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Review: David Price, | Jan 14, 2020

One of many distinctive mid-priced turntables to surface in the 1980s, this dinky deck enjoyed its 15 minutes of fame, but then refused to go away. How will it sound today?

If we could warp back to 1984 we would find a hi-fi scene dramatically different to how it is now. Vinyl may have been in the autumn of its life as a mass music format, but it still dominated. With CD very much in its infancy, the LP was the only practical way serious music lovers could hear their prized albums.

Headphones

Warwick Acoustics Aperio Headphone System

Review and Lab: Keith Howard | Jan 13, 2020

It's a brave company that launches a £20,000 headphone as only its second product – and an electrostatic too. Yet more remarkable: that company isn't Chinese but British!

Electrostatic headphones are like royalty: rarefied enough to assume an aura that rivets mass attention. In the case of Warwick Acoustics' Aperio, it's not just its operating principle that catches the eye and sparks interest but its price too: at £20,000 this isn't the most expensive headphone/amplifier combination ever seen but it's up there with the very few daring to dangle a price tag greater than that of a family car.

Turntables, Arms & Cartridges

Pro-Ject Audio Systems X2 Turntable

Review: David Price, | Jan 09, 2020

The new big brother to the successful X1 adds a host of improvements in order to justify its £300 price premium. But at this new price, it can be tougher to succeed

Sometimes a product comes along that really hits the spot, delivering a combination of performance and value that shakes up the hi-fi world. Audiophiles of more mature years will be able to reel off a number of these, whether it be the NAD 3020 amplifier of the late '70s [HFN Nov '12], the mid '80s Wharfedale Diamond loudspeakers [HFN May '18], or the Marantz CD63 MkII KI Signature CD player from 1996.

Hi-Res Downloads

Hi-Res Downloads, November 2019

Reviews: Hi-Fi News Team, | Jan 08, 2020

This month we review and test releases from: Ian Bostridge/Thomas Adès, Cyrille Aimée, Michael Bublé, Vladimir Horowitz and Theo Bleckmann

Investigation

Room Treatments

Keith Howard | Jan 07, 2020

Should you invest in good acoustics? Keith Howard has some sage advice

Most of us will have asked ourselves at some point whether our next upgrade should be not to our hi-fi system but rather to the room we use it in. Could £1000 spent on absorbents and diffusers make a more profound difference to sound quality than spending the same amount on, say, a cable upgrade or a new pick-up cartridge?

Loudspeakers

GoldenEar Triton One.R Loudspeaker

Review: Andrew Everard, | Jan 06, 2020

Breathed on with the spirit of the company's flagship model, these speakers are nothing less than spectacular

From the sheer performance and value of the flagship Triton Reference [HFN Jun '19], down to the bargain that is the Triton Five [HFN Mar '19], we've been very much taken with the sound of the GoldenEar range. And this despite the 'but it shouldn't work' cost-effective engineering employed by the company, including its liberal use of plastics in the cabinets' construction.

Classical Companion

Sir Adrian Boult: Conductor

Christopher Breunig | Jan 03, 2020

A modest musician, he made a huge contribution to classical music broadcasting while his repertoire, says Christopher Breunig, was far wider than most remember it

You might think of Sir Adrian Boult as an elderly, conservative and very English gentleman with a repertoire mostly comprising English music. But download the 170-page discography by Philip Stuart [crqeditions.co.uk/ZqnlPmJU182] and a very different picture emerges.

Disc Players Pre/Power Amplifiers

Luxman D-N150/SQ-N150 CD Player/Amplifier

Review: Ken Kessler, | Jan 02, 2020

Luxman has re-introduced what just may be the dream desktop rig, comprising the new NeoClassico CD player and tube integrated amplifier – or is it much more?

Can we agree that it's possible to love more than one system, as you would savour more than one type of whisky or wine? Masseto and Tignanello are simply not mutually exclusive. Luxman's re-imagined NeoClassico series is appropriately costly but not saddled with a 'high-end' price, so at £2500 for the D-N150 CD/DAC and £3000 for the SQ-N150 integrated amp, it is not an alternative to, nor a substitute for a high-end, high-power system. It is not out to usurp the role of your D'Agostino.

Turntables, Arms & Cartridges

Ortofon MC Anna Diamond Cartridge

Review: David Price, | Dec 31, 2019

With its sintered titanium body, rare earth magnets, exquisite stylus and now a diamond cantilever, Ortofon's latest MC Anna is the very model of a high-tech flagship moving-coil

On the face of it, all that separates this new flagship pick-up from Ortofon's original MC Anna [HFN Oct '12] is the exchange of the latter's rigid boron cantilever for an even more rigid 'diamond' rod. The line-contact Replicant 100 diamond stylus, the 'wide-range armature damping' system (WRD), the sintered titanium body and rare earth alloy magnet are all, ostensibly, unchanged. Nevertheless, this 'Diamond' MC Anna is no mere blinged-up clone.

From the Vault Pre/Power Amplifiers

High-End Amps

Martin Colloms | Dec 30, 2019 | First Published: Oct 01, 1983

Martin Colloms takes a listen to four new designs costing £250 plus

Following last month's batch of integrated amplifiers costing under the £200 mark, more advanced models have been chosen for this project. The new Mission 778 (Mission Cambridge) represents the UK contribution (£240). The Harman Kardon PM650 combines Japanese and American design (£250), while the European contender is the Revox B251 (£900 plus £45 for the remote controller). All three models are integrated amps with MC and MM input facilities. I also look at another new UK model, the powerhouse P128 from Sugden, which is a dual 'monoblock' power amp (£395).

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