CD Transport Media Players
While streaming has become dominant, high-quality playback of physical media remains a focus for many audiophiles. A CD transport is a specialized disc player with one job: to read the digital data from a CD with extreme precision and output it as a pure digital stream to an external DAC. This approach minimizes errors and allows for the best possible performance from the compact disc format. This index lists the brands that continue to produce high-performance transports and players for physical media enthusiasts.
Hi-Fi brands in the category
Summary information and image
Direct links to official websites
McIntosh
McIntosh is an American high-end audio manufacturer whose blue power meters and black-glass front panels identify products built around unusually durable amplifier engineering. Frank H. McIntosh and Gordon Gow founded the company in 1949 after developing the Unity Coupled Circuit, a transformer-coupled output topology designed to deliver high power with low distortion across the audible band. McIntosh moved to Binghamton, New York, in 1951 and continues to design and assemble products there. The catalogue covers valve and solid-state power amplifiers, preamplifiers, integrated amplifiers, source components, streamers, turntables, speakers and home-cinema processors. Many transistor power amplifiers use Autoformers to deliver their rated power into different loudspeaker impedances, while Power Guard monitors the waveform to reduce clipping-related distortion and Sentry Monitor protects against unsafe operating conditions. The company still winds key transformers in house, and signature glass panels are printed and assembled for long service life. McIntosh’s appeal extends beyond styling: its defining know-how is the marriage of protective circuitry, stable load behavior and conservative construction with a product ecosystem that can support both two-channel and large cinema systems.
Melco
Melco is the Japanese network-audio lineage that applies storage and data-network engineering to music libraries, servers, players and audiophile Ethernet switches. Audiophile Makoto Maki founded Maki Engineering Laboratory Company—MELCO—in Nagoya in 1975 to make audio equipment. The business later became best known through the Buffalo computer and networking brand, then returned to specialist audio roughly four decades later with dedicated Melco music libraries. Products such as the N1, N10 and N100 were designed as purpose-built audio sources rather than ordinary NAS appliances. Their engineering addresses electrical noise, vibration, storage behavior and network traffic through separate player and LAN ports, selected drives, rigid chassis, dedicated power supplies and software developed for music importing, library management and playback. Matching network switches and optical-network accessories extend the same system approach. In 2025 the audio company marked its fiftieth anniversary and began the next phase under the DELA name; the underlying company history and product expertise continue. The brand’s distinctive idea is straightforward but technically demanding: digital files remain data, yet the server, network and power environment delivering them can still influence the analogue result of a high-resolution playback system.
Metronome
Métronome is a French specialist in high-end digital sources, known for CD and SACD transports, players, streamers and DACs designed and manufactured near Toulouse. Furniture maker and music enthusiast Dominique Giner founded Métronome Technologie in 1987; the name came from an earlier loudspeaker whose cabinet resembled a metronome. That woodworking background remained visible in the company’s substantial enclosures and top-loading disc mechanisms. Métronome separates mechanical reading, clocking, conversion and power supply rather than treating a digital player as a generic computer platform. Depending on the model, its designs use multiple transformers and regulation stages, asynchronous USB, network streaming, tube or solid-state analogue outputs, and proprietary mechanical decoupling. The Classica line offers integrated players and DACs, while AQWO separates SACD/CD transport and conversion at a higher level. Kalista, developed as the company’s statement line, takes the transport architecture and sculptural construction further. Under Jean-Marie Clauzel, the range has remained focused on making digital playback physically robust, quiet and upgradeable. Métronome’s niche is not digital convenience alone, but the complete treatment of disc or file playback from mechanism and clock to analogue output.
Mission
Mission is a British loudspeaker brand whose identity was established by compact, affordable speakers that used unconventional geometry to solve practical acoustic problems. Farad Azima founded Mission in 1977, and the original 770 quickly became a reference point for the company. One of its most recognizable ideas is Inverted Driver Geometry: placing the treble unit below the bass/mid driver to align the acoustic paths at the listening position and improve integration through the crossover region. Mission now offers standmount and floorstanding loudspeakers, centre and surround channels, subwoofers, active wireless systems and the revived 778 electronics. The LX MKII and QX MKII families bring the brand’s core concepts to accessible systems, while the modern 700, 750 and 770 reinterpret historic models with contemporary drivers, crossovers and cabinets. Depending on the range, Mission uses DiaDrive-style mid/bass diaphragms, ring-dome or microfibre-dome tweeters and carefully profiled cabinet structures. Its lasting distinction is not generic “British sound,” but the ability to turn specific engineering choices—driver order, crossover timing and cabinet proportions—into complete ranges that remain straightforward to own.
Musical Fidelity
Musical Fidelity is a British hi-fi electronics brand founded in 1982 by clarinettist and audio enthusiast Antony Michaelson. It became known for amplifiers that combined generous power reserves with compact or unconventional formats: the original A1 integrated amplifier, launched in 1985, ran heavily biased in Class A, while the cylindrical X-series made serious phono, DAC and headphone functions accessible as separate components. The Nu-Vista line later adopted nuvistor valves, a low-noise miniature tube technology rarely used in modern consumer audio. The current catalogue includes integrated, pre and power amplifiers, phono stages, DACs, CD players, streamers, turntables and power conditioning. A1 and X-series products have been re-engineered rather than merely cosmetically revived, while M3, M5, M6, M8 and Nu-Vista cover progressively larger systems. Since 2018 the brand has been owned and operated by Austria’s Audio Tuning, but product identity remains explicitly British and analogue-led. Musical Fidelity’s strength is range without anonymity: high-current transistor amplification, discrete phono circuitry and the unusual nuvistor platform give different families real technical character instead of the same chassis being repackaged at several prices.
NAD
NAD—New Acoustic Dimension—is the British-founded electronics brand that made high-current, musically convincing amplification available without luxury-casework pricing. The company began in London in 1972 when audio-industry entrepreneur Dr Martin “Marty” Borish brought together a group of European distributors. Its turning point was the 3020 integrated amplifier, designed by Bjørn Erik Edvardsen and launched in 1978. Modestly rated at 20 watts per channel, it could drive demanding loudspeakers far beyond what the specification suggested and became one of hi-fi’s landmark affordable amplifiers. That practical engineering continues in the Classic and Masters ranges: integrated, pre- and power amplifiers, streamers, AV receivers and custom-installation components. PowerDrive manages voltage and current reserves for real loudspeaker loads, while Modular Design Construction lets selected amplifiers and receivers accept replaceable digital or HDMI modules. Current products also combine BluOS multi-room streaming with technologies such as Purifi Eigentakt amplification in appropriate models. NAD passed through Danish ownership before Canada’s Lenbrook acquired it in 1999; product development and headquarters are now Canadian, but the brand’s country of origin remains the United Kingdom. The lasting NAD idea is simple: spend the budget on usable power, upgradeability and music rather than decorative excess.
Naim
Naim Audio is the Salisbury electronics maker whose reputation rests on amplifiers and sources designed to preserve musical timing and momentum. Julian Vereker’s early amplifier work grew from a contract for Capital Radio, and Naim Audio was incorporated in 1973 with Vereker and Shirley Clarke as directors. The first consumer power amplifiers established a deliberately direct circuit philosophy; the NAP 250, introduced in 1975, became the long-running reference, while the compact NAIT integrated amplifier showed that the same priorities could work in an affordable system. Naim later built complete upgradeable systems around separate preamps, power amps and external power supplies, then became an early serious adopter of network replay. Uniti streaming amplifiers and Mu-so wireless systems broadened the audience, while ND sources, the New Classic separates and Statement amplification maintain the specialist end. Mechanical isolation, low-noise power regulation, carefully controlled grounding and proprietary streaming software matter more to the engineering than the familiar shorthand “PRaT.” Naim joined French loudspeaker maker Focal in 2011 under VerVent Audio Group, while design and production remained centred in Salisbury. In August 2026 Belgium’s Barco completed its acquisition of VerVent, so Naim is now part of Barco while retaining its British origin, brand and manufacturing identity.
Norma Audio Electronics
Norma Audio Electronics is an Italian high-end electronics maker founded in Cremona in 1987 by engineer Enrico Rossi. The first amplifier, the NS 123, established the project; in 1991 Norma was acquired by Opal Electronics, a specialist measurement-instrument company. That relationship gave Rossi time and laboratory resources to develop the designs over several years before relaunching a complete range, grounding the brand in wide-bandwidth measurement and circuit behaviour rather than romantic claims about “Italian musicality.” The Revo line covers integrated amplifiers, preamplifiers, stereo and mono power amplifiers, CD/DAC sources and phono stages. IPA integrated models combine substantial current delivery with optional DAC or phono modules, while the SC preamplifiers and PA power amplifiers separate control and output stages for larger systems. Norma favours very wide bandwidth, fast rise time, low feedback, carefully regulated power supplies and discrete circuits designed to remain linear beyond the audible band; the intention is to reproduce transient structure without adding hardness or a manufactured tonal signature. Compact HS components apply related principles at a smaller scale. Norma’s identity is unusually coherent: Enrico Rossi’s long stewardship, Opal’s instrumentation background and a focused family of serviceable analogue and digital electronics developed and built in Italy.
NuPrime
NuPrime Audio is the high-end electronics company Jason Lim created in 2014 after co-founding NuForce. With backing from a Taiwanese OEM partner, Lim acquired the assets of NuForce’s premium division and formed NuPrime to continue developing compact, efficient amplifiers and digital components. That lineage matters because NuPrime was not simply a renamed catalogue: it retained the high-end engineering direction while NuForce’s consumer brand followed a separate path. Amplification is the centre of the range. NuPrime designs its own switching stages and control loops instead of building every model around an off-the-shelf Class-D module; it describes the result as hybrid Class-D, combining a tailored analogue front end with a high-frequency switching output stage. Evolution is the reference family, AMG emphasises compact separates, and the 9 Series offers accessible DACs, preamps and power amplifiers with matching proportions. Integrated amplifiers, phono stages, streamers and the NuPrime-X multi-channel platform extend the architecture into complete and installed systems. As of 2026 the brand is managed by Singapore-based Nuoem Pte. Ltd., while NuPrime Audio, Inc. retains its American origin. The defining advantage is a coherent ecosystem of small, low-heat electronics built around proprietary amplification rather than Class-D efficiency alone.
ONIX
ONIX is a British-origin audio name associated with the compact OA21 integrated amplifier and a minimalist, performance-first approach to electronics. The contemporary range shown on the listed site is developed in close association with Shanling and revives familiar ONIX visual cues—black acrylic, gold details and substantial power supplies—in modern digital and analogue components. Public accounts from the current distributor and from the separate British OA21/ONIX operation conflict over the exact start date, founders and trademark history, so assigning a single founding year here would create false certainty. The present flagship is Miracle, a modular stack that separates streamer, DAC, power supplies and headphone amplification into compact matching chassis. OC93 combines CD replay and network streaming, while OIA92 is a high-current integrated amplifier built around a large UI transformer and a dual-mono output section; ONIX-branded portable players, DACs and headphone products extend the name into personal audio. This should not be presented as an uninterrupted factory history from one owner. It is more accurate to distinguish the classic British amplifier legacy from the current Shanling-associated product programme while recognising that both use the ONIX name. The enduring thread is compact, visually restrained hardware with serious power or digital architecture rather than a broad lifestyle-electronics catalogue.
Onkyo
Onkyo is the Japanese audio brand founded in Osaka in 1946 by Takeshi Godai as Osaka Denki Onkyo. Its early products included a locally made phono pickup, and the company grew through loudspeakers, amplifiers, tuners and cassette decks before becoming especially influential in home cinema. Onkyo helped make high-channel-count AV receivers, network audio and advanced room processing accessible to enthusiasts without abandoning traditional two-channel components. TX-NR and TX-RZ receivers remain the centre of the range, combining HDMI switching, Dolby Atmos and DTS:X decoding, multi-zone operation and, on selected models, Dirac Live calibration. The revived Icon Series adds the P-80 network preamplifier, M-80 power amplifier and A-50 integrated amplifier, reconnecting the brand with serious stereo separates. The corporate history changed decisively before the bankruptcy of the former Onkyo Home Entertainment company in 2022: in 2021 the Onkyo and Integra home-audio assets were acquired by a joint venture led by Premium Audio Company with Sharp as manufacturing partner. Premium Audio Company is now part of Gentex following its 2025 acquisition of VOXX. Onkyo is therefore active, not a dormant brand with an uncertain future. Its continuing role is to unite Japanese audio heritage with practical networked stereo and cinema platforms produced under new ownership.
Oracle Audio
Oracle Audio is the Canadian analogue specialist founded in 1979 by Marcel Riendeau. Its first turntable, the Delphi AC, appeared publicly in 1980 and immediately established the visual and mechanical language that still identifies the brand: an exposed acrylic structure, three suspension towers and a carefully isolated belt-drive platform. Few turntables have evolved through so many generations without losing their basic architecture. The current Delphi MkVII is offered in Classic, Reference and Signature forms, refining the suspended subchassis, bearing, motor control and power supply rather than replacing them with fashion. Paris MkV offers a more conventional silhouette, while Origine MkII provides a simpler route into Oracle’s design philosophy. Matching Origine and Paris tonearms, PH100 and PH200 phono stages, cartridges, record clamps and the Turbo power supply let owners build or upgrade the analogue chain in stages. Oracle also continues a distinctive digital line: CD1000, CD2000 and CD2500 use mechanically substantial transports and DAC architecture for collectors who still value disc replay. Products are developed and built in Quebec. Oracle’s lasting contribution is its treatment of vibration as a complete system—from motor and bearing through suspension, support and clamp—combined with an upgrade path that keeps older Delphi decks serviceable rather than obsolete.
Playback Designs
Playback Designs was formed in 2008 by digital-audio engineer Andreas Koch, joining Swiss-German engineering with an American company base. Koch’s experience predates the brand by decades: at Studer ReVox he developed an early asynchronous sample-rate converter and received a patent in 1984; he later worked on Dolby digital systems, Sony’s Sonoma eight-channel DSD recorder and the digital architecture of EMM Labs products. Playback Designs began with an integrated SACD/CD player that also accepted external digital sources, making the disc machine the hub of a high-resolution system. The current Dream Series includes MPD-8 and MPD-8AI DACs, MPT-8 transport, MPS-8 integrated player and SPA-8 power amplifier. Edelweiss models such as MPD-6, MPS-6 and MPS-X bring related architecture to a smaller range, while Pinot converts analogue sources to DSD. Koch avoids standard off-the-shelf DAC operation where it would limit future development: programmable, discrete conversion and proprietary algorithms allow major processing changes through software. PDFAS clocking and signal processing address jitter without a conventional fixed PLL, while the optical PLink connection carries audio between components with galvanic isolation and coordinated timing. The important story is not a list of formats. Playback Designs applies knowledge gained while creating professional DSD recorders to consumer playback, then keeps the digital platform reprogrammable so expensive hardware can evolve as algorithms and interfaces change.
Plinius
Plinius is a New Zealand audio-electronics manufacturer established in 1980. Its international reputation was built by muscular analogue amplifiers that could deliver high current into difficult loudspeaker loads while retaining the smoothness associated with heavily biased Class A operation. The company designs, assembles and tests its components in Christchurch, where each unit is built individually rather than treated as an anonymous imported platform. Power amplification remains the centre of the range. P10 provides a relatively compact stereo entry, while Reference A-150 and A-300 scale the supply, output stage and thermal capacity for demanding systems. Hiato and Hautonga integrated amplifiers combine that drive with line-level control in a single chassis. Kaitaki and Reference M-10 preamplifiers, P100 and Koru phono stages, and Tiki, Toko and Arataki network/source components allow a complete Plinius system without reducing the brand to amplifiers alone. Earlier SA-series designs are important to its identity because their Class A and switchable-bias architecture showed that high power and refined low-level behaviour need not be opposing goals. Current cases are visually restrained, with short control paths and generous power supplies taking precedence over rapidly changing display features. Plinius’s character is the continuity of New Zealand manufacture and analogue power engineering: substantial components made to control real loudspeakers, supported by phono and network products rather than displaced by them.
Primare
Primare began in 1985 when Danish industrial designer Bo Christensen set out to make audio components whose operation, proportions and sound belonged to one coherent object. Working with engineer Bent Nielsen and a Scandinavian development team, he produced the 928 series in 1986, followed by the 200 and 300 series. The company later came under Swedish leadership through Lars Pedersen and the Xena organisation; the 30 Series of 1998 established the clean forms and modular thinking associated with modern Primare. The present range still follows that idea of “lagom”—neither too much nor too little. I15, I25 and I35 integrated amplifiers anchor the 15, 25 and 35 families, joined by CD transports and players, R15 and R35 phono stages, PRE35 control and A35.2/A35.8 power amplifiers. UFPD and current UFPD 2 are Primare’s proprietary Class D amplifier platforms, designed for consistent gain across the audio band and high-current stability rather than adopted simply to make smaller boxes. Prisma is the network layer: it adds streaming, multiroom control and major service protocols to compatible electronics while keeping the core amplifier usable independently. Plug-in DAC and Prisma modules let selected models be updated instead of replaced, a direct continuation of the “living product” idea. SPA25, SP25 and A35.8 bring the same architecture to multichannel systems without treating cinema as a separate design language. Primare is Swedish in corporate identity, Danish at its creative origin and recognisably Scandinavian in its insistence that technical capability, restraint and ease of use should reinforce one another.
Pro-Ject
Pro-Ject Audio Systems was founded in Austria in 1991 by Heinz Lichtenegger, at a moment when the audio industry was treating the compact disc as vinyl’s replacement. Lichtenegger’s counterargument was the Pro-Ject 1: a simple belt-drive turntable built around the parts necessary for stable speed and accurate tracking, without automatic mechanisms or cosmetic complexity. The strategy proved prescient, and the Debut, introduced in 1999, became the model that brought the company to a much wider generation of record listeners. Pro-Ject now covers almost every scale of manual turntable. E and T families address first systems; Debut remains the recognisable centre; X, RPM and Xtension add more elaborate plinths, bearings, platters and tonearms; and Signature represents the flagship engineering. Many decks are assembled by hand in the Czech Republic, preserving production skills from the region’s long record-player history. The company also makes phono stages, speed controls, cartridges, record-cleaning machines and accessories, so a turntable can be upgraded rather than discarded. Box Design electronics—compact phono stages, amplifiers, DACs, streamers and CD transports—are largely produced in Slovakia and extend the same space-efficient philosophy beyond vinyl. Artist Collection editions use visual collaborations and licensed themes, but beneath the artwork they remain functional Pro-Ject platforms. The brand’s significance is not simply that it sells many turntables: it maintained European manual-turntable production through the digital era and built a clear path from an inexpensive first deck to genuinely ambitious analogue systems.
PSAudio
PS Audio was founded in Santa Maria, California, in 1973 by Paul McGowan and Stan Warren—the initials of their surnames supplied the name. Early phono stages and preamplifiers established the company, but its most distinctive modern contribution is power regeneration. Unlike a passive conditioner that only filters the wall supply, a Power Plant converts incoming AC and synthesises a new, regulated low-distortion waveform for the connected system. Successive generations, including the P12, P15 and P20, made that approach central to the brand. Digital products form the other major strand. The DirectStream DAC, designed around Ted Smith’s programmable FPGA architecture, converts incoming PCM to a high-rate DSD-related stream and can receive substantial processing changes through firmware rather than a new converter chip. DirectStream transports and AirLens network interfaces extend that digital ecosystem. BHK Signature hybrid amplifiers, created with the late Bascom H. King, combine valve input stages with MOSFET output power; Stellar components bring amplification, conversion and control to a more compact level. The Aspen FR30, FR20 and FR10 loudspeakers later expanded PS Audio into complete systems, using planar-magnetic midrange and high-frequency drivers with separately loaded woofers. The company also operates Octave Records in Boulder, Colorado, recording releases in high-resolution DSD and using the studio as a practical reference for product development. The original description ended mid-sentence; the completed story is a founder-led American manufacturer spanning regenerated power, reprogrammable digital audio, hybrid amplification and loudspeakers.
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Quad
QUAD was founded by Peter J. Walker in 1936 as S.P. Fidelity Sound Systems, later becoming the Acoustical Manufacturing Company. The name came from “Quality Unit Amplifier Domestic,” but the brand’s lasting reputation rests on two different inventions: full-range electrostatic loudspeakers and current-dumping amplification. Both pursued Walker’s famous aim of making the closest approach to the original sound through low distortion rather than theatrical voicing. The original Electrostatic Loudspeaker of 1957—now commonly called the ESL-57—used a charged film diaphragm driven over its area instead of a conventional cone and voice coil. Its transparency made it a reference, while the ESL-63 introduced concentric delay-line stators that approximate a point source. Current ESL-2812X and ESL-2912X models continue that lineage with improved structure, protection and power handling. A factual error in the old description has been corrected: the Quad 303 was a conventional transistor amplifier; Peter Walker’s current-dumping circuit reached production in the Quad 405 in the mid-1970s. It combines a low-power precision amplifier with high-power “dumpers,” using error correction to achieve low distortion efficiently. QUAD also made enduring valve electronics such as the QUAD II and now offers Artera, Vena, Quad 3, the revived 33/303 pairing and Platina electronics, alongside Revela and other dynamic loudspeakers. Since 1997 the company has been part of International Audio Group; management, design and service remain in Huntingdon, including support for many historic products. QUAD therefore remains British in origin and engineering identity even within an international owner.
Rega
Rega Research was founded in England in 1973 by Roy Gandy and Tony Relph; the name combines parts of their surnames. Its first commercial turntable was the unconventional Planet, but the Planar 3 of 1976 created the enduring template: a simple belt drive, rigid low-mass plinth, glass platter and an integrated tonearm developed as one mechanical system. Rega’s influence comes not from preserving that design unchanged, but from repeatedly refining the same priorities while manufacturing a remarkably broad range in Essex. The central principle is lightweight rigidity. Gandy argues that excessive mass can store vibration and release it later, so current Planar models remove material where it is unnecessary and add stiffness between the main bearing and tonearm through double-brace structures. One-piece RB tonearm tubes minimise joints from headshell to bearing housing; higher models use increasingly precise bearings, ceramic platters and sophisticated power supplies. Planar 1, 2, 3, 6, 8 and 10 form the main progression, while Naia translates research from the limited Naiad into the production flagship. Rega also develops Nd moving-magnet and Ania, Apheta and Aphelion moving-coil cartridges, Fono and Aria phono stages, so the complete record-playing chain can be engineered together. Io, Brio, Elex, Elicit, Aethos and Osiris amplifiers, Apollo and Saturn digital sources, and Kyte or Aya loudspeakers broaden the system without displacing vinyl from the centre. Rega’s lasting strength is purposeful reduction: spend materials and tolerance where they control speed, bearing behaviour, rigidity and cartridge alignment, then leave out mechanisms that do not help record playback.
Restek
RESTEK is a German high-end electronics manufacturer founded in September 1975 by engineers Adrianus Elschot and Bernd Hugo. Production moved to Fuldabrück near Kassel in 1977, and the company has remained closely associated with local manufacture, long product life and unusually extensive factory service. Early work included cooperation with Thorens, but RESTEK established its own identity with components such as the FM-3003 and later SCALAR tuners—products that made radio reception a serious audiophile source rather than a secondary feature. Today the full-width E-Series covers EDITOR preamplification, EXTRACT and EXTENT power amplifiers, EMAS phono amplification, EPOS+ CD playback and ERGO or EDAB+ radio reception. The compact M-Series translates the same modular thinking into smaller components: MPLA+ preamplifier, MAMP power amplifier, MDAC+ converter, MTUN+ tuner and source-specific modules can form a system without forcing every function into one chassis. RESTEK designs analogue and digital products together, but avoids rapid replacement cycles; many older units can still be repaired, revised or upgraded at the factory. That continuity is central to the brand. Controls, displays and casework follow a restrained family language, while the engineering emphasis is on low noise, stable power delivery and straightforward operation rather than fashion-driven features. RESTEK’s distinction lies in treating a hi-fi component as durable equipment: designed and assembled in Germany, supported over decades and allowed to evolve without making the previous generation disposable.
Revox
Revox is a Swiss audio company whose story began in 1948, when engineer Willi Studer opened a business in Herisau and developed the Dynavox tape recorder. Revox became the name for the consumer products, while Studer served professional studios and broadcasters; the shared engineering culture made reel-to-reel machines such as the A77 and B77 enduring references for robust mechanics, serviceability and recording quality. The brand later expanded into complete systems, including the B-series electronics and loudspeakers, but tape remains an important part of its identity. In 2024 Revox introduced the B77 MK III, a newly manufactured reel-to-reel recorder rather than a cosmetic reissue, bringing the format back into current production with revised electronics and modern manufacturing. Contemporary Revox is broader than analogue tape. The company develops modular multiroom and custom-installation systems, networked amplifiers, servers, speakers and control interfaces intended to distribute music through an entire home. STUDIOART provides compact wireless products, JOY and STUDIOMASTER components address network playback and amplification, and the T700 turntable connects the brand’s precision-mechanical tradition with vinyl. Revox also maintains restoration and service activity for classic machines, an important distinction for equipment with decades of working life. The company has passed through ownership and organisational changes since the Studer era, but its strongest products still follow the original logic: sources, electronics, speakers and control designed as a coordinated system. Revox is therefore best understood not merely as a historic tape-recorder name, but as a rare bridge between Swiss recording heritage and current integrated audio.
Roksan
Roksan is a British hi-fi manufacturer founded in London in 1985 by Touraj Moghaddam and Tufan Hashemi. The first product, the Xerxes turntable, challenged the suspended-subchassis orthodoxy with a distinctive multi-layer plinth and bearing arrangement designed to control energy between record, arm and support. Xerxes quickly became the product that defined the company and remains in evolved form as Xerxes 20 Plus, supported by dedicated power supplies and tonearms. Roksan subsequently built complete systems rather than remaining a turntable specialist. Caspian electronics established its reputation in amplification and digital sources; the K3 range brought muscular integrated amplification and matching components to a wider audience. Attessa is the current entry point, combining an integrated or streaming amplifier, CD transport and turntable with app-based control and contemporary connectivity. The newer Caspian 4G generation develops the long-running series with modern streaming and amplification architecture, while vinyl playback remains visible rather than being treated as nostalgia. Monitor Audio acquired Roksan in 2016, giving the brand access to a larger British engineering and manufacturing group while retaining the Roksan name and its original country. This ownership should be stated because current products are developed within that group, but it does not erase the founders or the importance of Xerxes. Roksan’s character comes from that continuity: mechanically inventive analogue sources, energetic amplification and increasingly integrated digital systems, all intended to work as a complete British hi-fi ecosystem rather than a single iconic turntable.