Review: Quadral Aurum Altan VIII

We actually reviewed a couple of Quadral loudspeakers a few years back, but at the time UK distribution was sporadic. The good news is that this high-end German company is back, via a subsidiary operation based in Stafford and covering Britain and Ireland.

Aurum actually operates as the high-performance upmarket sub-brand of the main Quadral operation and is only sold through specialist dealers.

There's just one (decidedly extensive) range of ten loudspeakers (plus a handful of high-end amplifiers and CD players), of which the Altan VIII is one of the smaller models.It's a simple two-way standmount, albeit with quite a number of luxury touches.

Let's start with the enclosure. It's a medium-sized standmount, portloaded at the rear and with an internal volume estimated between 10 and 15 litres. Port-blocking foam bungs are supplied should this give better results in conjunction with the specific room characteristics.

Judging by the weight, build is very substantial and the shape is unusual, too. The front and top edges of the sides are heavily chamfered and deeper at the bottom than the top (overhanging the back panel here).

The speaker also has a separate base (presumably for cosmetic reasons). The standard version of the Altan comes in a choice of three real-wood veneers at £1,280 per pair; in piano high-gloss white or black for £1,380 per pair; or in a choice of lacquer colours for £1,570 per pair. Our example came in a slightly-brighter-than-pillar-box red and certainly looks the business.

The drive units are Quadral's own developments, with a 170mm main bass/mid driver that uses an alloy of aluminium, titanium and magnesium (known as Altima) for its 115mm cone. Claimed to be both stiff and light, it's driven from a powerful motor.

The VIII in the name refers to the eighth generation of Quadral's ribbon-type tweeter. Indeed, few companies have done more to proselytise an 'alternative' approach to tweeters then Quadral.

One consequence of the diaphragm shape is a tendency to beam the highest frequencies in the vertical plane. Reducing any ceiling reflections should help focus the stereo image at some expense in terms of airiness.

Twin high-quality multi-way terminals are fixed directly through an alloy plate, using wire for the optional links. Internal wiring from French operation Real Cable uses bi-metal (BM-series) audiophile cable, combining copper (for bass) and silver for treble.

The network proper uses metal-layer resistors and high-quality polypropylene film capacitors. An optional grille is supplied and is probably better removed, though this does leave unsightly visible mounting lugs.

Setting up for optimum results took a little time. It's important to be as close as possible to the vertical axis of the ribbon tweeter diaphragm and in our case, at least, this involved adjusting the spikes of our 600mm stands to tilt backwards a few degrees. Exactly what is required here will, of course, depend on individual circumstances: Getting the right angle will depend on how high your ears are in relation to the height of the tweeter and how far away you like to sit.

Next there's the siting and the foam bungs to consider. The Altan VIII has a large and active port and it's tuned to around 52Hz, which unfortunately coincides with a major reinforcement mode in our listening room (and indeed many others). Inevitably there's some excess around 50Hz when the port is active, even with the speakers located well clear of walls, though in practice this proved only a minor drawback and actually helped to compensate for a slight tendency to forwardness in the upper midband.

However, when using swept sinewaves at a fairly high level, in order to establish the best configuration and positioning, the 20Hz starting frequency generated clearly audible harmonic distortion through the port. (The distortion completely disappeared when the bungs were inserted.)

It should be added, however, that it was never noticeable even when playing music loud.

The alternative approach is to use the speakers with the bungs inserted to block the ports. This too worked well, though it was necessary to position the speaker quite close to a wall in order to provide some bass boost.

Leaving a gap of 20cm seemed to work best, though the upper-mid prominence was a little more obvious in this arrangement, so the speaker could start to become a little too aggressive when it was used with the volume turned up high. Indeed, although the differences were quite subtle, free space siting with ports left open was considered marginally the best all-round compromise, especially when playing music loud.

Review: Apple Final Cut Pro X

That Final Cut Pro (FCP) had lately been showing its age is no secret. Most of the innovation was actually taking place in the consumer field with iMovie, and there were many features that professional editors were eyeing with envy.

These were features such as: skimming through thumbnails to get a preview of clips to greatly speed up the selection process; being able to label clips with various keywords to make it easy to find the right one in seconds; giving each project its own scratch disk as opposed to having one set for the application; a more up-to-date font and text architecture instead of the antiquated one that hadn't changed since FCP's introduction; and being able to see when an audio clip is peaking just by glancing at the waveform in the timeline, rather than having to listen to it proper.

All these were added to FCP X (pronounced 'ten'), along with many others including a 64-bit architecture (meaning you can feed it as much RAM as you can cram into your Mac, rather than be limited to only 4GB), background rendering and the ability to work with any files from SD to 4K – even within the same project. All this sounds good, so why all the fuss online and even on comedy shows?

It's because Apple decided to remove a lot of what many professional editors depended on and never thought about until it was taken away from them.

Take the main column in the browser window, which used to remain anchored on the left-hand side – no matter how far down the right you'd scroll to see more of the clip's metadata, you'd never lose track of its name. Well, that's gone.

And what about adding keyframes to animate any parameter, which was automatic each time you modified its value after having set the first one? Missing in action. Then there are the clips in the browser that kept the last In and Out points you'd set; the free creation of chapter markers along your timeline; the ability to drag any clip anywhere on the timeline, creating gaps if you needed them (or not); and the projects that could be of virtually any dimension.

None of these – nor many others – are possible with FCP X. Larger omissions include: a complete lack of multi-camera support; an inability to natively export to OMF, AAF or EDL files to move your project to other programs for further manipulation; no option to send a clip to Motion from the timeline to add effects to it; no proper support for connecting to a broadcast monitor; and no possibility of importing projects created with an earlier version of FCP.

This is all because FCP X isn't an upgrade but version 1.0 of a completely new program. What's confusing is that Apple kept the same name and discontinued the Final Cut Studio suite when FCP X was released, forcing people to move to the new application. And if they couldn't, they had to consider their options – hence the anger and confusion.

Curiously enough, Apple kept the older version alive when transitioning users from Mac OS 9 to OS X and even iMovie 6 to 7, so why they haven't done so this time is a bit of a mystery. But if so much is missing, what does this new software offer aside from the above?

For one thing, you can edit more files in their native format, such as AVCHD, avoiding the lengthy transcoding process and saving you a fair amount of disk space. You can finally work with AAC and MP3 audio files without having to render them first, and clips shot with any iOS device now display as expected.

FCP X can also import iMovie projects, creating a clear and easy migration path for up-and-coming editors.

The new magnetic timeline keeps your clips together, avoiding unintentional gaps and making sure you never overwrite clips by mistake, or move the audio and video out of sync when moving things around (unless of course that's your intention).

There's no such thing as layers anymore: clips can be added above existing ones as you wish, but all are linked to the main Storyline, which is essentially the first layer. This is an entirely new editing concept that will take some getting used to.

The whole process feels like you're being looked after, which is great for first-time editors, but veterans may well feel constrained because they can't work the way they're used to. Many keyboard shortcuts are the same, but quite a few are different. Thankfully, there's a powerful shortcut customisation option, but this can't disguise the fact that you're having to learn an entirely new program.

There are a lot of things to like in this release, such as the ability to mouse over an effect and see how it changes a selected clip prior to applying it (holding down the Option key as you do so intensifies the effect), and the new colour correction tools are impressive, but too much is missing for professionals.

Since it's so cheap though, you should consider purchasing it and running it alongside FCP 7 (which will still work with Lion), then learn how to use it as you keep earning money with the older version.

Apple's promised to update its new program fast and you don't want to get left behind when younger editors can do things better and faster thanks to the changes in FCP X.

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Review: Creative Sound Blaster Tactic 3D Omega

The Creative Sound Blaster Tactic 3D Omega is one of the best gaming headsets we've ever tested.

People talk about sound quality a lot. Many products claim to deliver crystal clear audio and most press releases for these products declare an unrivalled attention to detail and sound quality unlike anything the world has ever seen.

Exclamation marks are often deployed at the end of these sentences!!!

Most of the time, of course, it's all a complete load of dingo's gonads. But the Sound Blaster Tactic 3D Omega is the real deal.

In the box

The Omega headset comes in a number of different pieces. In the box there's the headset itself, the USB soundcard dongle, various USB cables, a stand which you must assemble yourself, and some audio cables for connecting the dongle to a games console.

The headset itself is wireless, so you'll need to charge it for a good five or six hours (more like eight if you charge from a USB port) using a microUSB cable before you can use it. There's a USB port on the dongle itself which will relay a charge into the headset via your computer's USB port, but it's much quicker to use a proper microUSB charger – lots of mobile phones come with those these days.

The earcups contain 50mm drivers which offer a powerful punch and an all-round meaty sound. There's none of the treble-heavy audio that you get with many other gaming headsets. The headset is big and weighty, too, with a good headband for comfort and big, bouncy earpads for a snug fit as well as excellent noise isolation.

On the headphones you've got an on/off button which you press and hold, there's volume up/down controls as well as a microSD charging port and the port for connecting your Xbox 360 controller.

Cross-platform

The Creative Sound Blaster Tactic 3D Omega gaming headset is platform agnostic, which means it'll work with a PC, Mac, PS3 and Xbox 360.

With the PC and Mac, it acts as the system's soundcard and conducts all of the sound processing itself. However, when in console mode (there's a slide-switch on the front), the USB dongle acts as more of a conduit between the PS3 and Xbox 360's own sound systems, and the fantastic headset itself.

So while it acts as a two-way communications throughput for the consoles, you can also use the line-in port on the back with any other sound device. If you want to listen to your iPod using the headset, one way would be to just plug it into the 3.5mm port.

In theory you could use this method to hook a Nintendo Wii up to the headset too - you'd just need to attach your TV's audio-out port into the dongle's audio-in port - it would only work for sound though, the microphone wouldn't work.

Connecting the Omega headset port to a console is a case of connecting the Xbox 360 or PS3's red and white composite cables to the 3.5mm adaptor provided in the box, and plugging the dongle in via the supplied microUSB cable. You then have to change your consoles' audio settings so that they know to send the sound out through composite instead of HDMI – instructions are included.

There's also an additional inline volume control for Xbox 360 gamers - you plug one end into the headset and the other into your 360 controller just like you'd normally do with the 360's bundled headset.

In general it's not the easiest setup for anyone without a tiny bit of confidence with tech, but for anyone used to fiddling around with USB cables, audio devices and changing the settings on the consoles themselves, it's a fairly straight-forward process.

Traditional PC or Mac

The dongle and headset setup is a collaboration between Creative and THX, the former supplying a lot of sound-processing know-how.

Gone is the old X-Fi branding, and in comes the THX TruStudio Pro software suite which offers the same Crystalizer, Surround and Smart Volume features as we've seen many times before, but also improved bass boost and a fantastic Dialog Plus mode to enhance dialogue in movies and other media.

Many gaming headsets – including a lot of the good ones – work well for gaming, but aren't great for listening to music or watching movies. But the same cannot be said for this headset – sound quality is decent across the board.

Music playback has a delicate balance of meaty bass and delicate, precise treble while movies sound equally good. The software settings enable you to customise your setup for personal preference, too.

The Dialog Plus setting, in particular, works very well and does a good job of bringing dialogue to the forefront without compromising the rest of the sound spectrum.

There's also a customisable TacticProfile which enables you to save your own settings or use pre-configured settings from pro-gamers, as well as the now-standard programmable VoiceFX system for voice morphing into in-game characters or during VoIP chats. Yay for talking like an alien.

These settings are, of course, not available when using the headset with a games console. And due to the various cables that need switching and settings that need changing, this is not a device you'll be wanting to move around your home.

You won't want to be using it as your primary PC headset and your console headset – it's just too awkward and fiddly to be moved around like that.

Review: BlackBerry Bold 9900

The BlackBerry Bold 9900 comes as something of a shock. You see, for years, BlackBerry has, in a sense, been catching up. That's not a dig at its parent company – it's practically royalty in push email and corporate handset circles. But it has been rare for RIM to lead the way.

Cameras, internet browsing, HTML emails – all were included on RIM's phones years after they'd become standard fare on other handsets. For recent examples of decent phones that didn't really push the envelope all that far, just take a look at the Bold 9780 and 9700.

But the Bold 9000 finally offers some cutting-edge tech, and in an attractive package to boot. Its 1.2GHz processor, high-spec touchscreen, brand new OS7 and HD video camera are all specs we never really expected a BlackBerry to have before the next millennium.

Plus, the staple BlackBerry offerings of a fantastic keyboard and top-notch security will keep regular users interested.

We've taken some time to bring you a few moving pictures to go with the words - think of it as a sidekick to our superhero prose:

For once, RIM is taking the initiative, thanks to the inclusion of a near field communication chip – a fairly new technology that's been talked about for years. RIM is the first to properly take the plunge and add the tech in, while the others dilly-dally about whether to include it.

The question is: can the 9900 really compete in an already very crowded, and competitive, market?

Pick up the Bold 9900 and you'll definitely know about it. It's 130g, so it's by no means feather-light. But would you want it any other way? Ultimately, this is a handset that's supposed to feel like it means business, and at least it feels lighter than you expect it to be.

RIM's also bucked the trend in making a phone that's bigger than its predecessor, the 9780. In fact, it's like looking at a smaller version of Ol' Grandpa Bold, the original 9900 – albeit smaller than that huge elder statesman and with a trackpad instead of a trackball.

At 115 x 66 x 10.5 mm, you can slide it into your pocket without too much bulk. In fact, that's one of the 9900's key selling points; RIM says this is the slimmest BlackBerry yet.

It probably is on paper, but due to the design and the way that the back protrudes out slightly, it looks a bit thicker than it is.

The high-gloss screen is surrounded by a brushed metal border, while the rear is made of a combination of matte plastic and glass. The rear cover isn't so much a cover but a door that easily pops out of the centre, enabling you to throw in your SIM card and memory card (which is not hot swappable, even after all this time).

With 8GB of internal storage and an option to increase that to 32GB, this is a handset that doesn't scrimp on memory.

The right-hand side of the 9900 has four buttons. Three of them are clustered together with the top and bottom ones acting as volume up and down and the middle used to pause media, which is a nice touch and saves you having to muck about on screen.

There's also a camera shortcut button, which you can, as always, change to open something else on your 9900 should you wish. There is no second convenience key on the left, which we will admit that we miss.

That's your lot, because the left-hand side is reserved for ports, including a micro USB charging and syncing port, the latter of which we can't help feeling looks a bit naked, since you get the illusion of being able to see right inside it. Plus there's a 3.5mm headphone slot.

The beauty here is that the headphone jack creates what seems like an unnatural lip in the contours of the back, but this gives you something to rest your fingers against as you hold the 9900 in your hand.

Up top, there's the lock button, which is aesthetically placed in the middle and conveniently situated so that your finger hits it without effort. RIM has obviously thought this through and little touches like this go a long way in our eyes.

On the front is an incredibly sharp touchscreen. It's 640 x 480 pixels over 2.8 inches and easily looks as good as anything with 'Retina' branding.

We love it. Icons feel like they float above the wallpaper, whites are white and text looks fantastic. In fact, we never thought we'd say this, but RIM's basic black text on white background when reading emails (boring, maybe) looks brilliant.

The touchscreen is capacitive and highly responsive. Whether most BlackBerry users will migrate to it is another matter - we found ourselves reaching for the trackpad regularly for navigation, although the internet is certainly an area where we prefer to caress the screen.

If we have one criticism, it's that we're not big fans of the buttons below the screen. The usual BlackBerry suspects are there (call, menu, back and terminate call) and they're all moulded into one big section, which makes you think they may be touch sensitive.

They certainly look like they are. But they're not and when you use the frankly excellent QWERTY keyboard, your fingers aren't able to glide over them but have to be raised up, then brought across and down to set your choice into action.

At the time of writing, the Bold 9900 is not on the shelves yet, but for a SIM-free model, you're looking at forking out about £500 based on pre-order prices with the big online retailers.

This puts it right at the top end of BlackBerry's range, which is where the Bold has always been since it was introduced to the family. Contract prices are still to follow, but they won't be cheap. We can't help feeling you'll struggle to get this as a free upgrade on anything less than a £30-£35 a month with a two-year plan.

Competitor-wise, BlackBerry has always been a bit of its own entity, a bit like the posh child from down the road who desperately wants to fit in and play with the cool kids, but can never shake off their label.

RIM is, however, a master of its own arts: email and security. That's why we can't imagine a day when we'll see the suits in Canary Wharf carrying anything else other than a BlackBerry.

Yet, we've watched the strategy change recently, with the introduction of the Curve range, the pushing of the BBM messaging app as a credible tool for teens and the desperation to get some BlackBerries included in the recipe for that ever-popular social media pie.

Although BlackBerries want to be cool, they're always going to have that air of being too classy about them. This isn't such a bad thing for the Bold 9900, which is the kind of handset you imagine anybody who wants to look like they're anybody will have.

We imagine RIM's biggest competitors will be its own Bold 9770/9780 (after two years, though, we think this is starting to look tired now) as well as other business-led communicators such as Nokia's own very credible E6, which currently doesn't command too much of the market. In this sense, RIM has much of the sector to itself.

Review: 11-inch MacBook Air 2011

The 2011 MacBook Air refresh retains the form factor introduced with 2010's line of ultraportables, but makes significant improvements to the core technologies. Apple has switched the ageing Core 2 Duo chips for new Sandy Bridge processors, the Mini DisplayPort has been replaced by a versatile and powerful Thunderbolt port and the backlit keyboard makes a welcome return too.

The new MacBook Air range (check out our 13-inch MacBook Air review) contains four off-the-shelf versions. The cheapest offers an 11-inch screen, 64GB of flash storage and 2GB of memory for £849. The next in line, also an 11-inch model, has a 128GB SSD and 4GB of RAM for £999. A similarly spec'd 13-inch MacBook Air costs £100 more, while for £1349 you can get a 256GB flash drive.

All four MacBook Airs have dual-core Intel Core i5 processors (1.6GHz for the 11-inch models, 1.7GHz for the 13-inch notebooks), with Intel HD Graphics 3000 integrated graphics. Each has two USB 2.0 ports, usefully positioned with one on each side of the notebook, and a Thunderbolt port. The 13-inch model also has an SD card reader. All the Airs also have a FaceTime camera that supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 x 1600 pixels on an external display.

The MacBook Air we're reviewing here is the more expensive of the two 11-inch models, but enhanced by the optional customisations available when ordering at the Apple online store. The processor has been beefed up to a dual-core 1.8GHz Intel Core i7 and the flash storage drive has been doubled in size to 256GB. Naturally, these enhancements take their toll on the price.

This custom-built MacBook Air costs £1,399, which is more expensive than the priciest off-the-shelf model. But is it worth the extra money, and do you really need all that power in an 11-inch MacBook Air?

Review: Creek Evolution 2 CD player

For less than the price of the Creek Evolution 2 CD player, you can buy a universal disc player that handles all the various flavours of digital discs, reproduces moving and still pictures as well as audio and generally makes this machine look a bit lacklustre. So what's the point?

If you didn't already know the answer, you probably wouldn't even be reading this review, but there's more to it than simply knowing that the player has been optimised for one task alone.

Just before reviewing this, we had some time with a Blu-ray (etc.) player and there were times when we could cheerfully have heaved it out of the window. Too many options, you see! Get on with it! Perhaps one day some kind of ultra-flexible (computer-based?) system will know instinctively what to do, but until then, there's a lot to be said for having a single-purpose player that just plays CDs.

It loads discs faster than any SACD player (5-6 seconds), has the usual basic transport functions and, er, that's it. Practically all digital music discs are CDs anyway, and SACDs will play in a CD player, just not in high-res. There's nothing to set up, just the usual audio leads to plug in to the usual sockets, though you can use a DAC if you want, or connect a digital recorder.

It's clear that a significant portion of the budget has gone on making this player a smart, desirable piece of kit, rather than just another faceless black box.

The front panel is thick, solid aluminium, while the top is made of steel. Nor has Creek stinted on the internals, which include a good-quality modern DAC chip (one of a few changes from the original Evolution model) and two different types of op-amp, each selected for its precise application.

Passive components are high-quality, too, while the power supply is based on a relatively large transformer.

The Evolution system remote control is a cut above your average with a metal top-plate.

Of course, a player can offer all the looks and ease of use in the world, but if it sounds unpleasant or boring it's an ornament at best.

What we really liked about this player was not its exterior, but the beauty it consistently brought out from inside our favourite recordings. It's a trait we've found before in Creek equipment, a highly convincing way of playing music without fuss or artifice, but with honesty, commitment and more than enough detail to convince and beguile any listener.

It's a potent combination, though one that may not always get the quickest sale in a dealer's dem room, as it takes a little while to make its mark. For instance, we tried a well-loved orchestral recording of some Rachmaninov, which seemed more immediate and dramatic on another CD player. As the track progressed, however, it was the Creek that kept our attention with a carefully graded build-up of tension, as the composer intended, while the other player seemed to have given its all near the beginning and was less successful at keeping our interest.

In terms of basic tonality it's hard to criticise this player, though to be picky one might suggest that its bass doesn't quite have the reach of a few upmarket alternatives.

Treble is lovely, clear and open with lots of detail, and the midrange seems highly neutral. Stereo imaging is excellent, with width well delineated and depth unusually specific.

It's hard to buy a bad CD player these days, but this one stands out in its price range as particularly fine.

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Review: Samsung ST30

At the time of the launch, Samsung claimed the ST30 was the world's smallest digital compact camera with a zoom, and it is actually smaller than a credit card.

Inside the diminutive aluminium casing is a 10.1 megapixel CCD. The sensor is slightly smaller than many other digital compact cameras' at 1/3 inch which could cause problems with noise.

The Samsung ST30 is aimed at the point and shooter who wants to shoot parties etc and wants a camera that's small and looks good in front of friends and family. The camera is full of auto settings so that you don't have to think about anything apart from what to point the tiny lens at.

Because of the miniature size, the back of the camera is cluttered with buttons and the screen is slightly smaller than the standard size at 2.4 inches.

The function button is used to access a small menu with the most used features such as resolution, file compression, ISO, white-balance, face detection, focusing and metering options among others. This prevents you having to hunt through pages and pages of options in the main menu. Helpfully however, you can also access the function menu options in the main menu.

Most aspects are controlled automatically by the ST30, but it's still possible to select spot and centre weighted metering instead of the default multi metering.

Only two focusing modes are available, centre spot and multi spot. Interestingly, the camera defaults the centre focusing option.

For photographers that want to add their own individual style to their pictures, the ST30 sports nine picture styles including Soft, Vivid, Forest, Retro, Cool, Calm, Classic, Negative and Custom RGB. They each apply an effect.