Boat International - May 2018

BOAT LIFE

State of

the art

High tech has never

looked so good,

saysJeremy White

S

omethingishappeningintheworld

of technology. One of the major recent

developmentshasbeentheelevation

of design to match, or in some rare cases

exceed, the importance of technological

innovation.Andnotbeforetime,too.

Just look at the world of mobile phones:

forfartoolongApple’scompetitorsthought

they could succeed by beating the iPhone for

specs,onlytobebaledthatAppledoggedly

heldontothevastmajorityofthehigh-end

mobilemarket.Onlyrecentlydidtheyconcede

thatpeoplehadtofallinlovewithhowthe

phones looked just as much as with how they

performediftheywantedtobiteintoApple’s

marketshare.ItwasSteveMcQueenwho

saidthatGodwasinthedetails,andhe

wasabsolutelyright.

Take theRuark AudioR7 Mk3 (above), for

example.Launchedin2013,theR7stoodout

fromthehi-ficrowdforitsstylishretrolooks.

Now, with this third generation model, the

British company has refined the design with

aslimmercabinetandminimalistfrontpanel,

as well as adding built-in Spotify Connect.

Themid-centuryradiogramdesignremains

key,butthereisnothingantiquatedaboutits

performance. As well as the usual sources

suchasCDandDAB,theR7cansupportaptX

HD Bluetooth, which can handle 24-bit hi-res

audio.ItcanalsolinknumerousR7stoplay

musicyacht-wide(£2,300, ruarkaudio.com).

Stayingwitharetroaesthetic,Tech n ic s

launched its celebrated SP10 record player in

1975anditsnewversion,theMOMA-worthy

SP-10R (above), pays homage to this beautiful

forebear.TheSP-10Rhasareworkedcoreless

directdrivemotorand7.9kgheavyplatterthat

has a three-layer structure consisting of brass,

die-cast aluminium and rubber. Cleverly, by

optimisingthenaturalfrequencyofeachlayer,

vibrations are suppressed. It is launching soon

(POA, technics.com).

Leicaisoneofthefewcameramakers

thathasalwaysembracedgooddesign–and

marriedthiswithexceptionalperformance.

To celebrate the recent Winter Olympics, the

brandlaunchedtheQSnow(above left), created

in collaboration with Iouri Podladtchikov, a

SwissOlympicandworldchampionhalf-pipe

One reason Leica’s collaborator
Iouri Podladtchikov wanted the
QSnowtobewhitewasbecause
“for me, that also means ‘carte
blanche’ – it’s up to you”