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Showing posts from May, 2014

Micro Seiki MR-622 Turntable

This is one of my greatest prize possessions, well for turntables.  The Micro Seiki MR-622 is a fabulous turntable, and definitely has been one of my favourite tables that I had the pleasure of owning. Everything about this turntable screams quality.  Even the 45rpm adapter seemed to be milled aluminum.  It has adjustable feet, a side pocket for accessories , a nice heavy die cast platter and even the top part of the plinth is cast.  All wrapped in a beautiful smoked dustcover and real wood sides. The Micro Seiki MR-622 is a fully manual, 2-speed, direct drive turntable.  This means, it's low maintenance and high reliability as there is less moving parts within the turntable.  It's just a huge motor, speed controls and Micro Seiki MA-202 tone arm, placed in a overly built plinth just like what one would expect from Micro Seiki. The MA-202 tone arm is a S-shaped tone arm with excellent tracking ability.  It has an adjustable counterweight and the tone arm pipe is filled w

Sony STR-7055 Receiver

One of the most elegant looking receivers from the 1970s, well at least from the ones I've come across.  It reminds you from a simpler time, which I know nothing about because...well, you can use your imagination on that. The Sony STR-7055 is just a step down from the TOTL STR-7065, that is has less power outputs, and a few less features like no speaker "C' for a third pair of speakers.  But, everything else is pretty much the same. I quite enjoy this unit.  It has a nice sound signature, albeit, I was a bit shocked as I had generalized thought about the sound signature of 70s.  But,surprisingly, it was very nice.  A bit on the warm side but, very clean and transparent.  Not the most dynamic sound signature but, very smooth.  Sony did make some real nice stuff and well engineered gear. Modestly rated at 35wpc into 8ohms, it can fill a room nicely with music.  Actually, one of my favorite feature of the receiver is the Auxiliary input on the front, though it does use

Technics SA-5570 Receiver

We've haven't had that many Technics receivers or amplifiers before and while this wasn't their biggest receiver during the receiver wars of the 70s, this is a huge beast of a receiver, especially in dimensions i.e. the width, it doesn't even sit properly/flushed on my stereo stand!  Something that I didn't for see when the unit was dropped off to me for it's photo session. I do admit, it has that Technic's sound signature that many love, it's not overly bright and forward and it's not mushy or "warm" as other people may call it.  Actually, it almost reminds me of the big Rotel amplifiers.  It's farily neutral in sound presentation which makes it flexible in speaker choices.  I actually found it matches well with brigher sounding speakers like Sound Dynamic or JBL. It's rated at 85wpc into 8ohms which is a large amount of power to drive even the most inefficient speakers.  Not to mention, it does have a very clean look to it.

Harman Kardon T25 Turntable

We've had lots of Harman Kardon products and each one of them are excellent pieces.  However, this little guy has a few tricks up its sleeves.  There's quite a bit of features packed into this tiny compact turntable.  For one, it offers pitch control that many Japanese belt drive turntables don't have and second, there is a tiny set screw at the back of the base of the tone arm that offers a bit of height adjustment for the tone arm.  That means, it has VTA but, it is fairly limited.  But, nonetheless functional. It has nice clean look with an angled dustcover and the tone arm looks as if it is a stipped down version of the T65, Japanese made of course.  Not to mention, they both use the same headshell.  It is a well made table with a low mass tone arm, which is nice for the Shure Me95ED cartridge mounted on it. Internally, it is well designed and well layed out.  Unlike the upper end HK turntables, this is not suspended.  But, originally, sat on sprung feet.  However,