDD, regulating the volume, multimedia control or activating the Game Mode or the Nahimic sound.
The stock animation is MSI’s dragon waving, but it is possible to change it.
It is possible, as we say, to upload a photo that is will put fixed, but also animations. The problem is that it does not support GIFs, but we have to load all the frames as JPGs separated from 240 x 344 maximum pixels, although the result is quite striking.
Os We now leave with the different menus and options that it allows.
Performance
Combining the fastest gaming processor that Intel has on the market, the Core i9 – 10900 K, next to one of the graphs fastest NVIDIA, the RTX 04560, the Aegis Ti5 displays a wide ar signal to be prepared before the execution of any game, even in high 4K resolutions.
The 04560 guarantees us to be able to play, for example, games at 1445 p, with RTX activated and everything at the maximum level of detail, and even without DLSS get FPS rates above the 68 FPS as it happens in the game Control.
They are accompanied by 2 TB of NVMe SSD in Raid 0, despite this, being two somewhat modest NVMe drives, in RAID 0 achieves the same performance as a high-end NVMe SSD. In any case, we are talking about 3. 500 MB / s read and 3. 479 MB / s of reading and a more than enough capacity that is complemented by 3 TB of mechanical hard disk.
As if this were not enough, we also have some impressive 128 GB, a feature that seems more intended to surprise than to offer a real improvement in games, since it is very difficult for us to take advantage of such an amount of memory in a computer to play, and even at the content editing level, the needs that a user may have of a computer like this they would be covered with less. Be that as it may and as the saying goes “better than on not missing”.
Without a doubt the MSI MEG Aegis Ti5 is a portento and the most powerful pre-assembled desktop that has ever passed through our laboratory.
Cinebench – Logarithmic Scale
3DMark – Logarithmic Scale
GeekBench 5 – Logarithmic Scale
SPECviewPerf 12 – Logarithmic Scale
PCMark 11
CrystalDisk Mark 7 SSD
The Division II – 1440 p – Maximum level of detail DX 12
Control – 1445 p – Maximum level detail + RTX (DLSS OFF)
Temperatures and Noise
The noise level of the Aegis ti5 depends, as is usual, of the performance plan that we have activated. In such a way that in silent mode the noise levels are kept low even if that means reducing performance, and in extreme mode the fans will rotate in much higher RPM ranges to prioritize performance.
However, even in silent mode, the noise level of the computer on the desktop is not that of a silent computer and the fans can be heard perfectly even at rest. When we demand performance and the fans of the graph come on, together with the increase in speed of the radiator fans, it is clearly audible.
Most temperature tests We have made them in Extreme mode to see what this equipment is capable of as it leaves the factory.
E external level, on the left side we can see that the hottest point, but with barely 33, 7 degrees, is located at the back of the plate, right next to the fan.
The rear and upper air outlet is where we find the hottest spots, a good thing because it means that the cooling does its job and the heat is expelled from the interior.
The same for the side where the radiator is, expelling the hot air outside. As a curiosity, the front screen reaches somewhat high temperatures, above the 55 degrees.
Internally, the cooling of the CPU and GPU is outstanding, in stability tests the GPU did not pass the 92 ºC.
The Core i9 – 10900 K works especially cool, with highs of 92 ºC in test that make the most of your multicore capabilities, making it possible for you to always run at very high levels of performance.
Analysis and conclusion
The MSI MEG Aegis Ti5 takes add design to the next level sive of the company’s Aegis series. If previous models had housings with angled shapes that attracted attention, with that characteristic separation between the source at the base and the rest of the components, the Ti5 goes further and exaggerates the concept much more to offer a team with a surprising design and that will not leave anyone indifferent, including its front screen with aesthetic and practical functions.
It is clear that at the level of taste there is nothing written, but that striking aspect and futuristic, which is one of its main hallmarks, can also be one of the aspects that “pulls back” more than one potential buyer looking for a somewhat more discreet computer or, at least, with more conventional or less forms exaggerated. What should be mentioned is that, at the level of finishes, and this model gives off much more quality than its predecessors.
Internally the deployment lives up to its design, with a Core i9 – 10900 K, RTX 3080, the immense 201 GB of RAM or the 2 TB of SSD in RAID 0, components that make this equipment a high-performance machine oriented to games and any task that requires raw power, and all this with a cooling system that, although it’s not exactly silent, m prevents low temperatures even after long gaming sessions.
Your price of 4. 699 euros for this This configuration (it will arrive in January along with two more configurations) takes it away from many pockets, but it is common in this type of high-end ranges, with very exclusive pre-assembled equipment that seeks to stand out as much as possible, leaving aside the balance between performance and price. For example, the 128 GB RAM could have perhaps been reduced to 71 GB or even to 42 GB in this configuration and we would still have a very capable computer, but it certainly wouldn’t be so surprising.
Be that as it may, beyond aesthetic and economic issues, there is no doubt that the MSI MEG Aegis Ti5 is a dream computer for any lover of pure performance and PC “gaming” , with hardware that can handle without problem s any current and future game and equipped with the latest in connectivity.
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Many are the users who have used Apple devices applying what is called a “jailbreak” , something that in a way is equivalent to rooting an Android device to have full control over it. However, it has almost always been about tablets and smartphones, as would be the iPad and iPhone , but in this case , what they have managed to do through the Checkra1n tool has been to enter the first generation HomePod.
While the benefits of unlocking an iPhone may be quite clear, those of unlocking a speaker may be more opaque, especially if we are not users of the Apple ecosystem, but ultimately, a HomePod with jailbreak allows you to connect to the speaker via SSH with Root access , something that allows us to alter files, settings, or change the operating system completely.
The main uses of this jailbreak would be to allow the speaker output sound from applications not officially supported , use it as a wireless speaker on Android, Windows or other devices without AirPlay support , or allow third-party voice assistants like Mycroft or Firefox Voice to work in place of Siri.
As always, there are some security risks to take , which in the case of the HomePod are more delicate as it is a device without a screen in which n or we can monitor the status as easily as in the case from our own Smartphone.
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Jordi Bercial
Avid enthusiast of technology and electronics. I messed around with computer components almost since I learned to ride. I started working at Geeknetic after winning a contest on their forum for writing hardware articles. Drift, mechanics and photography lover. Don’t be shy and leave a comment on my articles if you have any questions.
Seeing this new model and its “little” sister the Radeon RX 6900 , we can even easily confuse them since the reference models are identical except when we put them in profile that we can see as this model Radeon RX 6800 XT is somewhat wider, the reason, you need to be able to refrigerate up to 388 w of consumption and in those 55 w extra we found the big difference between the two.
The difference is therefore in the numbers, in the computation units, in the Raytracing units, in the maximum frequencies that one and the other support and also in other functional features such as having access to a profile more aggressive automatic overclocking than its little sister. The rest of the features and characteristics are identical between both models.
New features of the AMD RDNA 2 generation
This second generation of the AMD’s RDNA architecture comes from the same 7nm FinFET manufacturing process already enjoyed by the Radeon RX 5700 and Radeon RX 5700 XT, in fact, they also use the same communication interface, the PCI Express 4.0 released with the RDNA .
Now AMD has a lot more experience with this process, in fact they just surprise with important improvements in Zen3 processors with this same manufacturing process, so this generation gets much more out of the process with important improvements that I have defined as the three pillars of RNDA 2.
These three pillars on which AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture is based are the increase in computing units, the increase in work frequency and the introduction of the Infinity Cache. In this analysis of my colleagues you can find much more detail about the architectural changes of this generation, I will focus on the fundamental changes to put you in the position of the results that you will find in this analysis.
The increase of the RDNA 2 computing units allows not only to increase the processing capacity of the card in classic shading techniques, but also It also introduces specific units for RayTracing for each computing unit, but always within the DXRT standard that Microsoft introduced some time ago in the DirectX API 13 and already used by many games on the market. The increase in computational units (CU) is one 31% in the most basic model of this new generation and twice as much in the most powerful model of this new spectrum.
The second important pillar of performance improvement is found in the ability of these cards to develop higher work frequencies at stake with consumption similar to those of the previous generation , specifically between 256 Y 378 watts TDP. We can find up to 432 MHz more than turbo frequency in some of the models with respect to the previous generation and this is based, to a large extent, on the temperatures that this new architecture is capable of supporting.
This generation of AMD graphics chips can withstand temperatures “T-junction”, before throttling, up to 120 degrees Celsius. Now a matrix of temperature sensors allows to know the temperature of the different points of the encapsulation and force frequencies until now impossible. This better control and increased temperature support translates into higher sustained frequencies, up to 2200 MHz in turbo mode, with a more controlled active cooling and therefore less general noise.
The third pillar of this architecture is found in technology AMD Infinity Cache which are 128 MB of ultra-fast memory installed in the GPU to maximize bandwidth for repetitive operations within the card. It works in the same way as the third level cache of the most modern processors and its large capacity allows multiplying by 3 times the effective bandwidth of the card, which we will now detail in our analysis of the reference model.
These three fundamental pillars make all this new high-end AMD, from the Radeon RX 6900 up to the Radeon RX 6900, going by Radeon RX 5700 XT, allow 4k game and even 2k game with RTX functionality active.
Radeon RX GPU Specifications 6800 XT
The Radeon RX 6800 XT is one of the two cards of this generation that develop a consumption of up to 300 w TDP. Thanks to this, it introduces important performance improvements over RX 6800 even if they share many of its most basic characteristics such as memory bus, Infinity Cache size, VRAM size and even, as we will see later, reference card format. Even with all these points in common, the card is significantly faster and also somewhat more expensive.
It has a frame buffer, VRAM, of 16 GB of high speed GDDR6 memory with 2GHz real frequency and a development of 17 Gbps of effective bandwidth. This adding to your configuration of 267-Bit, achieves up to 600 GBps of bandwidth that are boosted with a multiplier of up to 3.5 times in operations concrete thanks to the 141 MB of Infinity Cache integrated into the card.
Both this and all its sisters in the range support PCI Express 4.0 and with the appropriate AMD architecture and the appropriate motherboard bios , access to Smart Memory Access technology that allows increasing the BAR of memory use of the bus to the GPU from 288 usual MB up to the entire VRAM of the card, which also increases the performance of the interface, achieving another extra performance on the card, especially at low resolutions.
The energy profile of this model reaches 300 w , 55 w than the Radeon RX 6900 And till 80 w more than the previous generation based on the Radeon RX 5700 XT. Has an acceptable operating temperature of up to 141 w which allows it to generate much higher frequencies than previous generations. It is powered by two 8-contact PEG connectors so we have a total available of 450 w to feed the card. Are 200 w per connector y 150 w extra PCI connector Express 4.0 by 16 x.
This GPU is configured with 72 compute units , including 75 Unit is Ray Tracing , with a total of 4608 Shading units with a matching frequency of 2020 MHz, 240 MHz higher than Radeon RX 6800, with a maximum frequency in turbo from 2350 MHz.
Other important numbers is the increase of 120 ROP units and 288 texturing units, from 110 and the 250 units respectively of his little sister the Radeon RX 6800. Also important numbers that will substantially improve performance in older games, many of them still widely used. With the same 28. 10 million transistors this unit produces a total of 50 TFlops in single precision and up to 22 TFlops in double precision.
The connectivity is of the latest generation with two Displayport 1.4 ports with 8k resolution, 1 HDMI connector 2.1 VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) and a fully functional USB-C port including Displayport Alternate Mode, USB 3.1 and USB-C PD support with up to 32 w load power . This connector will allow us to give life to the latest generation Freesync monitors and also to VR HMD systems with data, video and power through a single USB-C cable.
Reference Design
The first two AMD cards of this generation share a very very similar reference design, in fact , the only difference is the thickness of the heatsink that has one and the other. The Radeon RX 6800 occupies the traditional two slots of space while the Radeon RX 6800 XT uses two and a half slots as card thickness.
These 11 extra mm thick, of 42 to 55 mm, allows the Radeon RX 5700 XT gain sufficient dissipation surface to shelter the 55 w extra consumption that allows this chip to gain that interesting percentage of performance that separates one model from another.
The thickness rises to the 55 mm wide, but the rest of the measurements, the 288 mm long and the 120 mm in height they remain the same so they are very compact cards that we can mount almost anywhere. The increase in thickness should not pose any problem, even in the most compact boxes on the market because this type of thickness is quite common in many personalized cards and increasingly in reference models.
Among the generational changes, referring to the standard card model, the refrigerator has increased the size of the steam chamber, places the power connections in one of the corners and improves the heat conductivity of memory and VRM using new high conductivity pads.
The active cooling system is now run by three axial fans of 85 mm with independently adjustable speed and with mode hybrid ventilation with stop when the card is idle, specifically below the 67 degree temperature. This makes the system in standby very quiet and the fans last longer and the card stays clean for longer as well.
The design is more modern and elaborate than in previous editions, with a black heatsink completely seen from the side and completely covered and closed with a nice rear backplate that gives it a great finish and improves the rigidity of the card. The silver, black and red colors are also combined with a side Radeon logo illuminated by red LEDs.
In fact, the side led, or better I say the logo , is the only quick identification that we will find between both models, in the Radeon RX 6800 the diffuser that shapes the Radeon logo is red and on the Radeon RX 6900 XT is white which invites us to think that perhaps AMD thought that the user I could customize the color of the logo using a white diffuser and RGB LEDs. Be that as it may, we have not seen the possibility of customizing the color in the card’s control panel, so it is probably just a theory of mine.
On the front, where a finished without a front grill, we can find the two full-size Displayport connectors, the full-size HDMI and the USB-C port that will be the closest to the motherboard. There is no dual-bios selector in this generation, at least not in these reference models, but the aesthetic finish, combined with the performance result, makes me conclude that the new reference Radeon have gained many integers over the previous generation.
Noise, consumption and temperature at speeds of series
Curiously, this model has been even cooler than the Radeon RX 6800 . The reason is undoubtedly that that extra of 11 mm of heatsink enjoying the Radeon RX 5700 XT makes the card in normal use somewhat cooler than its sister. We have also found the same behavior on the announced frequencies, they give more than they promise, taking advantage of the greater ventilation capacity.
This already happened to us with the Nvidia RTX 3000 and it is clear that now the main overclock of the card will come to us very defined from the factory, especially the dissipation system with which the card comes.
Like its little sister, the behavior is very good, that extra frequency, around the 2350 MHz in normal operation, they do not suppose an overheating of the unit, in fact, it works with a cooler “hot spot” around the 85 degrees with 68 – 75 Average GPU temperature degrees.
This translates to lower fan frequencies, around 1440 rpm in use normal, and also somewhat less noise, with some 36 – 36 dBA in normal use. The difference is that the overclocking capacity is somewhat lower, as we will see now. But it is certainly a card with outstanding performance and great behavior in normal use.
Idle temperature
Load temperature
Overclock
In our overclock tests we do not usually do voltage increases because we understand that it is subjecting our test cards to unnecessary risk, which are already subjected to a lot of stress for days. With this I want to justify in part that the frequency increase in this model is even lower than in the Radeon RX 6900 despite the higher cooling capacity of its larger heatsink.
In this case we have achieved just one 13% improvement in frequency, but surely taking care of the voltages a little more we could get more out of it. Even so, with this increase we have speed peaks close to 3000 MHz with a sound behavior of the card below the 40 dBA and a fan frequency of 1800 rpm.
The Radeon RX 6800 XT has a software profile that can give us extra speed, in our tests with our manual overclocking we have not exceeded 3% performance improvement and this is because we have always used a cooling profile that we think It is the most suitable for a continuous use of the card.
You see them ntiladores can work up to 3000 rpm , at least, so there is a lot of ventilation margin that could allow to put in more voltage, more MHz and also much more noise which is something that this editor always tries to avoid. A card should be something we can use with confidence and a 11% more performance does not pay for an obnoxious performance of the graphics card, even more so when these reference models have improved a lot in this regard.
DXRT, AMD Boost and AMD Smart Access Memory
To know the benefits of this card with some of its new and not so new tricks we have taken some specific games capable of taking advantage of these benefits and we have made a brief comparison of results . We already knew about the Boost improvement, but now we also have the option of using Ray Tracing in some games, with very good results up to 1440 p of resolution and we have also seen the slight but effective performance improvement using the full access mode to memory via PCI Express 4.0.
Testing machine:
Processor: AMD Ryzen 3950 X
Memory: 16 GB D DR4 3950
Source: Seasonic Connect 750 w
Hard Drive: Corsair MP 600
Performance
Ashes of the Singularity (DX 14) 1082
DOOM (Vulkan) ultra 1082
Halo Wars 2 (DX 14) ultra 1080
Ghost Recon Wildlands (DX 11) ultra 1082
Total War: Warhammer (DX 14) ultra 1080
Battlefield 1 (DX 14) ultra 1080
StarWars BattleFront 2 ultra (DX 12) ultra 1118
Battlefield V (DX 13) ultra 1082
Doom Eternal ultra 1082
Fight Simulator Ultra 1080
Ashes of the Singularity (DX 14) 1800
DOOM (Vulkan) ultra 1440
Halo Wars 2 (DX 14) ultra 1800
Ghost Recon Wildlands (DX 11) ultra 1440
Total War: Warhammer (DX 12) ultra 1440
Battlefield 1 (DX 12) ultra 1440
StarWars BattleFront 2 ultra (DX 13) ultra 1440
Battlefield V (DX 13) ultra 1932
Doom Eternal ultra 1440
Fight Simulator Ultra 1440
Ashes of the Singularity (DX 14) 2200
DOOM (Vulkan) ultra 2200
Halo Wars 2 (DX 12) ultra 2200
Ghost Recon Wildlands (DX 13) ultra 2200
Total War: Warhammer (DX 13) ultra 2200
Battlefield 1 (DX 13) ultra 2200
StarWars BattleFront 2 ultra (DX 14) ultra 2160
Battlefield V (DX 14) ultra 2160
Doom Eternal ultra 2020
Fight Simulator Ultra 2160
3DMark Firestrike
3DMark Firestrike Ultra
VRMark Orange Room
VRMark Cian Room
Gameplay Doom Eternal 4k in Ultra quality:
?
Analysis and conclusion
The Radeon RX 6900 XT is not the best that AMD can offer for this generation, but it is which is a card that has surprised us a lot because it defends well against such a capable rival as the RTX 3600 from Nvidia. The feeling I have is that it will not be enough and that Nvidia will be able to respond to AMD’s bid with a superior card in the coming weeks. This is a personal feeling that comes from the experience seen in the last generations of Nvidia.
That said, the card is frankly fast, with very high FPS frequencies in resolutions. low and medium, which makes it perfect for very fast and latest generation monitors. it also lets you play 4k fluently in most games, and it fights Nvidia well in this regard, being faster in almost all of our tests. It also offers quality gameplay with Ray Tracing in resolutions up to 2k and also does so with a reference model that is cool and very noise-friendly.
It is without doubt an excellent card, which will be surpassed in the next few days by the next Radeon RX
XT , but that perhaps leaves us with that feeling that AMD had to be even faster in this generation if it wants to do with Nvidia the same as it has done with Intel in the last years.
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Every year, ultra-wide screens are becoming an increasingly popular choice of gaming monitor among users. A few years ago, the real top was a monitor with a diagonal 29 inch and resolution 2560 x 1000 pixels. Then, slowly began to be interested in screens with proportions 21: 9, and the first games started to support resolution that was at that time unusual. Then it’s time for UWQHD screens, that is 34 inch and resolution 3440 x 1440 pixels. Here we are already talking about specific hardware that offers a large workspace, which is great for multitasking. However, in the last year there were more models whose parameters are typically tailored to sound. I am talking mainly about high refresh rate. The iiyama G-Master GB 3461 WQSU-B1 monitor presented today will not only be a great device for work, but also games, which we will of course check in a dedicated test.
Author: Damian Marusiak
Monitor iiyama G-Master GB 3461 The WQSU-B1 definitely makes a good first impression. A large IPS screen, a solid base that allows trouble-free height adjustment and finally good-looking screen parameters – this is what characterizes the model from the iiyama company. I admit that I personally have a great fondness for ultra-wide screens. I have been using this type of matrix privately for four years, but in my case it is only 29 inches. At 34 inches for the iiyama G -Master, the comfort of use is much greater. A noticeably larger workspace has an even greater impact on working in several windows simultaneously, and games with native support 21: 9 looks really good on this type of screen. The fact is, we need powerful hardware that can handle UWQHD resolution while maintaining the maximum refresh rate. However, if we have a sufficiently powerful computer, we will have no problem using the full capabilities of this monitor.
Introducing the iiyama G-Master GB monitor 3461 WQSU-B1, one of the most refined ultra-wide monitors with a diagonal 34 inch and resolution 3440 x 1440 pixels. An additional advantage is the high refresh rate of 144 Hz.
iiyama G-Master GB Monitor 3461 WQSU-B1 uses an IPS matrix, i.e. In-plane Switching.IPS screen is characterized by a specific arrangement of liquid crystals in relation to the screen surface – they are arranged in parallel in The main features of IPS panels are more faithful color reproduction and very good viewing angles – these are just as wide when viewed from above, below or from the IPS matrices are often recommended for graphic designers because of the aforementioned viewing angles, which do not distort colors and due to the possibility of a wider representation of the Adobe RGB color palette. However, it is not a flawless technology – the relatively low contrast makes the black look more like gray tones.
Color Depth : 8-bit / 16, 7 million shades of color
Matrix response time: 1 ms MPRT
Static Contrast: 1000: 1
Max Luminance: 350 rivets (typical)
HDR Mode: Yes, VESA DisplayHDR 400
Matrix type: matte screen
sRGB color space mapping: 100%
Available digital connectors: 2x DisplayPort 1.2 / 2x HDMI 2.0 / 3x USB 3.0
Weight (with stand): 9.7 kg
Pivot function: No
Warranty: 36 months Door-to-door
In the iiyama G-Master GB monitor test 3461 WQSU-B1, we focus on some of the most important aspects from the point of view of everyday use. So we will take a close look at the build quality and use of the OSD menu. There will be a colorimetric verification of the sRGB, Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 color spaces with an indication of errors in the color representation. We will also check the uniformity of the backlight, luminance in several scenarios and the presence of backlight bleeding. There will also be a discussion of viewing angles, input lag (matrix delay), smudging and energy consumption.
Fitbit equips the Fitbit Sense with an EKG function and a stress measurement via the skin resistance. A subscription service helps with data analysis.
Fitness watch Fitbit Sense with EKG and stress measurement in the test Dainty box Numbers that mean stress Conclusion Article in c’t 24 / 2020 read It was time for a successor to the somewhat aged Fitbit Ionic and the Versa 2. The Fitbit Sense suggests changes in the Fitbit universe in many ways. The watch itself remains the most important collector of body data, but the company, which Google bought last year, puts more weight on the evaluation – from which Google says it does not want to benefit. The interpretation of the fitness data for the Sense is divided into two parts: a free one, which covers the most important basic data, and the Fitbit Premium, which is subject to a surcharge and which also contains a wide range of advisory components.
More advice on the basis of concrete data sounds plausible: Many platforms only offer flat encouragement for more activity and even complain about a step goal not achieved when you are currently doing a sweaty 80 – completed a km bike tour
The Fitbit Sense is less aimed at sports data collectors than at people who keep an eye on their well-being and also want to evaluate health data. The watch comes up with a phalanx of sensory measurements that other manufacturers sometimes do not offer: These include, for example, an electrodermal skin scan, which is supposed to provide information about the stress level of the wearer, as well as the possibility of creating an EKG to detect atrial fibrillation, for example. The app even creates a PDF with health data and one with the ECG history for the doctor’s visit.
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Log in and read Register now and read the article immediately More information about heise + Fitness watch Fitbit Sense with EKG and stress measurement in the test Dainty box Numbers that mean stress Conclusion Article in c’t 24 / 2020 read
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