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Anyone notice Sony's PS-HX500 turntable launched at CES 2016 ? The good news is that the PS-HX500 is expected to hit our shores next month.  Pricing is to be confirmed. Here is Sony's official press release and pictures. It's really great that major companies are back into the vinyl market.  PRESS RELEASE (SINGAPORE,  6  June  2016)  As  the  global  resurgence  in  vinyl  continues,  Sony has announced a new premium turntable that enables vinyl owners to enjoy their favourite tracks in outstanding quality, even when on the move. In a world first, the Sony PS-HX500 allows you to convert  your  vinyl  collection  into  High-Resolution Audio  quality  digital  files  (equivalent  to  DSD quality) so that you can enjoy their unique sound wherever you may be.  High quality sound detail Made  for  music  lovers,  every  area  of  the ...

Introduction Meze Headphones is a new company based in Romania. Meze had contacted me sometime ago to arrange a review of their 99 Classics Headphones ("99 Classics"), but as luck would have it, I managed to meet their principal Antonio Meze at the recent Canjam Singapore 2016 (click here for my write-up). I really liked what I heard at Canjam and had a pleasant talk with Antonio. My review sample arrived sometime later. Description The 99 Classics would best be described as medium-sized circumaural sealed headphones. My review sample was finished in walnut and silver and were visually impressive from an aesthetic point of view - everyone who saw it just gushed over how beautiful they were. Three colour options are available, a dark walnut wood with either silver or gold trim, and a light maple wood with silver trim. The maple option is matched with a white headband and ear pads. The 99 Classics come nicely packaged with a variety of accessories, including a moulded carry ca...

Introduction I asked Mark Coles of Sablon Audio to tell me a bit more about his company, his design philosophies and sonic goals. Here is his response in verbatim, "Sablon Audio started five years ago, when its founder Mark Coles reached the stage in life where he believed he could make better high end cables than the numerous examples he had bought over his audiophile 'career'. Sablon's ambition is to give best of breed performance across all cable applications at a much lower price point than its peers, by removing the distributor function and selling either directly or via enthusiast dealers. The name 'Sablon' comes from the French word for 'sand', a happy memory of my childhood growing up on the beautiful beaches of a small island called Jersey. The product naming hierarchy is based around cigars since others had beaten me to 'wine' themes! The Panatela range covers the signal cables, whilst Corona is used for the thicker power cables. The l...

A warmest congratulations to Swee and Ryan on the official opening of their new showroom ! X Audio Pte Ltd recently took over the adjoining shop space to their current unit. This is a much larger space and has the requisite floor area to nicely showcase larger speakers such as the Vivid Giya G2.  The decor is pleasantly done, with a good amount of attention paid to acoustic treatment. Swee mentioned to me that he is not yet done on that front, so we can look forward to even better sound in the future. Let's have the pictures do the talking this time. Various equipment stand at attention - ready to greet visitors.    Accuphase P-4200 power amplifier. Vivid Giya G4 in Austin Yellow. Swee and Ryan (L-R) of X Audio Pte Ltd. Sharp eyes would have noticed the Accuphase amplifiers in some of the pictures. X Audio has been appointed an authorised reseller of Accuphase. It's fantastic  to have another place to listen to these Japanese beauties.  X Audio has grown conside...

Introduction The Sony TA-A1ES (I will refer to this as the "A1ES") integrated amplifier arrived at my doorstep together with the HAP-Z1ES. There has not been much news or reviews of the A1ES which in my opinion, is a great pity - this is really something quite special. A trickle of products in recent years suggests that Sony is quite serious about re-entering the high end audio arena, and judging from the quality of products I've evaluated (the A1ES included), they are certainly on-track. Description The A1ES is a compact unit, measuring 430 mm x 130 mm x 420 mm (W x H x D). The dimensions are quite deceptive, and lifting it out of the box required a fair amount of effort - I found out later that the unit weighs 17 kg. This is a wide bandwith design (10 Hz to 100 KHz), with 60 watts per channel on tap. Some noteworthy design features include a discrete component preamp circuit, a smart bias system, and a separate headamp circuit also utilising discrete components. To main...

Here are some pictures and brief reports on CanJam Singapore 2016.  I went in on early Saturday morning, while the crowd was still quite thin. By the time I left, the crowd had began to build up. My very first stop of the day was Audiosound. I was greeted with a warm welcome by William Whey, who introduced me to David Teng of oBravo Audio of Taiwan. I had a listen to the HAMT-1 headphone and EAMT-4A IEMs. Nice products. The HAMT-1 in particular had really powerful bass. David spoke to me passionately about the design choices by oBravo, and his belief in the superiority of hybrid, multi-driver designs.  A tray of goodies from oBravo Audio of Taiwan. The very delicious HAMT-1.  EAMT-4A IEMS - 10 mm dynamic and 8 mm square AMT drivers. oBravo's incredibly small 10 mm dynamic driver and 8 mm square AMT driver used in their IEMs. Next stop was Sennheiser's booth. You could see that everyone was headed straight for the HD-800 and the all new HD-800 S. I really liked the HD-800 ...