The Sony VT-M5 is the kind of gadget you would expect in a Cold War surveillance van or on the set of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Billed as an Audioscope...

Korg's Volca Keys proves you don't need a mortgage to own a real analog synth. Three genuine analog voices, a squelchy resonant filter, and a delay that smears everything into...

No more mystery box: this is the Yamaha B-5, a 240-watt-per-channel Natural Sound power amplifier and one of the most serious separates Yamaha built in the era. Released in 1979...

Here is a slice of 1970s hi-fi ambition you rarely see: a discrete four-channel integrated amplifier from JVC's Victor line, complete with a built-in quadraphonic decoder and circuitry to handle...

In the early 1980s Oberheim took aim at the Linn LM-1 and built a drum machine that quietly ended up on more classic records than almost anything else of its...

The Prime Time (Model 93) was one of the first programmable digital delay processors, and it became an instant studio staple for its lush doubling, chorusing, and that slightly grainy...

The Auratone 5C is the legendary little mixcube that engineers from Motown onward used to check that a mix translates: full-range, single-driver, brutally honest. If it sounds good on an...

If one synth defines the lush, shimmering pads of the 1980s, it is the Juno-60. Six voices of digitally-controlled analog oscillators, a gorgeous 24dB resonant low-pass filter sharing the same...

The Roland Juno-106 is the definitive affordable analog polysynth: six voices, that gorgeous DCO-plus-chorus sound, a slider for everything and full MIDI. The pads, basses and stabs on half the...

If you could own one stereo bus compressor for the rest of your life, a frightening number of top engineers would name the Neve 33609. Derived from the legendary 2254...

Long before the 808 shook subwoofers, the CR-78 was keeping time in a handsome wood-veneer box built to back a home-organ player. Then everyone else got hold of it. That's...

The Yamaha EM-90A is what happens when an organ, a rhythm box and a 70s lounge act throw a cocktail party and accidentally record the whole thing to 8-track. It...

There is no overstating this one. The TR-808 is the most influential drum machine ever made: the booming kick, the ticking hats, the cowbell, the snap, the sound of hip-hop,...

The Roland TR-707 is the 707: a clean, punchy digital rhythm composer with that unmistakable 80s click and snap, the classic step-sequencer grid, and a sound that built house, techno...

In 1976 David Blackmer built the first solid-state VCA compressor and changed recording forever. The 160 is brutally simple, three knobs and a big switchable VU, but it does one...

A genuine rarity. The REVAC NM-88 is a professional 8-channel microphone preamplifier from Japan's pro-audio world, the kind of obscure, well-built workhorse that surfaces only occasionally on Japanese auction sites...

If you opened any 90s project studio rack, the QuadraVerb was probably already in it. Alesis built a multi-effects box that ran EQ, reverb, delay and chorus all at once,...

Don't let the cartoon fat man fool you: the HHB Radius 3 is a genuine valve stereo compressor with a glowing VU and a brilliantly simple program-based front end. Pick...

The Planet Phatt is E-MU's love letter to hip-hop, trip-hop and old-school R&B. Built on the same respected sound engine as the Proteus range, it is loaded with fat analog-style...

Tune your system by eye and ear. The Yamaha EQ-630 is a Natural Sound stereo graphic equalizer from 1989, and a properly sophisticated one: ten bands per channel with fully...

Roland's 12-bit rack sampler from the late 80s. The S-330 packs the same characterful converters as its keyboard siblings into a tidy 1U box, complete with that gritty, slightly lo-fi...

Steinberg and Yamaha's UR28M is a do-it-all desktop audio interface that quietly punches above its weight: pristine D-PRE mic preamps, rock-solid drivers, and, crucially, a proper hardware monitor controller with...

History lives in this one. In early 1983 the Prophet-600 became the first synthesizer on earth to ship with MIDI, the protocol Dave Smith gave the world for free, and...

Hand-built in California by Speck Electronics, the Model ASC is a boutique four-band parametric EQ with a cult following: clean, musical and surgical, yet never thin or harsh. This is...