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Grind baby, grind!
Reviews where I don’t bag physical flaws here, ergonomic oversights there, are very few and far between. Put simply, perfect products do not exist. So, when Essence's head, Bob Rapaport, insisted that the unit he sent for review was perfect, and by corollary, the phsycial flaws I noted were the products of my imagination, I decided to unpacked the HDACC again and take a few reference images. Snap, snap.
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Cypher Labs Algorhythm SOLO vs Venturecraft Go-DAP Unit 4.0 – Digital OutputIn trying to find a lost Sunwayfoto FB-44, I uncovered my old Solo. Scratched, beaten, and bereft of its charger, it has sat unused for a couple of years.
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At long last I published The Chosen One, my review of the Chord Mojo at Headfonia. Eyes aside, it is brilliant. It is powerful. It is stable. It is compact. I imagine that it is behind panic in the streets of Chord's competitors.
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After brushing a few mistakes from my LinnenberG Maestro amp review, I hopped on over to LinnenberG -and discovered that I missed a big announcement: Vivace 2 DAC is out. As you know, Vivace is my favourite listening DAC. Yes, Hilo-be-damned.
Not that this will mean anything to you, my English looks great in Japanese:
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I was a bit slow publishing full RMAA tests of the Lynx HILO. You can find them here: RMAA: Lynx Studio HILO.
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The PS Audio Sprout is a unique do-it-all machine with two great amp stages. But Head-fi discussion about it is minor. Some, like Headphoneus Supremus, Shaffer, suggest that in targeting the Mass Drop audience, PS Audio are going about it wrong:
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Seeing no mention of the FLOW's duffy remote controls in Headphone Guru's review of the Aurender FLOW, I am led to believe that track forward now means track forward. Barring that, it's obvious: audiophile reviewers really only care about how something looks and sounds; more specifically, that we dig song-specific subjective analyses, which Eric Neff does pretty well.
The thing is: until audiophile reviewers get good at reviewing gear, not just sound, the gear vomited out by unscrupulous vendors will only proliferate, reaching critical mass, where shit becomes normal as long as it sounds good.
Aurender FLOW is an awesome performer, but its hardware interface is duff, and should be crapped on in CONS lists of all reliable review sites.
Disclaimer: I reckon my take on the Aurender FLOW is the best out there.
In DARKO's weekly indexing of the audio world, he turns to knobs. And this week he hobs up to Aurender's:
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Well, after long last, I've finished my review of the Oppo HA-2 for Headfonia. It's a great DAC/amp that has the following quirks:
- AK100-level output noise
- confusing in/out for DAC users on the run
But those are mere niggles. The HA-2 is an amazing piece of portable equipment with a great DAC. It should challenge the status quo on both ends of the price spectrum. It should leave an iPhone-like mark on the industry.
Tsukuba, Japan