Serhan Swift mu2 loudspeakers at Bristol

Greetings and welcome to a belated February Newsletter #25; belated mainly due to post-Bristol sickness and the pure distraction of listening to a pair of Kudos Titan 505 standmounted speakers, that may well be this reviewer’s first purchase after a lottery win!  Plot spoiler!

News this Month

It has been a busy month, dominated by the return of the aforementioned Bristol HiFi Show, last week.  The show report is here.  Highlights included the Serham Swift mu2 loudspeakers in the Leema Room and the launch of the Moor Amps Ascalon 8 loudspeakers.

HF&MS is celebrating 10 Years in HiFi this month, February, it has been a fun and joyful ride and many of the highlights of these 10 years were

Celebrating Ten Years

celebrated in the HF&MS Best Ever Awards, back in December.  We do wonder, however, how long the site will go with the emergence of the AI engine ChatGPT, there are others too.  HF&MS asked the AI engine to write a review of a recently reviewed product. We chose the excellent Cyrus Audio Classic Amp as it was very recent.

ChatGPT, however, was singularly unable to give an opinion on the Cyrus Audio Classic Amp, preferring to say, ” As an AI language model, I cannot provide subjective opinions or personal experiences. However, based on available reviews and feedback…”  There is hope for HF&MS yet.  What do you think about the AI review, linked here?

New Reviews

As eluded to, this month has seen a review of the very excellent Cyrus Audio Classic Amp.  This review was followed by a look at the same amplifier with its matching external power supply.  The Cyrus Audio PSX-R2 certainly added to the Classic Amp presentation, we said:

Clearly, the PSX-R2 is adding a further layer of subtlety to this excellent Classic Amp

Triangle’s Duetto loudspeaker. Are these the best-ever binding posts?

These reviews were a sighter for an upcoming look at the new Cyrus Audio PSU-XR, which should happen in the coming weeks.  The external XR power supply will hopefully come with the CDt-XR which was a Best of 2022 highlight of last year!

Coming Up

Also coming up in March will be a review of probably the best-looking speakers to have passed through HF&MS in 10 years, the Triangle Magellan Duetto loudspeaker.  Additionally, they have the very best binding posts ever encountered here at HF&MS.

Also coming soon, finally, will be a review of the Kudos Titan 505 loudspeakers, as noted above they are show stoppers, in liquid amber.

There are reviews coming of the new Rega ELEX integrated amplifier, which is very exciting and punchy.  Separately there is a look at PSBs iQ Alpha BluOS speakers.

After Bristol, HF&MS was contacted by Graham Nalty at Black Rhodium and invited to listen to their Charleston loudspeaker cable.  This really will be something to look forward to as it is very expensive and well-regarded. The cable may coincide with the arrival of the Serham Swift mu2 loudspeakers which will make the Bristol HiFi Show a productive day indeed.

Look out too for some more videos as HF&MS moves onto the ‘second biggest search engine in the world’!

New Music

This month has seen new releases from Inhaler, who are Dublin-based rockers (they’re kids really), and Radiohead’s Philip Selway.  His album Strange Dance is

Strange Dance by Philip Selway

beautiful, give Check for Signs of Life a listen as a minimum.  Also on rotation here at HF&MS is the Montreax Years Etta James CD that is in fact an MQA-CD so it needs to be played with a CD transport to get the full effect with a suitable MQA’d DAC.  It is crystal clear.

Music Interludes

Hopefully, regular readers will have noticed that reviews are now being accompanied by a bespoke playlist, inspired by the review process.  The first playlist was with the Bluesound Edge which inspired a Frankie Goes to Hollywood office revival afternoon.  That Qobuz playlist is here.  The Cyrus Audio Classic Amp playlist is here.  You can see what happens with these playlists and it really just reflects the moment in time of a review when listening goes down the musical memories ‘mixtape’ wormhole!  Here’s a preview of the Triangle Magellan Duetto playlist!