In_shore: "Mass loaded designs were not in favour and none of the Micro Seiki's were ever reviewed as far as I can remember."The Micro-Seiki RX-1500 was reviewed by Steve Watkinson in the November 1987 issue of Stereophile, page 108-110. It was a negative review and MS never recovered from the market place and lost distribution in the west since then. In fact the mass loaded genre never got attention until Dick Olsher gave a rave review to the Aura turntable from New Zealand. Of course, decades of Linn dominance and hardcore Linnies from the likes of Art Dudley didn't help either. The RX-1500 review was probably the worst review from the magazine by a no name reviewer, whose reference turntable is a Sota Star Sapphire. It was rather biased from the get-go by saying...
"Turntables seem to be a frequently targeted item for Japanese manufacturers attempting to break out of the mid-fi mold and expand into the high end. Both Nakamichi and Denon have offered several supposedly audiophile turntable models in recent years which, despite a number of fancy gimmicks, failed to generate much enthusiasm in the audiophile community."
And the writer concludes with this:
"The RX-1500 is the type of product that distinguishes between the true audiophile and the yuppie technofreak. In a sense, it provides a valuable service: the yuppie can at least enjoy audiophile-quality sound. This is more than the high-tech direct-drive turntable wonders from the large Japanese manufacturers allow."Wow, what drivel! The manufacturer's retort was also a hoot to read. I can't find an online copy of the review but perhaps when I have time I might transcribe the whole thing for all to read.
If you look around in the high end turntable marketplace today, mass loaded designs influenced by Micro-Seiki is everywhere. What does that prove? All the yuppies turned audiophiles? ;-)
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