Best Amplifiers 2010.

Amplifiers did not change as much like digital sources in year 2010, most still worked in analog domain and the so called class D assault in to high end audio dom' seemingly lost momentum, if only for a while. In the mean time, tubes never really went away and the return of the VTL brand to our shores is a warm welcome indeed, musically speaking of course! Mean while, integrated amps continues to trend further up market.
Ayre MX-R mono blocks are the best sounding amps this year without a doubt!

The Ayre MX-R is surely the most deserved winner this year in the best amplifier category this year. Nothing came close to it's sonic charms of supreme refinement, un-coloured mid range beauty and beautifully balanced all round capabilities. It's only slightly weak on the dynamics side when powering too demanding a speaker load. It's jewel like finished clamp shell case design, milled from a piece of solid aluminium ingot is a sight to behold, as should be for an ultra high end product.


This VTL tube combo offers tubey sonics charms with the slam bang of modern amps! One can have it all, nearly.

Taking the runner up position this year is the VTL TL 2.5 pre & MB 125 tube power combo here. The beguiling tonal qualities of tubes aside, it portrays a huge dimensional sound stage with spatial cues highly apparent, plus no shortage of dynamics slam bang, despite it's modestly rated power output! What more can an audiophile or music lover want?
The Usher Reference 2.5s is a work horse amplifier that will drive and drive any speaker load!

The Usher Reference 2.5s power amp is the epitome of frugal(cost only RM$13k) muscle power amp. It clearly reminded me of the vintage Krell KSA series muscle amps of yester years, with it's un break able power to drive any speaker load, yet does it with a healthy dose of the transparency, and low noise floor of today's power amp technology. It's a no brainer if one wants to rock the neighbour hood or just plain feeding juice thirsty speaker loads!

The Coda CSI B is a balanced one box beast.

The Coda CSI B integrated amp combines huge class A/B power/current on tap and convenience in to one box solution. It's surprisingly neutral and transparent sounding, yet offers some of the lowest noise floor in amplifier design today. It's not cheap at RM$21k, but still worth a special mention here.

Best Digital Gear 2010.

2010 probably marks the end of the CD player era as know it and 2011 may be the year digital media players like the Bryston BDP-1/BDA-1 combo could take over as the other dominant source. True enough, hi-rez musical software availability is still patchy at best and this may well end up as just another SACD/DVD-A like phenomenon, as the conservative British Hifi press has been predicting. I don't know what's in store, as nothing is set in stone yet, but if indicative reports coming from the industry insiders are true then, the coming C.E.S. Show in Vegas will see the launch of digital media players, coming from the stables of Weiss, and Consonance among others! The digital music land scape is changing fast, will digital media players truly take over? Only time will tell.
The Bryston BDP-1 and BDA-1 combo, digital source of the future?

The Bryston combo was easy to name as the clear class winner, due to it's stunning ability to play hi-rez files exceptionally well, and as a bonus ripped CD reproduction is good too. We are looking at possibly the future of audio source here, and the fact that the Bryston combo cost a little more than RM$17k, puts it clearly as a bargain of sorts when it comes to sound vs price performance ratio. Your audiophile lifestyle will surely change once you indulge in hi-rez done right!
Wadia 381i CD player, offers quite possibly the best performance attainable from a single box player for the now largely historic CD format, but still offers a bridge to the future by allowing a digital input to play hi-rez files up to 24/96 only.

If not for the untimely appearance of the Bryston combo above, the Wadia 381i would have surely taken top honours this year. The Wadia offers some of the best CD performance possible at any price, even if it came a little late to the party. It's future proof to some extent, with the 381i model, due to the inclusion digital input section which will decode 24/96(but not 24/192) hi-rez files. At RM32k for the Wadia 381i, one can think of it as your last CD player purchase, with the ability to add on some form of rudimentary computer audio for hi-rez or CD rips reproduction.
Esoteric X-05 CD/SACD player, sound very good but could be your last CD player purchase.

I have to admit that we got to lay our hands on this medium level Esoteric X-05 CD/SACD player a little late, but better late then never. It gives up a little of the excellent sound qualities of it's bigger X-03 brother at half it's price of RM$32k. This is a strictly disc only player with no digital inputs what so ever, so let buyer beware, that the Esoteric makes it to this list purely on sound quality performance only and nothing more.
The Apple Mac Mini computer is the most surprising entry of high end digital audio?

The Apple Mac Mini is not a hifi equipment and never reviewed before in these pages, but deserves a special mention here because it plays music beautifully. I've not heard any Windows based PC beat a Mac Mini(and I've heard enough systems to form that conclusion) for sound quality on CD rips just yet. When used in conjunction with Amarra Mini computer music player software, the Mac is capable of playing 24/96 hi-rez down loads, and partnered with any respectable firewire capable DAC, in an transparent enough system, will just edge out most sub RM$10k CD players for sound quality. All for the price of RM$2.3k for the Mac Mini plus RM$0.8k for the Amarra Mini software. Now is this really the biggest bargain in high end audio or what?

More Best of 2010 to come.

Best Analog Gear 2010.

Here's my first instalment(Odiosleuth has listed his own personal favorites) for the best hifi gears of 2010 that came our way. The main criteria for selection is that we must have reviewed them from the period of Jan-Dec 2010. However, we'd have to make an exception for speakers as we don't get enough to play with, due to room accommodation size and logistics factor. Finally, where possible, sound vs price performance factor will always be a consideration for us, unless a superior product totally sweeps us off our feet, regardless of price. Music and hifi is after all, are matters of emotion that concerns the heart more than our left brain cells!

Agree with me or not, we have to admit that 2010 is the year the analog revival goes full steam in Malaysia. Admittedly, the market for turn tables and vinyl as a music format is still relatively small but growing at a rapid rate. I see much vinyl newbies going for the highly affordable Rega P-1(now RP-1, which we are currently spinning), and surprising enough, an industry veteran tells me that there's been a few ladies picking up on vinyl and turn tables too!(I've yet to meet one personally)

Here goes our list of top analog gear for the year 2010.

Congratulations to Clearaudio for making the superb Concept turn table package at near budget pricing. There's a lot of clever thinking and advance design technology in the Concept, and the sound is just totally reflective of the effort, this time!

It was a hard choice between the Clearaudio Concept package or the VPI Scout II. Both are stupendously good sounding, but with their own personalities, and targeted at different market segments. However, I chose the Clearaudio Concept for the best, based on it's completeness in design technology and execution of functionality, rarely seen on this near entry level price range of just a little over RM$6k. The exacting factory setting is an absolute bonus for newbies too! The sound is smooth, highly transparent and utterly musical. Best of all, it may be one's first, or last turn table purchase, depending if one is a newbie or just coming off the up grade go round.
The VPI Scout II may be entry level in the VPI turn table range. The sound is anything but entry level! Spend a bit more for the VPI Classic? You bet!

Coming in a close runner up is the VPI Scout II, a turntable of traditional design but exceptionally well executed by Harry Westfield. This turn table is for intermediate level enthusiast and would most likely find a home in mid range systems. The imaging and sound stage are first rate, and the best part is the bass, which strike a happy balance between quality and volume. I only have a small problem for this more than RM$8k turn table, add another RM$3k more and one can get the superb and latest VPI Classic, which I've yet to spin, but I know more than a few who have already given it their thumbs up!
The PS Audio GCPH phono stage is highly versatile, with XLR balanced out puts too, if one likes that, and sound very respectable. Can't go wrong with this!

Now that you've got any one of the two great turn tables above and have selected your cartridge to mate(if VPI Scout II is your choice), than you'll need a good phono stage to partner. For RM$6k or so, I can't think of another better example than this PS Audio CGPH phono stage. It's got all the right buttons like mono and phase invert(both are important for fussy analog audiophiles, I am told) and best of all it will match most(except very low out put) cartridges, plus all the gain and loading adjustments are easily done on the back panel. The icing on the cake is that the PS Audio GCPH actually sounds very respectable too!

A special mention must go to the Dynavector DV-20XL cartridge, which retails for just a little below RM$2k. I've not experienced a better sounding and all round well balanced cartridge at this price range before, nuff said!

We've got more Best Of 2010 to come, stay tuned.

Gears that Impressed in 2010

HAPPY NEW YEAR! It is 2011.

Throughout 2010, quite a number of hifi gear went through my listening (and now also viewing) room. A number of them made a more indelible mark than others. I’d like to highlight them in my first post in the New Year.

In alphabetical order:

1. Ayre MX-R Monoblocks (RM78,000 per pair; Hi-Way Laser)


Hifi jewellery which is also built like a tank. The chassis is carved from a solid billet of aluminium. At 300w/8 ohm per side, the MX-R was totally unflappable. Its bass was rounded and agile, propelling the music along, the mids were liquid and creamy smooth, highs were crystal clear. Its soundstaging ability was top notch, creating a 3 dimensional stage in front of the listener.

There is nothing better than slipping comfortably into your listening seat and let the music produced by the MX-R wash over you.

Full write-up here and here.

2. Bryston BDP-1 Digital Player & BDA-1 DAC (RM8,800 / RM8,400; AV Designs)


After being suitably impressed by the BDP-1 and BDA-1 at a few listening venues, I finally had the chance to listen to them in my own system for a couple of days when James of AV Designs brought them over to my place. Since I have not written anything substantial about the Bryston pair, I am going to write a little more here.

The BDP-1 and BDA-1 pair shone excellently in my system. There is no doubt in my mind that this is computer audio done absolutely right. Whatever reservations I have about listening to music with the digits being streamed from a PC to a DAC, this Bryston pair threw them out the window in one stroke.

Playing high resolution download music files from Linn, Chesky, Reference Recordings and others, the BDP-1 and BDA-1 are without peers. Music was rendered naturally and with great details –for example, I could hear the air and the atmosphere of the recording venue in an acoustic recording (choir, classical, jazz etc) much more realistically and clearer than ever. The Bryston pair brought the recording venues into my room.

Compared to CD quality recordings, high res music had greater richness, density and offered ‘punchier’ tonal colours. CD quality, in comparison,sounded relatively washed out and disjointed. One big area of improvement was the highs. On its own, highs from CD could sound smooth and sparkly, but when compared to high res materials, in general, CD quality sounded somewhat jagged. The highs from high resolution materials sounded seamless, saturated (as opposed to hollow) and silvery. High res recordings simply gave the impression that it was closer to the real thing.

On CD quality music, the BDP-1 and BDA-1 sounded just as good as, if not better than, a high end CD player. Listening to uncompressed files ripped from CDs, I did not detect any detail missing when compared to the original CD. In fact, on a few tracks, I thought the rip even gave a little more details than the CD played on a CD player. The BDP-1 and BDA-1 should be seen as another high end CD player, and should be evaluated as such.

On all types of recordings, CD quality or high res, the BDP-1 and BDA-1 offer a sound that is the hallmark of Bryston, which is neutrality and accuracy embodied.

At the heart of the BDP-1 is a computer, striped down and dedicated to one purpose only, i.e., to read the music files from your storage (thumb drives or hard disks) and send the digits to the DAC. Its function is similar to a normal CD transport, just that the storage media are different.

Unlike using a computer, based on what I read so far, where the audiophile has to experiment and figure out the best music playing software; figure out how to configure the software for the highest quality playback, so that the software does not inadvertently downsample your music file or add unwanted processing; find out how best to reduce noise and interference inside the PC environment; and find out how best to ensure that jitter-less data reaches the DAC, the team in Bryston has sorted out all these issues the best they could for you.

Just plug in your music file storage and play, this is computer audio without angst!

Read Big E’s full writeup here.

3. Cardas Clear Loudspeaker Cables (RM22,299/3m pair; Hi-Way Laser)


The name says it all.

The packaging and the build of these cables are non-descriptive, but their performance is absolutely top notch. They are refined and quiet, yet at the same time could be dynamic and impactful when the music calls for. The Cardas Clear has everything I want from a pair of loudspeaker cable.

Full write-up here.

4. JVC DLA-B250 D-ILA Full HD Projector (RM9,999; AV Designs)


Ok, this one is not hifi but AV. However, I must include it here as this JVC has fundamentally transformed my movie watching at home. The enjoyment derived from movies with this projector is a quantum leap from all my previous experience. Properly calibrated by AV Designs, the picture is amazingly real and natural, with oodles of details. I dare say that in quite a number of instances, the picture looks even better than what I see in local cinemas.

5. Wadia 381 CD Player (RM29,500; CMY)


The Wadia 381 CD Player is the most resolving CD player I have ever listened to in my system.

The sound is crystal clear and squeaky clean. It also has refinement and great focus. The soundstage comes with precise placement of images and 3-dimensionality. No music information escapes this massively built CD Player.

The player to wring the very last bit out of every CD, and I believe it could be the last CD player for many.

Full write-up here and here.


So there you go, the 5 items that impressed me most in 2010. Wishing all our readers a great hifi journey in 2011.

Happy New Year!

As we sail in to another year of hifi adventures, I feel both blessed and cursed for the very same reason that we're here, talking about hifi and music.

I feel blessed being part of this 2 man tag team together with buddy Odiosleuth, we can have access to most of the hifi we'd like to play with. The cursed part is that when we get emotionally caught up in the review process and can't afford the gear in question, then we end up in emotional turmoil.

One such gear that got me in to this situation is the Bryston BDP-1 and BDA-1(Digital Media Player & DAC) combo. Truth be told, I am still struggling to go back to CDs. Thank goodness I still have the trusty Linn LP12 around to fill the gap.

In the coming weeks, both Odiosleuth and me, will be re-kindling some of the class act hifi gears of 2010, that came our way. We look forward to another bountiful 2011 year of hifi and more importantly, music.

Talking about music, one of my new year wish is that the major record companies will finally wake up to the fact that CD sales is unlikely to rebound, and the longer they hold on to a dying horse, the more it'll hurt them financially. The way forward and the opportunity to sell their catalogues all over again is through hi-rez down loads. I understand they have reservation about the music sharing and pirating issues, but I feel at this day and age of contents programing, they can easily include an anti copy(or the more reasonable copy once only) code inside the hi-rez down loads, to limit the act of file sharing possibilities. If any of the music majors are reading this, please consider?

Ahh..... there I go again, yada, yada, yada! With apologies.

We've also included a new blog link here, featuring local turn table tweaker Micheal Lim, and his take on the subject matter "Enjoy Life With LPs And Turntables".

Happy New Year!