Ed Selley

Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Clearaudio Performance SE - £2,405
Ed Selley  |  Jan 09, 2012  |  0 comments
Clearaudio Performance SE This turntable’s simplicity belies some refined engineering technology and a performance to match The latest incarnation of the Clearaudio Performance is a more substantial turntable than it looks, thanks to a plinth that’s made from a sandwich of aluminium and HDF. You can’t see the highdensity fi breboard because it is framed by the natural coloured aluminium in the sandwich, but it performs the critical task of damping any resonance that manages to get through the three adjustable feet beneath it. The platter is a 40mm slab of acrylic that sits on a ceramic magnetic bearing, the shaft of which has been polished to an even higher degree than on the original Performance. The magnetic suspension means that the ceramic shaft doesn’t need a ball bearing or thrust pad to take the weight of the platter, which should reduce noise from this critical component quite considerably.
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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Inspire Eclipse SE V2 - £2,689
Ed Selley  |  Jan 09, 2012  |  0 comments
Inspire Eclipse SE V2 Combine this turntable’s presentation attributes with SME’s M2 arm and you have a fine piece of audio engineering The newest kid on this particular analogue block, Inspire, clearly has a penchant for acrylic. It started out offering mods for Rega decks in the material and the Eclipse SE V2 is almost entirely made of the stuff. The black shiny fi nish says it all really, but it’s more than a couple of slabs of the stuff, between the two are three cones with acrylic tips, alloy bodies and sorbothane damping. The bottom half of the plinth sits on three low-profi le feet with no option for height adjustment.
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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Michell Orbe SE - £3,150
Ed Selley  |  Jan 09, 2012  |  0 comments
Michell Orbe SE The Orbe SE incorporates the latest Gen 2 power supply, resulting in fine dynamics and a full-scale soundstage The SE is the ‘sport’ version of Michell’s Orbe rangetopper. It cuts down on costs by removing the acrylic casework of its namesake and, in many respects, looks the better for it. Like the well-regarded Gyro, it is a fully suspended design that floats the armboard and platter on three springs, which sit under three posts that stick up from the cast aluminium subchassis that surrounds the platter. Underneath are two acrylic layers in a tristar shape that reach out to support the suspension posts and fix-to-turned aluminium feet.
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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Pro-Ject RPM10.1 - £2,000
Ed Selley  |  Jan 09, 2012  |  0 comments
Pro-Ject RPM10. 1 Despite its low price, the RPM10. 1 has more features than most, including a carbon-fibre tonearm We looked at the RPM10. 1 back in HFC 348 and found a lot to like in its high-mass, magnetically isolated design.
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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
Roksan Xerxes.20plus - £4,947
Ed Selley  |  Jan 09, 2012  |  0 comments
Roksan Xerxes. 20plus A highly refined and beautifully finished design, the Xerxes. 20plus has its own distinctive approach to musical nirvana The 20plus is a considerable refinement of the original Xerxes design. It is far better finished and thought out, but the essential principles remain the same.
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Turntables, Arms & Cartridges
VPI Classic - £2,693
Ed Selley  |  Jan 09, 2012  |  0 comments
VPI Classic A lot of turntable for the asking price, here’s an impressive package from a classic American manufacturer The VPI is a lot of turntable for the money, it’s easily the biggest and heaviest in this group and if that weren’t enough, it has the longest tonearm in the JMW10. 5i. The latter is an elaborate unipivot design, with balance weights around the pivot point that can be rotated so that the stylus sits upright in the groove. VTA variations are accommodated with a substantial stainless wheel on the arm base.
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Phono Preamplifiers
Creek Wyndsor Phono - £1,500
Ed Selley  |  Jan 09, 2012  |  0 comments
Royal performance Creek has upped the ante with its first no compromise phono stage, Jason Kennedy puts the new Wyndsor through its paces Creek introduced the Wyndsor name with its fi rst turntable in 2010 (HFC 302) and now it has a phono stage to match. This is a two-box design with exemplary casework and a front panel interface that allows you to confi gure preset parameters for several different cartridges and have it remember each by name. This will be a boon to anyone who regularly changes cartridge and needs to set specifi c gain, impedance and capacitance for each. Another feature that we are beginning to see on a growing number of phono stages is balanced inputs, albeit not in conventional form.
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Loudspeakers
Acoustic Energy, Reference 1 - £1,500
Ed Selley  |  Jan 09, 2012  |  0 comments
High-class baby Massive construction is just one of the key features that singles out Acoustic Energy’s Reference 1, says Paul Messenger Back in 1988, Acoustic Energy made a very impressive debut with its original AE1, a small Proaudio-oriented speaker that, at the time, essentially re-invented the concept of the modern highperformance miniature. The company has undergone numerous changes since then. Its original founders have long since moved on and the company is currently owned by Malaysian interests, which also provides a source for inexpensive production. The perennial AE1 The AE1 and a number of variations on its theme have been reviewed in Hi-Fi Choice on a pretty regular basis down the years.
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Loudspeakers
PMC, Twenty.23 - £2,095
Ed Selley  |  Jan 09, 2012  |  0 comments
Twenty’s vision PMC’s new twenty series applies some of the lessons learned while developing the upmarket fact models, says Paul Messenger PMC achieved its 20th anniversary last autumn, celebrating the fact by launching a brand new four-strong ‘twenty’ series of models that are intended to fill the gap between its regular ‘i’ series of domestic hi-fi speakers and much more costly ‘fact’ models. In truth, the twentys are priced much closer to the ‘is’ than the ‘facts’, this compact floorstander starting at £2,095 for the real wood veneered version. (There’s a choice of three here, including oak, walnut and amarone, though the highgloss Diamond Black finish costs an extra £210. ) That compares with a current price of £1,525 for the GB1i, its nearest equivalent in the standard range.
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Loudspeakers
Spendor S3/5R2 - £850
Ed Selley  |  Jan 09, 2012  |  0 comments
Figure of speech Spendor has updated its legendary S3/5R2. Ed Selley finds out if the classic character has survived the improvements Few speakers have a pedigree quite as long or distinguished as the LS3/5 standmount speaker. Originally designed for the BBC to monitor outside broadcasts, it’s impressive performance won many fans. So when the BBC requirement ceased, Spendor took over; a success record that has resulted in the latest iteration, the S3/5R2.
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