Featuring sitar, violins, backwards recordings and some sage words from Peter Fonda, this 1966 album found the Fab Four firing on all cylinders, says Steve Sutherland
I coulda been a contender, but Revolver did me in. There I was, nine-and-a-half years old, living the high life – well, as high as life could get for a small boy in Salisbury, Wiltshire – and in a band called The Little Beatles. I was Ringo, my friend Keith McArdle was John, Kirsteen, his sister, was George, and Robert 'Bo' Parr was Paul. We wore home-made Beatles suits and Beatles wigs and mimed behind toy instruments to Beatles hits.
SME's flagship Model 60 turntable was more than an aspirational torch-bearer for the UK brand – it set the tone for revisions that will trickle down through the entire range
Every hi-fi era has its buzzwords, and while variations on the theme of 'digital' and 'high-res' have permeated our collective consciousness over the past few decades, the 2020s have so far proved thick with references to 'trickle-down technology'. Brands have always launched flagship products to showcase technologies that eventually 'trickle-down' to middle and entry-level ranges, but nowadays there's almost an expectation that this osmosis of tech will happen swiftly, and wholesale.
To focus on a few celebrated solo recordings is to miss the bigger picture of a complete musician, says Peter Quantrill, paying tribute to a cellist who played for Queen Victoria
Fifty years after his death, it is worth remembering that Pablo Casals was the first celebrity cellist of the modern age. What Paganini had done for the violin, and then Clara Schumann and Liszt for the piano – making a viable career out of touring as a solo virtuoso, as singers had done – it took Casals until the turn of the 19th-20th century. Yet he commissioned very little for his instrument, and then abruptly ceased that solo career at its zenith.
It's V for Victory as Wilson's Alexia loudspeaker is more than simply 'tickled-up' with a host of detailed revisions
Ah, the sweet spot! Positioned in the exact middle of a seven-model range of Wilson Audio floorstanders, between the Sasha DAW [HFN Mar '19] and Alexx V [HFN Jan '22], the new Alexia V – by accident or design – now occupies that most coveted of spaces. One of hi-fi's inexplicable phenomena, a 'sweet spot' seems to exist in pretty much every hi-fi model range, from turntables to amps to speakers, when a stand-out in performance relative to size and cost just happens. Yes, the new Alexia V is that special.
SME's flagship Model 60 turntable was more than an aspirational torch-bearer for the UK brand – it set the tone for revisions that will trickle down through the entire range
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