Gadget Guru’s magic box

Never let it be said that Guru doesn’t enjoy the finer things in life, and with a relaxation of the purse strings from the family bursar he’s been splashing out a little. Beginning, despite GaGu’s usual disgust for hipster reboots of old formats, with a nice record player. Sony’s PS-HX500 (RRP £400, but you can find it for £100 less) fits the bill nicely: a beautiful angular black turntable, with the ability to record hi-res rips directly to a PC, it both allows Guru to enjoy his crackly old collection and safely box it away once everything is sufficiently digitised. You may crow all you like about Guru tearing the soul out of his music, since he’s also safely ensconced in his fancy wooden Symphonized Magnum headphones (£59.99), enjoying the natural over-bassy reverberation that comes from having bits of ex-tree placed over one’s ears. They’re comfy and reasonably priced, make your music sound madly fat, and the split headband means there’s no single pressure point on the top of the head. Next on the list is some kind of lurid spectrum analyser, though – beyond suspect-looking eBay imports – Guru has yet to find one. Do let GaGu know if you see anything that doesn’t look like it’s going to immediately explode upon powering up. Away from audio, at least sort of, Guru has been searching for the clickiest keyboard he can find. While he does, of course, scream the words of these pages at the top of his lungs as they’re being written, punishing the neighbours with the hailstorm rattle of Cherry MX Blue microswitches seems like the thing to do. And so the mechanical red-LED form of G-Skill’s RIPJAWS KM570 (£129.99) has landed on Guru’s desk, and, happily, it’s noisier than a bunch of live ammunition chucked in a microwave. If you’re feebly tippy-tapping on the likes of Apple’s wimpy Magic Keyboard (£99) as GaGu was, a serious set of keys makes a huge difference even if you never use it to play a single game. See more on p108.