Turntables, Arms & Cartridges

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Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Dec 17, 2019
hfncommendedTaking its cues from the PD-171 turntable, but with a more elegant aesthetic, the PD-151 is Luxman's first new deck in eight years. Does it sound as clean as it looks?

How deliciously ironic: two turntables this month from companies with vast experience in vacuum hold-down of the LP, yet neither of them possesses it. Continuum's Obsidian is a complete departure from its LP-sucking forebears, while Luxman's PD-151 is fundamentally a simplified PD-171 [HFN Dec '13] – the model which revived the brand's turntable line in 2011, but minus the vacuum function of yore.

Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Mar 25, 2024
hfnoutstandingFew brands can match Luxman when it comes to blending traditional engineering values with timeless elegance, and the new PD-191A flagship is an exemplar of the art

There is a coterie of Japanese brands whose products never fail to delight. Along with Air Tight, Denon, SAEC, Stax and a smattering of other high-end producers, Luxman has provided gem after gem, from valve amps of undeniable desirability to great turntables. Luxman's latest flagship deck, the PD-191A, honours the brand's traditional mix of beguiling sound, superior build quality and stunning looks.

Hi-Fi News Staff  |  Oct 21, 2014
Lyra designer Jonathan Carr has devoted a large part of his life to developing a range of moving-coil pick-ups, and they’re expertly built by Akiko Ishiyama and Yoshinori Mishima in Tokyo. The Delos is the latest in a long line – the baby of the range it’s designed to be tonearm and phono-stage friendly: of medium weight and compliance it pushes out a claimed output of 0. 6mV at 5cm/sec. Recommended phono stage loading is from 98ohm to 806ohm (Lyra says the final value should be determined by listening).
Review: David Price, Lab: Paul Miller  |  May 01, 2018
hfncommended.pngWith a radically different design to other MCs, Lyra's second-to-top cartridge has a sound unlike anything else around. Costly yes, but what price the pursuit of perfection?

Analogue addicts find themselves with a bewildering array of choices that extends way past which turntable and/or tonearm to buy. The world of cartridges is complex and potentially baffling, especially with moving-coil types. Many eventually progress from buying the big brands to trying out specialist makers – and it's here that we find Lyra. Its products inhabit a niche within a niche: they are all hand-built, low-volume devices that for nearly a generation now have sold largely to devotees of the brand.

Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Mar 20, 2023
hfnoutstandingCoinciding with the 40th anniversary of the company's founding, Lyra introduces a refinement to the popular Kleos moving-coil cartridge – the SL with, yes, lower output

Has it really been 40 years since Jonathan Carr and Stig Bjørge founded what would become Lyra? Did I really play with a (Scan Tech) Tsurugi, launched in 1986 and which I still have, when Maggie was PM? As I have enjoyed Lyra cartridges for over half my life, including many happy hours with the mono Kleos, the £3095 Kleos SL arrived with positive anticipation.

Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Feb 01, 2021
hfnoutstandingMark Levinson's second turntable, the No5105, has been designed to be a painless, all-in-one, 'turnkey' affair – but does it still tick all the high-end boxes?

Like that 'difficult second album', any sequel to the Mark Levinson No515 [HFN Oct '17] has to live up to a heady precedent. At £5799 less cartridge, or £6499 with Ortofon's Quintet Black S MC pick-up installed, the No5105 sells for just over half the price of the No515. While the inclusion of the cartridge does not save any money – certainly not always the case when buying a package – it does remove any set-up worries by being factory-fitted.

Hi-Fi News Staff  |  Jan 09, 2015
It’s one thing to be a whizz at electronics, and another to do turntables. They’re a completely different sort of challenge. McIntosh obviously wanted to do something a bit different in a crowded marketplace, and has come up with a combination of user friendliness and ‘millionaire chintz’. Vinyl rookies will appreciate the pre-aligned cartridge already mounted in a prefitted arm.
Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Mar 13, 2020
hfnoutstandingMobile Fidelity, champion of audiophile vinyl, has now wrapped up an EISA Award for its flagship UltraDeck – does the more affordable StudioDeck give much away?

It might seem that we played this one in reverse, reviewing Mobile Fidelity's dearer UltraDeck turntable first [HFN Jul '19], before working backward. A buzz in the underground, however, suggested that MoFi's less-costly, entry-level StudioDeck might be something of a 'sweet spot' candidate, so what could have been an anti-climax is anything but.

Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Sep 04, 2019
hfnoutstandingMobile Fidelity, champion of audiophile vinyl, has succumbed to the lure of producing its own turntables, like record labels of the past: enter the MoFi UltraDeck

Back in the early days of audio, numerous record labels had electronics divisions, or vice versa. You would see the logos of EMI, Philips, RCA, Decca, JVC and others on both LPs sleeves and hardware. The logic was that they originated the material and could also control the entire chain, from artist to listener. So, who better to introduce its own turntables than Mobile Fidelity, for decades the most prolific source of audiophile LPs? Now you can spin its platters on, well, its platters.

Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Feb 04, 2022
hfnoutstandingWith a range of affordable turntables and a trio of MM pick-ups already in its catalogue, the launch of a premium MC has been long-anticipated from this supremo of the vinyl LP

One thought dominated my recent rediscovery of the old Decca (now London) cartridges: there was much to be said for record labels also manufacturing playback equipment. As had Decca, EMI, RCA, and a few others in the past, Mobile Fidelity, aka MoFi, has continued to demonstrate this synergy through its portfolio of turntables [HFN Jul '19 and Jan '20], phono stages [HFN Mar '20] and three MM cartridges. The UltraGold is the first MoFi MC, and at £1499, it raises the brand's price point.

Review: Adam Smith, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Jan 18, 2024
hfncommendedInspired by Musical Fidelity's statuesque, near all-acrylic M1 turntable from 2004, the brand's new owners have reimagined the design to partner its massive Nu-Vista amps

There can be no doubt that retro is 'in'. From cars to kitchen appliances to hi-fi, many manufacturers are taking inspiration from the past and bringing famous and fondly remembered designs into the 21st century. The acquisition of the Musical Fidelity brand back in 2018 by Heinz Lichtenegger's Audio Tuning Vertriebs GmbH has given the company a very extensive and highly capable back-catalogue to mine. As a result, Audio Tuning (parent of the ubiquitous Pro-Ject marque), has taken the opportunity to boost its portfolio with a spot of retro fever.

Hi-Fi News Staff  |  Sep 06, 2011
Cost effective and not without its charm Enjoying a renaissance within the audio industry in recent years, Nagaoka now describes itself as a specialist processor for a range of hard-to-cut materials including jewels, ceramics, tungsten carbide and magnets. This portfolio clearly builds on its heritage as a manufacturer of the diamond styli fitted to its range of cartridges. The MP-100 is the entry level model of the range. With this model you get a ‘superfine’ conical diamond tip attached via an alloy cantilever to a samarium cobalt magnet hinting at the other strings to the company’s bow.
Ed Selley  |  Nov 16, 2011
A classic Japanese brand stages a welcome return with a competitive design It’s easy to forget that movingcoils were once the minority cartridge choice (not least because the best of them were low-output types needing complicated step-ups). For most hi-fi enthusiasts, moving-magnets ruled. In between MMs and MCs were other types: variluctance, movingflux – with Nagaoka providing, with its ‘Moving Permalloy’, one of the more successful alternatives to straight MM operation. Common to all, or nearly all, non-MCs was a higher output that would work with the standard 47kohm phono input then prevalent.
Review: Adam Smith, Lab: Paul Miller  |  Feb 20, 2023
hfncommendedThe flagship of Nagaoka's 'Moving Permalloy' range can trace its lineage back to ADC's 10E pick-up from 1964. Has this top-of-the-range cartridge stood the test of time?

For many audiophiles the transition from using a moving-magnet (MM) cartridge in a 'starter' system to a moving-coil (MC) by way of upgrade is something of a rite of passage. However, as Japanese cartridge specialist, Nagaoka, is keen to remind us, other options are available. The debate goes something like this: given that some superb MCs can be had from around £300 and up, one might ask who is going to buy an MM that costs nearly double this, such as the Nagaoka MP-500. This flagship pick-up retails for £799 or £899 in MP-500H guise, the latter pre-mounted into a rather swish Nagaoka-branded headshell.

John Bamford & Paul Miller  |  Aug 15, 2010
Few would argue that the Oracle Delphi looks drop dead gorgeous. With its sleek, futuristic lines and gleaming precision-turned parts there’s something about its design that makes even disinterested passers-by pause to take a second look. Did I say futuristic? What’s remarkable about the design is that the first incarnation of the Oracle, looking not dissimilar to this latest Delphi Mk VI model, first went on sale in 1979 – the year that Thatcher arrived at Downing Street, The Village People topped the singles chart with ‘YMCA’ and the Christmas No 1 was Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick In The Wall’. Hailing from Quebec in Canada, designer Marcel Riendeau’s Oracle Audio Technologies created shock waves among the audio fraternity on the other side of the Atlantic with his ultramodern record player.

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