Table of contents for November - December 2020 in Sound + Image

Those readers particularly prone to peer carefully at magazine page ‘straps’ may have noticed that in recent issues we’ve divided up our Sound+Image review section into categorised blocks — this issue there’s our vinyl section, then hi-fi, an audio-visual section, and a lone headphone. These categories intersect — obviously we’re not implying that audio-visual can’t be ‘hi-fi’ too. But certainly not all audio-visual and audio gear qualifies as hi-fi. And by hi-fi I mean equipment of a level that delivers a sufficient semblance of the original performance that it makes recorded music come alive — it works, it’s real, it recreates a moment in time. Which is something I think most people will have experienced at some point (hopefully daily for many of our well-equipped readers). It’s quite the moment…

Yamaha is in full launch mode at present, so that while we await news of the 10th anniversary Aventage AV receiver range, the company is rolling out new soundbars, RX-V range receivers and headphones. AV RECEIVERS: The new RX-V receiver range is redesigned from the ground up, and looks it, with two minimalist-fronted models — the $899 RX-V4A and $1299 RX-V6A — sporting a new, high-res LCD display and front jog-dial knob plus touch-sensitive buttons. The receivers offer five and seven channels of power respectively, and come with impressive 8K future-proofing onboard. “No other AV receiver on the market offers as many 8K HDMI inputs as Yamaha, as of today,” boasts the company, with three of the seven HDMI inputs on the RX-V6A and all four inputs on the RX-V4A…

Time is precious, so anniversaries are celebrated with special editions featuring precious materials. Canada’s Simaudio Moon is marking its 40th year with a run of just 40 Anniversary Edition versions of the Moon 680D streaming DAC and 600i v2 integrated amplifier (above), with vintage red chassis and gold chassis, each with a commemorative gold plate embossed with logo and individual serial numbers — plus matching remote control and flight cases. Price is $50,000 the set: www.busisoft.com.au Sennheiser is marking no fewer than 75 years since it began under Fritz Sennheiser as Laboratorium Wennebostel, or ‘Labor W’, celebrating with an Anniversary Edition of its acclaimed HD 800 S headphone in gold, a limited run of 750 with individual serial numbers. The price is $2599.95, same as the standard black version: www.sennheiser.com.au…

Put a turntable in your lounge and records play themselves. Doubly so with an automatic turntable — it’s so very easy, and such a delight, to unjacket a disc, put it on, press ‘Start’. Sometimes it’s background, sometimes it just can’t be background, it’s too darned involving, and almost by definition, it’s music you know and love, not a Tidal Rising playlist. This AT-LP3 is still built to a price, of course, and with turntables almost more than any other hi-fi component, you reap seriously significant rewards as you raise your expenditure. But if you’re coming back to vinyl and this is your budget, the AT-LP3 is an instant favourite — looking great in white and red, a good cartridge, a seriously great sound for the price, and phono stage…

Music Hall was among the first purveyors of ‘plug’n’play’ turntables of hi-fi quality. Until Roy Hall’s innovation in this regard, the only fully set-up decks available were low-quality boxed record players, while audiophile-grade turntables seemed to deliberately complicate the work required before the buyer could play an LP, almost as an inverse indicator of the turntable’s quality. So while Music Hall’s mmf-1.5 isn’t exactly a ‘turn-key’ model, because you do have to do some assembly and alignment yourself, it’s pretty straight-forward, and yet it’s a truly hi-fi performer. Equipment Another Music Hall achievement is that, despite the eminently reasonable $699 price-tag here, this doesn’t present as an entry-level turntable. It has a high-gloss cherry-wood veneered finish, a nicely engineered S-shaped tonearm which has a removable headshell, and a high-quality hinged…

Part of Yamaha’s return to vinyl (see also p44), this is a turntable that does Tidal… and Spotify… and internet radio and high-res network streaming. A turntable that has AirPlay and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and Ethernet. You can plug it into an amplifier, but you can equally send its output wirelessly to speakers all around the home, and have everything under app control. All this, and yes, it plays vinyl too. So, the secret weapon here is Yamaha‘s MusicCast streaming and multiroom platform, which provides a fully-equipped streaming source hidden within the turntable. For some of these sources you could even use voice control, since MusicCast is now Alexa-controllable (though it seems Alexa has not yet developed the skill set required for flipping over LPs). You can connect the ‘turntable’…

Back when music came on shellac, it was de rigeur for record labels also to produce record players. RCA Victor begat the Victor Talking Machine Company, the Columbia Phonograph Company (software) begat the Columbia Graphophone Company (hardware), and so on. In more recent times the trend has gone the other way, with hi-fi companies starting their own record labels, sometimes as ‘vanity’ projects, or simply to have a chance to control music through the whole chain from creation to reproduction. So the announcement a few years back by highly respected audiophile recording label Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs that it would be creating a Mo-Fi Electronics range of turntables, cartridges and phono stages (with DAC and amplifiers in development) was not entirely unprecedented. But it is nevertheless an intriguing proposition. Mo-Fi’s…

Platters, on most turntables, are precisely 30cm in diameter, the size of an LP. In our picture above, the GT-5000’s platter looks a bit small, dwarfed by the plinth beneath. But in fact the platter is much larger than normal — 35cm in diameter. Hence the whole turntable is similarly enlarged, the chassis around 55cm wide, 40cm deep, and 24cm high. So don’t be fooled by any photographs which make the Yamaha GT-5000 look like it’s comparable with a standard-sized turntable. It’s not. In Yamaha’s GT Series of yesteryear, GT stood for ‘Gigantic & Tremendous’ — and clearly the concept still applies. Equipment When Yamaha announced first its new 5000 Series of two-channel audio, one choice was fascinating — it would be all-analogue. There is no digital source for the…

It’s hard to believe today, but in the early days of hi-fi, there was little recognition of the ‘garbage in, garbage out’ philosophy. The signal was the signal, amplifiers just made it bigger, and it was your loudspeakers that made all the difference between good sound and bad sound. No matter that the art of LP reproduction had remained substantially unchanged since 1948 when Peter Goldmark, head of research at CBS-Columbia in the US, had delivered a lightweight tone-arm and sapphire needle to play his new 12-inch 33⅓rpm vinylite LP with microgrooves (the 45rpm 7-incher arrived the following year from RCA Victor). No matter that the record player was clearly a far more complicated piece of technology than a big box of wood with some cones in it. No, it…

It might be considered a trifle immodest to declare your own product to be a ‘Classic’ before it even hits the streets. But JBL accomplished the task two years ago with its full-size (large, indeed) L100 Classic loudspeakers. JBL meant, of course, that they are a ‘classic’ design, having taken key DNA from the original L100 from 1970, a design which went on to become the company’s best-seller, known as the ‘Century’, and earning iconic status among consumers after appearing in a Maxell tape ad where they blew back the hair/wine glass/wall-ducks of a long-haired listener (in the UK version, Peter Murphy of Goth rock group Bauhaus). And the new 21st-century L100 Classics have become classics in their own right, being all-new designs, really, but sporting those white woofers and…

Modern-day audio fans may be surprised to learn that back in the 1970s, Shure was far and away the biggest name in the hi-fi business, by virtue of selling more phono cartridges than every other phono cartridge manufacturer put together, and that included the world’s most expensive cartridge, the V15 (above) and variants. Shure’s US factories produced nearly 10,000,000 cartridges per year. Pretty good for a company that Sidney Shure kicked off as a one-man operation in the back streets of Chicago in 1925. Initially named The Shure Radio Company, because Sidney sold radio parts, the name was changed to Shure Brothers after Sidney’s brother Sam joined the business in 1928, later shortened to just Shure Bros, now Shure Incorporated. Shure was also the biggest name in the microphone business,…

For anyone who regards ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’ as the apotheosis of prog rock and the moment that Pink Floyd first ascended Mount Olympus, it might feel like a cardinal sin of omission for drummer Nick Mason to go out with a band devoted to playing exclusively pre-Dark Side material. But this double live album from Mason’s group — featuring a motley assortment of session players, journeymen and a member of Spandau Ballet — is glorious, capturing the spirit of early Floyd in all its myriad incarnations from their cosmic space rock voyages to the moments of purest whimsy. Indeed there’s something delightfully old-fashioned about the concept, like an adventure story from the pages of Boy’s Own Paper or Ripping Yarns with black-and-white illustrations of men in pith…

A New Day Now JoBo recuts his debut album. In 2000, the Tom Dowd-produced, covers-strewn ‘A New Day Yesterday’ introduced Bonamassa as a thrusting yet derivative blues talent. Two decades on, Bonamassa has remixed, resung, re-titled and remastered that debut, adding also three previously unheard demos, including a storming assault on Dylan’s I Want You, produced by one of his first patrons Steve Van Zandt. The question, of course, is why? According to Bonamassa, it’s some kind of tribute to Dowd, who died in 2002, but he’s long swapped this overly reverential approach for superior, more innovative material. Still, ‘A New Day Yesterday’ was a pointer to better times ahead. Now being older and wiser, Bonamassa has brought new value: his vocals have improved beyond recognition; he brings new wounded…

Describing itself as the global trade association and central touch point for residential technology, CEDIA represents 3700 member companies and serves more than 30,000 industry professionals worldwide, providing access to industry-leading education, certification and research, and is the industry’s only certifying body. For consumers, the aim is for CEDIA membership to be a sign of a qualified and trusted home technology partner, whether you are building a new home, adding smart technologies during renovations, or just need specialist help. CEDIA’s annual awards programme celebrates the many ways technology enhances the home. We’re delighted to bring you the finalists for the Asia-Pacific region, from which the winners will be announced on 8 October, in a virtual awards show supported by Bowers & Wilkins, Crestron Australia, and Convoy International. (We’ll let you…

Integrated Home: Level II This project started with a conversation about just a dedicated home cinema — and turned into a complete home integration project, where voice commands can control and tune the lights, shades, gates, HVAC, and entertainment options. The audio/visual distribution is extensive, with 12 video zones and 11 audio zones, including one exterior zone; brands used in the theatre include Integra, M&K Sound, Oppo and Sony 4K projection from a fully enclosed projector hush box. In addition to 34 roller blinds, security, irrigation and networking, there are no fewer than 80 circuits of lighting including key areas controlled by motion sensors — all integrated into this home’s overall control system. But what’s most striking are the details that make this home work with the owners’ needs. In…

Integrated Home: Level II West Coast Hi Fi had their work cut out for them here — this project is a four-and-a-half hour trip from the integrator’s home base. Automation includes lighting controlled by occupancy sensors through all common areas and individual en suites, with lights automatically changing their default brightness across three levels depending on the time of day and room, so that, for example, bathrooms will reduce to 7% brightness once everyone is sleeping to deliver friendly rather than blinding levels for those using the bathrooms at night. There is detail in the programming, so that while heated towel rails automatically engage when the shower is running, they only do so when the outdoor temperature is below a certain threshold, so energy is not wasted in the summer.…

This home is, as the tagline implies, two residences that have been joined by a common basement. The homeowner is a 60-year-old woman who likes to entertain — in some style. The dedicated home cinema system uses a native-4K Sony projector to deliver a great image, with sound handled by a Trinnov preamplifier and Aurea speakers. It also includes a German Moovia sofa and the D-BOX motion seating system to give viewers the feeling of being ‘in the movie’, with the motion of the furniture synced to the on-screen action. Access control was critical for security, with only approved vehicles able to enter the garage, and the home featuring a ‘security room’ safe from intruders. There’s enterprise-grade networking, 5000 lights, and music distributed to no fewer than 48 zones across…

Media Room: Level II In this, the top category level for Media Rooms, Boutique AV combined the wishes of the two homeowners with truly spectacular results. The desire of ‘Mr. Client’, as Boutique AV refers to him, was to have three big screens that could operate independently, or, as he wanted to work from home a bit more, that could “replicate his three-screen computer station at work… on a larger scale”. He also thought such a design could seamlessly cater to the media requirements of his two other family members in the home (his wife and son) as a creative solution for watching TV together as a family, “whether it be different or the same content. Our team listened carefully and designed a carefully tailored 84-inch tri-Ddsplay AV solution,” explains…

Home Cinema finalist: Level III The client here had three initial requests: make it simple to use, simple to reboot should the need arise, and give it good sound isolation so as not to disturb neighbours. From that brief McCormick delivered a top-notch cinema: THX reference levels for both rows of seats delivered by Pro Audio Technology speakers, subwoofers and amplification coupled with a Trinnov processor “to really fine-tune the room and further increase the audio performance and detail.” A 4K Cinewave Severston projector screen was matched with a Sony 4K projector and Lumagen video processor to ensure that video was up to par, while the equipment racks and a handy refreshment area (see bar below) are situated in a ‘lobby’ outside the sealed door. In order to address the…

The ultra-short-throw projector seems to be coming of age in homes where it’s a fit, and Epson’s $5499 4K Pro-UHD EH-LS500 is the latest contender, sitting close to the wall, shining up to illuminate a screen or wall, and having its own speakers too. “Even though panels are getting bigger and bigger, they can get nowhere near as big as a home theatre projector,” Epson Australia’s Bruce Bealby told us when the projector was first shown in Sydney, pre-COVID. “The LS500 has a screen size of up to 130-inches — that’s equivalent to four 65-inch panels.” The EH-LS500 can be purchased alone with an RRP of $5499, but Epson also has two bundles, coming either with a 100-inch screen for a total price of $6599, or with a 120-incher for…

Sony has brought a little bit of Bravia TV technology to three new projector models just announced, spearheaded by an all-new flagship VPL-GTZ380 4K laser projector which Sony Australia’s Michael Bromley described during the online launch as “an absolute beast”. This model and the other two new releases — the lamp-based VPL-VW590ES model and laser-based VPL-VW790ES models which replace the VW570ES and VW760ES respectively — all feature processing by the company’s X1 Ultimate picture processor, an optimised-for-projector version of the X1 processor found in Sony Bravia TVs. The processor powers various processes including an object-based HDR remastering tool that aims to enhance details and colours specifically based on the type of object in the frame — flowers, faces, hands etc. Two databases work together in real-time to clean up noise…

While we were preparing our turntable round-up for this issue, the news came through of vinyl’s latest triumph — in the first half of 2020, vinyl sales in the US made more money than CD sales. Nor was it a small lead; over the previous year CD sales had collapsed by 47.6%, while vinyl sales rose modestly. (Unsurprisingly the biggest rises overall were in paid streaming subscriptions.) So it seems the 21st-century music system now requires two music sources — some way to stream, and a turntable for playing vinyl. And you know what? We couldn’t be happier with that solution. We have readers in three different scenarios. Some have always played vinyl and always will, and are quietly celebrating its survival, just a bit miffed that its wider popularity…

Like many other companies, Sony has been encouraged back to vinyl, releasing first the impressive PS-HX500 (see p30), then more recently this PS-LX310BT, a lower model, yet bringing a new level of functionality to the party — Bluetooth output. So here there are four ways to play. Like the turntables of old, it can output direct from the cartridge at phono level, requiring a phono stage in your amplifier or as an external box. Don’t have one of those? Flick the rear switch and the Sony’s internal phono stage raises the signal to line level. As with the higher Sony turntable, there is a USB-B socket which can connect to a computer for recording your vinyl (see panel). And new here is the ability to send music from the turntable…

Sony’s higher-level turntable is impressively understated — low, black, no massive logo on the mat, an exercise in restraint. But what about this high-res audio logo on the right side of the plinth? This is vinyl — analogue, not digital; how is it ‘high-res’ exactly? The answer is that Sony’s $799 turntable, in addition to being an analogue source with its moving-magnet cartridge playing at phono-level, also has an electronics section within. This includes its own phono stage, so you can flick a switch to deliver line-level output instead. But there’s more — as with the lesser Sony and Audio-Technica’s AT-LP120xUSB, there is also a USB-B socket, with a cable provided to link to your computer. Sony goes another level here in including its own software for PC or Mac,…

We reviewed this turntable in full two issues back, but it deserves its place in this round-up, showing what Pro-Ject can do as you move up its ranges. Indeed the X1 is a direct descendant of the company’s first-ever turntable, the P1, but of course, “iimproved in every aspect,” says Pro-Ject’s Heinz Lichtenegger, “thanks to modern materials and new production methods”. One key to the success of the P1 was its simplicity, and Pro-Ject has maintained that here. Changing platter speed from 33? to 45rpm is just a push of a button. (The third speed, the rarer inclusion of 78rpm, requires you to remove the platter and move the rubber drive belt.) So clearly the Pro-Ject X1 is a belt-drive design, the drive pulley directly attached to the drive motor…

McIntosh is better known for its amplification than its turntables, yet its current trio of turntables (and one turntable/amplifier) are as desirable as everything else in its ranges. They maintain the characteristic company colours of green and teal, indeed the current range-topping MT10 has a 5.4kg silicone acrylic platter that spins on a cushion of air, illuminated from below so that the whole platter glows green when in operation. It would be a bit rude to describe McIntosh’s MT2 turntable reviewed here as entry-level, so let’s call it relatively affordable, which still moving our turntable group up to a new level. The platter here isn’t illuminated, it’s black, but two layers of acrylic plates top the plinth base of black-lacquer finished MDF, and these do incorporate “custom-designed fibre-optic light diffusers…

Some 74 years ago the Scale Model Equipment Company started making precision models and precision engineering components. Then 50 years ago the company’s founder designed a precision tonearm for his turntable — and ever since then this UK Sussex-based company has been in the turntable business. Indeed its parent company has recently doubled down, buying the rights to the Garrard name and releasing a ‘new’ Garrard 301 last year, equipped with an SME tonearm. Last year also saw the release of two related SME ‘precision’ turntables — the Model 12A, which is packaged with the SME 309 tonearm. and the fascinating complete package reviewed here, called the Synergy. This takes the turntable from the Model 12 but adds a dedicated arm, which is essentially the highly regarded SME IV but…

If you’ve now sorted your preferred turntable from the ranks of contenders, consider one more thing. Vinyl is a source with a difference — the software requires care. Cleaning is essential even with new discs, and if you’re out gathering bargains at secondhand record fairs, then a good cleaning system can transform a $2 or $5 purchase from a crackly listen into something more soothing. The Record Doctor VI is one such system which aims to reduce signal noise in your system by physically removing dirt from your vinyl. Equipment Record cleaners range from cheap-and-cheerful simple wiping solutions to ultrasonics and wildly expensive transcription systems of deep cleansing; we’ve covered many approaches in past issues. The ‘Record Doctor’ inhabits a helpful zone where the price is not frightening at $485,…

In terms of the number of TVs sold, TCL was the world’s third biggest TV manufacturer as of the last quarter of 2019, behind only Samsung and LG, according to research firm IHS Markit. Headquartered in China, listed in Hong Kong and incorporated in the Cayman Islands with limited liability, TCL’s rapid growth into international markets has focused on affordable rather than premium TVs, and yet a stroll around one of the company’s usually extensive IFA exhibitions (reduced to virtuality this year, see News p13) quickly reveals that TCL is also a technology leader, heavily involved in research to develop its own advanced display and AI technologies. Given LG.Display’s current monopoly on TV OLED panel production, TCL has never released an OLED TV of its own, but it certainly has…

Flash, I love you, but we only have 14 hours to save the Earth! Sampled for Queen’s soundtrack single — along with the truly meme-worthy “Gordon’s alive!” — it’s a line that nails the very essence of 1980’s Flash Gordon. It’s all there in those 14 breathless words: the incorruptible innocence of its heroes, the life-and-death stakes, the eternal wink that hovers over the action but never punctures the fantasy. Powered as much by leather-gloved perviness as square-jawed derring-do, Flash Gordon remains a delivery system for pure audience feelgood, a cosmic panto forever on the brink of Brian Blessed lobbing panto sweets into the front row. Hail, Ming! Newly restored for the film’s 40th anniversary, this impressive 4K Blu-ray upgrade enables us to truly savour Danilo Donati’s stunning production design.…

When electro godfathers Kraftwerk began their career singing in their native German, it was a bold gesture of cultural confidence, defying British-American hegemony in pop and rock. But the group’s later policy of adopting polyglot lyrics and pressing alternative bilingual albums made an equally strong statement, affirming a cosmopolitan identity as ‘Europeans with German passports’. Newly available as downloads outside the Germanspeaking world, these five remastered classics are chiefly for scholarly Kraftwerk completists, partly because Ralf Hutter’s translations from the German are fastidiously precise, although some small quirks arguably give one version a superior edge. For example, the wry line ‘She’s going out tonight but drinking just champagne’ in The Model derives from ‘Sie trinkt in Nachtclubs immer Sekt (Korrekt!)’ in Das Modell, a Dusseldorf in-joke on the catchphrase of…

It’s all very well tinkling out Stairway To Heaven and Eleanor Rigby while cracking jokes for a living, but Rick Wakeman has grasped that prog fans crave something a little more ambitious from their number-one keyboard wizard. After enjoying playing ‘King Arthur’ and ‘Journey To The Centre Of The Earth’ in big live shows in recent years, he’s recorded an instrumental prog album that taps into the DNA of those unrivalled classics of pomp while revving up the energy factor to contemporarily acceptable levels. He’s freely admitted he’s listened to the oldies and used sounds he hadn’t dabbled with for a long while. The process appears to have inspired him as, along with the three members of his insanely proficient kick-ass band, his musical emissions make for a highly pleasurable…

Integrated Home: Level I Due to the mid-century modern design, the owners of this home had little desire to see tech on display, says Electronic Living of this smart home perched along the banks of a beautiful river. “So we were able to balance modern amenities and technology while remaining true to classic ‘60s style. This is the thought process behind the TV that pops up from a sideboard, speakers mounted cleverly in the ceilings, sensors placed discretely, and security cameras carefully selected to look like lights.” Automation is similarly key to its success. At sunset, all lights at the front of the house turn on, and upon the client’s arrival back home (if after sunset), all of the lights at the front entrance of the home will turn on for…

3 x Integrated Homes: Level II Lighting was key in this first of three finalists in this category from Bridger Automation, “to highlight and show off the design aspects, including all the water features, of the home with a subtle, sophisticated look,” says Bridger. “Our company was the sole electrical contractor for this installation, excluding solar and air-conditioning systems. Having this flexibility allowed us to incorporate all relevant controls of lighting, blinds, curtains, louvres, fans, fireplaces, pool, and pond pumps.” So in addition to solving challenges of effective networking in a home of steel, concrete, glass and water, Bridger worked with the architect and owner to deliver outstanding automated ‘scenes’, such as the ‘Evening’ lighting scene that runs each day at sunset until a programmed end time when it slowly…

Integrated Home: Level III This seaside architectural marvel required a subtle and respectful approach to technology integration from the Len Wallis team, along with intuitive control for a customer who declared himself a ‘technophobe’. Security was also essential, including remote access and solid networking for a home that doubles as an office. “A cutting-edge Savant and Meridian Audio smart home was designed and delivered,” says the Len Wallis team, “integrating all electrical sub-systems to ensure the simplicity of control through a true single app solution. Nine audio zones are included, five of which cater for 4K distributed video, including a near-reference immersive cinema space. Lighting control, shade control, security, CCTV, HVAC, access control, and pool control are all integrated within the Savant Pro app.” A wide array of automated scenes…

Best Showroom Finalist When an integration firm builds a showroom, they generally proceed in one of two ways: either the room feels like a retail space, full of speakers and lights and gadgetry, or it’s more of an ‘experience centre’, which was the tack taken by Wired Life for its Melbourne showroom. “We were aiming to as best as possible provide a true and extensive representation of automation within a real home environment,” says Wired Life, “to better explain what it is that we do and how this can benefit our clients’ lives in day to day situations.” This 100m2 space has been designed to show off residential tech both to potential clients and to the design/build community. Wired Life decided to collaborate with nearby partners — architects, interior designers,…

Home Cinema: Level II The first of two finalists in this Home Cinema category is from Beijing, where the Zene team was tasked with a lot of seating and a big room, with the challenge to deliver sound that would rival that of any nearby commercial cinema, yet with a relatively limited budget. “We chose Krix X series speakers and QSC professionalgrade amps,” says Zene, “products usually used in commercial cinema VIP rooms [common in China] which are about the same size as this theatre. The client was very happy about the sound performance and he spoke highly on the dynamics of the system.” Zene also had to be creative with sound isolation, constructing multiple walls inside this room’s footprint to ensure the high performance levels didn’t spread. The result:…

Naim Audio has had an association with car-maker Bentley for some years; now the association has been extended to sister company Focal. Engineers from both brands work together on in-car systems known as ‘Naim for Bentley’ in every Bentley model, and now two new audio products (sold together) have been released in ‘Bentley’ liveries: an Ayous-wood cabinet version of the Naim Mu-so wireless speaker system with an RRP of $3700, plus $2000 ‘Focal for Bentley’ Radiance headphones. More info: www.busisoft.com.au…

There is finally proof-positive of Loewe’s continuing life under its new management. The new team responsible for reanimating the site in Kronach, Germany, had promised fresh designs and new categories to be launched during IFA 2020 in Berlin, but with that great European showcase much reduced this year, we got the news first from Loewe’s Australian distributor, Indi Imports. Together Indi and Loewe have announced a new branding — ‘We. by Loewe’ — which “is characterised by progressive, modern designs and differentiates itself from Loewe in terms of price and appearance”. The new ranges will be aimed strongly at “a younger customer that expresses their personality through product and colour”, noting that this is “in contrast” with the main Loewe brand. The first products are promised in the new year,…

It’ll come as no surprise to those who have even a passing knowledge of today’s turntable market to find Pro-Ject not only opening our review extravaganza but reappearing several times. “Pro-Ject, who I love, have four million turntables — 17 different colours, 27 shapes,” jokes Roy Hall of Music Hall turntables (see p28), and he should know, as his own turntables are also made by Pro-Ject’s founder Heinz Leichnegger, who invested in Czech turntable factories at a time when vinyl was on the way out. Since it came back with a vengeance Pro-Ject has been in a unique position to deliver turntables, arms and electronics not only under its own brand but for others too — sometimes declared, like Music Hall, other times secretively rebranding Pro-Ject’s work as their own.…

The majority of turntables in our group this issue are belt-driven, but this Audio-Technica AT-LP120XUSB is direct-drive, where the motor is an integral part of the platter, so there are no belts and no pulleys involved. DJs favour direct drive, most famously in Technics’ SL-1200 (the MkII version of which is pictured below for comparison purposes), which ruled the scene until 2010, when Panasonic announced it was ceasing manufacture of all Technics products. It has more recently reversed that decision, but in the inter-vacillation period, Audio-Technica and Pioneer (along with several other less well-known brands) began selling turntables that were near clones of that model. One of these was the AT-LP120, here reviewed in its ‘XUSB’ version, and still more recently released (see panel) in a version which adds the…

Pro-Ject Audio is a company which makes not only turntables but standalone phono stages, DACs, amplifiers, even speakers. So presumably someone piped up at a development meeting with the suggestion ‘Why not put them all together?’ The result is the company’s Juke Box series, with this Juke Box E being a turntable which has, hidden within and under its plinth, a built-in phono stage, a Bluetooth receiver, a line preamplifier and a power amplifier, requiring only a pair of speakers to make a complete system. Indeed for $1260 you can buy it as the Juke Box Hi-Fi Set, with a pair of Pro-Ject’s Speaker Box 5 standmount speakers included. But you could add any speakers of choice, subject, of course, to the Pro-Ject offering enough power to drive them effectively…

As we’ve seen in our reviews this year, Panasonic’s revival of the Technics brand is now moving beyond turntables to include headphones and streaming Wi-Fi speakers. But there is little doubt that the decision to reboot the brand came from the widespread revival of vinyl, and in particular the success of a number of turntables from other brands which were using expired or licensed patents to deliver something often closely comparable to the SL-1200 DJ deck, for which Panasonic/Technics had suspended production in 2010. In 2016, they started up again, along with variants and more hi-fi versions, and with the latest releases there are now signs that the brand is truly hitting its stride again. Equipment This SL-1500C is a less elaborate mini-me of the high-end SL-1000R model, still weighty…

After all the large and solid plinths we’ve seen in the preceding pages, this Rega presents a complete contrast, with its minimalist and dramatically-styled plinth — more a structure for the main bearing, tonearm and motor to attach to than anything resembling what we normally think of as a plinth. Rega’s philosophy is entirely at odds with the thinking that high mass in a turntable will create rigidity, assist speed stability, lower and spread resonances. That is not the Rega way. Rigidity yes, but not through piling on weight. Mass absorbs energy, says Rega. Slowly-released energy adds coloration, and lost energy equals lost music. For Rega it’s all about stiffness and bracing and lightness. It aims for the lightest possible chassis, with the stiffest possible brace. Over the years the…

It is fitting that we finish our turntable round-up with a design which, in some ways, started it all, and which is only three years off its 50th anniversary. Back then the company’s founder, Ivor Tiefenbrun, leveraged his father’s precision engineering company to set Linn in motion with a precision-designed turntable notable for a new patented point bearing. And with it, he began the conversion of the hi-fi world to the crucial concept that the quality of the source in an audio system is critical to the system’s overall quality. This ‘source-first’ philosophy sounds smack-yourself-in-theface obvious today, but was most definitely not the mode of thought back in 1973 (see The Origin Story panel opposite). Linn has, of course, reinvented and restructured itself through the years. Ivor’s son Gilad Tiefenbrun…

Several television manufacturers are leading (and pushing) the leap to 8K resolution — four times 4K or 16 times full-HD — in the hope you’ll upgrade your TV. But really there’s virtually zero 8K material yet to watch; indeed few people spend much time watching even 4K, unless you’re picking movies carefully from the premium plans of streaming services or are building up a collection of lovely 4K Blu-ray discs. The one exception is gaming, with the new generation of PlayStation and Xbox promising to support 8K gaming output. AV receivers, then, need to follow, to offer those who are persuaded a complete path from source to display. Denon has just released its first 8K-compatible models with its 2020 X-Series, topped by the $6199 AVC-X6700H with its 13.2-channel processing and…

“It always seemed to me that Nick Hornby’s writing was our secret weapon, and if we stuck to it, we’d be alright,” admits director Stephen Frears, recalling the approach he took while adapting 2000’s zeitgeist-capturing comedy High Fidelity. Back in the early-’90s, Hornby’s story of a commitment-phobe record-store owner, endlessly obsessed with listing his favourite albums and seemingly baffled by the motivations of the opposite sex, struck a chord with paperback readers. It also caught the attention of John Cusack, who diligently went to work adapting the novel for the big screen. It was a journey that would reunite the star with the director of 1990’s The Grifters, help introduce a then-largely-unknown Jack Black to the world, and effortlessly encapsulate the pulse and spirit of a post-’90s, musicloving generation. Although…

In the near half-century since The Doors closed, guitarist Robby Krieger has never quite found a place for himself. Not one to overly tax himself, ‘The Ritual Begins At Sundown’ is just his seventh solo album in that time. And while nobody would mistake it for the work of a man who’s trying too hard, it’s not without its charms. Once again, the man who made Jim Morrison’s words flesh (and provided some of his own for Light My Fire) has dispensed with lyrics (almost) entirely. So with the assistance of former Frank Zappa bassist Arthur Barrow, he’s delivered a showcase for his still mind-boggling guitar playing. At its worst — on the interminable Screen Junkie and a lumpy trek through the sole cover, Zappa’s Chunga’s Revenge — it is…

1978: The Year The World Turned Dayglo (3CD) Where punk went next. All the big names are tastefully represented here in this follow-up to last year’s excellent ‘1977: The Year Punk Broke’ – The Jam, Sham 69, The Cure, PiL, The Stranglers, Boomtown Rats, Tom Robinson Band – but also quality deep cuts to savour, including The Reaction’s propulsive I Can’t Resist, Dead Fingers Talk’s glam stomp Nobody Loves You When You’re Old And Gay and The Detonators’ sleazy power-pop gem Light At Your Window. With a deliberate bias away from London and particular attention paid to the spiky-haired outpourings from Manchester, Scotland and Northern Ireland, this collection presents a vivid snapshot of life beyond the metropolitan (peroxide) fringe, where maverick one-offs are given equal billing with their more illustrious…

Not much ran smoothly for The Doors, and this was certainly so with sessions for their sixth album, ‘L.A. Woman’. In November 1970, regular producer Paul Rothchild, unconvinced by what he was hearing in the studio, decided to quit. Enter engineer Bruce Botnick, who joined the band in their old rehearsal space, the Doors Workshop on Santa Monica Boulevard. It was a back-to-basics move that mirrored the eventual tone of the album itself. Gone were the symphonic flourishes and painstaking exactitude of their most recent work, replaced instead by a freer, garage-blues sound that harked back to their beginnings. This was most keenly expressed on the title track. On one level it’s a simple song about barrelling down the LA Freeway, lights a-blur and the wind at its tail. But…

Integrated Home: Level I Argus Technologies not only handled every aspect of this home’s electrical, lighting and entertainment systems, it has built in the ability for the owners to expand capabilities in the future. So while there are four zones of video and five zones of audio distribution in this knock-down/rebuild project, there is also pre-wiring for five more zones ready to go. Integration control is handled by Control4, with the system “extended to incorporate devices such as in-wall touchscreens, IP cameras, and various network interfaces for the integration of the listed subsystems.” Three separate wireless networks support separate parental and kids’ use, with a final separate network for automation devices that had no wired Ethernet interface. Argus designed, wired, and installed all 67 lighting circuits throughout the home, including…

Integrated Home: Level II This beautiful home called for technology integration that matched the stellar aesthetics. Connectivity was critical given the scale of the project and the concrete wall construction, so the home’s wired backbone was augmented by five wireless access points. Controls also had to be simple, as the system’s users include the client’s four young children. “The integration at work here really adds the ‘wow’ factor to this prestigious home,” says Electronic Living. “The Control4 platform allows all subsystems to be integrated together seamlessly via easy-to-use on-wall touch panels on each floor plus Neeo remotes in each main living room, as well as via the Control4 app on mobile devices. With Control4sight our client can view and control their smart home from anywhere in the world that has…

< Integrated Home: Level IV > The AVD team had a mission here in this highest of the Integrated Home categories — this is an incredibly environmentally-friendly home, designed to exceed LEED Platinum certification for sustainability. “We handled full engineering of the electrical and electronic systems with a high-level focus on sustainability,” says AVD. This included reduction in energy consumption through smart systems operating everything from lighting, motorised curtains and blinds, air conditioning and ventilation, implementing automatic modes that ensure systems are energy efficient. Heat loads are minimised by lowering blinds automatically rather than turning on the air-conditioning systems, while ‘leaving’ or ‘shut-down’ modes ensure systems are put into a hibernation state when not in use. Another concept is “light harvesting,” which ensures that maximum use is made of natural…

Media Room: Level I This client loves to rock, and with Krix speakers and subwoofers driven by Emotiva and Yamaha electronics, this ‘Bunker’ room is able to stay loud for long periods without distortion, so that the concert sound produced when the speakers and screens are delivering the owner’s music video collection is quite something. The volume won’t bother the neighbours either, as the sound isolation is second to none. “During our initial consultation the requirement for watching movies was quite low priority,” says The Digital Picture. “But during demonstration of the latest technologies we were tasked with including a full Dolby Atmos immersive audio system.” The client also wanted the widest screen possible, and the team used a Lumagen video processor to handle aspect ratio controls, including a mode…

Home Cinema: Level II While the client here had some knowledge from a previous home cinema, “the idea of a cinema of this performance level had not crossed their mind”, says The Digital Picture. “After two in-depth meetings and having discussed the industry standards relating to audio and picture quality and the associated costs involved, we were asked to come up with something exceptional.” That they did — a 9.1.4-channel Dolby Atmos system that delivers reference-quality sound while being completely hidden from view, while a BenQ 4K projector delivers a brilliant image to a 158-inch Cinemascope screen. The custom user interface, finely-dressed racks, motorised seating and careful power management also show the project’s quality, as does the careful sound isolation which included careful work on the HVAC air-con system, and…