Sonus faber Pryma 01

Few will dispute that Sonus faber’s entry into the headphone scene is destined to become a design classic. But does its sound quality match those sumptuous looks?

It had to happen. Sooner or later, Sonus faber – creator of some of the most stylish loudspeakers on the planet – would surely follow in the footsteps of other speaker manufacturers – B&W, KEF, Klipsch, etc – in turning its hand to headphones. The result, the £380 Pryma (designated Pryma 01), is intriguing for being both predictable and delightfully unpredictable, all in one.

What’s predictable is that the closedback, over-ear Pryma is a looker: the sort of headphone product that many will fall in love with the moment they set eyes on it. Plus it is solidly constructed and immaculately finished – as you’d also expect of Sonus faber.

Melco N1-ZH60

Japanese IT giant Melco has the desire and scale to deliver truly bespoke audiophile storage and server solutions. Will its latest, middle-of-range model hit the sweet spot?

So you’ve bought one of the many world-class USB DACs/network streaming players and have it connected via USB to your desktop or laptop computer, or even networked via your home hub. Really? Our own experience suggests that while ‘data is data’ there are sufficient causes of interference and jitter from circulating noise, including RF earth currents, and invasive traffic from ISP-supplied network routers, to prompt very measurable differences in performance once this data is finally crunched through an outboard DAC.