Reviews

ADC 1700 Review

BSR, a British business, introduced the ADC brand of budget-to-mid-priced turntables in November 1979. Because BSR was a troubled brand, it made natural to adopt the name of the American corporation that controlled it. The Audio Dynamics Corporation had been developing significant vinyl sources for nearly two decades and was a well-known manufacturer of cutting-edge […]

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Celestion SL6 Review

The Celestion SL6 standmounting loudspeaker, if there was ever a hi-fi product that drew an invisible line under the 1970s, as if to declare, ‘this chapter is now finished,’ it was it. It’s difficult to put into words how modern it appeared when it was introduced in September 1981; its design was so stunning that

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Gale GS401A Review

It’s funny how certain things make a big splash when they first come out, but then fade into obscurity once they’ve been phased out. The Gale GS401 speaker is an example of this, having earned the CES Design and Engineering Excellence Award in 1978, only to fade into obscurity a decade later. The 401 was

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Aiwa AD-1250 Review

The late 1970s were a hectic period for mass market hi-fi; things were moving at such a breakneck pace that many Japanese manufacturers battled to keep up. As a result of this state of affairs, a lot of eccentric models like this were almost obsolete before they were launched – or, at the very least,

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Garrard SP25 Review

Garrard had been a turntable specialist for nearly half a century by the time this immensely successful record player was originally unveiled in 1967. The pedigree dates back to 1721, when Garrard and Company was designated Crown Jewellers of London, with the responsibility of looking after the British Crown Jewels and Royal Crown. The company

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Aiwa AT-9700 Review

Tuners are rarely sought after. Even the best representatives of the species, such as high-end turntables or gigantic open reels, struggle to stir passions. But Aiwa’s AT-9700 was different: it was one of the first tuners with a digital frequency display, and it was super modern in the 1970s sense. This seemed to be the

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