Proving your parents’ point that exciting things can come in mundane looking packages, the new Teclast T51 PMP doesn’t exactly inspire at first-glance but certainly leaves us impressed once we’ve worked our way through the spec-sheet. The T51 has a capacitive touchscreen, 8GB (and possibly 16GB) of internal storage and a memory card slot, but what’s really exciting is the audiophile-quality components inside.
So far, most of the headphone amplifiers that have graced these pages have been portable, budget items; the same very definitely can’t be said for this brushed-steel behemoth, the WooAudio WES Electrostatic Headphone Amp and, dangling insouciantly next to it, Stax’s SR-008 Mk2 Electrostatic headphones. According to audiophile reviewer Steve Guttenberg, you’re looking at “state of the art sound for a tiny fraction of the cost of a system built around speakers.”
When we reviewed the Sleek Audio SA6 earphones last October, there was no disguising how positively we felt about the customizable in-ear monitors. So, when Sleek told us that we could expect the same and more from their custom-molded earphones, the freshly-rebranded CT6 Customs, and offered to fit us for them while at CES back in January, we couldn’t resist trying them out. It’s been a while since our SA CT6 Customs arrived; have they lived up to expectations?
HiFiMAN are preparing to launch their audiophile-friendly HM-801 PMP next month, with high-spec DAC and a modular amplifier design that allows owners to switch around their choice of amps. The HM-801 is based on the well-respected Burr-Brown PCM1704 DAC, together with the OPA627 op-amp, and uses SDHC cards for up to 128GB of storage.
Bowers & Wilkins has released a much compact CCM816 speaker to complement its existing CCM 800 series In-Ceiling lineup with a blue-finish driver. This is not the first B&W speaker to employ a blue Kevlar driver, similar unit can be seen from their CT-700 home theater series lineup. Part of the reason was to eliminate light reflections on projector screen, or a glossy finished flat screen TV. The color in any way, should not affect the sound quality but I will go on record that I prefer the much-traditional yellow finished Kelvar cone with the grill on. The yellow Kevlar, for me, is part of the signature from B&W.
Not every golden ears live in an area with opportunity to experience a ear hand-on audition on high-end speakers. Audio freaks thrive for high fidelity loudspeakers, and have serious mad cash around, will get their chances to try out Guy Nelson Pass’s second gen floorstanding at the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Replacing its audiophile-beloved Rushmore series active Loudspeakers, Pass Labs SR1 is a passive designed four-way loudspeaker enclosed in a dual separate cabinet, which houses four different drives fabricated from Nextel-coated cones and Crescendo tweeter in different sizes. The staggeringly large lower enclosure houses a 10-inch and a 8-inch drivers while the top takes care of the mid-bass driver and SEAS Crescendo tweeter.
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