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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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!
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
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