We have a bit of thing with subwoofers. It’s because adding a subwoofer can be one of the most powerful upgrades you can make to your home theatre or stereo system. Yet, a lot of people are not convinced of their merits. With a good subwoofer it’s like you can feel the room breathing. I guess it’s one of those things you have to experience to realise. But also… one subwoofer is not the same as the next.

The best subwoofers add dimension, impact, excitement, and low-frequency extension without negatively affecting the overall accuracy and believability of your system’s sound. A big subwoofer can do this – and so can a small one. One of the misconceptions we want to address is that a bigger subwoofer isn’t necessarily better. For someone who’s not familiar with acoustics, the reasons for this may not be readily apparent.

I don’t know if it’s just us who have noticed, but it seems that the latest thing in loudspeakers world is to release new versions of previously iconic speakers.

I’m sure the right psychologist will come up with an explanation of some sort, but I wonder whether it ties in with the whole resurgence of vinyl as well. Like a bout of global audiophile nostalgia? Who knows…

In a short amount of time 3 different speaker brands that date back to the early Hi-Fi years, managed their way on to the Rapallo radar. Now, I don’t know about you, but when things pop up in threes, I pay attention 😉 The funny thing is that while all three speakers are undeniable speaker legends, the companies each approached the current day speaker re-release in very, very different ways. 

Like with anything in life, running a business is a balancing act between ‘The Wants’, ‘The Needs’ and ‘The Musts’. 

Valve amplifiers have been on ‘the Wants-list’ for quite some time. The thing with ‘Wants’ is that you have to time them carefully. After all, you don’t want to compromise ‘The Musts’ and ‘The Needs’. I mean, do that and the business will go bust pretty quickly. 

So, these valve amplifiers that have been on our Wants list? Timing was (finally!) right to get serious about them. Slowly but steadily we have been expanding the audiophile Hi-fi side of Rapallo and you can’t do that with a straight face without having some decent valve amplifiers in your offerings.

So, what’s the big deal with valve amplifiers? 

After some umming and arring you have decided to join the ever growing group of people that is giving vinyl a renewed place in their home. No longer is it solely appealing to the audiophile elite that is willing to fork out many thousands of dollars for a high-end set-up. To more and more people, there is appeal in casually having a turntable alongside their audio streamer, both used in very different situations, both providing pleasure in audio. 

But once you start your research, you bump into options and decisions, you weren’t even aware you were going to face. One of them is the choice of a MM versus a MC phono cartridge. 

Although the outcome for both is the same (creating audio from a records groves), both designs are very different and so are their characteristics. Time for us to have a dig into the world of phono cartridges.