LATEST ADDITIONS

Martin Colloms | Oct 26, 2021 | First Published: Dec 01, 1982

Martin Colloms hears the A&R Cambridge C200/SA200 pre/power duo

These new products from A&R Cambridge have been long in the pipeline. In an unusually brave step for such a small company, it has invested in moulding tooling for the front panels and also the casework of the preamplifier. Its aim was to achieve close tolerances, and considerable effort has been expended in achieving a good fit of parts, particularly for the array of controls on the preamplifier.

Turntables, Arms & Cartridges

Pro-Ject Debut PRO Turntable Package

Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Paul Miller | Oct 25, 2021

Dubbed the 'most audiophile' Debut turntable yet, this deck/arm/cartridge solution takes over from last year's Debut Carbon model with a host of detail refinements

Like the Land Rover and Ray-Ban sunglasses, the Pro-Ject Debut comes in many flavours. What started as a pure entry-level product has been joined by enough siblings over the last 20 years that the new Debut PRO reviewed here can be regarded as the range's flagship and crowning glory. The numerous improvements elevate the price to £699, but even that hasn't undermined this record deck's bargain status.

Loudspeakers

Triangle Antal 40th Anniversary Loudspeaker

Review: Mark Craven, Lab: Paul Miller | Oct 22, 2021

French brand celebrates its Ruby Anniversary with a rose-gold tinted treble and two fabulous cabinet finishes

There's a definite feeling you're getting your money's worth when you encounter Triangle's Antal 40th Anniversary loudspeaker. This French floorstander, reasonably tall at 113cm and surprisingly deep at 35cm, arrives in an oversized box and, once excavated, greets you with 40th Anniversary branding on the front baffle and its quartet of drivers with eye-catching rose-gold anodised aluminium trims. I wouldn't say it looks a million dollars – there are too many right angles for that – but it certainly looks like it should cost more than the £3000 ticket (less still via some online retailers).

Integrated Amplifiers Vintage

B&O Beomaster 6000 4Ch

Review: Tim Jarman, Lab: Paul Miller | Oct 21, 2021

With its four-channel amp and on-board SQ decoder, this '70s receiver was the lynchpin in what was arguably the most leading-edge quadraphonic system of its time...

The era of quadraphonic sound was not the hi-fi industry's finest. Appearing around 1973 but moribund by 1978, quadraphonic was the first big marketing failure by a sector that had so far enjoyed unalloyed success in convincing the public to buy into its latest developments. Confusing advertising, a damaging format war and a lack of consumer demand all played their part in the downfall of a concept which, at its peak, had been hailed as the future.

Vinyl Icons

The Police: Outlandos d'Amour

Mike Barnes | Oct 19, 2021

It was a debut LP with a difference as three seasoned musicians set about serving up an edgy yet smooth blend of melodic pop and soft reggae to an audience still hungry for the energy of punk. Would the fans of the emerging new-wave of bands bite?

In the UK in the late '70s, the convulsion that was punk may have been short-lived but the ripples it sent out were far reaching. According to The Jam, this was now The Modern World, so if you considered yourself a new-wave band, or were venturing into the pop field and didn't want to look like some kind of throwback, you needed to look sharp or look 'street'. And it helped if you had a snappy name that included a definitive article. Hence monikers like The Motors, The Yachts, The Rich Kids, and The Police.

Network Audio Players/Servers Outboard DACs

Simaudio MOON 280D MiND 2 Networked-Attached DAC

Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Paul Miller | Oct 18, 2021

If it isn't broken, don't fix it... but Simaudio's MOON 280D outboard DAC is certainly enhanced by the addition of the updated MiND 2 streaming module and app

There are two ways to make a network music player. One is to take a streaming platform and integrate a DAC to provide analogue outputs, while the other is to start with a DAC and then build in the network playback capability. The two approaches have their strengths and weaknesses. Typically, the network player with DAC will be just what it says: a full-featured machine, usually complete with a display, but with limited connectivity for external digital sources. The DAC with streaming, meanwhile, will commonly have more digital ins, but sometimes less network audio capability.

Vinyl Release

Grateful Dead: Skull And Roses

Steve Sutherland | Oct 15, 2021

Steve Sutherland tells how the group's name resulted from a chance find in a reference book and highlights hidden subtleties in this 1971 live set, now on 180g vinyl

Ever heard of bibliomancy? No? Read on… Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was this chap. Let's call him Jerome. Jerome is travelling down a country road when he comes upon a crowd of blokes kicking a corpse and creating a hullabaloo. Our hero stops and he's told the deceased had snuffed it without paying a number of debts he owed to some in the assembled crowd, so there's no way they're going to stump up for a grave-digger to bury him.

Integrated Amplifiers

BAT VK-3500 Integrated Amplifier

Review: Mark Craven, Lab: Paul Miller | Oct 14, 2021

Promising 'extraordinary power with exquisite tube finesse' BAT's new VK-3500 integrated marries the brand's REX 3 triode preamp with a robust solid-state output

Please indulge me while I discuss the design of BAT's (Balanced Audio Technology) VK-3500 amplifier. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and all that, but I'd be surprised to find anyone who didn't admire the styling of this hybrid integrated. Even without the 'BAT' logo conjuring images of Gotham City's caped crusader, it has a purposeful, high-quality look and feel. There's an argument that the appearance of a hi-fi product is unimportant, but at this price you expect some attention to detail and craftsmanship – and that's what you get. Of the silver and black finish options, the latter is the obvious choice if you really want to emphasise the Dark Knight vibe…

Classical Companion

Mozart: Così fan tutte

Peter Quantrill | Oct 12, 2021

A silly farce or a social experiment gone wrong? There are no right answers – though a few wrong ones – to the riddle of this dramma giocoso, says Peter Quantrill

Giochiam', says Don Alfonso, to set in motion Mozart's final collaboration with Lorenzo da Ponte: let's play a game. The nature of the game is a wager over feminine fidelity, laid with two soldiers to prove that, in the moral of the untranslatable title, 'all women are like that'.

Loudspeakers

Scansonic M20 Loudspeaker

Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Paul Miller | Oct 11, 2021

The middle model in Scansonic's trio of M-series loudspeakers is one of the growing breed of 'compact floorstanders'

Take a look at these Scansonic floorstanders, and you'll notice they look big and impressive, especially for speakers selling for a sensible £1499 in very on-trend black or white silk finishes. But don't let our photographs of the M20 fool you for those mid/bass drivers are just 10cm in diameter – or four inches in old money – and the baffle a few cm wider still. Recalibrate your view based on those figures, and you'll realise these speakers are well short of a metre tall – 93.5cm, in fact – and that, if not quite knee-high to a grasshopper, means these aren't what you'd call 'room-dominating'.

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