Single Reviews

It’s a common misconception that you can’t get high-end audio performance from a pair of bookshelf or floorstanding speakers without spending a fortune. Even though many high-end manufacturers sell their speakers at unreasonably high prices ($5000+ or even $10.000+), you can still find a great-sounding pair of speakers with impeccable build quality and sleek design for much less. And they don't even have to be made in China. For the past few months, we've been researching the market looking for brands and speakers offering great bang for the buck. One of the brands we came across during our research is the Axiom Audio. Today, we're presenting to you the Axiom’s flagship bookshelf speaker called M5HP.  Axiom Audio is a Canadian audio company based in Dwight, Ontario. For more than 3

SPL Phonitor XE headphone amp is made for both audio mastering professionals and regular audiophiles. It’s top-of-the-line solid-state amp (or DAC/amp, depending on the configuration you choose) offering uncompromised versatility and sound quality. Sounds interesting? Read our in-depth review to find out more. SPL stands for Sound Performance Lab. It’s a German audio company with more than 30 years of experience in making both professional audio equipment and high-end audiophile gear. The company is known for incorporating its proprietary professional technological solutions in their hi-fi products. SPL Phonitor XE is the perfect example. Some of the most notable SPL’s proprietary technologies you can find on Phonitor XE are VOLTAiR 120V Rail Technology and Phonitor Matrix. But this is

Vanatoo Transparent Zero speakers are one of the best small powered speakers on the market. We were quite impressed by the performance, sound quality, versatility, and overall price/quality ratio. If you are in the market looking for a pair of bookshelf/desktop speakers under $400, Vanatoo Transparent Zero must be on your shortlist. Read our in-depth review if you want to find out more. Transparent Zero comes from a small company called Vanatoo. Vanatoo was founded by two audio enthusiasts, Rick Kerner and Garry Gesellchen. Their first speaker, Vanatoo One, was a huge success and it was highly praised by the audiophile community. The only problem with Transparent One was the price. This speaker set was priced at $600, which doesn't make it the most expensive on the market, but it’s

What do you know about Slovenia? You may know that it’s the home country of NBA players Luka Dončić and Goran Dragić. It’s also the home country of the super-star philosopher Slavoj Žižek, poet France Prešern, alpine skier Tina Maze, ski jumper Peter Prevc, and of course, it’s the home country of the current first lady of the US. You may also know a few other things about Slovenia. It’s a small but beautiful country located in the heart of Europe. It’s known for its magnificent lakes (Bled, Jasna, Black Lake, Ptuj), beautiful mountains and mountain peaks (Triglav, Mangart), and affordable ski resorts. Slovenes like to joke that they invented the wheel since the oldest wooden wheel in the world was found near Ljubljana, which is the capital of Slovenia.  One thing you probably don’t

After a huge success of the Goldmund Telos 590 NextGen integrated stereo amp and the whole Goldmund Telos NextGen line, this high-end audio equipment manufacturer from Switzerland released the upgraded version of the Telos 590 Nextgen called NextGen II and a more affordable but slightly less capable and less versatile Telos 7 NextGen. In this review, we will discuss all the advantages and disadvantages of Goldmund Telos 7 NextGen and give you our opinion on its overall performance. Is this really one of the most amazing stereo power amps currently made by Goldmund? Let’s find out.   Goldmund was founded in 1978 in France. Two years after, it was acquired by Michel Reverchon and moved to Geneva, Switzerland. Since then, Goldmund has been making high-end turntables, preamps, pow

To many audiophiles and audio enthusiast, a well-executed pure DHT circuitry is the holy grail of the preamp design. Only a few high-end manufacturers can implement Directly Heated Triode circuitry and make a unit that can achieve a true audiophile performance. Today, we are reviewing one of those units. Allnic Audio L-8000 DHT preamplifier could easily be the best DHT preamp in its price range.  Allnic Audio is a high-end audio equipment manufacturer, based in South Korea. The company was founded in 1990 by Kang Su Park. Before founding Allnic Audio, Kang Su was the cofounder of Silvawed, a company known for its high-end single-ended-triode and transformer-coupled tube designs. At first, Allnic Audio made only tube amps but today, they manufacture all kinds of audio equipment incl...

Looking for a flexible multichannel audio interface providing both high efficiency and pristine sound quality? Orion 32+ Generation 3 might be just the thing you need. It’s the latest iteration from the Orion 32+ series and it brings some significant improvements when it comes to converters and dynamic range. In this review, we will discuss all the advantages and disadvantages of this powerful audio interface, check out the features, and test its capabilities. Let’s see if Orion 32+ Generation 3 is worth the price.  Antelope Audio manufactures professional and audiophile audio. They have a lot of experience in manufacturing digital audio equipment. The company is also one of the pioneers when it comes to clocking – they were the first to improve the audio master clocks by implement

After reviewing Naim’s Uniti Atom, we are continuing our series of reviews of all-in-one hi-fi systems with SIMAUDIO’s MOON ACE all-in-one music player. This is another affordable and quite versatile all-in-one system. As always, we will discuss the design, features, setup, capabilities of the system, compare it with some alternatives, emphasize the most noticeable upsides and downsides, and give you our verdict. Making your own high-end hi-fi stereo system is a huge hassle and it’s a time-consuming and expensive venture. Just think about it – you have to buy a power amp, preamp, DAC, you have to match them all together (which means a lot of experimenting), and you need a lot of space for all this equipment. That's why some manufacturers decided to change their approach and started

Harman Kardon Onyx Studio 2 comes from a very popular Onyx Studio line of Bluetooth speakers made by Harman Kardon. The first version was released in 2014 and this is the second iteration of this beautiful speaker. You probably know that there are also Onyx Studio 3, Onyx Studio 4, and Onyx Studio 5. Harman Kardon is, as you probably know, part of the same company as JBL, and they have obviously decided to target different types of customers. JBL is known for its rugged and waterproof outdoor Bluetooth speakers, while Harman Kardon makes more stylish, more elegant-looking speakers. Some Harman Kardon speakers are technically portable and can be used outdoors, but they all look a bit too refined and too sophisticated to be used outdoors. That’s the case with the speaker we are about to r

Looking for a compact, capable, but also affordable Bluetooth headphone amp? Shanling UP2 is one of the amps that checks all those boxes. In this review, we will take a closer look at the Shanling UP2, analyze its strengths and weaknesses, and give you our verdict.  Shanling UP2 is a Chinese audio company, founded in 1988. For more than 30years, they’ve been making all kinds of audio devices - AV receivers, CD players, FM tuners and radios, DAC/amps, integrated amps, stereo systems, digital music players (M series), etc. Since recently, they also make earphones (ME series) and Bluetooth amps. Two things all Shanling products have in common are affordability and great performance that usually exceeds the price tag and your expectations. Let’s see if UP2 is that kind of device. We