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.

Review: Krell Cipher CD/SACD player

The Cipher is a new high-end SACD player from Krell and is a welcome surprise. It shows there's still a market for the medium.

True, SACD software issues are somewhat limited and the format risks being superseded by high-res downloads, but many small classical and jazz labels still support SACD and issue new titles each month.

This is where the new Cipher comes in, replacing Krell's popular EV505 SACD player. It promises an improved performance – especially in terms of Red Book CD playback and while this is very welcome, it's as an SACD player that the Cipher will stand or fall.

Fortunately, Krell has spared no effort to make it as good as possible – with both formats.

The Cipher is an advanced digital disc player offering users a choice of SACD and DVD-Audio playback in two channel and multichannel surround formats. The ability to play in surround is unusual – many purist audiophile SACD players dispense with this option, offering just two channel playback.

There's a choice of three fixed-level analogue outputs: RCA (unbalanced); XLR (balanced) and – for those using Krell amplification with the appropriate inputs – a special four-pin CAST socket (CAST is claimed to offer a significant improvement in sound quality). An output for subwoofers is also included in the mix.

The Cipher's disc drive is mechanically isolated from the main chassis and the mount uses composite materials to minimise vibration-induced errors. Strategically placed damping is used to reduce mechanical resonance and Krell's customised disc-drive firmware is claimed to improve disc-reading accuracy.

SACD disc transports can be temperamental and some players gained a reputation for being mechanically noisy and unreliable. Fortunately, the transport used in the Cipher is very quiet and seems to play a wide range of discs without complaint. CDs that jump or suffer dropout on our other players, played perfectly on the Cipher.

Separate lasers for CD and SACD are employed and these are individually hand-calibrated for accuracy. All signals are fed into a custom-designed Krell anti-jitter module and this is said to reduce jitter to virtually unmeasurable levels, resulting in a perfectly clean digital signal.

D/A conversion is via a pair of balanced 24-bit/192kHz DACs. Most players use a single DAC for each channel, but Krell uses its DACs in pairs and configures them to operate in balanced mode. So, 'balanced' operation occurs throughout the signal chain – from digital through to analogue. Usefully, the Cipher can play DVD-R data discs – though not, it seems, DVD-A discs.

Prior to the launch of SACD, one or two small audiophile labels released audio-only DVDs with a sampling frequency of 48kHz. These provided better-than-CD sound quality and very long (over three hours) continuous playing time.

As an aside, EMI issued its 2005 three-CD set of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde as a special limited edition, with a bonus audio DVD containing the complete recording on a single disc lasting three hours and 47 minutes in 5.1 DTS Surround Sound. The Cipher proved able to play this disc and could even deliver the DTS information. So, if you have any music DVDs, you'll be able to listen to them via the Cipher (most SACD players can't do this).

Another slightly unusual feature is the provision of user-selectable output filters; two for CD, and four for SACD. These alter the out-of-band frequency response and output gain.

The Cipher features all-aluminium casework. Being non-magnetic, aluminium is a good material to use for hi-fi casing, reducing the effects of magnetic eddy-currents. It costs more than steel, but can be relied on to deliver a smoother, more open and natural sound.

Finish is excellent, and the 'Cipher' centre panel looks very attractive. There are about thirty small press-buttons on the front panel – something that appeals to the inner geek in all of us – giving the Cipher a complex 'techy' look.

Fortunately, the button layout is logical and intuitive, so you instinctively find the right one. The buttons have a nice solid feel and operation is smooth and confidence-building.

At a cool £12,255 (including VAT) the Cipher is not cheap. Although well made and beautifully finished, we'd not say it offers 'battleship' build quality. However, excessively heavy build is not always advantageous. From the standpoint of resonance and energy storage, a light but solid case (as here) is often best.

Sound quality is likely to be the determining factor when it comes to deciding whether or not the Cipher justifies its hefty price tag. But give it a good SACD and it delivers a quality of sound that even the finest CD players cannot equal.

The Cipher's exceptionally lucid presentation is notable for amazing clarity and astonishing fine detail. Musically, the sound is open, lean, and crisp – not the least bit warm or romantic. At the same time, there's impressive refinement and (despite the sharpness) a smooth neutral tonality.

Review: Pentax Optio RS1500

Changeable covers may have been all the rage with mobile phones ten years ago, but, for whatever reason, the concept never really took off with compact cameras. With its latest RS1500 model, though, Pentax clearly reckons the audience for them is still there, with the camera equipped with ten changeable covers and two lens rings as standard.

The model follows Pentax's RS1000 which worked on the same principle, only the company claims that the covers may now be changed with greater ease and with no additional tools. And, should none of the ten provided quite suit the user's personality, they're invited to download further options from Pentax's website, or even design and print their own creations using software.

The new model is otherwise a carbon-copy of the previous RS1000. It sports a 14MP CCD and a 27.5-112mm zoom lens, the latter of which incorporates three aspheric elements to help control distortion and spherical aberration. This is particularly impressive for a model priced at £70, as is the 3in LCD screen on the camera's rear, although, unsurprisingly, it's resolution is at 230,000 dots.

On the inside, Pentax has equipped the RS1500 with a trio of focusing options: 3-point multi area, spot and AF tracking. It's capable of focusing down to a minimum distance of 40cm on its standard mode and 15cm when set to its Macro option, although the Super Macro setting only brings this figure down down to a minimum 8cm. Face Recognition, Smile Capture technology and a Shadow Correction option are all provided, as are a range of scene modes and digital filters such as Fisheye and Toy Camera.

The camera's sensitivity settings span a native range of ISO 100-1600, while further options equivalent to ISO's 3200 and 6400 are provided for when the standard options won't suffice. Sadly the camera's metering pattern cannot be adjusted from its default multi-segment option, although the capability of a 3.2fps burst mode at full resolution is a nice surprise.

Not all budget compacts have caught up to offer with HD video yet, but the RS1500 provides 720p recording at a maximum 30fps. While this isn't complemented with an HDMI port, this is unlikely to be a deal breaker for most. Instead, the model relies on a sole micro USB port for transferring images and videos. The model also runs on a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, rather than on AA cells common to budget compacts, which helps to keep its profile slim next to similarly priced models.

Review: BetterSnapTool 1.2.3

Window management, in terms of on-screen placement, is one of the Mac's weakest areas, and while OS X Lion's full-screen mode will be fine for focussing on a single task, Windows 7 does a lot better when it comes to multiple applications.

BetterSnapTool is yet another app that brings Windows Snap-like features to the Mac, but it warrants a look simply due to living up to its name – in other words, this really is a better snap tool.

Preferences enable mouse and keyboard settings to be activated or deactivated. On the second of those, you can define shortcuts for maximising a window or sending it to a half, quarter or third of the screen. You can also fire a window to another screen on a multiple-monitor setup.

Further customisation options exist for amending the appearance of the preview overlay when using the mouse to snap windows, delay settings and click actions on window buttons and the window's title bar. For example, you can right-click the zoom button to maximise a window and double-click the title bar to show the actions menu.

Options also exist to move or resize windows below the cursor when a modifier's held. The lack of gesture support is a pity and the app's restore is more like an undo.

But with its healthy spree of options and unusually low price, BetterSnapTool's now our favourite app of this type on the Mac.

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Review: NAD C446

NAD seems to have stuck to its established tradition with the C446 network audio player (the C in the model signifies it being a member of the Classic range).

Like the pioneering 3020 amplifier of many years ago, it is outwardly a giant-killer, giving the sort of musical performance for which you would expect to pay a lot more money, but with an appearance that you might call utilitarian.

If you are enthusiastic about terrestrial radio, the C446 is thoroughly well equipped to deliver these services. It even sounds palatable with bandwidth-limited DAB broadcasts, playing through a highly revealing system. The presentation has unusual, but welcome depth and presence and is far more engaging than any DAB radio has the right to be.

Naturally, the C446 makes an equally fine task of servicing internet radio. Note that selecting and adjusting all the available sources is accomplished through the fascia buttons and rotary control, with the supplied remote control handset, or with an iPhone/iPad app, an Android device or a PC that is running Windows 7.

Setting up favourites on the internet radio can be done through NAD's wi-fi radio portal at vtuner. nadelectronics.com. The C446 also comes fully prepared to play Last.fm, once, of course, you have paid your subscription to the service. You can also play music from a USB memory stick or hard disk connected to the front panel port.

If you do not have a compatible iPod dock, the cable supplied with an iPhone (USB to iPhone jack) does not perform its usual function, so better put £100 aside for a NAD IPD dock.

The C446 will deliver its output as an analogue signal, through RCA sockets, or digitally, through a TOSLINK connection. This discovery sent us rummaging through a pile of wires – or, more correctly the wires and fibre optic box – to find a suitable interconnect. We found that a Chord Company Optichord lead, provided a reliable and sturdy optical connection through this fragile medium.

Our primary interest, however, lay with the media player portion of the C446, which can be served either with a wi-fi input or through a wired Ethernet connection, which was the preferred option, so that its sound could be reliably compared to that of other streamers available to us.

In fairness, however, we have to say that the wi-fi connection seemed to work extremely well, with no suggestion of any flakiness. The sound has a remarkable sense of solidity and purpose.

Regardless, we connected it to a pair of NAS units on a GigaBit network: a VortexBox Appliance, running Twonky v5 and a self-built unit running Asset v3.

The C446 tops out below 24-bit/96kHz recordings, although the literature implies otherwise, with talk of a 24-bit/192kHz DAC. According to NAD, the C446 DAC can handle sampling frequencies up to 192kHz, but in reality that appears not to be the case. The most we were able to play were 24-bit/48kHz rips, which often sounded superior to 16-bit/44.1kHz material.

But if you frequently purchase high-resolution 24-bit/96kHz recordings from HDTracks.com, or a similar web store you will be disappointed and will need to look at another player, such as the Marantz NA7004, for example.

Effectively, NAD has built what looks to be a Porsche GT3, but equipped it with the engine from a 1970's 1200cc Volkswagen Beetle. It is disappointing for those who want to buy higher resolution downloads and anyone who transfers their vinyl onto hard disc: that transcription process is such a palaver that it is really not worth considering low bit and sample rates.

The unit is rather Spartan inside, with a noticeably compact power supply PCB, with a matchbox-sized transformer. There is certainly not the humungous, weighty toroidal transformer that one would expect inside a piece of equipment offering high-end performance. Regardless, we heard no signs of the power supply buckling under the pressure of playing music, so all appeared well.

Its performance on radio sources seemed rather outstanding, in particular the way it refused to sound ethereal or thin and wispy. Instead it sounds full-bodied and firmly rooted and renders voices with remarkable conviction. Performers on Radio 4 broadcasts sound appreciably 'real', three-dimensional and free from any coloration – no chestiness or adenoidal afflictions are evident.

The resolution restriction is unfortunate, because the C446 is otherwise a very fine-sounding network player. With music being supplied from a VortexBox Appliance NAS, through a NetGear GS108 Gigabit switch, the sound from the C446 instantly impresses with its rhythm, dynamism and natural sweetness.

Listening to CD-quality rips, it sounds thoroughly engaging and renders music in a wholly plausible fashion. It sounds smooth and composed, even on lively, maybe slightly over-enthusiastic, recordings.

Review: Cambridge Audio iD100 iPod/Pad dock

This not a review of the iPad, but the rather neat little digital dock upon which it rests: the Cambridge Audio iD100.

The iD100 will operate with various iPods, iPhones and the iPad, from which it will extract a pure digital output that it then delivers to a stand-alone DAC or the digital input on your amplifier (if it has one) for maximum performance.

Pure digital out from the iPod/ iPhone/iPad is definitely the way to go for the best sound quality. The digital outputs on the dock include TOSLINK, S/PDIF coaxial, and AES/EBU balanced through an XLR connector. There is also a USB connector to allow your iDevice to communicate with iTunes.

As well as this useful audio flexibility, the unit furthermore has a switchable video output so that you can view your stored video content through your TV, courtesy of its composite or component connection.

The iD100 comes with rubber adaptors (cushion-like supports) to allow the various Apple devices to connect to the seemingly fragile Apple connector without straining it. The supplied remote control enables you to control, charge and synchronise the iPad – through the USB connection to your computer – while it is connected to the dock. You just need a standard USB 2.0 type A to type B cable for this connection.

The last thing you need in a dock, particularly one that can accommodate the relatively large-screen of a £650 iPad, is any instability. The metal-cased iD100 is reassuringly sure-footed even though it is not unduly weighty.

The unit comes with a wall-wart switched-mode power supply, which you could swap for a linear supply from a third-party supplier if your system has a particular aversion to these now-ubiquitous devices.

Typical of Cambridge Audio products, it almost goes without saying that the iD100 is substantially engineered and offers outstanding performance and versatility for the money. And, of course, the unit works straight out of the box without any undue faffing about, which is what any fan of iGadgets expects these days.

We tested the unit feeding the digital input on a Naim UnitiQute through an inexpensive Chord Company Codac digital interconnect.

Unlike several iPod docks we have experienced, the musical performance of the iD100 comes as a truly pleasant surprise. Apple Lossless CD rips have solid bass, a rewardingly open and detailed midrange and unexpectedly delicate treble with no 'splash' or emphasis of sibilance. The vocals, in particular, on the Squeeze track Cool for Cats are especially well articulated, as is Glenn Tilbrook's dexterous guitar work on Another Nail in my Heart.

Most importantly, the iD100 preserves the dynamics and rhythm of the music and the album rocks exactly the way it should. Similarly, the portrayal of Colin Hay's vocals on his Gathering Mercury album are magnificent, conveying the depth of feeling in his voice on songs such as Send Somebody and Dear Father to the point of listeners becoming visibly moved. Even pop albums from the likes of Adele and country-rock from Jerry Lee Lewis demonstrates that Apple Lossless is a fine file format if you demand music on your iPod with its full quotient of get-up-and-go.

MP3s – even those encoded at the highest bit-rate – do not match the performance of ALAC files, but sound more acceptable than usual, nonetheless. For example, Tal Wilkenfeld does not sound as refined as the ALAC version does. There is neither the same detail nor the grip and control evident with the MP3.

In short, fill your iTunes library with Apple Lossless music and you will quickly discover that the Cambridge Audio iD100 produces possibly the finest sound you will hear from any iPod dock.

Just remember to use a decent digital cable to connect it to your DAC or amplifier. And remember to charge it fully beforehand for the best sound quality.

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Review: Technomate TM-2600 Super

DISEQC motorised mounts, which sit between the existing mounting pole and the dish, have usually been quite expensive. The TM-2600 Super from Technomate, on the other hand, sells for about £50.

As a result it will be attractive to owners of budget systems like the Ross 22300HD-R. During our testing, we successfully partnered the 65cm Ross dish with the mount by fitting a larger U-bolt. The solidly built TM-2600 Super can, however, be used with dishes up to 1.2m in diameter.

We were impressed by the thought that Technomate’s designers have put into this product. For a start, a peek inside the mount (don’t do this yourself or you’ll invalidate the warranty) reveals that the gearing is heavy-duty metal rather than nylon. Although this will make the mount slightly heavier, a longer operational life is assured.

There’s also no ‘play’ to speak of, and so your dish will remain resolutely locked in position once the desired satellite has been reached.

The instruction manual explains in some detail how to install the TM-2600 Super and even provides a web link to a Moteck applet that does all of the calculations relevant to your specific site latitude. A membrane-covered switch on the base will move the dish east or west (provided that a receiver is connected), while a hidden pair of sliders enables hardware dish-limits to be set.

Software limits can also be set via your receiver’s DiSEqC menu. Elevation adjustment combines a knife-pointer with a calibrated scale for readability.

The TM-2600 Super was found to work very well, although as with all such mounts the speed of travel depends on whether the currently selected channel has a vertical or horizontal polarity (horizontal channels rely on the receiver sending a higher DC voltage up the LNB cable).

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Review: NuForce DAC9

The NuForce DAC9 isn't the only DAC to include a headphone output, but it makes more of a point of it than most, and fair enough, adding as it does a dedicated volume control and both flavours of headphone jack, 6.3mm (quarter-inch) and 3.5mm.

The latter, incidentally, also functions as an input, an optical digital input to be precise, in similar manner to some computer sound cards and portable audio devices.

The total input count runs to six, with a further (TOSLINK) optical socket at the rear, alongside AES/ EBU, USB and three electrical S/PDIF sockets, two phono and one BNC; one of the phonos is effectively the same input at the BNC so you can only connect one or the other.

Selection between the inputs is achieved at the front of the unit by a touch-panel, which we found occasionally reluctant to accept commands. The remote control is less fussy and is invaluable in adjusting line-output volume, which changes in 0.5dB steps.

From the front panel, it is necessary to touch and release for each step, waiting more than a second before the next step can be made.

It's just as well that output level is adjustable, though, because at maximum output the DAC9 produces four volts, enough to overload the inputs of a few amplifiers we've seen.

NuForce mentions in its promotional literature that neither sample-rate conversion nor negative feedback is used in the DAC9, which strikes us as a little perverse as the DAC chip (like all current examples of its breed) uses internal sample-rate conversion to implement digital filtering and the analogue circuits include op-amps, which are never used without feedback. They are all high-quality parts, as are the drivers for the balanced output and the analogue volume-control chip.

The power supply employs a very large toroidal transformer. 96kHz digital sources are accepted at the USB input, which is upgradeable to even high sample rates by swapping an internal module.

Comments on this DAC varied between listeners, their reactions depending on personal priorities. It seems that if you value an ultra-clean, high-resolution sound this may not be the best option around, but it has very good drive and dynamics, and possibly the best timing.

The listener who liked it least pointed to a degree of 'grunge' in its sound as his main reservation, but despite that there is still some good detail to be heard.

Midrange is generally neutral, though we came to suspect that the comments about 'grunge' may actually reflect a small degree of subjective upper-midrange lift, which does seem to dirty the sound a little on many recordings.

This is all quite minor stuff, though and while it's easy to be critical in comparisons like this we felt the sound over the longer term is more than acceptable. It would be unkind to close without commending the headphone output, which is particularly revealing and proved worthy of the finest cans we plugged in to it.

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Review: Cyrus DAC X+

Cyrus currently offers two Digital to Analogue Converters, the DAC X+ we have here and the DAC XP+ (the latter also includes a preamplifier).

You might think this one has some preamp functionality, given the presence of what looks remarkably like a volume control on the front, but the rotary knob is actually used for set up functions, including the rather appealing option to name the inputs to something relevant.

And if you hanker after a built-in preamp later, you can always return your DAC X+ to the Cyrus factory for an upgrade to XP+ status. Cyrus has always been good at this upgrade thing, of course.

One of its most successful optional extras is the PSX-R power supply, a stonking great transformer in a Cyrus box, alongside some very high-performance supply regulation circuits. The transformer built into the X+ is followed by several regulators and these supply juice to a pair of DAC boards, each one sporting a good-quality DAC chip and a handful of op-amps plus decent quality plastic-film capacitors.

There's actually quite a lot of analogue circuitry, not least because of the requirement to drive balanced outputs, two sets of which grace the rear of the unit.

As for inputs, there are six in total, all S/PDIF – two optical and four electrical. There's also an optical digital output which simply relays the chosen source for recording or multichannel decoding purposes.

The lack of a USB input slightly dates this unit, though one can pick up USB-S/PDIF convertors for well under £100.

An arguably more serious indictment of this DAC's age (it's one of the longest-serving here) came in terms of comments on its sound. Criticism wasn't strong, but our blind listeners would have liked some more detail and insight, especially in musical lines below the top one.

As one listener pointed out, there seems to be a consistent dullness in voices and instruments, making the music quite forthright, but ultimately less engaging. Conversely, brighter-sounding melody instruments seem even more cutting than usual – hard-played lead guitar, for example, which developed a degree of 'fizz' in our Led Zeppelin track.

To some extent this is ameliorated by a strong and well-placed bass, but the balance does seem a little treble-heavy on average. In fact, the business about dullness of accompaniment is a complex one.

When, as happens from time to time, the melody is in a low-ish register it still seems to be unduly prominent, so clearly the issue is not simply tonal imbalance. Rather, it's the lack of detail that's the crucial issue, with foreground material grabbing more than its fair share of attention. The background doesn't so much recede as lose the listener's focus – one is less aware of it and interesting little details slip by unnoticed. A similar thing happens with stereo imaging.

On the positive side, we found this DAC to be quite unfussy about digital sources. Overall, though, it just doesn't quite have the resolution we'd hope to find in an upmarket digital-to-analogue convertor.

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Review: Elipson Planet L loudspeaker

French hi-fi has made significant inroads to the UK market in recent years, but Elipson remain one of the lesser-known brands, but this is about to change with the release of the Planet L loudspeaker.

This is in spite of the fact that it has been in existence since 1938 and amongst other achievements were the default loudspeaker choice of French national television for over forty years.

The striking looking Planet L is the latest in a long line of spherical designs dating back for most of the history of the brand. Elipson says that the shape of the Planet L is the result of years of research into cabinet design.

Available in black, white and red, the visual impact of a pair of speakers, each the size and shape of a bowling ball, is such that serious hi-fi or not, the Planet L makes a considerable statement about style. Each Planet L is supplied with a ring that allows it to be placed on a shelf, or table, or technically on a conventional speaker stand.

We used the optional £199 floorstand for the review that attaches directly to the underside of the speaker and makes for a stable fitting. Wall and ceiling mounts are also available.

Each Planet L makes use of a 6.5-inch paper driver with a coaxially mounted soft-dome tweeter. A small rear port provides bass re-enforcement and a single pair of binding posts protrudes from the rear. Sensitivity is quoted at 90dB/w with impedance given as six ohms, so while not hugely sensitive, the Elipson ought to provide no real problems for a similarly priced amplifier.

Fit and finish is top-notch with flawless paint, a solid-feeling enclosure and magnetic trim tabs for the grille. Given that the grille is pretty much acoustically transparent and removing it rather spoils the lines, we kept it in place for most of the listening.

There is no shortage of £600 standmounts and most of them look more 'normal' than the Elipson does, but the Planet L has to be considered good value. The speaker is solid, well thought out and uses good-quality components. The stands are a little pricey (bespoke designs often are), but overall it feels good value for money.

Any lingering perception that the Planet L is some sort of lifestyle trinket is destroyed shortly after you put some music through it. Placed roughly 20 centimetres from a rear wall with a little toe-in, the speaker shows some star qualities.

The coaxial driver arrangement gives it a focus and soundstage that is uncannily accurate and extremely detailed. The Elipson also has a relatively wide 'sweet spot', that means it can produce an appealing presentation over a wider area than is usually the case for speakers of this size.

The Planet L is also capable of extracting nuances from recordings that even considerably more expensive speakers can fail to reproduce. Tonality is exceptionally good and it rarely sounds anything other than utterly believable and very assured.

The spherical shape is no gimmick either. The Planet L has very little in the way of colouration that can be traced to the cabinet and the bass port is commendably well behaved.

Bass output is not seismic – there are a number of similarly priced standmounts (to say nothing of floorstanders) that will go deeper, but the bass on offer here is very clean and incredibly fast.

Pushed to high levels, the Planet L will harden up, but it does so relatively slowly and benignly. They are not going to generate rock gig volume levels and those looking to fill a barn conversion might want to look elsewhere (or at least look at using more than two of them), but for an ordinary lounge, the Elipson should have no trouble strutting its stuff.

Whether it's right for you will ultimately depend on whether you like the distinctive look. If you do, this is an incredibly gifted loudspeaker with a genuine talent for making music and bringing detail to the fore. What further recommendation do you need?

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Review: Scandyna The Drop

Scandyna has been producing its distinctive pod speakers for over a decade and there is now an eight-strong range of stereo models with supporting subwoofers and amps. The Drop is, however, as the name suggests, modelled on a droplet – even down to the 'separating stem'-effect at the top of the cabinet.

The Drop retains many classic Scandyna features, including a cabinet formed of ABS plastic.

This contains a five-inch Kevlar midbass driver (a nod towards the original point of origin of the concept being Bowers & Wilkins) partnered with a 25mm soft-dome tweeter. A single pair of sprung terminals will support banana plugs if you are careful with them. Our review pair were in red, but the speakers are also available in black and white.

Scandyna places great emphasis on the mounting options and The Drop can be wall- and ceiling-mounted, in addition to a stand or shelf. The speaker is supplied with three rubber feet, but can also have longer 'Sputnik' spikes to increase isolation.

The cabinet is sealed, which further simplifies placement and using the supplied rubber feet, we obtained perfectly respectable results on a variety of surfaces. As each unit only weighs 2.3kg, it is unlikely to overload a shelf, either.

The consequence of the sealed design is that the speaker is not a true full-range unit. Output at 50Hz is down -6dB and, as a result, bass output is going to be considerably lower than a conventional standmount at the same price (or less). How much this matters is going to depend largely on where you intend to use them.

As a speaker on a shelf in an office, kitchen etc, its unfussy placement and appealing design will outweigh its lack of bass. If you are looking to replace a conventional standmount speaker, it may prove more of an issue.

Fit and finish is good, although due to the materials used The Drop will understandably feel less substantial than something constructed out of MDF. The build is good and the rubber feet and uppermost point of the cabinet attach in a straightforward way.

Scandyna quotes a sensitivity of 89dB/w into four ohms, which means the speaker would benefit from an amp of reasonable power output, which may be something to bear in mind if you are partnering it with an all-in-one system.

The Drop is pleasant to listen to. The lack of low-end output is noticeable, but partly countered by how fast and agile the presentation is. This is, in part, down to there being less low-end inertia to overcome, but the entire frequency spectrum feels dextrous and fleet. The result is a very open and airy presentation.

The overall tonal balance of The Drop is slightly forward of neutral and this lends it a sense of liveliness and excitement that can be beneficial. Acoustic material and voices in particular sound very real and, on occasions, extremely explicit.

Pushed hard, this can make The Drop sound aggressive and a little loud, but this will generally occur at higher levels than we imagine it will be used. When used with rock or dance music that lack of absolute low end can become more noticeable, but generally the speaker sounds more full and cohesive than might be expected from the specs alone.

The speaker is not a perfect solution and some similarly priced designs have fewer compromises. We have seen the Danish make online for nearer £400, which does improve its value.

Compared to the even more striking-looking Elipson Planet L, it feels slightly insubstantial and is certainly weaker in the bass. On the other hand it is an attractive, flexible and well-thought-out product that fills a distinct role in the market.

If you need a striking speaker to operate in close confines away from stands it is well worth considering.

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Review: Audio Pro WF100

Back in September Apple released AirPlay, its streaming protocol capable of wirelessly transmitting your iTunes media to compatible hardware. Since then we've seen a handful of hi-fi stereos and speakers come with support for AirPlay's lossless audio component.

Still, that's fat use if you already own an otherwise perfectly decent home stereo setup. Apple's answer? Buy an AirPort Express.

Not so fast: Scandinavian company Audio Pro thinks it has a better solution. The WF100 wireless audio system works by way of two USB dongles – one transmitter, one receiver – whose setup couldn't be simpler.

Attach the transmitter to your Mac; then using the supplied USB AC power adapter and RCA Y-cable (or mini jack), connect the receiver to your stereo amp. There's no fiddling with drivers here: simply choose USB sound output in your OS X preferences then watch the dongle LEDs rapidly turn blue to signal they've paired – leaving you to enjoy crystal-clear, delay-free audio from up to 50m away.

Audio Pro's proprietary protocol is universal and offers system-wide audio streaming, which trumps AirPlay's iTunes-only limitation. You can even expand your wireless setup by adding extra receivers, but coming in at £85 a pop, this rears the ugly head of expense.

At £150, the WF100 set feels pricey for what it is. But if you're eager to mate your Mac with legacy audio equipment that still shines, the benefit might just outweigh the cost.

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Review: Moon 300D

There's seldom much about Moon products that stands out a mile externally – which is not to deny them their smart and individual appearance.

The Moon 300D has a largely typical specification, with two coaxial and one optical S/PDIF inputs and a USB socket, while analogue output is available both balanced and unbalanced.

Differences are more apparent inside the unit, where Moon has carefully separated analogue and digital parts of the equation. A digital circuit board, largely populated with surface-mounted components, receives the digital input, applies digital filtering and converts it to analogue, forwarding the output to an analogue board beneath.

Here, components are all through-hole parts, remarkably few of them for a balanced-output circuit, with passive components evidently having been carefully selected for their specific application.

The power supply is unusually generous too, with a large bank of smoothing capacitors. Most of the integrated circuits that look after functions like digital input reception and D-A conversion are familiar parts, including the USB input chip, which limits operation to 48kHz.

A footnote about this on Moon's website hints that the company doesn't much rate USB as a digital audio interface and suggests that the serious computer audiophile should use an aftermarket soundcard with S/PDIF output, a perfectly valid point.

It wasn't quite plain sailing for the 300D as far as our blind-listening panel was concerned: the odd note of criticism sneaked in, but the general tenor of comments was once again favourable.

They were in agreement that treble is a little more present than bass – we're choosing words carefully here because different listeners expressed that in different ways. One found the treble clearer than most, well defined and more precise than the bass. Another thought the bass was fine but found the treble on the bright side, even (in one track) 'splashy'.

This kind of difference of opinion is not uncommon in a case like this of subtle tonal imbalance and merely illustrates why no one product can provide all the answers. The trouble is, though, that even in a blind test like this such things can colour a listener's judgement.

It's no surprise that the listener who disliked the treble found fault also with detail and imaging, but the others were much more complimentary about these aspects, especially detail. It's the kind of detail which doesn't rip a piece apart into its constituent strands, but allows the listener to hear what's going on at the top, in the middle and into the bass.

The deepest bass is, perhaps, a little general here, with good extension but slightly less precision than some can muster. Dynamics were well liked too. Our large-scale orchestral track benefitted particularly from this, with quiet passages having a degree of definition and solidity to them that's not often heard.

It's easy to overlook low-level performance of audio equipment, or take it for granted, but the 300D really does achieve quite an unusual level of performance with both detail and imaging consistent from loud to soft and back. With pace, rhythm and timing also good, though never over-emphasised, it's an easy DAC to like.

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Review: Classé CP-800 preamplifier

Classé's new CP-800 preamp is less expensive, yet significantly more well featured than its predecessor the CP-700. In fact, it has more features than any dedicated two-channel preamp we have ever encountered!

For starters, it has digital, as well as analogue inputs and, of these, two are USB connections; one in the front panel for your Apple device and another on the back for a computer. Then it has five output channels with which to incorporate a second system or extra power amps and subwoofer(s) and that's only the connections.

Inside the sleek aluminium casework it's stacked with technological firepower, including bass management, so that you can optimise low-frequency performance almost regardless of where speakers are placed and parametric EQ.

If that weren't enough it also has something we've not seen on a high end preamp since the seventies; tone controls. All this with barely a button in sight thanks to a 16:9 touch screen.

The most controversial thing about the CP-800 however, is that Classé head of sales, Dave Nauber, claims that his iPhone sounds better through it than any CD transport. The front USB extracts a digital stream from your iDevice but that is fighting talk in our books.

When HFC met Alan Clark, the Scotsman who designed it (and the rest of the Classé range), he wasn't quite so bullish but did claim that the USB input could outperform the S/PDIF – which is pretty controversial itself. Alan has come up with a variation on the USB receiver, which he claims is superior to all the alternatives on the market.

He accepts that the asynchronous route chosen by increasing numbers of serious USB DAC-makers is better than the synchronous approach found in more affordable convertors, but has added a twist which is said to make the CP-800 a world-beater with this computer audio link.

Clark calls regular asynchronous USB interfaces 'non-optimal' because the ground noise that is inevitable with computer sources pollutes the clock and the DAC in the receiver. His solution to this has been to add an FPGA (field programmable gate array) between the USB microcontroller/receiver and the DAC, as a means of isolating both it and the audio clocks within the preamp.

The USB receiver has its own clock but it's impossible to fully isolate this because the noise levels are very high within the chip, The FPGA recovers only the data from the incoming signal and uses the precision clock within the CP-800 in order to minimise jitter.

The preamp also has an unusual power supply (PSU). One reason why it costs less than its predecessor is that the PSU is onboard rather than being in a separate box, but that's not the only difference. The CP-800 has a switched-mode PSU that operates at very high frequencies, which its claimed makes it less noisy than traditional linear supplies. It also makes it more efficient (as is usually the case) and this product hits the EU target of sub single-watt power consumption in standby.

Classé also uses power factor correction, which maintains a constant load on the mains. As a result it should benefit other components in the system, because they are not having to deal with a fluctuating mains supply. We would expect a power amp to modulate the mains, but were surprised that this is also considered an issue with preamps where power requirements cannot be that great.

Unusually for such a complex product, PCB layout is done by a lady called Cheng, who Clark describes as the world's most patient electronics designer, because she does it all by hand. This is because auto-routing cannot achieve the results that are possible when the effects of each component in a multi-layer board are taken into account.

As a result the motherboard on the CP-800 does not look as neat as you might expect, rather it has an organic appearance because signal paths need to be kept away from the noisier elements in the circuit.

The CP-800 is superbly built; Classé knows how to put a product together and how to finish it better than most. Many build heavier, shinier and more bolt-laden products, but few highend companies are able to execute their products to this standard.

It is also replete with inputs, 15 in total including balanced and unbalanced analogue in and outputs, all the usual variations of digital input and the 12-volt trigger outputs beloved of North American manufacturers. There's even an RJ45 Ethernet socket which will allow the preamp to stream content directly when a future software update is made available.

Review: Brother DCP-J925DW

Brother has a reputation for inexpensive printers with solid but unspectacular printouts. Its new range offers a better feature set than previous Brother multifunction products, but its print quality still lags behind its leading rivals. The DCP-J925DW is the priciest of three new DCP models, but is still only £150.

It has Wi-Fi 'n', Ethernet and USB connectivity, and its single paper tray has a space for postcard-sized photo paper. You still have to remove it and make a mechanical adjustment before printing photos, but it's easier than with previous Brother printers.

Duplex printing and copying are catered for, as is Pictbridge, printing from USB and most SD/MS formats, and even printing to optical discs.

Indeed, the DCP-J925DW is surprisingly fast for a budget home printer, taking just over two minutes to print a 20-page text document, and around four and a half minutes for a top-quality A4 photo.

Its text printing is robust but a little unspectacular, with characters a bit grey and blurred around the edges. Default-quality plain-paper colour printouts are bleached and banded.

After boosting the print resolution and using quality photo paper it gives reasonable results, but the colours are a little washed out and over-red, and there's a noticeable banding on the greyscale ramp.

These problems aren't hugely detrimental to the overall picture quality, but they're definitely noticeable when compared to any of Canon's PIXMA range or the HP Photosmart's output.

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Review: Shanling CD-T2000 CD/SACD player

Shanling's new CD-T2000 CD/SACD player shares the stunning aesthetic of the former CD-T1500, but, although superficially similar, the two players are, in fact, quite different.

The CD-T2000 is a Red Book CD player constructed around a high-quality Sanyo HD-850 transport. It also features a Burr-Brown PCM 1792 24-bit/192kHz upsampling stage, but no solid-state analogue output.

There are actually two 12AUX7 (ECC 82) tubes per-channel (four tubes total), because the player offers the option of single-ended or balanced operation.

Like many new CD players, the CD-T2000 features a USB socket, enabling you to use its DAC with computer-based music storage systems. It also has a digital input (and digital output) via RCA phono sockets.

Two sets of variable analogue outputs are provided – single-ended via RCA phono sockets and balanced via XLRs. Output voltage levels are claimed to be 2.1V and 4.2V for unbalanced and balanced respectively.

The volume control is a digital-type and, having variable output, allows you to connect the CD-T2000 direct to a power amp – though the unbalanced output voltage of 2.1V may be a bit low for some power amps.

There are three power transformers: two for the analogue outputs and one for the digital side of things. To retain the smooth classic lines of the earlier player, while offering various switching options, three of the four corner posts feature selector switches: power on/off; output volume and a CD player/USB input switch.

The Sanyo transport is a high-quality device that's virtually silent during operation. There are no audible whirrs or clicks – important for an 'open' player like this, as there's no case to reduce the noise. The transport offers fast track access and reasonably speedy fast search – certainly, better than the CDT1500, which was very slow.

Shanling's SCD-T2000 (SACD/CD player) had a solid-state output with the option of a tube buffer stage to add a bit of valve warmth. However, this player has a proper tube output stage and no solid-state option.

One slight grumble is the way the CD-T2000's volume control automatically defaults to -40dB once power is switched off. While, useful if you're connecting directly to a power amp, it means you have to turn the volume control clockwise about 2.5 turns (or use the remote) to get back to maximum output again each time you switch the player on.

Like most Shanling products, the CD-T2000 offers 'battleship' build quality and a very high standard of finish. The entire chassis is made from solid aluminium panels around one centimetre thick and sits on four corner turrets. It weighs in at about 11kg, which is remarkably heavy for a CD player and whether or not its substantial build affects performance is debatable.

But the sound certainly has a 'solid' quality to match the look and feel of the player. While the chassis dimensions are more or less the same as earlier Shanling players, having the feet at each corner has effectively made the player wider. Indeed, so wide, it only just fits onto a 'normal' 46cm-width hi-fi equipment shelf. Ideally, you need one with a width of about 50cm.

If this product were manufactured in the USA, it would probably cost three or four times what Shanling is asking here and at just under £2,000, makes it a veritable bargain. You can buy it secure in the knowledge that few products anywhere at any price will match it for build quality and finish.

Before auditioning the CD-T2000, we'd been enjoying the sound of the SCD-T2000 SACD player. When playing SACDs, the latter delivers a very open, detailed sound that's very natural and the difference between CD and SACD on this player has been fairly marked (but that's what you'd expect given the technical advantages of a higher-resolution format like SACD).

With CD, however, the CD-T2000 sounds better than the SCD-T2000 and while the latter delivers a very open sound – it lacks that slightly hard 'closed-in' tonal balance you almost always get with CD. This difference is very noticeable on instruments like cymbals. Via the CD-T2000, cymbals reproduce with a lovely breathy openness that sounds like good analogue. Transients have crisp attack and there's plenty of body and shimmer.

But what's unusual and remarkable is the lack of tonal hardness – something that really lets you experience the sound of stick on metal – or metal to metal when orchestral cymbals are crashed together.

Playing the recent Boulez recording of Mahler's orchestral song cycle Des Knaben Wunderhorn, we were forcibly struck by the truthful natural quality of the sound – the pure uncoloured timbres and spacious naturalness produced. Had we not known otherwise, we'd have thought we were listening to an SACD rather than a CD – there was a comparable purity and 'rightness' about the sound.

Eton, Soulra XL

Wireless music systems are rarely totally wireless. Sooner or later you’ll have to plug something into a wall, and that’s not always convenient. What if you don’t have a socket available, or you want to take your music out and about? The Eton Soulra XL dock has the answer.

Bring me sunshine
A huge solar panel that covers the entire rear surface of the Eton Soulra XL can soak up enough power from the sun to power it for up to five hours. How much playback time you get will depend on how loud you crank it, but the beauty of the system is that it can be left on a window ledge or anywhere it can see the sky and always be ready to entertain you. Ideal for kitchens, sheds and roaming music lovers then.

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Loud and proud
You might think a solar-powered iPod dock would be low on raw music power, but with six drivers and a bass boost button it’s got ample grunt to kick out beefy tunes. Not only does it go loud for its size but the sound has a surprising depth and balance.

Any which way
If you do have a suitable window ledge it works just great in its basic form, with a little red light glowing through the Soulra logo to let you know when it’s absorbing rays. However, you can also flip up the panel to give it the best chance of catching the sun (or cloud – it’s not fussy). If you do you’ll find a curiously shaped hole for the remote, which doesn’t give full control over your iPod or iPhone but mimicks the rubberised transport controls on the main unit.

Tinted window
We’d like to see more of our iThing’s screen peeping through the darkened window on the dock, and a better latch on the door would help in getting the damn thing open, but otherwise it’s a smartly designed and quite rugged little unit.

It’s a simple beast in terms of features but does have a 3.5mm input for other sources and mains input for when you can’t wait for the sun to do the business. Other docks may have more power, slicker controls and even sleeker design, but the Eton’s ability to go off-grid makes it something special. 

Apple, Mac, Mini 2011

So farewell optical media (1982-2011). What joy you brought us, with your CDs and high definition videos. How you lit up students' lives when they threw you in the microwave to see what would happen.

Apple is reprising its role as Auger of Doom for a dying format. Just as the iMac shocked the world by arriving without a floppy drive, so the new Mac Mini has no front loading slot for DVDs. Have the Oracles of Infinite Loop got their timing right again?

Well, sort of
This isn't the first PC or laptop to dump discs, and the Mini arrives with the online simplicity of iCloud and the App Store designed into its Mac OS X Lion desktop. But if you want to install software you bought just a couple of months ago, or watch a DVD, you need to spend an extra £66 on a USB Superdrive. Maybe not such an issue with the lower-spec model but that could grate if you’ve shelled out £700 for the more powerful sibling.

It must have caught the Lion developers off guard too: in a rare moment of sloppiness, the Eject Disc button and Burn To Disc menu option still sit sadly on the desktop and main menu.

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Still small
The removal of the optical drive wasn't a design-led decision; the 2011 Mac Mini is exactly the same size as the 2010 one. It's still incredibly small but there's no physical compensation for the loss of the drive.

The USB ports are all old fashioned USB 2.0. There's a Thunderbolt port for high speed peripherals, but USB 3.0 external hard drives are widely available and inexpensive whereas Thunderbolt ones are not. If you run a monitor with a higher resolution than 1920x1080, or want to use two screens, you'll need that Thunderbolt port for a display adaptor, as the HDMI port maxes out at 1080p.

Processing poke
But that's the griping over. The real star of the new Mac Mini is the Intel Core i5 processor. This may 'only' be a laptop chip, but it's plenty powerful enough for everything up to and including video encoding. What's more, it's so efficient that the fan is barely audible, the case never gets warm and it only draws more than 25-35W of power if you're gaming or encoding video. If you want substantially more power, the £700 Mini can be specced up with an i7 for an extra £80.

Not that either is a games machine. The entry level Mini has integrated graphics which aren’t up to much, and even the Radeon graphics in the £700 option struggle to get even Half-Life 2 based games to run at respectable settings.

Our advice? The Mac Mini trounces all other small form factor machines, and the cheaper option makes sense. However, step up to the £700 model and you don’t get enough tech for your money. A MacBook Air is more flexible for not a lot more, and the basic £1000 iMac is much better specced.

Sony, Cyber-Shot, DSC-HX9V

We have a new favourite point-and-shooter, and it’s this, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX9V. We love it more than any compact camera ever, including our previous favourite, the DSC-HX7V. There are two main reasons we like it so much. The first is that it’s packed with tricks that make it stacks of fun to play around with, and the second is that you can trust it to take a great picture in almost any situation.

Zoom with a view
We’ll come to the tricks in a minute, but first let’s talk about great pictures. When it’s in Intelligent Auto mode, the HX9V draws on a range of aids to avoid the most common camera calamities. So there’s brilliant image stabilisation to make the 16x zoom a totally realistic option. Depress the shutter and the shaky view snaps into a tightly controlled image that merely floats a little rather than veering around wildly as before.

Multiple shots
Indoors, where photos might be blighted by bleached out flashes and dark backgrounds, the HX9V automatically deploys its multiple shot technology, firing a sequence of up to six frames and then almost instantly combining them to dig out colour and detail from the shadows without resorting to a flash. Surprisingly, it does this without introducing any camera shake – must be that stabilisation at work again. There’s also a decent flash if you want it.

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Not faultless
Used outside without the zoom, the HX9V defaults to a wideangle view and shoots fine photos, but this is one instance in which it can be beaten or at least matched by the best of its rivals. Colours are strong to the point of saturation at times, with reds and greens eager to pop out a tad unrealistically. Detail levels are good enough at ISO 100, and with 16MP to play with there’s scope for cropping and enlarging.

For my next trick...
And now for those tricks. A 3D mode shoots a pair of images at different focal lengths, determines which parts are in the foreground, and then creates a 3D image (viewable on a 3D display) by cutting out the subject and placing it in front of the background.

Sweep Panorama
The now familiar Sweep Panorama mode from other Sony cameras is here and working as well as ever. An onscreen guide tells you to move the camera in an arc from left to right and stitches it all together to make a super-wide vista (and these can be 3D too). The same panning technique is used to shoot curious 3D images that you can view on the camera itself. Even though the LCD is 2D, tilting the camera allows you to look at a scene from different angles, as though peeping around a corner – as clever as it is gimmicky.

Blurry backgrounds
Of more use day-to-day is the Background Defocus mode, selectable directly from the mode dial. This fakes a depth-of-field effect but does it pretty well, especially if you zoom in a little, making it ideal for snapping portraits. If you want more control you can go for manual shooting.

Hi-def video
Video is another strong point. In fact it’s as good as it gets on a compact camera at the moment. The super-smooth, 50 frames per second, 1080p footage with stereo sound is quite fantastic. The only flaw of any note is a slight ghosting around fast moving objects, but overall the results are a match for any camcorder at this price.

For all that, the HX9V is quite a modest little thing. It’s built from a reassuring mix of metal, rubbery bits and quality plastic but doesn’t compromise usability in the name of style. There’s no touchscreen, for example, just the usual controls you’d expect to find in the usual places. Just what a compact camera should be, in fact.