Hi-Fi News Magazine January 2023 Back Issue

While we always go the extra mile to ensure your favourite hi-fi magazine is the first to bring you in-depth reviews of the latest high-end gear, neither should we forget that the very best back-to-basics separates often have competitive lifespans that extend beyond a decade. The Nagaoka cartridge and Simaudio integrated amp featured in this issue are perfect examples of long-lived success.

So while we double-down on Wilson Audio’s new Alexia V – previewed to the general press en masse before being setup by brand ambassador Peter McGrath
in HFN’s listening room for our exclusive review – we’re also getting reacquainted with these two stalwarts of the hi-fi scene.

SME is another brand deservedly famous for the longevity of its products, so new SME turntables are almost guaranteed to send a ripple through the vinyl-loving community. Naturally, we were delighted to have the very first sample of SME’s Model 12 MK2 on our photographic bench before a press release had even been written…

CD is now as much a ‘legacy’ format as the venerable LP. Some of our readers may well have owned a Philips CD380 – the star of this month’s Vintage Review, and a great deal of us still get a lot of listening pleasure from the little ’ol silver disc. We regularly get mails from readers who are returning to CD having switched off the ‘streaming experience’. Part of this is surely the lack of ‘ritual’ about playing locally stored downloads or snagging fi les from the cloud, but it’s also a reflection of the fact that so much of the 24-bit potential of ‘modern digital’ goes unrealised.This month’s hi-res album choice is a 16-bit CD file and yet its practical dynamic range is exceptional. There’s life in the old format yet!