best vinyl

London Decca has been building cartridges under the London brand name and refurbishing all Decca FFSS Heads, Tonearms, and Decca Cartridges for 20 years. The original Decca company was started in the 19th century, but its first involvement with music was with a portable record player which has strong historical rots being used in the World War 1 Trenches for the troops.

London Decca Cartridges

Further Wartime roots were established between 1939 and 1945 where during World War 2, Decca was asked

Thorens, founded in 1965 in Switzerland produces high-quality turntables. Thorens TD 1600 and TD 1601 are two of the brand's latest models following in the footsteps of the original TD 160. This latest release fills the gap between modern and classic elements. Both models share the same platform and height with the 1601 having some additional features as standard over the 1600. Both units come in either high gloss walnut or piano black finishes

TD 160

The now-discontinued TD 160 is held in high

Pro-Ject Debut III S Audiophile turntable takes Pro-Ject's classic Debut design and gives it a new spin, with enhanced features for this budget legend.

The Pro-Ject Debut is one of the all-time turntable hall-of-fame legends. Whilst many turntables have attained this status through exotic design, or a devoted following of cultist audiophiles, the Pro-Ject Debut became a legend for its unbeatable Bang-for-Buck.

The latest revision, the Pro-Ject Debut III S Audiophile, introduces a number of design

Linn LP12 Turntables reviewed and rated. A high-end shootout between the Majik, Akurate and Klimax configurations of one of the world's most legendary turntables.

Today's blog stems from a phone call a few weeks ago between your author, and Audio Affair's founder and MD, Alex Field. It was decided to perform a full-on shootout between Linn's three LP12 configurations: Majik, Akurate and Klimax. Roughly £30,000 worth of turntables, and an accompanying cast of the best Hi-Fi components.

The results?

The Pro-Ject Tube Box range brings the uniquely beautiful sound of vinyl and valves together at a great price.

If you're an enthusiast of analogue audio, most would agree that the sound of vinyl & valves is a match truly made in heaven. There are few unisons which can evoke such a deeply pleasing and emotional performance.

Turntable legends, Pro-Ject, offer a series of superbly priced valve phono pre-amplifiers under their Pro-Ject Tube Box range. It would be churlish not to investigate further!

It's the late 1990s. CD is king, MP3s the reserve of PC nerds, and vinyl was assumed dead. Into this climate, launched the original Pro-Ject Debut Turntable.

It was a strange time to be a vinyl enthusiast; new vinyl pressings were almost entirely the reserve of dance music, one area in which vinyl was still king. With the exception of a few 'statement' releases from independent artists and the occasional limited edition run, vinyl was feeling like something of an orphan.

None the less, a huge enthusiast

Having recently looked at Linn's 'Entry Spec' LP12, the Majik, this blog focusses on The Linn LP12 Akurate. Linn's Mid-Range Monster.

The Akurate specification of the LP12 enhances and builds upon the basic qualities of the LP12, aiming to enhance detail and presentation.

Let's take a look at what makes the Linn LP12 Akurate so special...

A winning configuration of premium components.

The Linn LP12 has always benefitted from a modular construction, allowing the customer to configure their LP12 as

A recent post on the news website Salon caught our eye this week...

When does a record collection become a burden?

WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 2015, Sell your records, sell your soul?: How I learned to stop hoarding and embrace the cloud

The article raises some very good points about the fine line between hoarding and collecting, the grey area between a hobby and an obsession.

At Audio Affair, we love our vinyl, and it has it's place... but streaming, online storage and the cloud has changed the musical landscape.

So you've done your research, you've spent your money and you've built yourself the hi-fi system of your wildest dreams... well, as close as you can get at the present time! There's only one way to find out if you've got it fined tuned to perfection though, and that's to test it. Now, there is a very good chance you've attended a hi-fi demonstration of some sort before, either at a show or a personal one with a retailer. And the best way to test the equipment is by playing something with it. Something

Don't panic, we're not about to bombard you with a list of sickly sweet Christmas Music LPs. Not even a little bit. No, this is a list of real music, the kind of stuff that would make a fantastic Christmas gift, and wouldn't sound out of place if played in the background - on your lovely real hi-fi system - during Christmas dinner. Providing the rest of your family don't want actual Christmas music, of course. But hopefully they'll be sick of it by then eh?

So assuming everyone is clear on the premise,