Why can’t man develop an accurate loudspeaker if he can put cars on Mars and perfect open heart surgery? Modern speakers are severely hampered even under the best of circumstances, and the chance of getting one to perform correctly from 20Hz to 20kHz is still a long way off. Given that moving coil drivers are […]
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The Rega R200 was the best cheap tonearm in the world until August 1983. It was an S-shaped, Japanese-sourced variation of the mid-range Lustre GST-1 that delivered good results for the £46 price tag. But then along came an arm with such an incredible price/performance ratio that the poor S-shaped Rega was forgotten about. The
Although no cassette deck has ever been compared to an oil painting, early specimens of the genre were particularly unappealing. Top-loaders from the 1970s were fiddly and unwieldy to operate, with controls strewn about indiscriminately, whilst front-loaders appeared bold and threatening. Forget about the physics of the machines. They were crude and clumsy, confirming cassette’s
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Pioneer’s legendary PL-12D is often regarded as the best cheap belt drive ever produced, and for my money, it’s not far off. However, as with so many items, something else comes along a few years later that is superior in many aspects but doesn’t completely outclass it. The SR-222/II from Sansui is one such deck.
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Sennheiser spent millions of Euros researching and creating the new HD650 in 2003, using technology created for its £1,000 MKH40 broadcast microphone to eliminate distortion and enhance clarity, while the sound balance was reported to be based on the Sennheiser Orpheus, which costs £10,000. It all added up to one of the company’s most popular
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One of the most iconic names in British hi-fi, Harold Joseph Leak founded this now-defunct company in London in 1934, later selling it to the Rank Organisation in January 1969, when its fortunes began to falter. Between these times, and particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, the brand was known for high-quality amplifiers, radio tuners,
When NAD’s 3020 initially arrived in the early 1980s, it blew past all other cheap integrateds, as well as innumerable amps costing much over twice as much. The hi-fi market cried out for something with a comparable astonishing mix of price and performance, but at a higher level, over the next few years. Then, in
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It’s not just about listening to music when it comes to hi-fi. Of course, its primary role is to sound good, but it also serves an aesthetic purpose. There’s no shortage of gear that excels at one of these functions, but it’s unusual to find something that excels at both, such as Lecson’s famed AC1/AP3
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In some ways, the decade of the 1980s was a difficult one for loudspeaker design. Despite the appearance of a handful of ‘milestone’ products, such as Celestion’s SL6 and Acoustic Energy’s AE-1, it’s difficult to say that these were entirely successful designs in and of themselves. Rather than being remembered for what they did, they
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Linn’s second-ever turntable design, dubbed “Son of Sondek,” had a lot to live up to. Linn’s attempt to entice silver disc customers back to vinyl was launched in 1987, just as Compact Disc was finally gaining traction. This means it had to outperform decent CD players, be simple to set up and use, and have
