“After spending an enjoyable and interesting afternoon visiting Axiom a few months back, I came home from the Huntsville ON area with their new 8-channel digital amplifier tucked in my trunk. It’s not insubstantial at about 58 pounds boxed, and 18″ square and 4″ high unboxed. The A1400-8 has multi-plug inputs that accept balanced XLRs and 1/4″ mono or stereo phone plugs, and gold-plated plastic protected 5-way output binding posts in rows along the modular rear panel…”
“The Statement D1 is among the most expensive home theatre processors in our experience, but offers just about every imaginable feature, as well as exceptional build quality. It will take much of this review just to outline its complement of capabilities. As their brochure claims, it is “nine high end components in one”: “preamplifier, 24-bit/192 kHz precision upsampler, analog-to-digital converter, digital-to-analog converter….”
“These days, when one sees the name Aragon, visions of The Lord of the Rings come to mind. But, then, that’s Aragorn. Still, looking at the blue streams of light that seem to shine from deep inside the front panel of these handsome home theater components, one does get a sense of the mystical and the magical. I was captivated by this look the first time I saw the Aragon gear at the Festival du Son last March…”
“So much for entry level. With a combined price approaching seven grand, not to mention 7.1 surround channels on tap, “small” was no longer part of the equation. Now I needed speakers. Lots of speakers, as it turned out. Ever since hearing that Edge Audio was one of the first adopters of the Diaural crossover developed by Kimber Kable I’d wanted to review their speakers. A trip to their website revealed two things: First, that they had changed their name to Aperion Audio, and second that they had packaged systems ranging up to 7.1 channels: Just what the doctor ordered…”
“Intended to beat obsolescence by being both versatile and modular, the Myryad home theatre system offers whatever combination of 2- and 3-channel amplifiers you need, with a processor that can accommodate up to 7 channels plus subwoofer. The MDP500 provides 9 stereo analog inputs with an additional 7.1 (8, in fact) set for DVD audio or any other format that might come along…”
“Bob Carver is being typically modest when he describes this new powerhouse amplifier, capable of 405 watts per channel (and a whopping 810 at 4 ohms) as a “magnificent amplifier”, and “my best amplifier design ever. I’ve spent over twenty years developing it, and cannot imagine how I could make it any better, or refine it any further.” Does that mean that the Cinema Grand Signature is the last amplifier we’ll see from Bob the man? Somehow, I doubt it. In fact, I’ve seen and heard prototypes of a tiny 12-volt amplifier driving a small cube subwoofer…..
“This new modular home theatre system from Arcam could be called plug-and-play, though it’s the dealer who’ll be doing the plugging, putting the DAVE (Digital Audio Video Entertainment) module into an Alpha 10 integrated amplifier, and configuring a 10P basic amplifier by adding in the same internal space an additional Power Amplifier Module (PAM) for the centre channel…”
“Until now, this Canadian company has relied on its several stereo models, its 4-channel (8B/$3500), and 3-channel (5B/$3050) amplifiers to feed the growing home theatre market. But with the powered subwoofer now a fixture, and discrete 5-channel surround sound coming on fast, Bryston decided it had to provide a matching power amplifier…”
“ATI (Amplifier Technology Inc.) is a California company that is said to have been in the amplifier business for 30 years, perhaps like Canada’s Bryston in the U.S. until recently, a well kept secret for much of that period. The ATI principals, designer Morris Kessler and partner Mike Pontelle, both come from SAE, Pontelle a former partner at that company, too. Well, now they have distribution up here, with a very specific product line: amplifiers, all identical except for the number of channels. The 1502 is a stereo amp, while the 1504 reviewed here is 4 channels…”
