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Back in the '90s, when I was young and marginally employed, one of the things I looked forward to most was going downstairs to my mailbox and finding a copy of Audiomart. The booklet arrived every two weeks, sometimes monthly, and was filled with classified ads for audio gear typeset in tiny, difficult-to-read print. In those pre-internet days, you needed a reference from a subscriber to sign up for Audiomart, which fostered a sense of community and safety, and if you wanted to respond to an ad, you had to call someone. Mostly I just enjoyed perusing the ads, but the prices for some of the…
Contributing to this effect was the remarkable sonic density produced by the Royal N. I'm talking about an intensely palpable physicality, or, put another way, a heightened sensation of sound being a mechanical wave that needs the medium of air to expand. For me, this is one of the most enjoyable aspects of musical reproduction and is another calling card of the SPU.
The cartridge's frequency response is a thing of beauty. On "Mount Harissa" from The Far East Suite (RCA Victor LSP-3782), Duke Ellington's late masterpiece from 1967, the orchestra's blasts sounded robust and…
Sidebar: Patsy Cline's Imagine That: The Lost Recordings (1954-1963)
Around the time I bought my first SPU, I wrote my first article for the New York Times. It was about a Baltimore man named Leon Kagarise, a TV repairman, audio engineer, and avid collector—well, hoarder—of records. Crammed into his little ranch-style house, tens of thousands of LPs not only turned his rooms into canyons but found their way into his bathtub and bed. Secreted among the vinyl were stacks of reel-to-reel tapes marked with the names of the biggest country and bluegrass stars of the last century. Leon…
They say that with age comes wisdom, and judging by some of my younger self's misguided choices, that adage could be true, at least for me. In 1984, after graduating from college with a degree in audio production, I moved back to England, where I had spent most of my teen years as a boarding school inmate. I had friends and connections there, and despite being a US citizen, I had some kind of sketchy work authorization that allowed me to work legally in the UK for up to six months. I connected with my old school friend Morris Gould, and we found a flat in South London to share as I looked for…
In 1957, the grease-bearing Schedule 1 301 was replaced by the Schedule 2 version, which introduced an oil bearing with oil-retaining sintered bushings, minimizing user maintenance. There is spirited debate among 301 aficionados as to which bearing sounds better, but as often happens with vintage gear, the earlier and much rarer Schedule 1 grease-bearing models have more value to collectors.
To build a 301 Advanced, Garrard starts by removing every part from the vintage donor chassis. The aluminum is then stripped to bare metal, partly for safety reasons—the original used lead-…
Being an audio reporter definitely has its perks—like when you're in a spacious Munich room, listening to top-tier systems deliver music with astonishing scale and precision.
Managing director Robert Sikora of J. Sikora, the Polish turntable manufacturer, showed two products, including the Standard Max Supreme ($33,800, all prices approximate when converted from Euros) with a KV9 Max tonearm ($10,800) and a DS Audio Grand Master cartridge ($15,000). I also took in the world premiere of the J. Sikora Aspire ($6400) with a KV9 tonearm ($4600) and DS Audio DS-W3…
Danish loudspeaker maker Storgaard & Vestskov, a relatively young company, operates from Bornholm, a small island in the Baltic Sea. Their 150,000ft² production hub handles everything in-house: R&D, milling, varnishing, and final assembly.
S&V engineer Jens Posselt, a veteran of the Danish audio scene with more than 40 years' experience, now works alongside CEO and designer Casper Vestskov Poulsen and co-founder Kim Storgaard, the company's VP of sales.
Despite its short history, S&V offers multiple loudspeaker models,…
Reporting on High End Munich is like navigating a blizzard. As I pushed from room to atrium to hall to lobby, products seemed to whiz by me, their presenters vying for attention in this international maelstrom of hi-fi. Amid my mad dash, a small speaker manufacturer from Sweden caught my attention: Guru.
Recalling Epos and early KEF, Guru—an offshoot of People Audio AB—produces visually distinctive speakers with matte and woodgrain finishes, slatted ports, silk-dome tweeters, and a range of mid/bass driver materials, including polypropylene, reinforced paper…
TechDAS turntables appeared in several rooms. In Room F219, I was particularly taken with the Korf tonearm and the intricate latticework design of the Exquisite Vord Cartridge.
The TechDAS Air Force V Premium turntable ($17,000, all prices approximate when converted from Euros) and Korf TA-AF10 tonearm ($2800) were fitted with the Exquisite Vord Cartridge ($6600), which fed an Engström M-Phono phono stage ($29,000). A Wadax Studio player ($39,800) completed the front end.
Amplification came from an Engström Monica preamplifier ($60,000) connected to an Engström Eric…
Dual sales manager Lothar Mertens presented the company’s full line of manual turntables, along with an intriguing prototype: the CS 718Q, a manual direct-drive 3-speed model.
The manual lineup includes the CS 418 belt-drive 3-speed turntable ($590, all prices approximate when converted from Euros); the CS 518 belt-drive 3-speed ’table with Classic Dual tonearm ($750–900); and the CS 618Q direct-drive 3-speed model with auto-lift and stop functions ($1300 and up).
"It all started with the CS 701 turntable in 1973," Mertens explained of the CS 718Q prototype. “That was…