Monthly Archives: March 2016

Speakers stands are often overlooked, sometimes simply tacked on as an afterthought. After all, when you have a beautiful and shiny pair of loudspeakers to distract you, who cares what they sit on, right? Well, if you've read our thoughts  on this matter before, you will know that stands have a much greater purpose than a simple stand for a bookshelf speaker.

They offer isolation, rigidity and dampening, and the higher end ones can be fillable to taste. Stands make so much of an overall difference

Active speakers are speakers which contain inbuilt amplifiers, and typically come in one of two forms: one is a standalone space saving device designed for practicality (mostly space saving) over sound, and the other features units which come as a part of a bigger system.

There are a few exceptions to that rule, however. Something which will gladly stand alone and still offer outstanding high fidelity sound. And the best example we can think of may not be cheap, but is worth every penny for a myriad

We love a bit of vintage here at Audio Affair. If something is described as vintage, you know that it's either old but loved, and often well built to have lasted up until that point, or it's got the kind of edge that makes it worthy of the title. Take this beautiful integrated amp, for example. Vintage style on the outside, reflected inwardly by its exceptional build quality and rugged longevity...

That right there, is the Yamaha A S2100 integrated amplifier. It comes in both black and silver,

Listen up, we've got some news! There's a new Radius in town. After the phenomenal popularity of the 5.2, this is a most welcome turn of events! Roksan have become known for their high-quality hi-fi gear, spanning a multitude of disciplines: Everything from cartridges to CD players, with no slip of quality between them. They're the rarest of the rare, the brand that manages to do everything as though it were a specialist in that particulalr thing. Its turntables are no different, if anything they

2016 has been a good year for new ranges surfacing after a quiet spell from their respective brands. This time it's the wonderful Quad's turn to prick up our ears, turn our heads and make us go "ooh". Quad haven't exactly been quiet, but this new release is the first at this particular level for a while! This is a higher alternative to Quad's excellent value range - the S Series - which replaced the Classic range. It's high, it's pretty and it's called...

... the Quad Z Series!

Beautifully designed

Big announcement time: Pro-Ject have released their very first vinyl cleaning machine! Seeing as they've been providing the world with glorious turntables and corresponding equipment (including the cleaning gear!) for years it was only really a matter of time before a full blown cleaning machine was to surface.

Well, that day has come! Introducing: the Pro-Ject VCS vinyl cleaning machine!

Not a bad looking bit of gear, I'm sure you'll agree, just one of the things that make this particular cleaning

Last week we talked about the Acoustic Research AR M2, the high-end hi-res music player with an equally high price tag! And yeah, people liked it, but most folk don't have £899 to spend on a portable player. Thankfully, there is something out there that is almost as good, yet costs half the price. Best of all, it's from a brand that knows its way around, in every sense of the phrase! FiiO's speciality is portable, with a huge range available to you at various price points.

But what makes this

The only problem with high-end headphones is, the only way to unleash their fullest potential is by pairing them up with an equally high-end headphone amplifier. This probably doesn't sound like much of a problem in the first instance - high end stuff is great! But when you consider just how difficult it is to get hold of high-end headphone amplifiers (getting hold of high-end headphones is easy!), you might understand the problem. Especially if you have the likes of the Abyss or the Hifi Man HE-1000

Hands up if you like your music and movies equal in their astounding hi-fi quality! If you're one of them, then I have some very very good news for you: there's a new Anthem in town! You're forgiven if you don't fully know what that means (it's been a while since Anthem released an AV receiver - we've been selling its predecessor as long as we've been in business!), but trust me, it's something you need to be excited about.

That gorgeous beast is the Anthem MRX 520 AV Receiver. As bold as

Life is hectic... but thankfully technology is keeping up with it pretty bloody well. Case and point: the latest in a line of high-end portable dedicated music players - which we'll go into a little later on. We've seen some pretty spectacular things in this genre asofar, but the Acoustic Research AR M2 may well be the very best of the bunch.

See, the thing is, things need to be convenient these days. We all like to have our big, powerful systems at home, but the demand for true hi-fi quality