Many years ago, before Australian Hi-Fi and Sound+Image magazines joined Future Publishing Australia to become the Australian wing of whathifi.com, we had a little Australian website called AVHub. For more than a decade this carried select reviews, news and features from our publications, but after the handover and the transfer of a few key reviews, AVHub was shut down; today the URL redirects to our growing population of post-2019 reviews right here at whathifi.com/au.
So much lost material! Yet we know that past reviews are a very useful resource for those checking out secondhand equipment, or comparing their current kit to new releases. We do have our own full back-up of AVHub, almost certainly still safe, on a drive somewhere in a box somewhere. So can we revive the reviews for public consumption?
No need. All hail the Internet Archive, the American non-profit organisation that runs archive.org, crawling and preserving webpages past and present. Its Wayback Machine maintains most AVHub reviews intact, or lacking only a few graphics. Often for Australian Hi-Fi reviews these include the full bench test measurements as well as the reviews. Missing, however, are the linked PDF versions sometimes included, which were hosted offline
So while not pre-judging any copyright issues involved here (the copyright belongs to Future), we can at least point to the positions and content of AVHub reviews from the past, for those seeking the information. For example…
Linn Selekt DSM network music player REVIEW
"Generational change occurs in technology, as it does in populations. Linn, once described as “Scotland’s only leading cool brand”, provides examples of both. The company’s founder, Ivor Tiefenbrun, leveraged his father’s precision engineering company to set Linn in motion with a precision-designed turntable notable for a new patented point bearing. (The Linn company logo, largely unchanged over the following 44 years, represents that point bearing defined in Ivor’s father’s patent, the key detail being pictured right, marked '20'.)" Click to read the full archived review
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McIntosh MA252 hybrid integrated amplifier REVIEW
"The McIntosh MA252 integrated amplifier is the first hybrid integrated amplifier this world-famous American company has ever built. That’s an important statement given that McIntosh has been building amplifiers for 60 years. So the McIntosh MA252 has been 60 years coming… was it worth the wait?" Click to read the full archived review
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NAD T 758 v3 AV receiver with BluOS REVIEW
"It’s been six years since we reviewed NAD’s T 757 receiver — has it taken so long for the T 758 to appear? That seems like a long time between models. But it turns out that this is not just a NAD T 758, but a NAD T 758 v.3. And apart from amplifiers that have similar specifications to that long ago model, very little is the same." Click to read the full archived review
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Naim ND 555 network player REVIEW
"As we lugged three boxes — two large heavy ones, and a medium lighter one — from the car up the many steps to the music room, we couldn’t help thinking that this seemed a lot of weight for a streaming source. The heavier boxes contained not one but two required components — Naim’s new top-of-the-heap ND 555 network player itself, and then the CD 555 PS, a unit for which the suffix is more descriptive than the prefix, it being the required standalone power supply as supplied for review (this was the DR version, now redesignated the 555 PS DR, which is a requisite for the ND 555, and costs an additional $13,250)." Click to read the full archived review
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PSB Speakers M4U 8 Bluetooth NC headphones REVIEW
"A Swedish headphone reviewer, an American headphone reviewer and an Australian headphone reviewer walk into a bar. As the drinks evolve into dinner, talk turns, unsurprisingly, to headphones. “If you could have only one pair of headphones,” asks the charmingly elfin American reviewer, “what would it be?” All three consider carefully, before the Australian (your writer here) suggests the M4U 2, made by Canada’s PSB Speakers. “Yes!”, concur the Swede and American, who offer no further advance on this suggestion. So that’s quite the international recommendation." Click to read the full archived review
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Yamaha Aventage RX-A3080 REVIEW
"Yamaha’s latest top-of-the-line Aventage integrated AV receiver sees essentially the same performance as last year’s RX-A3070, but with some welcome enhancements." Click to read the full archived review
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Yamaha MusicCast VINYL 500 networked turntable REVIEW
"Yes, ladies and gentlemen, roll up roll up, come see this freak of the hi-fi world — a turntable that does Tidal... and Spotify... and internet radio and high-res network streaming. A turntable that has AirPlay and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and Ethernet. You can plug it into an amplifier, but you can equally send its output wirelessly to speakers all around the home, and have everything under app control (except, er, changing the record). All this, and it plays vinyl too. It’s the wonder of the age!" Click to read the full archived review
B&W 606 Loudspeakers Review & Test
Australian Hi-Fi Magazine Nov/Dec 2018 (Vol 49 No 6)
"It has been eight years since British manufacturer B&W first developed its ‘Continuum’ cone material for use in its flagship loudspeakers, the 800 Series Diamond models, and it’s been six years since B&W released its first ‘Six’ series.
"Why mention both events?
"Because this year, for the first time, Continuum cones have been integrated into the sixth generation of the company’s critically acclaimed ‘Six Series’. The first Six Series speaker to arrive in Australia was the B&W 606 and, thanks to the help of Bowers & Wilkins Australia, a sample from the very first shipment was sent direct to Australian Hi-Fi Magazine for review." Click to read the full archived review
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B&W DB1D Subwoofer Review & Test
Australian Hi-Fi Magazine Jan/Feb 2019 (Volume 50 Number 1)
"Fact. The DB1D is the most powerful active subwoofer B&W has ever made. And if that fact doesn’t get your blood racing, how about that it has a low-frequency response that stretches down below 9Hz, as well as the ability to comfortably generate a sound pressure level of 92dBSPL across the pass band with negligible distortion?
"If you know something about subwoofers, you’re probably wondering how B&W manages high SPLs, low distortion and extended low-frequency performance simultaneously, since the three are usually mutually exclusive, as in if you optimise any two, you can’t expect the third." Click to read the full archived review
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Nagra CDP CD player Review & Test
Australian Hi-Fi Magazine May/June 2018 (Vol 49 No 3)
"Nagra’s CDP player is like no other CD player you have seen before, because the front panel display is built into the CD drawer, the front of which does not close flush with the front panel, as with most drawer-style CD mechanisms, but sits proud of it. It’s also small… so small that the face of the remote control is almost larger than the front of the CDP." Click to read the full archived review
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Parasound JC 3 Jnr Phono Preamp Review & Test
Australian Hi-Fi Magazine Sept/Oct 2018 (Vol 49 No 5)
"Maybe Parasound should provide ‘Work in Progress’ signs with its JC 3 phono preamplifier, because it’s definitely a work in progress, with both Parasound’s owner, Richard Schram and his designer, John Curl, now on the third iteration, with both apparently unwilling to jettison the original ‘JC 3’ model number. So in the beginning there was the JC3, which begat the JC 3+, which begat the JC 3 Jnr. However, the JC3 is no more, leaving only the JC 3+ and the JC 3 Jnr extant." Click to read the full archived review
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Revel Concerta2 M16 Loudspeakers Review & Test
Australian Hi-Fi Magazine Nov/Dec 2018 (Vol 49 No 6)
"One of the trickiest ongoing problems for any speaker designer is not so much getting the speakers they design to sound good—though that can be pretty tricky!—as making sure that they don’t sound so good that they cannibalise the sales of higher-priced models in the company’s own speaker range.
"That’s certainly a problem that Revel Concerta2 M16’s designer Mark Glazer would have faced when he was updating the original Concerta Series to Concerta2 status, because he wouldn’t have wanted to take sales away from the similar—but higher-priced—Revel Performa3 M105s. Yet at the same time it was also his job to make the Concerta2 M16s better-sounding, better-performing speakers than similarly-priced models from Revel’s competitors of which, at this popular and affordable price point, it must be said that there are a good many… and then some!" Click to read the full archived review
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Vitus Audio RI-101 Integrated Amplifier Review & Test
Australian Hi-Fi Magazine Nov/Dec 2018 (Volume 49 No 6)
"Eight years is a long time in the high-end audio business. But that’s how long Vitus Audio had its RI-100 integrated in its amplifier line-up, so you’d have to assume that the company’s founder and head designer Hans Ole Vitus was so happy with it that he didn’t see any need for an update… until now, that is, since he’s replaced it with the RI-101." Click to read the full archived review
Check back here for future archive reveals!
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