Finding your groove: getting into vinyl with Audio-Technica
I’d like to think that I could’ve been friends with the late Hideo Matsushita, founder of Japanese Hi-Fi powerhouse Audio-Technica. If I could, I’d travel back in time to 1960’s Tokyo, where a young Matsushita curated “vinyl listening sessions” at the Bridgestone Museum of Arts, exposing visitors to the sounds and possibilities of high end audio and the warmth of vinyl records. I imagine sitting with him in a mod coffee shop, listening to the stories of what he witnessed in those sessions, the conversations he had with visitors, and what ultimately motivated him to head back to his small apartment above a ramen restaurant and start an audio company of his own. In the histories I’ve read regarding AT’s humble beginnings, Matsushita’s motives seem clear. Produce high end audio at affordable prices, bringing audio excellence into spaces and to customers that simply didn’t have access to it before. His first two products, the AT-1 and AT-3 phono cartridges did exactly that, and...
Dec 6, 2023
- THX AAA 789 footprint and case style
- Topping D90 performance
- Top-of-the-line AKM chip... maybe two
- Fully balanced
- Remote
- Bluetooth 5.0 (AptX, LDAC, all that stuff)
- USB: 32-bit 768kHZ, DSD 512, MQA (I mostly listen to Tidal); SPDIF: 24-bit 192kHz, DoP 256 (I don't need this level of craziness, but increased mass appeal increases likelihood of sales)
- USB-C! PLEASE just go with USB-C. USB-B is a minimum. If I see mini or micro, I'll enter your grandma's house and spill marinara sauce mixed with motor oil on her favorite chair.
- Selectable (forced) sample rate
- Selectable filters
MEH:- Fixed / variable RCA output (better yet, XLR if it will fit)
- Preamp capability (analog volume control is better than digital)
- IIS input (if it will fit, I don't even know what to use it with)
- Crossfeed (only if it's high quality)
- Parametric EQ (5-band or more)
- Analog-to-digital conversion (for digitizing my records, cassettes, etc.)
I've listed a lot of flagship features since the more people attracted to the product, the more people would likely buy it; the more people likely to buy it, the more likely it is to be manufactured in the first place. How about you guys? What do you care about? Do you want a balanced R2R Ladder DAC, do you want a portable? What kind of DAC(s) do you guys want to see?