A while back, I reviewed the Fluance RT85, which, at the time, was the company’s flagship turntable. And I really liked it. So much so, in fact, that it became my main living room turntable, where it has remained ever since. But things have changed, and there’s a new kid in town. Enter the RT87, a new flagship turntable from … Read More

Just the other week, I reviewed the Fosi Audio Merak CD player, and I came away rather impressed. It was compact, affordable, sounded good, and offered a surprisingly flexible way to get back into listening to CDs. There was one thing missing, though: a built-in battery. The Merak is a lovely little desktop solution, but it’s hardly something you’d take … Read More

CDs are making a comeback, and this time around, there’s something rather interesting happening. According to Luminate’s 2026 midyear report, CD sales in the US jumped by 16% during the first half of the year, reaching 16.3 million units. Granted, a lot of that growth is being driven by K-pop, but even with those sales removed, the format still managed … Read More

I’ve tested a lot of platter mats over the years. Felt, cork, rubber and acrylic are the obvious starting points, but I’ve also spent plenty of time with more ambitious designs from the likes of Funk Firm, Soundeck and HEXMAT, all of which attempt to deal with the relationship between the record, platter and unwanted vibration in rather different ways. … Read More

Warped records are a thorn in the side of any record collector. Sadly, they are also far more common than we would like—particularly, in my experience, with new records. Whether that comes down to rushed manufacturing, insufficient cooling at the pressing plant, poor storage or careless shipping is difficult to say. Whatever the cause, it is frustrating to unwrap a … Read More

The original iFi ZEN Phono was my living-room phono stage of choice for quite some time. That should give you a fairly good idea of where I stood on it. There are plenty of affordable phono preamps that sound decent, but the original ZEN Phono stood out for combining a remarkably low noise floor with accurate RIAA equalisation, adjustable gain … Read More

The Spin-Clean has been one of the most recognisable affordable record-cleaning systems for decades. I have owned mine for many years, and despite its limitations, it remains a simple and effective way to batch-clean a collection without spending hundreds—or even thousands—on a powered record-cleaning machine. HumminGuru’s EZ Record Washer follows the same basic principle. It is a compact basin that … Read More