February 2021

From The Editor....
What's Within This Issue
Small speakers, amplifiers, and more.
Editorial By Noel Keywood

  Small loudspeakers get ever larger in ability. And that's just as well because I suspect an increasing number of today's music listeners find large loudspeakers unacceptable in the home. I suppose it is all a case of floor space, of which there is little in the average UK home.

Small speakers are the answer to small rooms and this month we have two of them. One is a successor to the Tannoy marque, from Scottish company Fyne Audio – the beautifully finished F1-5s that you'll find reviewed by John Pickford on p44. Not only is this 'speaker suitable for small rooms, it is a 'point source' where treble fires out from the centre of the bass cone, giving focus and image coherence.

Another small but acclaimed loudspeaker is KEF's LS50. It too is a 'point source' with tweeter at centre of bass/midrange cone. But KEF have just upgraded this little rocker with Meta Material behind the tweeter – and it works. Big thumbs up from the Hi-Fi World staff and likewise from reviewer John Pickford, in a review that appears on p10.

Acclaimed Japanese Marantz engineer Ken Ishiwata was tweaking Rotel products before he died recently. Rotel finished the process and have released a Tribute amplifier and CD player that you can read about on p58, reviewed by Chris Frankland. As always with Rotel, affordable but reliably good.

Talking about Japanese products brings me to Yamaha's high-end GT-5000 turntable that I review on p82. Bit of a strange one here. Not really what it appears, with a curious tone arm and bluffly simple yet extremely effective belt-drive system. All on an MDF plinth. Yamaha have a fabulous reputation for delivering fine sound and the GT-5000 did just that, in spite of its technological curiosities. Showing how today's products can still surprise.

As we head into 2021 – hopefully redeemed by vaccines – time at home can be enjoyable courtesy of fine hi-fi products that give musical enjoyment. I hope you enjoy reading about them in our great February 2021 issue. 

— Noel Keywood
Editor, HiFi World

Subscribe!
Click here to subscribe to Hi-Fi World.