Any audiophile will occasionally peruse the pages of a hi-fi magazine – if they aren’t reading them religiously every month, that is. Had you picked up a copy of What Hi-Fi in 1977, the chances are that by the time you’d finished it, you would know that this amplifier was the one to buy, under […]
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In 2014, this loudspeaker appears to be a very drab, uninteresting, and insignificant loudspeaker, but in 1995, it was hailed as the future of inexpensive hi-fi. Why? The Coda 7 was at the forefront of a new generation of speakers that drew a clear line between the ageing budget boxes of the 1980s and the
The audio ability of a loudspeaker is inversely proportional to its aesthetic beauty, according to one of the universal principles of hi-fi. True, the Holy hi-fi provider has allowed an unique exception to this rule for a few high-end panel speakers, but other from that, it appears to apply to practically everything. So when I
The monoblocs Trio/Kenwood Stereo Control Amplifier Model L-07C and DC Power Amplifier Model L-07M are from another era. Hi-fi was a very popular hobby across the Western world – and one of the three essential things to buy, along with a house and a car – when it was launched in 1979 at the height
Kenwood L-07C & L-07M Review Read More »
It was difficult to get a competent affordable amplifier in the late 1970s. For showroom attractiveness, brushed aluminum-fronted Japanese versions with tone controls and power meters flooded the market. Sound quality had received little attention; most sounded bland and inoffensive at best, and terrible at worst. New Acoustic Dimension, a relatively new firm, saw a
The ARO is one of the most unusual performance-focused tonearms ever built, reputedly made “hand in glove” for the Linn Sondek LP12 turntable and Troika cartridge. The narrative begins in 1987, when Naim Audio decided to end its particular partnership with Linn Products; Linn was a manufacturer of electronics (remember the LK1/LK2? Some might not!
Switching distortion is at the root of a lot of the problems with transistor amplifiers. The sound of those tiny three-legged semiconductors turning on and off on demand is ubiquitous, and most people have become accustomed to it — like rain in the winter. It also has a similar effect on sound; it becomes murky
JungSon JA-88D Review Read More »
The Jelco Ichikawa Jewel Company, based in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro area, is one of the country’s many small-scale precision engineering firms. It has been producing since 1920, and by the 1970s, it had naturally shifted its focus to turntable parts in response to the hi-fi craze of the period. Over the years, it has done a
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It’s all forgotten now, but there was once upon a time when a costly – but not exorbitantly priced – turntable appeared, battled the best of the best, and triumphed. That is, almost. The JBE, you see, was an underground sensation for a brief period around the turn of the 1980s. Despite its high quality,
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One Naim insider calls this one-box music machine as “a gateway drug.” In reality, it’s unlikely that it’ll be able to compete with Bose and B&O on their own turf, given both businesses – particularly the latter – invest so much of the retail price in advertising. Bose’s name is well-known, but Naim’s is not.
