The AE1 is one of the most legendary hi-fi loudspeakers of the 1980s, with the Celestion SL6 and the Wharfedale Diamond, in the pantheon of boxes that changed the game. Aside from the BBC LS3/5a and the Spendor SA1, tiny speakers in the 1970s were few. Indeed, the breed had not been treated seriously at […]
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The year is 1987, and Compact Disc is on the rise. Turntables and LPs are rapidly disappearing from high streets and shopping malls, with the new digital silver taking their place. The term “death of vinyl” is being bandied about, and hi-fi journals are warming to the concept. You could assume that now isn’t the
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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
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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
Esoteric X-05 Review Read More »
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
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
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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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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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The early 1980s were a period in which everyone was enamoured with new technology. From the video recorder to the ‘microcomputer,’ it appeared that anything with an LED display and an 8-bit silicon chip inside might solve all of the world’s problems. Sharp agreed, and applied its digital wizardry to the issue of LP track
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The TC-399 came in Sony’s Autumn 1978 catalogue at a time when the domestic open reel tape recorder was already on its way out. Only two years prior, the Akai 4000DS had stunned the world by selling in significant numbers, delivering outstanding sound-per-pound from the (at the time) dormant open reel format. It was as
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