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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Rewind to 1978 and recall the Toshiba Aurex System 15. The first of its kind, it was an exceedingly compact yet superbly built ‘mini component’ system meant to perform as well as – if not better than – its full-sized rivals. It was a brilliant concept that combined excellent sound quality (for an all-in-one system),
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The UK hi-fi market was a different country in the mid-1970s. Pioneer, Sony, JVC, Hitachi, and Wharfedale dominated the inexpensive end of the market, while KEF, Quad, Tannoy, and Celestion dominated the higher end. Even at the top end, names like Linn and Naim had yet to enter the vernacular. Japanese manufacturers were booming, and
The year is 1978. The Bee Gees, as well as other acts like Tavares and Yvonne Elliman who appeared in Robert Stigwood’s magnum opus film Saturday Night Fever, are dominating the pop charts. Meanwhile, you’re a broke wannabe audiophile who can only fantasize about the exotic stuff you read about in magazines and brochures. You’re
Wharfedale Chevin XP2 Read More »
There were never that many fantastic loudspeakers in the 1970s. Speakers were increasingly complicated and power-hungry, possibly because the wisdom of the day was that big, muscular transistor power amps were the way forward. Slow transients, phase difficulties, and needlessly intricate crossovers plagued multi-driver designs using thick polypropylene and Bextrene cones, degrading the sound… The
Wharfedale E70 Review Read More »
Do you remember when CD players were a new thing? The early Philips-based machines employed 14-bit, four-fold oversampling, while the original Japanese devices used 16-bits. The 164 Philips players arrived in 1986, and by 1988, a slew of 188 machines had arrived from Asia. The Great Bit War appeared to be in full swing, but
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It’s often argued that the 1960s didn’t begin until the middle of the decade, and that they didn’t end until the mid-1970s… Perhaps you might say the same about the 1980s, because the Sony CDP-911, despite its 1993 release, is very much a product of that decade. Even though it’s several generations removed from Sony’s
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The decade of the 1990s would be remembered as the decade in which Compact Disc finally matured. Whereas CD players in the 1980s were often unconventional –even odd –by 1990, the breed was quickly becoming honed into what we now call “normal.” The Sony CDP-X33ES was the epitome of this. Today, it may appear to
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