Hi-Fi+

Florence, Italy. 8 July 2026 – Volumio, the leading audio software platform for music streaming and playback, today announced the launch of the third generation of Primo, the company’s beloved first streaming DAC. Primo V3 is a streaming DAC completely reinvented around Volumio’s latest engineering solutions to set a new standard for Volumio’s streaming DAC range.

7 July 2026 – Furutech’s top-of-range Project series of cables features a host of the company’s own groundbreaking technologies and patented designs, married with the finest quality materials.

While car analogies are massively overused, they work here. Most drive units are a little like production saloons. They are perfectly designed for broad-spectrum motoring skills. That means a suspension and drivetrain that let you take your eyes off the wheel long enough to sneeze without finding yourself in a ditch. Compare this to the British Touring Car Championship, or NASCAR.

Which leads us to Mr Luck and Ms Doom, the band’s fourth album, and in some respects, their best yet. It’s also, rather surprisingly, occasionally upbeat in places. Yes, it is still populated by a cast of dropouts, down-at-heel characters, petty criminals, the lovelorn, and the bereft, but occasionally, this album allows a little bit of southern sunlight to poke through the otherwise all-encompassing bar room at noon gloom. The opening title track, sets up the subject matter for the whole record.

The unique thing here is that, while most network filters are in-line devices that sit between the network switch and the streamer, the Macro G works in parallel. It connects directly to the router and switch – but not between them. Although this is an audio product review, my first experience of the Macro G’s impact was via my TV system. I run the television from a Sky Q box. However, its sound is routed through my two-channel audio system via the DAC section of a classic Yamaha CD-S3000.

To achieve this constant directivity, Silent Pound uses a 25mm compression driver tweeter flanked by two 160mm midrange units in their own enclosure. This meshes perfectly with the drivers below. From the front, everything appears normal, and you might mistake it for a regular floorstander. Then you notice that the Challenger II loudspeaker is barely deeper than the magnet assembly behind the driver basket. That’s because the company’s specially made 300mm bass drivers operate in an open baffle.

Naturally, the construction of the SR-X1 is intended to suspend a driver above each ear while ensuring reasonable comfort. However, ‘design’ does not appear to have unduly concerned Stax. ‘Old-school’ is a fitting description of the SR-X1’s appearance. Weighing 234g without cables, this pair of ‘earspeakers’ is among the lightest designs I’ve come across – largely because most of the exterior is made from lightweight but otherwise ordinary plastic.

The Scala Utopia Evo M continues Focal’s tradition of excellence with French design and production. The wooden cabinet is made by the brand’s cabinetmakers in Burgundy, combining precision craftsmanship with exacting acoustic standards, while the drivers are manufactured at its acoustic workshops in Saint-Étienne. Its patented technologies also originated in France, including the most recent: PRISM.

Those looking for some classic piano trio playing will love ‘Bag’, here Arild Andersen on bass and Gard Nilssen on drums join the fray to start off in typical jazz style before wandering into what some might consider prog rock terrain, with some lovely improv from the man at the piano.

Entreq focuses on the ‘magnetics’ manifested as electromagnetic interference as well as radio frequency interference. The sources of this interference come from other internal components, but increasingly from external sources as well. Thus, Entreq’s grounding products attract and absorb that noise through their matched connection cables. I have experienced that Entreq grounding boxes and cables need to be carefully matched to your system because every hi-fi system is different.