Do you recall the decade of the 1980s? The only substantial amplification at the start of the decade came in two boxes. You’d have to buy two, one marked ‘pre’ and the other marked ‘power’, whether it was Naim, Meridian, Exposure, or Quad. Then, in 1984, Naim Audio shocked the hi-fi world with the introduction […]
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In a world of hard, harsh, and spitty budget boxes, the Mission 752 was one of the loveliest and most fascinating economical floorstanding loudspeakers of the nineties, with a beautifully smooth, open, and easy sound. One of the reasons for this was its (at the time) cutting-edge HDA (High Definition Aerogel) mid/bass driver, which provided
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In the 1970s, Japan’s Victor Corporation was a completely committed hi-fi producer, producing a range of highly clean sounding amplifiers, tuners, cassette players, and turntables. The 1977 QL-70 was one of the company’s best vinyl spinners, consisting of a turntable motor unit and plinth minus tonearm (the QL-7 had a manual tonearm, while the QL-A7
Mission loudspeakers are well-known. For a long period in the 1990s, the brand was ubiquitous, omnipresent, and nearly synonymous with speakers in the same way that Wharfedale was in the 1970s. Some people are also familiar with Mission amplifiers, as its Cyrus line of electronics (which is now an entirely independent company) was a huge
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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
Tim de Paravicini, a bright former Lux designer who had previously worked with Antony at Michaelson and Austin, was the logical choice when Antony Michaelson needed his first Musical Fidelity integrated amplifier. Tim told me that the A1 started out as “a breadboard that I created for myself” in order to “replicate in transistors the
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