This is one of Musical Fidelity’s numerous unusual yet appealing products, first released in 2002 as a direct competitor to Naim’s Nait 5 integrated. It was a lovely half-width integrated amp – the business has flirted with this format before returning to full-width – that made a style point of its sleek, custom-built aluminium extruded […]
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ATC is the loudspeaker firm with the most passion and soul in the professional audio market. Billy Woodman founded the company in 1974 to make drive units for broadcast and recording studios. Its first design was a strong twelve-inch woofer, which clearly indicated where his focus lay. By the mid-1980s, the firm was selling to
The conventional complaint to direct-drive, which involves a motor located directly in the center of the platter, was that you could hear it ‘cogging.’ This was a problem caused by the fact that the permanent magnet fields of a direct-drive motor are not uniform (they’ll always be stronger at the ends and weakest in the
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The DV505 was released by Dynavector, a modest Japanese technical firm, and it shook the hi-fi world. Instead of the normal sales pitch, the company revealed the results of its considerable engineering research into tonearm shape and resonance characteristics. The world took notice quickly, and the DV505 went on to win the Design and Engineering
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The £3,295 ATC SCM40 is unusual in that it doesn’t look or feel like practically any other loudspeaker in its price range. It’s almost as if someone forgot to style it, as if three (albeit unusual-looking) drivers were thrown into a box supposed to do the job and then left. This stands in stark contrast
“To be the first commercial endeavor to design and construct a loudspeaker that reflects the greatest standards attainable without respect to any of the so-called ‘practical factors’ that ultimately compromise traditional designs,” the brief stated. The design team was given “no constraints,” according to B&W, other from the need to recreate full range sound with
Fujitsu Ten is a massive automobile audio company with over 4,000 people and a plethora of electronic and mechanical technical resources. Eclipse TD, one of the world’s most eccentric yet accomplished loudspeaker manufacturers, has found the right parent corporation. The abbreviation ‘TD’ refers for ‘Time Domain,’ which is at the heart of the company’s ideology.
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Few would deny that a well-built valve amplifier can produce excellent sound, but the problem is that they aren’t as user-friendly as solid-state devices – at least not to the uninitiated. While you can buy any sensible transistor integrated, plug it in, and expect a reasonable sound regardless of your system, thermionic valves aren’t exactly
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This is without a doubt the best new product of 2014 for real-world audiophiles, and one of the most intriguing loudspeakers I’ve heard in a long time. It’s unique in that it’s inexpensive (£900) but produces a sound quality that far exceeds the price. Indeed, the Aeromax 6 appears to me to be a low-cost
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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
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