SolaHD’s DC UPS features DIN Rail mounting capabilities, high MTBF, UL 508, CE and FCC compliance. Battery performance is degraded by over and undercharging. For enhanced reliability, the SDU-series is fitted with a microprocessor brain that enables the unit’s power charger to maintain the 24-volt charge needed for maximum battery life.
Heat is another enemy of battery performance.
The DC UPS enclosure was designed to protect the battery in operating temperatures as high as +50°C. Modular, rugged industrial grade design Microprocessor-based controls Automatic self-test feature for UPS function and battery management check

DISTINGUISHING YOUR Freeview recorder from the crowd is not easy, so View21 (a brand from Goodmans maker, Harvard International) has made the VV107ZRH32W  unusually small, crammed in a twin-tuner recording HD Freeview receiver with a 320GB hard drive (or 500GB for £20 more), and added streaming TV via Wi-fi to apps on your phone or tablet.
This is the second streaming Freeview recorder in the View21 stable, after the WV11FVRHF50 and it’s both better and cheaper.


Build and connectivity
The recorder is very slim and as deep as it is wide. All black, with only the power button/light on the front, it’s a lot prettier than  its predecessor.
Around the back is the aerial input and loopthrough output. An HDMI port is partnered with a coax S/PDIF digital audio output and the only other connections are a USB socket for software updates and an
Ethernet to link to your network and the internet (Wi-fi is built in).
The remote control is reasonably classy looking; a decent size, and not over busy with buttons, it has a nice shiny black front and chrome trim around the arrow key cluster.
It sits in the hand comfortably and is slim enough to operate one handed. There are some anomalies in the layout; the mute button is almost uniquely at the bottom of the button array and the playback controls are strewn around the cursor cluster (which is not very positive in action), while the section access buttons (Menu, Library, Guide, Back, Exit) are huddled together where it’s less easy to stab at the right one.
However, you soon get to know the handset’s foibles and using the View21 is not seriously aff ected.

Setup
This receiver is almost plug-and-play. A wizard leads you through the process in a couple of minutes.
Alarmingly, the onscreen message warns the channel search will take eight minutes, but we found that it actually took only about 2.5 minutes to fi ll its Freeview channel list.
The View21 detects a wired Ethernet connection and the DHCP automatic settings take care of initialising the network, otherwise Wi-fi setup is started. Either way, you’re up and running in seconds (although entering the Wi-fi security code could be a less tedious process).

Basic use
The View21 is simple in everydayuse.  Not only is there an excellent Sky-like information banner and pop-up synopsis panel, with which you can browse what’s on the channels, but it also provides a decent Guide (EPG) and Library (for recordings and online content).
There is no simple channel list –and you don’t really miss it.
The channel order in the EPG cannot be altered, but the format can. You can have three, seven or 11 channels on the grid, with a synopsis displayed with the seven-channel option and available as a pop up on the others. The Guide button cycles through the formats and the default can be set elsewhere.

These handy free companion apps let you schedule recordings on your set-top box and more besides

1 SKY+ APP –Operate your Sky+ on the move
AVAILABLE FOR iOS and compatible Android mobiles and tablets, Sky+ owners can use this app to control their box and schedule recordings. They can also instigate downloads from On Demand, browse the TV guide, search and more.


2 VIRGIN TV– Got TiVo? You’ll probably be wanting this then
THIS APP for iOS and (selected) Android devices  can act as a remote for TiVo boxes, lets you schedule recordings and browse the guide up to  14 days ahead. On certain devices you can also stream live TV.


3 FREESAT APP– Freesat’s Freetime in the palm of your hand
CURRENTLY FOR iOS devices only, if you have a  Freetime box you can use this app as a remote control and to manage or schedule recordings.
The Freetime EPG and an On Demand section are included.

ENCAPSULATING THE appeal of the soon-to-be released Simple.TV (a network tuner box that can be used to record as well as distribute Freeview programmes),Mark Ely CEO and founder of US company Simple.TV told Wotsat:“The way our service works – which is diff erent from most DVRs – is rather than just having a standalone box that you control with the remote,this is really a video capture source
and a server”.

It connects to your router/home network via Ethernet and has two tuners that can be used to record two high-defi  nition or standard-defi nition channels at the same time by adding a USB drive (support for NAS drives is in the offi ng).
It can also be used to distribute live and recorded TV serving fi ve  diff erent connected devices at once including via the internet while  out of the home. Users can timeshift,schedule recordings and download them to certain devices.
A 14-day EPG for Freeview channels with metadata provided by Gracenote can be used for scheduling recordings.
As well as watching on PCs and Macs with a web browser, you can watch on iOS (iPad and iPhone) or Android(phones and tablets) devices with a Simple.TV app installed, Roku streamersusing a Simple.TV channel and Apple TV.
Support for Google’s Chromecast is promised with plans to accommodate Amazon Fire TV and potentially smart TVs (Ely hopes the service could  one day beintegrated into TVs) in the future.

Cloud-based
Streaming outside of the home,downloading and automatic series recording will require a ‘Premier Service’subscription, with pricing  that is expected to cost £2.99/month.
A possibly subscription-based,cloud-based storage option for recordings “is something we’re looking at in the next 12 months,” says European sales and marketing director David Burton.
Due for release this summer, the price of the box is yet to be confi rmed (“anywhere between £99 and £149, we don’t know exactly where it’s going to wind up” says Ely). There are also plans to release a satellite version at some point in the near future.

SKY+ HD owners can now purchase movies from its Sky Store service as well as renting them.
The ‘Buy & Keep’ option entitles customers to download the film to connected boxes and also receive a DVD copy in the post 3-5 days afterwards.

It includes brand new titles such as recent additions The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and Turbo with pricing ranging from £7.99 to £13.99. A Sky subscription is required to watch downloaded fi lms.
Sky said that over the next year it will enable customers to watch fi lms they’ve bought on smartphones and tablets.
It is planning to introduce a ‘Buy & Keep’ option for TV box sets in future and enable non-Sky customers to buy content through the Sky Store website.
It is also trialling a service that enables customers to use its Twitter tweets to set recordings on their Sky+HD box and jump to watching live TV available on Sky Go on compatible devices. A #WatchOnSky tool featured across its Twitter feeds including for @SkyHD and @SkyAtlantic for “key shows, sporting events and movies ” has selectable buttons for both features labelled Watch and Record.
A Sky iD is required and Sky+ boxes must be linked to this to enable the recording feature. The Sky+ app has also been updated with a new Homepage and highlights carousel and the ability to turn Sky+HD boxes on or off .
Sky is currently rolling out a new Homepage for Sky+HD boxes with further updates planned for later in the year including a “new and smarter approach to recommendations, based on Sky+ Planner recordings and downloads”.

The first rule of hot-rodding is “start from a good base.”
Working with an already excellent donor product gives
one a canvas upon which great things can be based.
Sadly, that maxim seems entirely lost on a neighbour’s son,
who seems intent on ‘pimping up’ a clapped-out
Vauxhall Nova, but Audiocom has taken the idea to heart.
The company takes the very well respected OPPO multistandard disc platform and uses it as a
basis for its own transformations, in this  case creating the OPPO BDP-105D Audiocom Signature.
This is not unheard of, but Audiocom plays it very honestly.
The company does not try to hoodwink people by rebadging and repackaging the OPPO player, and it definitely doesn’t  try to pass off limited modifications as major changes.
Bigger brands than Audiocom have been caught playing that game before, and it ends badly.
Instead, Audiocom has been extremely honest about what it does  to the OPPO model upon which the mods are based.
This is also Audiocom’s top of the range disc player. All of Audiocom’s players are now geared as much for video as  they are for audio: a reflection of the changes in the audio market away from physical digital media.
Despite reports to the contrary, CD and SACD are not ‘dead,’ but sales of players are in the doldrums and new music-only players are a rare sight. In such a marketplace, OPPO is one of the exceptions.
Fortunately for end users, OPPO make a truly universal platform that delivers both audio and video to a very high quality  right out of the box.
And fortunately for companies using this as a base of operations,  there’s still untappedperformance in the OPPO platform that can be extracted, if you think it an audiophile device and develop important sections.
These improvements are not the kind of upgrades OPPO would put on its  own devices per se, because they would significantly increase the price of  the player, but this gives high-end brands and modding companies like Audiocom some room for manoeuvre.
Describing the base OPPO’s performance is either extremely simple, or extremely long-winded. The simple version is ‘it plays virtually every digital audio or video format you can think of (except maybe LaserDisc), and does most of them extremely well’. The long-winded version is just a list of those
audio and video formats. It’s best to think of the OPPO as a complete digital hub device, with a disc drawer on the front panel and loads of digital inputs on the back panel, plus space for a Wi-Fi dongle. It’s also highly consistent in performance, turning in top-class performance as much when playing DVDAudio
discs as it does with upscaling Blu-ray to 4K. For the record, the ‘D’ suffix in the name is short for Darbee Visual image enhancement. The one weak point in OPPO’s content wrangling is the handling of files streamed through Ethernet. The good news is current models now include gapless replay, but
the MediaControl iOS or Android app for controlling the player is still arguably something of a weak link in an otherwise very strong chain, and other apps (such as PlugPlayer) have more powerful UPnP/DLNA control. However, this is more a ‘room for improvement’ criticism, than a ‘it can’t be done’ gripe, and I
suspect that as UPnP streaming becomes more universally and internationally adopted, the BDP-105D will have firmware and app upgrades. Audiocom takes this already fine platform, and adds significant upgrades.
These include replacing the standard PSU with a custom designed linear power supply, with multiple regulated supply taps, improved mains purification (using the kind of filtration seen in Quantum boxes), the replacement of the two main clocks in the system (the main processing circuit now sports Audiocom’s
77 Femtosecond Reference clock, while the analogue audio stages feature the company’s new 37 Femtosecond Reference Audio clock to drive the ESS9018 Sabre DACs in the OPPO circuit). Audiocom also uses selected audio-grade components in the important parts of the analogue audio stage
and finally improves the mechanical and electrical isolation between stages, which is useful because the inside of a Blu-ray player competes with the inside of a computer as one of the most EMI-polluted places to deliver audio.

There’s several GHz of stray EMI floating round a typical player: OPPO does a good job in keeping this in check as standard (part of the reason OPPO players are so well liked), but Audiocom improves on this.
The net result is outstanding, almost regardless of how you choose to play your music. Starting with CD, the overall sound is dynamic, possessed of powerful bass, very clean through the midband, and expressive in the treble. It’s only when you begin to focus on how dynamic, how good that bass is,
how clean that midrange, and how expressive that treble that you begin to see just what Audiocom has on its hands. Traditionally, the CD replay of OPPO players has been on a par with good dedicated models in the £1,000-£1,500 mark. Audiocom uprates that by an order of magnitude, and suddenly it’s going
toe-to-toe with £10k-£15k players. The reason for the improvement is that where standard OPPO players seem to have the ‘texture’ of high-end players but not the resolution, this now has both in good measure. The plain-wrapper OPPO makes a sound that is exquisite and entertaining, but not the last word in analysis: this
is often better than the more common detail hound player that sounds musically bereft. But thanks to Audiocom’s hot-rod skills, it shifts up a gear or three in the detail stakes too. That puts it in among the big boys of digital audio. And best  of all, the further up the digital resolution scale you go, you just get more of the same.
Good SACDs and DVD-Audio discs (remember them?) sound better than CD versions of the same
(although this meant having to dig out old Randy Newman, Yes, Pink Floyd and Rolling Stones
albums for comparison purposes), but there is no great shift in tone, texture or detail  between the formats.
Interestingly though, arguably the most fascinating sound from the whole player came
from playing .
WAV versions of Red Book CD tracks ripped to a USB stick. Comparing .WAV vs. CD versions of Nick Cave on ‘Higgs Boson Blues’ [Push The Sky Away CD, Bad Seed Ltd] showed the USB input to offer a temporal correctness and precision that spinning disc lacked. In fairness, you need to go very far up the CD transport ladder to find anything better.
There are specific places where other players score higher points. The Audiocom
OPPO is going to sound a touch insipid compared to a good Naim CD player in an all-
Naim system, for example. Moreover, if you are trying to find a cheap version of a dCS Vivaldi
stack, there isn’t one. Instead, the breathedupon OPPO just adds another fine voice in the
£10,000-£15,000 player market. Someone just forgot to multiply the price by about five, and
we get the benefit.

The problem for a magazine like Hi-Fi+ is that many of Audiocom’s improvements to the OPPO are on the video side. Which means we need to cross the audiophile Rubicon and discuss picture quality. Fortunately, that can be expressed in short order, because what it does to audio, it also does to video. There’s
greater depth and detail to the picture, presenting strongly saturated colours when called upon to do so and more muted shades with equal aplomb. It’s not fazed by fast moving action sequences and the bête noir of any digital player (a field of grass blowing in the wind can turn into a field of green squares
moving around a screen) is handled as if there is processing to spare. In truth, the performance of the base OPPO exceeds the picture quality scope of my Sony Bravia (we are talking upscaling to 4K with ease, and my screen is not a 4K screen), but even here the improvements over ordinary Blu-ray players was
easy to spot. Upscaling DVD was particular strong, as it is in the base model. Audiocom has nowhere to hide. It supplies standard-issue OPPO BDP- 105D models, and provides performance-enhancement kits to bring existing OPPO owners products up to Signature standard, as well as supplying the
Signature as a complete package. If the improvements weren’t both audible and visible on a fairly deep level, Audiocom’s customer base would rumble this quickly. Fortunately, the Signature improvements take that already good OPPO platform and transform it into a truly world-class player. In a good system, the
Audiocom Signature version of the OPPO BDP-105D offers picture and sound quality on a par with a very lofty peer group. Highly recommended

Technical Specifications
Type: Solid-state universal/Blu-ray disc
player and DAC.
Disc Types: BD-Video and Blu-ray 3D
(BD Profile BD-ROM version 2.5), DVDVideo,
DVD-Audio, AVCHD, SACD, CD,
HDCD, Kodak Picture CD, CD-R/RW,
DVD±R/RW, DVD±R DL, BD-R/RE
Internal Storage: 1GB
Digital Inputs: Two S/PDIF inputs (one
coaxial, one optical), three USB
2.0 inputs, two HDMI inputs, three
dedicated DAC inputs (one coaxial,
one optical, and one asynchronous
USB), one Ethernet port (RJ-45), one Wi-
Fi port (via USB dongle).
Analogue Outputs: One 7.1-channel
analogue audio output (via RCA
jacks), two stereo analogue audio
outputs (one set balanced via XLRs,
one set single-ended via RCA jacks),
one headphone output (via 6.35mm
headphone jack).
Digital Outputs: Two digital audio
outputs (one coaxial, one optical), two
HDMI outputs.
DAC Resolution: (USB Audio) two
channels @ DSD 26/128 (5.6448MHz)
Frequency response: 26Hz – 30kHz
Distortion: <0.0003% (1kHz at 48k/24b,
0dBFS, 20kHz LPF), <0.0017% (1kHz at
44.1k/16b, 0dBFS, 20kHz LPF, <0.01%
into 600 Ohms (1kHz at 48k/24b, 0dBFS,
20kHz LPF, Headphone Amplifier)
Signal to Noise Ratio: >115dB
Dimensions (HxWxD): 123 x 430 x 311mm
Weight: 7.9kg
Price: £1,099 (std), £3,399 (modified)
Original Manufacturer/UK Distributor:
Oppo BD UK, Ltd.
URL: www.oppo-bluray.co.uk

We’ve come a long way in a very short time. A few years ago, the audio world
was relatively stable; you bought a CD player and an amplifier, wired these to
some loudspeakers, and you were away.
Computer audio changed all that, but the real depth of that change is only just becoming
realised with products like the Active Discreet system, from Audiovector.
Audiovector supplied us with a pair of Si 3 Signature floorstanders with the Active Discreet
modules and the little plastic hub that goes with it. The Si 3 Signature is something
of a known product to the magazine; we’ve tested the Si 3, and discussed the company’s
unique upgrade path from basic Si 3 to top-notch Si 3 Avantgarde Arreté. Which means
the Signature model (mid-way in the five-step upgrade path) is a good platform upon which
to work up the Active Discreet system. However, the wireless active system can be fitted
(or retrofitted) to any one of more than 30 models in the Audiovector catalogue.


all the benefits of active drive, without the need to plug the speakers into the
mains AC power. Audiovector went with low voltage power modules inside the
loudspeakers, meaning the Active Discreet modules are driven by a bell-wire
sized connection cable between hub module and loudspeakers, which sends
both power and data. All you have to do is assign left and right channels, by
flipping a switch at the back of the loudspeaker, and everything else configures
almost automatically. The only big user adjustments involve setting the volume
ceiling for a given room and whether you want the Bluetooth pairing process to
be protected or open. Either way, you cannot have two competing Bluetooth
devices paired at once, for obvious clashing reasons.
You can control this hub through a range of remote handsets and it has
a learning function, but in most cases, given the ease of connection through
Airplay and Bluetooth means it’s probably going to be controlled from the
phone, tablet, or computer that is driving it in most cases. Functionality without
a remote, the hub is fairly basic; just one multi-colour LED to denote source.
While the combination of Bluetooth and Class D might bring some
audiophiles out in a case of hives, those of us who listen to stuff instead of
judge it on specifications alone will find much to like here. In some respects,
once you set aside the amp and Wi-Fi prejudices, Audiovector’s system is
more like a scaled-down version of the Linn Exakt concept without the hoop-la
and the high price. And, in fairness, without the room correction options, too.
This had to be one of the least fussy installations around. Once the
speakers were in place, the cables connected up, and the Si 3s learned whether
they were left or right loudspeakers, we were streaming from a phone in under
a minute. And the sound was actually damn good. You could definitely hear
the typical Audiovector strengths of precision, focus, good rhythmic properties,
a tight bass and an ability to play loud without strain, and the active speaker
wasn’t giving much away next to the passive version in a good system. There is
some upper mid graininess and a slight tendency toward leanness shown here
more than with the passive versions, but the overall effect is mild.
I found the Discreet to be remarkably good at picking up a wireless
signal of any sort. It was also good at holding it. Dropouts were rare even in
an environment shown to be typically hostile to wireless signals. Pushing it
to the limit, trying to get Bluetooth to work at the limits of reception still did
well, until the inevitable Dalek-like sonic freezes took over. Nevertheless, by
comparison to most wireless connections used in audio, Discreet is militarygrade
in its reliability.
OK, so the further you get from the absolute pinnacle of well-massaged
digital high-res files squirted along wired channels directly into the hub, the
further you get from the absolute benchmark of sound, but what’s surprising
is even the worst case possible (streaming a live feed through a relatively lowpower
3G phone signal with 128kbps MP3 from a Deezer mobile account
through regular Bluetooth, because the iPhone doesn’t do AptX) isn’t
anywhere near as bad as we’ve been led to believe. Yes, freshly squeezed,
organically-grown, super-sized digits made by craggy-faced craftsmen are
more listenable over the long term, but I could call on the entire canon of
modern music from my mobile phone and more than enjoy the experience

has traditionally enjoyed a close association with Naim: for good reason – the
two go well together. No-one already using a Naim system would upgrade to
the Active Discreet, because it doesn’t have the drive, the energy, and the sheer
grip of good Naim equipment. That’s not exclusive to Naim, and good though
the Discreet system is, realistically those driving Audiovectors with muscular
electronics are very liable to stay with the muscular electronics. However, part of
this reticence to give up old paradigms comes down to familiarity.
The other side of the story is there’s an increasing move away from lots
of components, even among audiophiles, and the Discreet takes that to the
limit. The system is just one small box about the size of a paperback (to future
generations, a ‘paperback’ is a Kindle played on period instruments), designed
for hiding. The rest is loudspeakers, and tiny wires that are also easily hidden. I
can see these speakers flanking many a TV set.
There’s a move to add active circuitry to systems (compare this with the
ELAC Air-X system also in this issue), but this doesn’t quite fit that bill. Every
other active system I’ve encountered relies on the loudspeaker having two sets
of cable, one of which is a power cord. That locks the speaker into parts of
the room where there are power outlets, and in some brick-built buildings, just
adding another couple of sockets is no easy task. These more conventional
active designs might have a slight edge when it comes to sheer grunt, but you
lose in terms of flexibility next to Discreet.
A loudspeaker company might seem an unlikely agent for change in the way we
access our music from today’s sources,but if any brand were likely to drive change
in the market, it would be Audiovector.
No other brand can take people through a range of systematic upgrades in the same
loudspeaker cabinet, so the idea of making the next step and upgrading the way the
sound arrives to that loudspeaker is a natural one.
While the concept is not for everyone,the Active Discreet modules are an exciting
adjunct to a fine line of loudspeakers. This is how tomorrow sounds.
Type: 3-way, three-driver, floorstanding
speaker with active drive and separate
control module.
Driver complement: One 30mm 3rd
generation Evotech low compression
Audiovector soft dome, two 165mm
carbon sandwich composite long
throw mid/bass drivers.
Inputs: analogue line RCA and 2x S/
PDIF connections, plus Ethernet, USB
and Bluetooth/Airplay wireless on Hub.
2x 4mm speaker terminal connections
on hub and speakers
Crossover frequencies: 210Hz, 3kHz
Frequency response: 27Hz – 27kHz
Impedance: N/A
Sensitivity: N/A (3x 70W Class D
amplifiers driving loudspeakers)
Dimensions (HxWxD): 1030 x 190 x 330mm
Weight: 21kg/each
Finishes: Cherry, maple, walnut, rosewood,
black ash, gloss white, gloss black.
Price: £6,750/pair
Manufacturer: Audiovector
URL: www.audiovector.com