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wes bender studio

Marten FormFloor: Cutting-edge speaker married to advanced tech design

I'm usually a sound-first guy, but this time I have to talk about the way these Marten FormFloor speakers look. The stunning, three-sided cabinets looked spectacular at the Wes Bender Studio in Brooklyn. The sleek, apartment-friendly towers are works of art.

Luckily enough, the sound is no less brilliant; their astonishing purity really enhances the experience of listening to music. Bass definition and "speed" are exceptional, and vocals sound present, like the singer is in the room with me. With jazz CDs the spontaneity of the band's improvisations was captured with unusual fidelity. The 43-inch-tall towers … Read more

A very different way to play LPs

The CD player's days may be numbered, but we're seeing more and more turntables. They all share the common design features of a base, platter, and tonearm, but the Townshend Audio Rock 7 turntable is decidedly less common.

In addition to those three components I just mentioned, the Rock 7 employs proprietary features, mounted on the front of the tonearm, ahead of the phono cartridge. The cartridge and its needle are designed to convert the record groove's tiniest wiggles into electrical signals, but on other turntables the tonearm is unsupported and free to vibrate at the cartridge … Read more