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ROKSAN AUDIO LIMITED
Company typeprivate limited company
IndustryManufacture TV & radio, sound or video
Founded9 August 1985
HeadquartersKingsbury, London, England, UK
Key people
Tufan Hashemi & Touraj Moghaddam
ProductsHi-fi equipment, Audio-visual equipment
Websitehttp://www.roksan.co.uk

Roksan is a British manufacturer of high fidelity audio products for domestic use, based in North West London, United Kingdom. It is best known for its influential and innovative design for hi-fi equipment, and in particular its Xerxes platform for playing LP records.[1]

The company

Roksan Audio Ltd. was formed in 1985 by Tufan Hashemi[2] & Touraj Moghaddam, graduates of the University of London, Imperial College London & Queen Mary College. The company's first product was launched at a hi-fi show in London in 1985.[3]

The name Roksan itself is derived from the name of Roksana, daughter of the Persian King Darius. This closely reflects the Persian heritage and roots of both Hashemi and Moghaddam. Not surprisingly many of Roksan's product names have references to names of cities, places and famous people of Persia (now Iran).[4]

Moghaddam, having then just obtained his PhD at Imperial College, became dissatisfied with the state of the audio arts when he heard his little TV set more musically satisfying than his already high-end Linn/Naim tri-amped audio system, and began experimentation. He deduced that where the existing turntable design failed was that the cartridge must be held still wherever the groove goes, and thus the mean line traced by the groove relative to the body of the cartridge needed to be constant.[3] His ideas led him away from using the sprung sub-chassis as part of the speed-controlling system. Moghaddam built a prototype using a fire door. Hashemi, a friend who had heard the new prototype turntable and wanted one, teamed up to start the company.[3] The Darius loudspeaker design, based on the re-examination of the relationship between and magnitudes of movements of the tweeter and the woofer, was already in prototype. The concept stunned the trade when it was demonstrated at the 1985 hi-fi show where the Xerxes was launched.[3]

In 1996, the company was acquired by Verity plc, a hi-fi group that owned the Mission, Wharfedale and Quad brands. But when Verity demerged around two years later to concentrate on flat-panel speaker technology, Hashemi and Moghaddam reacquired their company.[3]

According to public records, Touraj Moghaddam resigned his directorships of Roksan on 15 July 2011.[5][6] He remains at Vertere Acoustics, where he focuses his efforts on cables.[7]

Products

Turntables

Xerxes.20plus turntable with Tabriz Zi arm

The Xerxes, named after the Persian king who "went around having a good time", has been acclaimed by a number of hi-fi reviewers. This belt-drive turntable without a sprung sub-chassis challenged conventional suspension designs for build and sound quality.[8][9] It succeeded in finding favour with British "flat-earthers".

The design attacked the "high-ground" by eschewing the spring isolation, which was then regarded as a major strength. Instead, it addressed the issues of Groove drag and lateral rigidity, the ultimate objective of which was to stabilise the relationship between cartridge stylus and the spinning record groove. Springs were not considered sufficiently rigid in the lateral plane, and permitted too much rotation of the suspended parts relative to the motor.[1]

While most other designs relied on inertia (through platter mass) to attenuate the problem, Roksan retained a light platter, but addressed drag by mounting the motor on its own bearing and restricted its long-range movement by a small spring, so that the revolving armature could still drive the system.[1] Xerxes was named #53 "Hot Product by Stereophile in 2002.[10]

In 1991, Roksan launched the flagship Touraj Moghaddam Signature (TMS) turntable, named after the company’s chief designer and founder. In 2002, the TMS2 replaced the TMS turntable.

Loudspeakers

Roksan was the first company ever to mechanically isolate the speaker tweeter from the bass unit using springs, in their Darius loudspeaker.[3] This design concept has since been followed by other high end speaker manufacturers.[citation needed]

Electronics

Roksan now has over 30 different products which include analogue and digital sources, electronics amplification and loudspeakers for audio as well as home cinema.

In 2009, following a philosophy of building quality components at an affordable price, Roksan launched the K2 stereo integrated amplifier. At a time when British manufacturers had done away with the phono stage for budget products, the K2 was notable in actually having a 47k ohm input for moving-magnet cartridges.[1]

Milestones

  • 1985, introduction of the Xerxes turntable.
  • 1986, launched the Darius loudspeaker
  • 1987, introduced the Artemiz tonearm
  • 1987, their first moving coil phono cartridge, the Shiraz, was launched.
  • 1988, Roksan's first lifestyle product, the Hot Cake loudspeakers introduced.
  • 1989, introduced their first phono amplifier, Artaxerxes, fitted inside the Xerxes, into which plugged directly the tonearm cable.
  • 1989, launched the budget Radius record player, Tabriz arm and Corus moving magnet cartridge.
  • 1990, first range of electronics, the ROK S1 stereo amplifier and M1 mono amplifier with matching pre amplifiers and power supplies.
  • 1991, Roksan's first CD player, the ROK DP1 introduced
  • 1991, launched top of the range TMS record player.
  • 1992, Roksan replaced the ROK DP1 with the Attessa CD playing system consisting of CD transport, DAC and power supply.
  • 1993, production of the new Ojan 3 and 3X loudspeakers started.
  • 1994, Rokone loudspeaker was released in a variety of real wood veneers.
  • 1994, Attessa and the ROK series of products were fully upgraded to DP3 and ROK 1.5 versions.
  • 1995, the 3 plinth 10th anniversary Xerxes.X, implementing design ideas from the TMS, replaced the original Xerxes turntable.
  • 1998, the four piece Caspian Audio System (Integrated amplifier, CD player, and FM Tuner) was launched.
  • 1999, a digital surround sound processor (DSP), a five-channel AV amplifier and DVD player were added to the Caspian system.
  • 2000, Introduction of the new Kandy line, lifestyle starter Audio System.
  • 2001, the Caspian phono amplifiers were released.
  • 2002, TMS2 replaced the original TMS.
  • 2003, release of the Radius 5 turntable and Nima tonearm, and the Roksan set-up LP for record players.
  • 2003, Kandy MKIII system, (Kandy integrated amplifier, stereo amplifier, Three channel amplifier, CD player and AM/FM Tuner) released.
  • 2004, Caspian M-series (Pre amplifier, mono amplifier, integrated amplifier, stereo power amplifier, phono amplifier, CD player, FM tuner and dedicated Xerxes speed control).
  • 2004, released ALTITUDE, its first ever recording of a collection of some very special music from some very talented musicians.
  • 2005, 20th anniversary Xerxes.20 replaced the Xerxes.X, incorporated the new improved TMS2 bearing ball and the new Rmat-5 sub-plinth for record players; reference R-series7 mono block, preamplifier
  • 2005, Kandy LIII integrated amplifier, power amplifier and CD player
  • 2007, Platinum preamplifier and power amplifier
  • 2007, Kandy K2 integrated amplifier, power amplifier and CD player
  • 2008, TMS3 record player
  • 2008, Xerxes 20+ record player
  • 2009, Kandy K2 TR5 standmount ribbon speakers
  • 2009, Radius 5 Mk-II/Nima record player
  • 2010, Caspian M2 integrated amplifier and CD player
  • 2011, Caspian M2 power amplifier
  • 2012, Oxygene digital integrated amplifier and CD player AptX bluetooth connectivity
  • 2013, Kandy K2 BT integrated amplifier with AptX bluetooth connectivity
  • 2014, Kandy K3 integrated amplifier with AptX bluetooth connectivity, DAC and CD player
  • 2015, Capian VSC series record player speed controls and reference phono stage
  • 2016, blak integrated amplifier with AptX bluetooth connectivity, and included DAC
  • 2016, blak CD player
  • 2016, Radius 7 record player with integrated speed control. Also in glass effect and pink finishes.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Dudley, Art (May 15, 2010). "Roksan Kandy K2 integrated amplifier". Stereophile Cite error: The named reference "dudley" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Tufan Hashemi of Roksan Audio", Hi-fi Pig, 19 January 2013
  3. ^ a b c d e f Harris, Steve (4 March 2008). "Steady as a Roksan". Hi-fi News & Record Review, June 2008 issue.
  4. ^ Stemmelin, Pierre (25 january 2013) "Roksan Xerxes 20 Plus : l'autre platine vinyle de référence... depuis 1985". On Mag
  5. ^ Touraj Moghaddam
  6. ^ Sircom, Alan (2 July 2013). "Roksan Xerxes.20Plus Turntable System". Hi-Fi+. Archived from the original on 11 July 2013.
  7. ^ "The sound of science". The New Europe October–November 2011, pp.190–191 (Courtesy link)
  8. ^ Geoff Husband, Xerxes X Turntable, Artemiz Arm, TNT, November 2002
  9. ^ Steward, Malcolm (May 1989). "Roksan Xerxes / Artemiz". Hi-Fi Review c/o malcolmsteward.co.uk
  10. ^ John Atkinson, 40 years of Stereophile: The Hot 100 Products, Stereophile, Page 4 of 7, Vol.25 No. 11, November 2002
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