AV News & Reviews NZ – Audio Visual & Home Theatre Blog

After several weeks of driving the Luxman L-590AX MKII in power amp mode with the Holo Audio Azure preamplifier, the time had come to start doing this with a preamplifier of the same caliber as the Luxman. It took some patience  (something I am short of), because this new preamplifier in the Holo Audio range took around…

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Step inside any high street electronics retailer and the chances are that all of the speaker systems and consumer amplifiers that you find are based on transistors (except Rapallo). Yet among enthusiasts and hi-fi customers, the valve amplifier is still incredibly popular and desirable. To the untrained eye, valve amplifiers are a thing of marvel…

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Each day we get asked, which is better Balanced Vs Single Ended Audio Cables? So hopefully this week’s blog will answer some of the questions we get and help you make a decisions for your system. “Balanced” is a term that crops up frequently nowadays across our industry. A lot of manufacturers are now fitting…

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Meet the Luxman’s. We just recently we signed a new partnership with Luxman NZ, this is a brand with huge heritage, there is not an audio enthusiast on the planet who hasn’t heard of Luxman, to call the brand iconic is an understatement The history of the LUXMAN audio brand began in 1925, at the…

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What’s more important: your source or your speakers? This week we wanted to start with the our most common HiFi related question, this also transfers over into the realm of Home Theater, so without further ado lets delve right in, The argument over which is most important in your audiophile system–your source component(s) or your…

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Read A Guide To Buying The Right DAC For You. How to choose a digital-to-analog converter for home or portable audio use? It has never been easier to discover new music, fire up a favorite song, or unearth a forgotten gem from your back-catalogue. That’s all good… but how do you get the best sound…

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Getting Sound Throughout The House… imagine seamless sound flowing evenly through every room in your home — such is the experience of multi-room wireless speaker systems. With the advancements in wireless audio, creating a haven of a home-sound ecosystems, it has never been easier thanks to smart device control and the leveraging of mobile app…

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Meet the Staff – Bensan – A huge part of Rapallo is our staff, as we are only a small team. All our team are crucial to the operation of the business but more importantly, they are the people that deal with you… our customer.  In-depth information, the right advice, and always-available support are all…

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The LFE effect is present on many Hollywood blockbusters and the general expectation of impressive bass in such movies. When it comes to movie watching, we want to both hear and feel the action. But, what about adding subwoofers to your music at home, have you considered that?

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Pre- packaged Home Theatre packages are a great option for homes where you want a non-permanent installation or something that can be moved about the house from time to time.

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Folded Motion Tweeters are a variation of speakers that is used to produce very high frequency sounds, as in the tweeters (but you knew that anyway right?) They differ quite a bit in design and function from a standard dome tweeter you’d find on most of the mainstream brands of speakers. The Folded Motion Tweeter…

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Not paying attention to these basic HiFi system tweaks, you’ll never get the best performance out of the components you already own.

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Meet Magnat. Sound Champions. Recently we took on a new brand, not a new audio company as you will read below, but a new company to Rapallo called Magnat. Meet Magnat. Sound Champions. After having some demo stock delivered, we got to listen and experience the brand and its products. Very rarely does an audio…

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Meet the Rapallo Staff. A huge part of Rapallo is our staff, as we are only a small team. All our team are crucial to the operation of the business but more importantly, they are the people that deal with you… our customer.  We understand that your experience and your needs are unique. We believe…

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What I was looking for was to be able to easily add two additional zones to our networked system, one for a bathroom, and another for a large office area where I was about to be working from during lockdown.

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The mysteries of a CD Transport explained. I am constantly asked whether a CD transport [an audio CD Player with a digital output] is better than an dedicated CD player. There is some confusion as one is a “transport” and one a “player”.  To the uninitiated this may sound like a taxi and a money…

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Improving Your TV’s Sound For Binge Watching At Home. The laws of physics are cruel mistresses. It is they who keep your television’s audio quality at its current inadequate standard. Today’s flat screens with their ultra-slim profiles simply don’t have the enclosure space necessary to allow speaker drivers to give you big, punchy TV sound…

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The Hugo M Scaler takes the digital file and repairs it, adding back the information lost between the samples, then it sends the repaired file to the DAC (Digital to Analogue Converter).

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Let’s face it, times are changing. As cities grow and populations increase the ideal home will no longer be the “kiwi quarter acre dream” … and its changing fast. Sound & Vision in Your Tiny Home or Apartment. Council regulations changed a few years back that allow multi-level development in residential areas. So more smaller…

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Power Conditioning – Getting the Best Sound from Your Hi-Fi & Home Theatre. How many times have you sat back in your favorite listening chair around midnight or the early hours and noted just how spectacular your hi-fi system sounds? Then have you noticed how the sound deteriorates early evening & generally most of the…

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4K or UHD – what do I choose? We get often asked when talking about home theatre or media rooms, do I need a 4k projector? Well that depends… so let’s wind back a few years to get some clarification. With HDTVs and computer monitors both approaching somewhat normal levels in pricing here in NZ,…

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Every now and again we get a little bit excited…lets meet Jeff Rowland. And just after Xmas is was just like that here @ Rapallo. This was a brand we have had in the showroom for a while that we were trialing with various setups and speakers. The outcome was, well, we loved them and there are…

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There are many different speaker technologies out there in the market, each with their advantages and disadvantages depending on the way you look at them. So, this week we delve into what is an Electrostatic speaker.

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Putting together the building blocks of a top-quality audio system is easy, but you’ve got to know the lingo and what to look for. Just jumping into the shop and asking for some big speakers isn’t going to cut it. If anything, it will only enhance the opportunity to be disappointed when you get those…

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All the hard work is done, sit back and take a look around. If you’ve got a nice backyard, a beautiful deck, or a stunning bach, then creating an effective outdoor soundscape can maximize what you can do with that space.

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The idea of an ultimate placement was the end game position, but I surmised to be a myth, a process that I believed as audio con artistry… follow our journey to placement nirvana.

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Our guide to help you achieve a high level of superb toe tapping music that is available in your pocket while on the bus, the train or lying on the grass on a sunny day with your favourite headphones on.

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There are 2 common options for portable head-fi. You can either get a dedicated DAP (digital audio player) or external DAC (digital to analogue converter) to work with your smartphone. Both are excellent options with varying benefits. We explain each option, their benefits, we will go over what to consider for each route, and our…

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HiFi considerations for Gaming… two different formats that can come together quite nicely Whether you are a console or PC gamer, competitive or casual gamer. A good gaming set up deserves good sound. With amplifiers that have all the bells and whistles, not all of them have features that are crucial for gaming. We will…

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Home Theatre and HiFi Considerations for Building a Home, something you really need to consider. As spring is here, recently we have been getting a lot of people coming to us discussing their home theatre and audio plans for new home builds. It can be an exciting and daunting task at the same time. However,…

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Spotify vs TIDAL and The Best Streamers to Use – Here at Rapallo we use both music streaming services to use on various HiFi components and speakers. We are fan of both services for many reasons. Using both for a few years now, we thought we would put forward the pros and cons, our favourite…

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PrimaLuna just released their Evolution series of vacuum tube amplifiers and components. Including a brand new tube-powered stand alone DAC. We want to write-up a refresher on tube amps, why audiophiles love them, and how they work. We had a question last week from someone about the new features in PrimaLuna’s Evolution series compared to…

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HiFi Presents to get for Father’s Day, make a suprise that provides epic music. Father’s Day is less then 2 weeks away here in New Zealand. We thought we would give some suggestions on what to get for that special father-figure in your life. If you are a Father here are some great items to…

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Tech topic this week is the Benefits of a Power Amplifier. We often write blogs tailored towards 1 side of the home audio groups: The audiophile, 2 channel type person, and The home cinema buff, surround sound and big screen type of person. This blog is actually going to interest both parties by talking about…

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Projector light sources: What is Laser?. Projector technology has come a long way, and is growing rapidly in the past couple years. Home theatre projectors are coming down in price, and up in performance. Lasers and LED light sources are becoming more common, 4K UHD budget projectors are becoming more accessible thanks to Texas Instrument’s…

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Acoustic Treatment and Sound Isolation is really important when it comes to home cinema and HiFi. It not only stops you from annoying the neighbors, but it can improve the dynamics of the audio and early reflections from sound wave. People’s living spaces, listening rooms are all different in sizes, heights, with curtains and furniture…

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This article will go in to explaining how Epson’s 4K Enhancement technology works along with all the processors inside the unit that make it the projector to beat at the price! The difference between white-light output vs colour-light output, plus the differences between the TW8400 and the TW9400.

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In a home theatre nothing beats a big screen. Most of the time a screen and projector offers better “real estate” in relation to cost than a flat screen LED TV. Meaning you can get much bigger screen sizes (we are talking over 100″) for a fraction of the price of an 80″ flat screen…

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Subwoofer placement and calibration tips, whether you have 1 subwoofer, or are looking to add one to your system. A subwoofer is an essential part of a home theatre. It has the ability of fundamentally changing a home theatre experience. Rather than being able to hear the bass, you can actually feel it in your…

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The simplest explanation of a DAC is in the acronym Digital-to-Analog Converter. Did you know there 3 Types of DAC’s to develop your HiFi system? They take digital data (Ones and Zeros) and turns it into an analog signal. This makes the digital data primed to be sent to headphones, or an amplifier. You actually…

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