CD/DVD Players

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, […]

Cambridge Audio is a British firm that, despite a history of great, inexpensive audiophile goods, receives much too little attention – which is maybe unsurprising given that many of those who have – and/or do – work for the company are talented people themselves. Matthew Bramble, a brilliant tweaky type who was the lynchpin of

Cyrus was founded in the 1990s, having previously been a sub-brand of Mission, a loudspeaker specialist. As a result, it was an exciting moment – a lot of items appeared that demonstrated the company’s ideas, some of which were short-lived. The Cyrus dAD7 is one such example, as it represents the company’s final attempt at

The Edison Laser Player laser turntable holds first place in the pantheon of audiophile oddities. Unlike so many weird goods thrown together on someone’s kitchen table, this one took a long time to design and cost a lot of money. Indeed, the fact that the thing ever worked is a tribute to this, as getting

Over the years, there have been surprisingly few fantastic CD transfers, and you have to ask why. They were pretty much the only method to get digits into your DAC until computers came along, so they played – and continue to play – a crucial role in many people’s lives. TEAC is unquestionably the most

Every Japanese business has a specialty, something it is particularly proud of. It was always innovation and miniaturization with Sony, and it was always dependability and affordability with Matsushita (just like Honda and Toyota respectively). Pioneer built their fame with LaserDisc, and TEAC went towards optical storage, particularly CD, following a solid start with magnetic

In 2006, a new name entered the British hi-fi sector with the introduction of a modest line of mid-priced hi-fi separates. The best of these was the tube-buffered CD player, which sounded very different from its price competitors. It didn’t take the Astin Trew AT3500 long to develop a cult following. With UK design overseen

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

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.

The SL-P1200 was a (at the time) outmoded top-loading CD spinner with pitch control and a jog wheel for fine and accurate cueing control. The 1200, like the turntable with which it shared a model number (and indeed feet! ), was a ‘pro’ design meant for nightclub use, and it was quite firmly manufactured –