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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It’s difficult to overstate the significance of Compact Cassette as a format in 1979. The Long Playing record was nearing the end of its life cycle – or so we believed – with an increasing number of consumers opting for pre-recorded cassettes over vinyl. At the time, the quality of LP pressings seemed to be
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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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Compact disc had a particularly intriguing period in the early 1990s. Digital audio, like ‘that difficult second album,’ had a dilemma in terms of how to progress. Philips and Sony had developed slick second-generation machines, but these were simply evolutions of their first-generation goods, and it was time to start over and create fresh forward-thinking
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Technics was founded in 1965 as Panasonic Corporation’s high-end hi-fi brand. The term first appeared on loudspeakers, but it was an obvious fit for Shuichi Obata’s innovative transcription turntable. The ‘Technics by Panasonic’ SP-10 was the world’s first direct drive deck of the contemporary era, debuting in 1970. It made its way into broadcast studios
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From 1974 to roughly 2004, Sony produced cassette decks. The machines evolved dramatically over those three decades; they began as top-loading devices with small VU meters, slow ballistics, Dolby B and Chrome tape capabilities, and little else. They were multi-motor, had Metal switching, Dolby B, C, and S, electronic meters and tape counters, and a
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‘Retro’ was all the rage in the early years of the new millennium, and in hi-fi, the rebirth of the BBC LS3/5a loudspeaker was at the forefront of the trend. The shameful truth was that this iconic little mini-monitor was a terribly defective, if cute, design even back then. New drive units, cabinet technology, and
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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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TDK’s Tremor ‘multimedia loudspeaker system’ (as they used to call them back then) was one of the most intriguing designs of the decade, in my opinion, when it was introduced in 2001. The Tremor S-150, S-60, and S-40 were the company’s original speaker systems, with a total of three available. Each had a powered subwoofer
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The Videotone Minimax is a fantastic tiny loudspeaker that has been overlooked by history. The fact that Videotone was not British, unlike over ninety percent of speakers at the time, adds to the intrigue of the story. The UK importer, managed by former Mullard and Philips engineer Cliff Hardcastle, was known as “Videotone,” whereas the
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