Bowers & Wilkins 800 Diamond D5 speakers At the recent Vienna High End show Bowers & Wilkins unveiled the latest generation of their flagship 800 Diamond series loudspeakers, of which the 801 is the top dog and the oldest model name in the brand’s 60 year history. It is also “the best speaker we make”, […]
Little Fwend Low Mk2 automatic tonearm lifter Back in the heyday of turntables and vinyl, let’s call it the ‘70s, there were many automatic turntables that lifted the arm when it got to the end of the record, they even stopped the platter spinning and only the diligent felt the need to put the vinyl […]
Darrel Sheinman’s Voigt Domestic Corner Horns I first became aware of Darrel Sheinman when he invited me to Gearbox, a mastering studio and record label he set up in 2009 The studio is very unusual in using vintage tube gear to master vinyl with a 1967 Scully lathe and tube powered tape recorders and amplification. […]
Oephi Lounge speakers and more in the South West It had been too long since I had paid Mike and Caroline, proprietors of Audio Destination in Tiverton, Devon, a visit. I first met them back in 2017, when I purchased my first Melco server, along with a Moon 280D streaming DAC. Little did I realise […]
Reliable Uberlight Frame desk lamp Back in the carefree days of 2021 when all we had to worry about was the return of a certain virus the Canadian light company Reliable sent me an Uberlight Flex ‘task lamp’ because they had discovered that it worked well with turntables. This solidly built LED illumined lamp can […]
Ramar Tina record brush I first met Dean Butt of Soundstage Hi-Fi in Optimal Records in Munich, we had independently decided to escape the mayhem of the High End show and see what this well stocked store had in the way of interesting new tunes. I didn’t expect the meeting to result in Dean sending […]
Michell turntables, Stevenage, England When John Michell passed away at the age of 67 after a short illness it was left to his daughter Julie and her husband Steve Rowland to pick up the business that he had started in 1967. J.A. Michell Engineering Ltd was officially incorporated 1973 and started out making parts for […]
Apple Music vs Qobuz: the search for high-definition streaming Convinced that I needed to find a better music source than Apple Music played via Airplay 2, I decided it was time to give the well-publicised Qobuz a try. I have been using Apple’s ubiquitous music service for several years but experience with various streamers gave […]
S-Duo stylus pressure gauge and cleaner There is a certain amount of controversy about stylus cleaning – what are the best methods to keep the tip clean, or clean it if it gets crud on it – and how to look after our precious vinyl resource. Enter the Humminguru S-Duo. The Ear’s readers will hopefully […]
SFC SK-III Rhodium anti-static brush Back in my Hi-Fi Choice days we enjoyed putting April Fools news stories in the magazine once a year (hard to imagine today) and one was along rather similar lines to those embodied by the SK-III Rhodium anti-static brush, there was definitely a mention of goat’s hair but it may […]
Egglestonworks, Hegel & Merason at Audio Deluxe The Egglestonworks Viginti is a substantial loudspeaker, it weighs 255lbs (116kg) and is nearly two foot deep, which makes it difficult to get through 30 inch British doorways such as the ones on my studio. But I wanted to hear them and Auden Distribution were thinking of some […]
The Uberlight Flex is for those of us that prefer to listen with the lights down, after all it’s more relaxing and music sounds better when you’re relaxed. As a vinyl lover there is a problem with low lighting however and that’s the need to find a specific track on a record if it’s not […]