Hi-Fi Choice

This page is always the last thing written every month. That way it grants us an opportunity to pick out a few highlights to whet your appetite and it can also act as a last-gasp effort to keep you as up-to-date as possible with any last-minute breaking news. And so it turned out this month as, with the UK Hi-Fi Show Live at Ascot Racecourse rapidly approaching (21 and 22 September), we were appraised of a raft of exciting fresh additions to the already-stunning lineup in Audiofile on p6 and 7. We’ve just found out that Swiss Piega loudspeakers makes it Ascot entrance courtesy of Henley Audio in its suite on Level 2. The second-gen Coax 611 floorstander will be driven by Musical Fidelity NuVista electronics. Soundfowndation’s demo area on…

IT’S THAT TIME of year again already and tickets are now on sale for the UK’s premier high-end audio event – The UK Hi-Fi Show Live, hosted at the Ascot Racecourse Grandstand, High Street, Ascot on Saturday and Sunday 21-22 September 2024. The event on Friday 20th is reserved for accredited press/trade only. Tickets cost just £20 (£30 for a weekend pass) via eventbrite.co.uk or using the links on the hifishowlive.com site. Concessionary £15 day passes will be offered for subscribers of Hi-Fi Choice and Hi-Fi News (print and digital subscribers will be contacted by email). See our website for further info. Among the exhibitors will be PS Audio, which last year launched its aspen FR10 loudspeakers at The UK Hi-Fi Show Live. This year it has chosen to showcase…

PRICE: £400 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: ROTEL.COM JAPANESE HI-FI BRAND Rotel has expanded its range of integrated amplifiers with the launch of the A8, which it describes as: “a new high-value model specially designed to offer a new audience of music lovers and vinyl fans the option to build their own, no-compromise, hi-fi-quality component system.” The A8 enters the lineup as the most cost-efficient model in the series while still being engineered as a Class AB fully integrated solution. Designed in a slim 60mm chassis, it is built around an in-house manufactured, bespoke, high-current toroidal transformer helping to deliver a claimed 40W of output power per channel into 4ohm loads. “The result,” says Rotel, “is a deep controlled bass energy, an ultra-refined midrange plus a highly detailed soundstage”. Inputs include three…

PRICE: £400 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: ASTELLNKERN.COM ASTELL&KERN HAS ANNOUNCED the launch of a new sub-brand, ACTIVO, its first product being the P1 Digital Audio Player. Ergonomically designed to sit in one hand, the compact but mighty P1 boasts a fluid user interface and smooth audio listening experience for up to 20 hours of continuous entertainment. Powered by an octa-core processor, it has been designed as a companion for a run, walk or workout, allowing users to experience lossless music without sacrificing their smartphone battery. With dual-band wi-fi and a pre-loaded Google Play Store, users can download and install the most popular music apps to stream from their favourite platforms. Boasting 64GB of internal memory with microSD support for up to 1.5TB for both downloading from streaming services or uploading from…

PRICE: £700 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: DENON.COM DENON HAS LAUNCHED its new Denon Home Amp, designed to bring legacy two-channel systems into its HEOS platform. The company reveals: “it easily adds any pair of loudspeakers to the HEOS wireless multi-room ecosystem, while also bringing high-fidelity audio with 100W of power per channel tuned by Denon Sound Master. “The Home Amp brings increased power and separation of a two-channel system to TV. HDMI eARC allows for one-cable integration with most modern screens, even those with integrated streaming. Additionally, the subwoofer out makes it easy to add a sub for extra bass. And because of its compact form factor, the Denon Home Amp can be placed virtually anywhere.” HEOS supports up to 64 zones of hi-res audio streaming, while the Denon Home Amp…

PRICE: £150-£180 AVAILABLE: NOW WEB: FIIO.COM THEY’VE BEEN VERY busy over at FiiO, where the Chinese company is launching its new DM13 Portable CD Player and K11 R2R Desktop DAC/Amplifier. Featuring both 3.5mm single-ended and 4.4mm balanced headphone outputs, the DM13 portable CD player has been designed for use with a wide-range of headphones including FiiO’s own FT5 Planar Magnetic offering – the FT3 – alongside its new FA19 in-ear monitors. The addition of aptX HD Bluetooth means the DM13 can connect to wireless headphones or speakers and also features a dedicated analogue line-out, so it can be used with other equipment such as an existing hi-fi, active speakers or a radio/portable speaker with an auxiliary input. With a built-in battery that delivers up to a claimed eight hours of…