THE REVIEWS
ads
Subscribe to our newsletter.
Sign up with your email address to receive news, updates, and our free quarterly magazine—AudioKeyREVIEWS!
BEST PRODUCT OF 2020
Rare is the piece of audio equipment that can remove itself as intermediary to the music and reveal performers, venue, emotion, truth of timbre and tone as a genuine, heartfelt experience. The Meze Empyrean embodies that rarity for what it does in the service of the music. And for that very reason we award the Meze Empyrean our Best Product of the Year Award for 2020.
BEST PRODUCTS OF 2020
It has been quite the year, as we have discovered a good number of exceptional products from headphones to In-Ear-Monitors (IEMs) to DAPs to DACs and so on. Below you will find the products that we feel are remarkable for what they do—beautifully free the music from the confines of their various platforms/media for our, the collective, musical enjoyment.
ASTELL&KERN SR25 REVIEW
The Astell&Kern SR25 provides superb transparency, musical engagement, exceptional bass and treble extension, and 21 hours of playback! It is genre agnostic and it will scale beautifully with higher priced IEMs. The SR25 does this in a small, avant-garde form, for a fraction of the price of a number of top of the line DAPs.
FIIO Q3 REVIEW
The FiiO Q3 ($149) represents the second product of a similar voice from FiiO and it is equally impressive in form factor, aesthetic, and technical abilities. But, how does it sound? Yes, there is a family resemblance in the voices of these two products—an IEM and a DAC/Amp—in terms of musicality, transparency, engagement. And value per dollar spent continues to be truly impressive. But, really how does it sound?
MEZE 99 CLASSICS REVIEW
The review today is of the Meze 99 Classics ($309) another beautifully designed and appointed headphone, where, once again, form follows function follows technological wherewithal. And again, like its brethren the 99 Classic has been created as a musical instrument intent on letting the music flow in order to engage, enthrall, and entertain.
VISION EARS EVE REVIEW
Some might think the EVE an anomaly for what it does in service of the music, with its outstanding transparency—detail, microdynamics, articulation—its superb musicality, its speedier than The Flash transients, and its top to bottom coherency. However it is for us, very much in line with what we consider the Holy-Music-Lovers-Grail.
IBASSO AMP9 MODULE REVIEW
The iBASSO AMP9 module is unique in that it utilizes “high current vacuum tubes” for power generation. The tube in question is the sixth generation, Korg and Noritake Nutube vacuum tube, which clearly reflects the “old is new again” adage. And, in this respect, the AMP9 module brings an analog sound signature as opposed to an analog-like sound signature.