You may not have heard much about Soulnote but that is soon going to change. This bespoke passionate company, headed by ex-Marantz genius Hideki Kato in Kanawara on the outskirts of Tokyo, first came to our attention in the Spring of last year when our friends and UK importers Kog Audio lent us a small unassuming and modestly priced £6800 Integrated amplifier named the A2. We had a brief listen and were quite startled at the performance for the money. We also put it into a customer home up against a secondhand Vitus 010 integrated. The Vitus is a very [...]

Its taken over 40 years for digital to match or indeed exceed the best vinyl setups. Now at last with the WADAX Atlantis Reference we have CD, file and streaming playback which can be as vivid, as dynamic and as alive as the best pressings played on the worlds best turntables using the finest phono preamps. But it comes at great cost, around £250,000 of Streamer/DAC and optical interface as a starting point, in excess for £500,000 for the whole hog. This elucidates an important point. At the very upper end digital costs a lot more than the very best [...]