Lab: Paul Miller

We live in uncertain – and expensive – times: the average price of a flat in Greater London is currently north of half a million, which is why there's a major property building boom underway, with almost any space or building being turned over to housing. And with prices so high, it's also no surprise that space is at a premium. Even with London salaries typically higher than those outside the capital, the average income, run through the usual multipliers, doesn't get you a mortgage able to buy anything palatial.

Positioned in the 'lower half' of the burgeoning TechDAS catalogue, the original Air Force III [HFN Sep '16] delivered more compact dimensions, the capability to handle up to four tonearms and a substantial saving over the One [HFN Jun '13] and Two [HFN Apr '15] turntables. Even with its new, performance-gap-closing fitments in Premium guise, the price is two quid shy of £29,000 – roughly a tenth the estimated cost of the forthcoming Air Force Zero flagship and £17,000 less than the Two Premium. A bargain, then?

Everyone old enough to remember, talks about the 1970s as the golden age of British hi-fi. That's certainly true in one respect, because what was a niche – often do-it-yourself hobby – went completely mainstream, to the point where the third most expensive consumer item, after a house and a car, was a stereo.

For a while, the amplifier combo you see here was almost literally the elephant in the editor's listening room. Delivered for review just at the end of 2018, its sheer mass – 28kg for the £12,500 Strumento No1 mk2 preamp alone, plus a further 95kg for the No4 mk2 power amp, which sells for £16,250 – defied almost all efforts to move it into PM's lab for test work before I could listen. It finally inspired our esteemed editor to relent and buy himself a trolley – and so, at last, the review literally began to roll...