Music Hall Audio MMF-7.3

Turntable

- Ken Micallef

Stereophile and Music Hall Audio share a long mutual history. Like most relationships, it’s had its ups and downs; unlike most relationships, this one is well documented—in retired writer Sam Tellig’s much loved “Audio Cheapskate” and “Sam’s Space” columns, and Music Hall Audio proprietor Roy Hall’s responses in “Manufacturers’ Comments.” I always found Sam and Roy’s gentlemanly brawling to be good, clean, if occasionally uncomfortable fun—like the touchy rapport between a gregarious dog and a rascally cat forced to live under the same roof: A truce may have been called, but don’t expect them to make nice.

One of Sam’s classic comments, from a review of a Music Hall turntable: “Roy Hall has his famous Music Hall MMF (Make Money Fast) turntables made for him in the Czech Republic.”1

More Sam, from a review of a Music Hall DAC: “[Roy Hall] approached the dac25.2 the same way he does Music Hall turntables: by borrowing and then combining bits and pieces of what’s worked here and there. Pick four from Column A and two from Column B. Just like the Golden Garden Chinese restaurant in Great Neck. That’s a nifty name for Music Hall’s next product.”2

Roy Hall’s retorts are legendary. In one “Manufacturer’s Comment,” he directed his ire at reviewers as a single unruly group: “I do agree with Robert Harley that many manufacturers treat reviewers with false friendship. It’s hard not to when reviewers wield such power. I have found that most of them seem to respond best to a healthy measure of derision. They do . . . receive far too much artificial respect.”3

And that was Roy Hall lite.