Audio Esoterica Issue 2 - 2018

Regular readers of Audio Esoterica will know that we revel in including and reviewing among our pages the highest levels of audio equipment available in the world today. While our selections are guided usually by quality as well as price, we have relaxed the dollar requirement slightly this issue in order to include some fine equipment a little below the heady extremes of true esoterica. This is partly so we can deliver our reviews of these products within the luxurious presentation of this magazine (which represents Australian Hi-Fi’s premium print biannual special). But it’s also as a reaction to the lowering levels of quality perceived in popular audio, where mono wireless speakers are now key product lines, where soundbars are the default system for playing music in living spaces, where…

Regular readers of Audio Esoterica will know that we revel in including and reviewing among our pages the highest levels of audio equipment available in the world today. While our selections are guided usually by quality as well as price, we have relaxed the dollar requirement slightly this issue in order to include some fine equipment a little below the heady extremes of true esoterica. This is partly so we can deliver our reviews of these products within the luxurious presentation of this magazine (which represents Australian Hi-Fi’s premium print biannual special). But it’s also as a reaction to the lowering levels of quality perceived in popular audio, where mono wireless speakers are now key product lines, where soundbars are the default system for playing music in living spaces, where…

The news is out! – Yamaha is going back to black with a new range of turntables on the way, topped by this magnificent GT-5000, channelling Yamaha’s classic GT-2000 design (GT for ‘Gigantic & Tremendous’!), but reinvented with belt-drive (as opposed to the direct drive of the original), a specially designed (short and straight) arm, a hefty 5kg aluminium platter, and heavy-duty feet to boot… all topped off with that Yamaha ‘Piano Gloss’ finish. The flagship GT-5000 is scheduled for release in April 2019.…

The news is out! – Yamaha is going back to black with a new range of turntables on the way, topped by this magnificent GT-5000, channelling Yamaha’s classic GT-2000 design (GT for ‘Gigantic & Tremendous’!), but reinvented with belt-drive (as opposed to the direct drive of the original), a specially designed (short and straight) arm, a hefty 5kg aluminium platter, and heavy-duty feet to boot… all topped off with that Yamaha ‘Piano Gloss’ finish. The flagship GT-5000 is scheduled for release in April 2019.…

All have mourned the passing of founder Dave Wilson this year, but he left behind a special little something in this latest creation by the Wilson Special Applications Engineering team. The smallest and least expensive Wilson speaker lacks neither tech prowess nor customisation, with a whole ecosystem of performance enhancements, paint colour choices, hardware and grille options, while the 25mm doped silk fabric tweeter and 146mm doped paper pulp woofer reside in an asymmetrical enclosure of Wilson’s mysterious X- and S-materials, with spikes to optimise levelling and that crucial time-domain baffle angle.…

All have mourned the passing of founder Dave Wilson this year, but he left behind a special little something in this latest creation by the Wilson Special Applications Engineering team. The smallest and least expensive Wilson speaker lacks neither tech prowess nor customisation, with a whole ecosystem of performance enhancements, paint colour choices, hardware and grille options, while the 25mm doped silk fabric tweeter and 146mm doped paper pulp woofer reside in an asymmetrical enclosure of Wilson’s mysterious X- and S-materials, with spikes to optimise levelling and that crucial time-domain baffle angle.…