HANA Umami Red - MC Phono Cartridge
HANA Umami Red – MC Phono Cartridge All images credit: Excel Sound Corporation. HANA phono cartridges are manufactured by Japan’s Excel Sound Corporation. Since their introduction they have continued to attract a growing customer base, and deservedly so. (華) Hana, in Japanese means “Brilliant and Gorgeous”, a cartridge born from superb […]

HANA Umami Red – MC Phono Cartridge

US Blu-ray Sales Decline In 2020 6
US Blu-ray Sales Decline In 2020 Over the past years physical media sales have continued to decline as reported by me here and confirmed by The Digital Entertainment Group’s quarterly Home Entertainment Reports and Media Play news in-house home entertainment market research. For the last decade physical media sales, read […]

US Blu-ray Sales Decline In 2020

DS Audio Release Grand Master Optical Cartridge 2
DS Audio Grand Master Optical Cartridge (All Images Credit: DS Audio) Introduction When I decided to replace my Lentek Entre 1 I seriously considered DS Audio’s DS-E1 model, and auditioned it and the Hana SL and ML. The Hana SL, for me, was the better option but I still thought that the […]

DS Audio Grand Master Optical Cartridge

US Vinyl Album Sales Grow In 2020
US Vinyl Album Sales Grow In 2020 Despite the Corona virus, and maybe because of it, the mid-year figures show an almost 10% increase in vinyl sales during the first half of 2020 as people hunker down and shelter in place. According to the new Nielsen Music/MRC Data midyear report, […]

US Vinyl Album Sales Grow In 2020

Marantz 8K SR-Series AV receivers - First Look
Marantz 8K SR-Series AV Receivers – First Look               (Images Credit: Marantz) Hot on the heels of the Denon 8K receiver release we knew that Marantz would not be too far behind, especially as both compnaies share the same technical stable and are owned by […]

Marantz 8K SR-Series AV Receivers – First Look

Neil Young - Harvest - Yesteryear Vinyl
Neil Young – Harvest – Yesteryear Vinyl Harvest is the fourth studio album by Canadian/American musician Neil Young being released in February 1972 on Reprise Records. It featured the London Symphony Orchestra on two tracks and vocals by noted guests; David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, Linda Ronstadt, and James […]

Neil Young – Harvest – Yesteryear Vinyl

H.266 Versatile Video Codec
H.266 Versatile Video Codec The electrical engineering and computer science division of the esteemed German research organization, The Fraunhofer – Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI), has just announced VVC, a new video CODEC standard that promises to provide an additional 50 percent compression efficiency in streaming video compression. The codec’s, full name is […]

H.266 Versatile Video Codec

Lyn Stanley - The Moonlight Sessions Vol2 - SACD Review 4
Lyn Stanley – The Moonlight Sessions Vol 2 – SACD Review           Plastic – SACD Surface noise: N/A Dynamic Range: 5- Stereo Imaging: 5 Image depth/perspective: 5- Overall frequency response: 5-             Track List: Makin’ Whoopee The Very Thought Of You […]

Lyn Stanley – The Moonlight Sessions Vol 2 – SACD Review

Lentek Head Amplifier Upgrade Designed by Peter Baxandall for use with the Lentek Entre moving coil cartridge, this little gem has a lot to offer when paired with other moving coil cartridges and a high quality phono pre-amp like the MX-VYNL. With +28dB of gain and a low nose figure the […]

Lentek Head Amplifier Upgrade

UPscaled Is Not 4K 2
UPscaled Is Not 4K My 2 Cents Many of us have spent large amounts of money on upgrading our systems to watch 4K, wide color gamut, high dynamic range movies. AND of course those illusive 4K TV/cable and Over The Air (OTA) channels. It has come to my notice, and maybe […]

UPscaled Is Not 4K

Beatles - Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - Yesteryear Vinyl
Beatles – Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – Yesteryear Vinyl Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. It was produced by George Martin and released on 26th May 1967 in the United Kingdom and 2nd June 1967 in […]

Beatles – Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – Yesteryear Vinyl

Sound United Closes Deal On Acquisition Of Bowers & Wilkins
Sound United Acquires Bowers & Wilkins Sound United, the parent company of Denon, Marantz, Polk Audio and many more audio-video brands has announced its intention to acquire audiophile speaker manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins. Kevin Duffy, CEO at Sound United, said in a statement: “Over the course of five decades Bowers […]

Sound United Acquires Bowers & Wilkins

Denon X6700H & X4700H 8K Receivers If you are a regular visitor to my site you will already know my views regarding 8K video. But here we go again, ‘if they build it, many will buy it’.  Denon’s world first 8K-ready AVRs are feature-packed and future-proofed. They build on the […]

Denon X6700H & X4700H 8K Receivers

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Pink Floyd – Animals – Yesteryear Vinyl Animals is the tenth studio album by English rock band Pink Floyd. It was released in January 1977 through Harvest and Columbia Records and recorded at the band’s Britannia Row Studios in London throughout 1976. The album continues the longform compositions that made […]

Pink Floyd – Animals – Yesteryear Vinyl

Leak Is Back. What's Next Radford? 2
Leak Is Back. What’s Next Radford?                     Introduction The UK was the birth place of many of the original audiophile companies like Leak, Quad, Wharfdale, Radford, Celestion, Decca, EMI, English Electric etc. to name but a few. Many of these very […]

Leak Is Back. What’s Next Radford?