From the Vault

Sitting in a neat stack on the desk in front of me as I write, the subjects of this review remind me of those pretty Toshiba Aurex units of yesteryear [HFN Apr '16]. There are three Micromega components in all: the Microdrive CD transport (an improbably small device, this); the Variodac, comprising a Bitstream digital-to-analogue converter with remote power volume control and an additional line input; and finally, the Microamp, a neat-looking stereo power amplifier block.

Afavourable acoustic, and music Mitsuko Uchida has been playing since she was 13 years old – but even at The Maltings, Snape, there were unforeseen snags when it came to recording Debussy's 12 Études.

The development of this completely new power amplifier has been a major undertaking for Naim. Up to now, its designs have been variants on the late Julian Vereker's founding concept, which led to the first NAP 250 stereo chassis some 25 years ago. Even now, the company's biggest current model, the NAP 135, is a monoblock variant of the '250, with more generous power supplies allocated to the separated channels.

Statement amps are nothing new to Tim de Paravicini, his original EAR 509s and 549s hardly being minor projects. Neither were the first amps to bear the Yoshino names, a pair of designs showing that single-ended topology could be applied to both valves and transistors. But the latter, while Tim was able to voice it to ape the tubes, ran just as hot as the valves, and proved just as inefficient as all single-ended designs are known to be, so why bother? Damned if I know, for Tim's latest is a huge mutha of a single-ended amp... and it's solid-state.

In the UK, the turntable market has been dominated for a number of years by Linn’s LP12 – now well-priced by audiophile standards. Many attempts have been made to produce and sell better and more costly models, but it turned out that a far higher price had to be paid to achieve a genuine sound improvement. Enter the French products of Pierre Lurné – a turntable lineup which has enjoyed success for some years on the continent, but has only recently become available here.

What could be more apt than the UK launch of the Well-Tempered Arm at the end of Bach's tercentenary year? Ken Kessler brought you the first picture of this iconoclastic tonearm as part of his April '85 CES report and even before then, he had inveigled California-based designer William Firebaugh into letting us have a review sample.

The last year or so has seen the emergence of a new generation of high-quality open-reel tape decks, of which four are investigated here. As the price span ranges from £500-£600 for the Sony and Revox models to £850 for the Technics and £950 for the basic Pioneer assembly, these units are not strictly comparable, although their relative performances are nonetheless interesting.