Hi-Fi News and Record Review

Hi-Fi News & Record Review has been a trusted source of expert reviews since its debut in June 1956, which was two years prior to the advent of commercial stereo sound. This publication is dedicated to deepening our appreciation for music by exploring the finest audio equipment available for avid listeners. Each edition of Hi-Fi News features comprehensive reviews of premium audio gear, covering everything from top-tier vinyl players to classic vintage equipment that shaped the audio landscape. It's a must-read for anyone passionate about music.

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The scent of success

3 weeks ago | hifinews.com | Peter Quantrill

A big prize for a contemporary composer – from an unexpected source – has Peter Quantrill wondering why we don’t see more cross-pollination and mutual recognition between art formsIn the UK, at least, Chanel is still known first and foremost as a signifier of French chic, whether in the image of Coco, or the perfume bottles reassuring husbands of a duty fulfilled, or in the handbags bought by women to please themselves.
A visit to MSB

3 weeks ago | hifinews.com | Barry Willis

Hi-fi manufacturer MSB has a boutique offering of high-end DACs and power amplifiers, all designed, assembled and evaluated at its California HQ. Barry Willis went behind the scenesThe simple white building in Watsonville, California offers not a hint about what takes place inside – the design and production of some of the world’s most advanced audio gear, including three models of digital-to-analogue converters, four models of power amplifiers, and various accessories.
Gershwin Rhapsody In Blue

3 weeks ago | hifinews.com | Peter Quantrill

In this genre-melting, career-defining piece, the composer hoped to capture America’s ‘pep’ and ‘metropolitan madness’. Peter Quantrill surveys a century of recordings Imagine being George Gershwin [pictured above, in 1937]. There you are at breakfast one day in January 1924, chewing over ideas for your next musical, when your brother reads out an announcement in the newspaper. The impresario Paul Whiteman has arranged a concert on 12 February.
Classical, May 2025

3 weeks ago | hifinews.com | Peter Quantrill

Jonathan Aasgaard, BBC Scottish SO, John WilsonRichard Rodney Bennett: Concerto For Orchestra, Sonnets To Orpheus, DiversionsChandos CHSA5266 (SACD; downloads to 96kHz/24-bit resolution)RR Bennett’s legacy needed addressing properly, after his death in 2012, and John Wilson is unquestionably the man for the job. Here by turns is Bennett the modernist, the post-Romantic and the entertainer, and Wilson has the measure of all three disparate idioms.
Audiophile: Digital, May 2025

3 weeks ago | hifinews.com | Ken Kessler

RICK WAKEMANYessonataFragile Records FRICD101For those who think my reviews are biased, I am neither a Yes nor a Wakeman fan per se, and an album with two suites consisting of solo piano is hardly my usual fare. For that matter, it’s not even particularly Yes-sy despite being an adaptation for solo piano of his ‘The YES Suite’ consisting of themes from the band and which has proven a hit in concert.
Audiophile: Vinyl, May 2025

3 weeks ago | hifinews.com | Ken Kessler

Johnnie TaylorOne Step From The BluesStax/Craft CR00803 (180g vinyl)A dozen perfectly remastered tracks from Taylor’s time at Stax (1967–74) focused on the bluesier side of this soul singer’s output, just as the title declares. Taylor, for my money, ranks with the very best, up there with Pickett, Tate and Wilson. This set shows just how skilled he was away from straight soul belting, as with his big hit ‘Who’s Making Love’.
Audiostatic Monolith II loudspeaker

1 month ago | hifinews.com | John Atkinson

Audiostatic Monolith II loudspeakerJohn Atkinson | May 24, 2025 | First Published: Nov 1, 2024 John Atkinson clears space for a towering full-range electrostatic speaker from the Netherlands as Audiostatic’s Monolith II lands on UK shoresBlame Stanley Kubrick. Until 2001 burst onto our cinema screens, the lay conception of outer space had settled down as a mixture of flying saucers and little green men. Why green? Why little?
Classical, November 2024

1 month ago | hifinews.com | Peter Quantrill

Březina, Briscein, Prague National Theatre/Jaroslav KyzlinkJanáček: The Excursions Of Mr BroučekSupraphon SU4339-2 (two CDs; downloads to 48kHz/24-bit resolution)Janáček’s loopiest and most neglected opera – Al Murray’s Pub Landlord goes to the Moon, in a nutshell – has long needed a modern Czech recording. Opera recordings often don’t work out this way, but here you get the best of both worlds.
Audiophile: Digital, November 2024

1 month ago | hifinews.com | Ken Kessler

Steely DanPretzel LogicAnalogue Productions CAPP136SAPredictable for Album of the Month? Of course, but if Steely Dan is one of the default artists for audiophiles, like The Band and The Eagles, it’s because the music is exceptional and the sound superb. Their third album, from 1974, maintained the quality of its predecessors and steered the band on a jazzier course.
Top 20 surround sound albums

1 month ago | hifinews.com | Ken Kessler

Top 20 surround sound albumsKen Kessler | May 24, 2025 | First Published: Nov 1, 2024 From Mingus to Mancini, The O’Jays to The Doors, Ken Kessler brings you an audiophile’s A-list of 20 brand-new surround sound albums ready to wrap you in all their 360° gloryParaphrasing Mark Twain when he read his obituary, reports of the death of surround sound are greatly exaggerated.