People are only now realizing the importance of a turntable plinth. A hefty plinth that stores mechanical energy like a mechanical capacitor should be avoided on any deck with an independently sprung subchassis; instead, it should be light. The issue is that light items aren’t always strong, which is why firms like Linn have typically […]
When this DAC came in the United Kingdom in 2007, it was nearly alone. It’s funny to think of now, but the digital to analogue converter was nearly extinct. The Benchmark DAC1 was a bit of a novelty back then, and the USB option that arrived soon after added to its uniqueness. The unit’s pro
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The BBC’s ‘monitoring loudspeaker type LS3/5a’ has gone down in history. Some say it possesses unique features not found in any succeeding speaker, while others believe it is exaggerated and unfairly revered. Whatever your opinion is on this small box, there’s no doubting that it’s a major product in its own right… The performance of
The more Japanese-dominated hi-fi became in the 1970s, the more flamboyant it became. Despite the fact that the mass market was flooded with big, brushed aluminum-fronted steel boxes adorned with knobs and flashing lights, some more discerning purchasers gravitated to Bang & Olufsen, and it was this product that won many over. It was a
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Let us not forget that the Compact Cassette was a convenience media. But it was a medium on a mission: to dethrone open reel as the most popular recording format on the planet, and to do so, it needed to sound fantastic. As a result, we saw some extremely genuine initiatives from companies like Sony
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What do you do if you’re a Japanese electronics behemoth with a respectable but uninspiring line of products and want to make a bold move for the niche high-end hi-fi market? Anyone who is still unsure should look at what Toshiba did with Aurex. It concocted a fancy Latinate name, applied it to some decent,
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April Music was originally introduced to me during the 2004 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The individuals behind this young South Korean enterprise struck me as engaging and imaginative. It produced several excellent sounding hi-fi singles under the Stello brand name, in the Japanese high-end mold. A few years later, this strange object appeared,
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This is the one product that has captivated the public’s attention in recent years. Like the Dual CS505 turntable, NAD 3020 integrated amplifier and Mission 760 loudspeakers before it, here is an ‘affordable audiophile’ product that sounds far better than it has a right too, and costs rather less than it should… The M-DAC, which
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In 2012, we got another amazing digital product from the man who gave us the gigantic Pink Triangle Da Capo DAC in 1993 and the superb cheap Cambridge Audio CD4SE Compact Disc player a few years later. The International Audio Group manufactures Audiolab’s 8200CD CD spinner, which was invented by British electronics genius John Westlake.
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In its initial iteration, the year 1994 was very much the pinnacle of Audiolab. It appeared as if the firm could do no wrong. The 8000A integrated amplifier had been repeatedly refined, and was now a seriously good sounding device – able to mix it with the highly respected Naim Nait 3 and Mission Cyrus
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