Until the 1983 release of the Naim NAIT, integrated amplifiers were thought to be something you bought before you could afford a ‘real’ preamplifier/power amplifier combo. It’s fair to assume that the breed was not well-liked. Instead of presenting low-cost circuitry in a costly cabinet adorned with acres of brushed aluminium and bouncing power meters, […]
This is a fascinating story. Karl Heinz Fink of Fink Audio Consulting in Essen, Germany, and Steve Reichert of Armour Group in Cambridge, England, are the two main protagonists. The former is one of his generation’s top speaker designers, while the latter is a pleasant chap with a good ear and an Arcam sales and
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The name SME precedes the brand. Everyone in the audiophile community knows it’s a terrific firm with a fantastic history. Any SME product is guaranteed to be of high quality, and it has never produced a dud. Is that the case? Some people don’t consider the Series III, which was introduced in 1978 and won
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Look no further than this if you’re ever unsure about Naim Audio’s philosophy. The purest elements of the company’s DNA are contained within the NAT 01’s tiny (86x206x300mm) casing. It is devoid of fripperies, stripped down to the bone in terms of practicality, and brazen in its minimalism, and is designed for the maximum fidelity
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Quad was a one-man band in the mid-1960s who could do no wrong. Its recently released ESL-57 electrostatic loudspeaker was revolutionary and widely regarded as one of the best designs in the world. Its Quad II valve power amplifiers were also of high quality, and they had garnered a lot of fans. This made it
In 1986, just as it appeared that vinyl was nearing its end, the SME Series V arrived. The tagline “the best pickup arm in the world” had been used by the Steyning company for a long time, but it had become a bit of a joke. The SME Series III was far from this, and
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According to the original 1985 Nait, a newborn Naim delivered roughly 7W per channel. Small boxes from Salisbury, like the (then) new UnitiQute, pushed out 45W per side by 2010, and included DAB, FM, uPnP streaming, and USB sources, as well as a built-in DAC and analogue inputs. How quickly things have changed! It was
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Quad has typically catered to rich, (small c) conservative people who value quality but aren’t willing to spend exorbitant prices for it. Perhaps this explains why the 909 power amplifier is essentially a gently revised and rehoused 405 – the company’s award-winning, high-capacity transistor power amplifier that was introduced in 1975. There’s nothing wrong with
The range and depth of hi-fi in the 1970s were enormous. We’ve all heard of the emergence of the major Japanese labels, but there were lots of smaller continental European names developing as well, amid the last gasps of British brands like Garrard and Leak. Bang & Olufsen was arguably at its pinnacle at the
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It’s easy to dismiss Nakamichi as a seller of exorbitantly priced esoterica. The company earned legendary status thanks to its well-known Dragon and MusicLink lines. Its marque, like Luxman, MacIntosh, Revox, or Goldmund, had guilt-edged, twenty-four-carat gold-plated assurance. Isn’t it true that Nakamichi’s odds of doing anything even substantially affordable were slimmer than seeing flying
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