October 2016
In This Issue...
Another Great Issue Of Hi-Fi World
Article By Noel Keywood

  What a glorious sight the McIntosh MT5 turntable was – and what a glorious sound it gave. It had a deep, dark and spacious soundstage, that impressed all who heard it. These qualities put it up amongst the best vinyl spinners, whilst the green glow from its acrylic platter was intriguing in low light. You'll not be missing this player in the dark after the first bottle of Champagne in a late night listening session! To see how well it fared in detail see our review on p13.

At the other end of the price scale in this issue we also bring you the Audio Technica AT-LP5 Direct Drive turntable. We're talking beer budget prices here – forget the Champers. But whilst you don't get a bright green glow to lead you to LP, as it were, you do a great budget starter package. I was happy to be reminded that the dear old analogue turntable is so easily upgraded, so what you get is by no means what you are stuck with. Audio Technica do a great job in providing a product that'll work out of the box, not damage your precious record collection yet can easily be improved as funds permit. Read more about this fine budget vinyl spinner on p83.

At the other end of the technology scale, you might think, is Entotem's newly upgraded Plato streaming digital player. Except this is one of the few players available with an on-board phono stage, so it can also play LP. Even more surprising is that it can recognise what is being played and look up album title and cover artwork in an on-line database. Frightening! Entotem have pushed it to the front of the digital pack by upgrading it with one of the best DACs available today. You can read our report on p40.

It's great to see how both old analogue and new digital are slowly coming together in strange and previously unimagined ways. As LPs from a vast trove of historical music are carefully remastered and re-pressed on high quality vinyl – now commonly 180gm – for a market prepared to pay for the end result, we are seeing music quality being raised steadily all round. Only these days, it is digital that has to keep up!

--- Noel Keywood, editor.

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