The ST-J55 (£200), ST-J60 (£295), and flagship ST-J75 (£375) were the top of Sony’s radical new 1978 tuner series. These were a stylistically bold departure for the Japanese consumer electronics giant, with slimline proportions that contrasted sharply with the enormous models that came before them. The build quality and finish were outstanding, albeit the new […]
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Daniel Weiss began his career as an engineer at Studer-Revox, where he specialized in the design of sampling frequency converters. In 1985, he founded Weiss Engineering Ltd. His company is probably more well-known in professional circles than in home audio, with clients like Sony, BMG, and Abbey Road, to name a few. Weiss first entered
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Back in 1977, Realistic described their Minimus-7 ‘Metal Cabinet Speaker System’ as “little simply in size, not in performance.” It’s still astonishingly capable and relevant in 2021, given how few micro speakers have been released in the last forty-five years or so. There’s not much to it — a simple 100mm ‘high compliance woofer’ –
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Sony Corporation was Japan’s most well-known manufacturer of high-end electronics in 1991, offering everything from Trinitron televisions and MiniDisc recorders to portable video cameras and CD players. Basically, if you wanted a ‘good’ TV or hi-fi, you could skip the hassle of looking around and just get a Sony, which was always likely to be
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Wharfedale is a well-known British loudspeaker brand that peaked in the 1970s, during the height of the British hi-fi boom, when it was controlled by the Rank Organization. The company, founded in 1932 by Gilbert Arthur Briggs in his Ilkley house in the Wharfe Valley, invented and constructed all of its own drive units, or
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We periodically see exciting new variations on the loudspeaker theme; manufacturers sometimes come up with better cone materials for their mid/bass units, and occasionally unique tweeters appear. Ribbons have recently regained popularity, although other types have also come and gone. One of the most intriguing to yours truly was the Linaeum ‘figure of eight’ dipole
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The golden period of Japanese hi-fi was probably from 1976 to 1981, when the Yen was severely undervalued on international markets, allowing Japanese manufacturers to produce items that Western businesses simply couldn’t match. Despite the fact that Japanese hi-fi became linked with value, all of the main brands had high-end sections. The items that came
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Most audiophiles thirty years ago believed that everything old was garbage and that all we needed to shape our brave new future was modern technology and fresh thoughts. Of course, this was only true up to a point, and now we’re rethinking previous assumptions as well. The new Wharfedale Linton Classic achieves exactly that; as
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Rega’s first Planet CD player, which was released in the mid-1990s and was not to be confused with the first Planet turntable, was the company’s entry-level silver disc spinner. This was the 2000-model-year update, and it was an unusual piece of equipment. It’s a pleasure to operate simply because it doesn’t have a traditional drawer
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Page after page of criticism and opinion – sometimes dressed up as fact, sometimes not – on how bad Japanese amplifiers were in 1980 could be found in any British hi-fi journal. They claimed this was especially true in the inexpensive sector, where all of their “frills” meant money wasn’t spent on items that would
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