Paul Messenger

Rumors have been circulating for some weeks now that the Chinese-owned, UK-based International Audio Group (IAG), which owns and operates the Quad and Wharfedale brands, was in talks with TAG McLaren, with the intention of taking over the latter's Audio division.

According to the glossy leaflet, the Lizard Wizard on show at the Heathrow Renaissance Hotel is, to quote verbatim: "a PMC amplifier that handles High Quality loudspeakers superior, without the everyday type amplifiers air disturbance [acoustic aliasing distortion]." No I'm not sure either, and the rest of the blurb is similarly opaque. Clearly translating Hungarian into English (or even American!) has its pitfalls, and I didn't get much further chatting face-to-face, either. What is certain is that this colourful amplifier looks cute and is incredibly compact—the actual electronics may be seen sitting on the business card just in front. In this case the PMC bit stands for a "ParaMagnetic Current," or virtual-coil amplifier, which is rated at 60Wpc into 8 ohms, but has a specified output impedance of 0–36 ohms. Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice once remarked.

The shock news on November 18, 1998---that the highly regarded British speaker brand Mordaunt-Short was to be closed down (see previous story)---seems to have achieved the desired result. On December 30, Audio Partnership plc announced it was acquiring the Mordaunt-Short brand from TGI plc (Tannoy Goodmans International).

A neat idea for decorating the walls of your music room see at the Hi-Fi News Show, Art-Vinyl's hinged "Play & Display" picture frames are exactly the right size to accommodate an LP, making it easy to "hang" your favorite album covers as artwork, while the discs inside remain accessible for playing, and can be easily swapped around as the mood takes.