THE REVIEWS
ads
Subscribe to our newsletter.
Sign up with your email address to receive news, updates, and our free quarterly magazine—AudioKeyREVIEWS!
HIFIMAN SUSVARA - REVIEW
Natural more so than any headphone that I have heard to date and matched with its superb technical abilities the HiFiMan Susvara is, perhaps, that desert island headphone or, in this day and age, that deeply buried, post-apocalyptic-bunker headphone that will see you through until septic failure or water/food shortage or catastrophic disagreement with your bunker mates.
ALLNIC H-7000 PHONO-PREAMPLIFIER - REVIEW
There is no other way to put it, the Allnic H-7000 tube based Phono Stage is the most impressive analogue component I have encountered. It is also the most expensive, and appropriately so considering the obsessive attention to detail, materials, and build. It will be hard to see it go, but even so, we enjoyed listening to vinyl as we never have before. Very highly recommended.
OBRAVO VENUS SIGNATURE IEM - REVIEW
The oBravo Venus Signature are simply superb personal audio transducers—exceptional, actually. At close to the $1,000 price point, they are very much front runners in that market. No audio product is perfect, but the Venus Signature made it difficult to find any significant flaws in its build, appearance or sound. If we had to live with just one IEM model, the Venus Signature would likely be it.
MEZE AUDIO ADVAR IEM - REVIEW
The Meze Advars are mini works of art and a captivating display of contemporary industrial design. In the end, we found the sonics to be smooth, rich, detailed, and very engaging. We loved the feel of these IEMs in our hands and in our ears. For us, the Advar is worth the asking price, and well suited for numerous applications. In our estimation, Meze's design is a success. Advar distinguishes itself from its rivals with a wonderful high-end audio experience.
ABYSS AB1266 PHI TC - REVIEW
I think that I’ve said it all. The Abyss AB1266 Phi TC is a phenomenal headphone. It brings an undying passion for musicality and a ferocity for transparency and clarity and detail retrieval, formerly the domain of the best electrostatic headphones. But this planar headphone speaks that language—electrostatic—fluently and well.
THE MEZE LIRIC - REVIEW
The LIRIC’s combined traits will challenge not only much more expensive dynamic headphones but planar headphones and, perhaps, an electrostatic headphone or two. The Meze LIRIC is an easy GOLDEN KEYNOTE award winner for all its combined talents—its ability to capture the listener with its incredible transparency and resolution, the beauty of its voice, and the excitement it compels. Enough said.
THE MEZE EMPYREAN ELITE - REVIEW
The Meze Empyrean Elite represents something new. New in that it appears to sit at the crossroads of a hybridized sound and technological profile—planar magnetic as wed to electrostatic. Perhaps the loss of 30% of the driver’s mass was sufficient to couple it to, at the very least, the boundaries of the electrostatic universe.