The A-400 integrated amplifier from Pioneer was released in the spring of 1990 to rave reviews in the United Kingdom. The fact that Japanese amplifiers had been regarded with great distrust in the British press until then, simply because they weren’t particularly audiophile in orientation, played a part in the dynamic. For example, a decade […]
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It’s unfortunate that so many outstanding brands have faded away, from Leak and Garrard in the United Kingdom to Micro Seiki and Sansui in Japan. In the 1970s, the latter was one of the most well-known Nipponese brands, with a proud array of high-end, high-quality items with an uniquely slimline yet powerful sound. The Sansui
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Any audiophile will occasionally peruse the pages of a hi-fi magazine – if they aren’t reading them religiously every month, that is. Had you picked up a copy of What Hi-Fi in 1977, the chances are that by the time you’d finished it, you would know that this amplifier was the one to buy, under
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Japanese manufacturers were fighting tooth and nail in 1980 to provide the cleanest and most powerful transistor amplification yet developed. Marantz was solidly in the Class A camp with a series of new-fangled MOSFET power amps, but Sony and Yamaha had lately gone down the V-FET road (with the TA-N7B and B2, respectively) and Pioneer
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It was difficult to get a competent affordable amplifier in the late 1970s. For showroom attractiveness, brushed aluminum-fronted Japanese versions with tone controls and power meters flooded the market. Sound quality had received little attention; most sounded bland and inoffensive at best, and terrible at worst. New Acoustic Dimension, a relatively new firm, saw a
The audio ability of a loudspeaker is inversely proportional to its aesthetic beauty, according to one of the universal principles of hi-fi. True, the Holy hi-fi provider has allowed an unique exception to this rule for a few high-end panel speakers, but other from that, it appears to apply to practically everything. So when I
The Marantz SA-12S1 is a big one, at 458x126x379mm, and is often finished in the company’s signature champagne gold. Twelve professional-grade Crystal CS4397 DACs and twelve custom HDAM copper-plated op-amps were installed inside, all of which worked in dual differential mode. Marantz’s proprietary Super-Ring toroidal transformer, as well as a separate transformer for the fluorescent
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The ARO is one of the most unusual performance-focused tonearms ever built, reputedly made “hand in glove” for the Linn Sondek LP12 turntable and Troika cartridge. The narrative begins in 1987, when Naim Audio decided to end its particular partnership with Linn Products; Linn was a manufacturer of electronics (remember the LK1/LK2? Some might not!
The monoblocs Trio/Kenwood Stereo Control Amplifier Model L-07C and DC Power Amplifier Model L-07M are from another era. Hi-fi was a very popular hobby across the Western world – and one of the three essential things to buy, along with a house and a car – when it was launched in 1979 at the height
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McIntosh is a prestigious brand with a long history of providing high-quality items. The massive MC275 power amplifier is in its sixth iteration, with the first one debuting in 1961. The famous McIntosh Unity Coupled Circuit, designed by company co-founders Sidney A. Corderman and Gordon Gow, featured an unique transformer to offer wider bandwidth with
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