THEY SAY YOU SHOULD NEVER MEET YOUR HEROES BUT HEARING MY FIVE HI-FI IDOLS WAS FAR FROM DISAPPOINTING

Technical editor (WHF UK) Ketan Bharadia revisits a selection of classic hi-fi separates that still make him smile

- Ketan Bharadia

We all know how the saying goes: "Never meet your heroes”. That may ring true if we are talking about people. After all, what are the chances of a real person matching up to your idealised version of them? But I think the story is very different for hi-fi components.

I got into this hobby early and started messing about with the family’s hi-fi system way before I was allowed to. My introduction to the audio world came when I began reading hi-fi magazines in the local library. I would diligently soak up the various reviews by esteemed writers such as Paul Messenger, Alvin Gold and Keith Howard, among others, and be captivated by their descriptions of the products under test.

Some of those reviews have remained implanted in my brain to this day, and despite never actually hearing those products at the time, somehow they remain special to me.

Given the job I now do, I'm in the fortunate position of being able to ask manufacturers if they can dig into their warehouses and unearth samples of those older components.

Most of the time, they can't help. After all, they are a business and their priority is always what they sell now rather than what they made decades ago.

But occasionally I manage to strike gold. Here are a few classic products that have come my way over the years and left me with a smile on my face.

Marantz CD7 CD player

The Marantz CD7 is probably up there with the most legendary CD players ever made. It was a bold statement at a time when SACD and DVD-Audio players had already arrived. Marantz’s then technical guru, the late, great Ken Ishiwata, wanted the firm's last high-end CD-only player to be special; and he pulled out all the stops to make it so.