Whest Audio’s PS.30RDT was released in 2009 as a near descendant of the company’s flagship MC REF V, and it cost a whopping £2,799 when new. It comes in a single 430x280x72mm box with a Whest MC REF V Hybrid filter and an ultra low noise bipolar opamp DIP8 chip severely biased towards Class A. […]
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If you’ve been paying attention over the last few decades, you’ve probably heard of Yamaha’s legendary NS-1000M loudspeaker, which was first released in 1978. It had an unforgettable sound, thanks to highly inventive Beryllium midrange and treble dome drivers that were a tenth of the weight of standard designs, housed in a super-thick sealed cabinet
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The Zu Druid, made in Ogden, Utah, is one of the more intriguing floorstanding loudspeakers I’ve seen. This specific fourth generation model, from 2006, is a fan favorite. The one-and-a-half-way speaker is equipped with a full-range driving unit and a super tweeter that eliminates the need for a crossover. The impedance quoted is 12 ohms
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The golden period of Japanese hi-fi was probably from 1976 to 1981, when the Yen was severely undervalued on international markets, allowing Japanese manufacturers to produce items that Western businesses simply couldn’t match. Despite the fact that Japanese hi-fi became linked with value, all of the main brands had high-end sections. The items that came
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MiniDisc was on its way out in 2003. Sales were dropping, and the format’s brief resurgence between 1998 and 1999 seemed like a distant memory. Of fact, it was at this point in its sales cycle that vinyl made significant advancements in the sound quality of its players, and we now see CD doing the
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The decade of the 1970s was a fascinating one for loudspeakers. Although most designs from that era were rudimentary, there were still some stunning boxes on the market that utilized cutting-edge technology. Indeed, there was a far wider technological gap between commonplace items and cutting-edge ones back then – basic speakers weren’t that different from
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Page after page of criticism and opinion – sometimes dressed up as fact, sometimes not – on how bad Japanese amplifiers were in 1980 could be found in any British hi-fi journal. They claimed this was especially true in the inexpensive sector, where all of their “frills” meant money wasn’t spent on items that would
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Sony’s La Scala 1 system, which was released in the UK in 1995 and cost roughly £1,500 at the time, was later lowered to much less. The CDP-S1 CD player, optional MD-S1 MiniDisc recorder, TC-S1 cassette deck, ST-S1 tuner, and TAE-S1 preamp were all included. A pair of SA-S1 active speakers completed the kit, resulting
Sony amplifiers had abandoned their unique but unstable V-FET output transistors by 1979, and were inventing in new ways – the goal was to bring an interesting twist to a standard design. As a result, Sony engineers placed the power transistors on the main circuit board from the center of the new TA-F range upwards
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The ST-J55 (£200), ST-J60 (£295), and flagship ST-J75 (£375) were the top of Sony’s radical new 1978 tuner series. These were a stylistically bold departure for the Japanese consumer electronics giant, with slimline proportions that contrasted sharply with the enormous models that came before them. The build quality and finish were outstanding, albeit the new
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