LATEST ADDITIONS

Hard to believe, but on 1 June, the most iconic album from the world’s most iconic pop group celebrates its golden anniversary: The Beatles’ incalculably influential Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band turns 50. And a splendid time is guaranteed for all Fab Four fans, as to celebrate the occasion The Beatles release a suite of lavishly presented Anniversary Edition packages on 26 May. Newly mixed by Giles Martin – son of legendary producer George – and audio engineer Sam Okell in stereo and 5.

Thanks to the large number of you that shared pictures with us of your vinyl setups in response to last month’s Twitter poll asking whether or not you own a record player. The result of the poll shows that 65 percent of respondents do indeed have a turntable, with a further 10 percent looking to discover or return to the format soon. Receiving the pics of your systems on our Facebook and Twitter feeds was very enlightening and provided a clear demonstration of the level of equipment owned along with the care and attention lavished upon turntables. With this in mind, we felt it was a perfect time to look more closely at moving-coil cartridges, and this month’s Group Test compares six upmarket MC pick-ups (£650-£1,000), designed to make a significant upgrade to your vinyl replay.

Considerably smaller than its first digital audio player, the new DP-S1 follow-up model from Onkyo is milled from a solid block of black aluminium and boasts 16GB of built-in memory, which can be expanded to 416GB thanks to its twin MicroSD card slots. Underthe hood there are dual ES9018C2M ESS SABRE DAC chipsets, ensuring that the player can support DSD 2. 8MHz and 5. 6MHz, FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF (up to a maximum of 32-bit/192kHz), AAC and MP3.

German manufacturer sonoro has unveiled the sonoroHIFI flagship audio system. Costing £1,299, the new all-in-one incorporates a CD player, FM/DAB/DAB+ tuner and aptX-capable Bluetooth so that it can stream music from mobile devices. Additional connections include RCA, optical and a 3. 5mm aux input for hooking up other sources such as a TV or portable media player.