Fane Acoustics are presently following the 'bigger they come, the harder they woof' theory with the release of their latest bass driver. A massive 24in in diameter, their Collossus is designed to be a 400 watt sub-woofer. Usable frequency response extends to 1.2kHz. Fane have planned it to work on frequencies below 200Hz and say that with the right enclosure (a small barn perhaps?) it should be able to keep going happily at below 20Hz. The rigid cellular foam cone is linked to a 4in diameter glass fibre based voice coil urged into action by a 10.45kg APS ferrite magnet system. Retail price will be around £230...

"1984 sees the introduction of a revolutionary new pickup". Yeah, excuse us but they all say that. Still in this case, UKG might have something with which to back up their claim. The Dirkin is a staggered pole humbucker and each pole is larger than usual-about 12mm (½in) in diameter. This gives you the string isolation of individual pole pieces but maintains an even output when you bend strings. With normal humbuckers the string goes 'off pole' and loses volume. Here it just passes over the next one in line. That's not all inventor Peter Croplev's been working on. He also claims to have devised the world's first coplanar humbucker. Twin coils are wound concentrically on top of each other. For the first, say, 6000 turns the 0.07mm wire is wound clock wise, vacuum lacquered at high temperature and then insulated with woven fibreglass, then another winding of 5000 turns, this time 0.45mm is added on top, in the opposite direction and again sealed. On the crest of bafflement, we decided to leave the explanation to Peter: "To put it very briefly, field interaction between the north-south rows of poles on a conventional humbucker clip the actual string harmonics and add spurious non linear harmonics which may sound clean and musical, but certainly aren't the natural sound of the guitar. Coaxial humbuckers with the same number of turns as a single coil pickup give a lot less output. The currents in the two coils stacked above each other generate opposing fields which partly cancel. The manufacturer then has a choice, 1a) put up with low output which, because it has to be amplified a lot more, can cause more noise problems than are solved by the humbucking effect; 1b) increase the number of turns and get a muddier sound. Manufacturers usually compromise. I've yet to try a coaxial humbucker that has the upper harmonic clarity of a good single coil. Because the interface region is much smaller in a coplanar humbucker, the upper harmonic transient response is better." So there. Dirkins are available at £35 from UKG, (Contact Details).

Down to scintillating Swiss Cottage for a press preview of what Ibanez and Tama will be launching upon the populace in a short while. Plenty on the guitar front and most of it black including a three V2 pickup Def Leppard Destroyer model decked in gold fittings. Ibanez have been labouring intensively to produce a decent black chrome that doesn't chip the moment you breathe on it, and they say they've cracked the problem. There are also innovations on the tremolo system including a lock-down bridge and a solid graphite nut to reduce friction. Reduce it to nothingness, so they say. Having decided that Van Halen is a reasonably adept guitar player and noticed that he uses lots of fingerboard hammering, Ibanez are swapping over to flat fretboards on many of their new instruments. This makes hammering and bending easier, claim the technicians, as you can get more finger behind the string. We shall see. For those who don't have the £399 required for the Def Leppard job, there are cheaper RS guitars available. We especially liked the snap-in trem arms and the brilliant paint job bodies with matching pickups on white scratchplates. Simple but startling.

If you visited Dr Spliff on the way in, you'll have noticed an enquiry about Howard Jones' microphone headset, made for him by Hardware House in east London. They've also customised headsets for Peter Gabriel, Toyah, the Thompson Twins, and recently for Boy George. You'll need between £250 and £300 for a similar one: for your money you'd get a US-made Countryman Isomax mike capsule linked to Hardware House's headset which transmits to your nearby receiver (H-House can do you a headset and Nady system package for about £2300). The headset is specially made to fit your bonce. The Isomax mike is chosen for its cardioid response – letting you whack up to a monitor level that might be tricky on an omni — and its high sound-level acceptance (up to 130dB). Hardware House reckon that the quality of the Isomax surpasses that of an SM58. When you get the actual headset part fitted, you'd need to spend about half an hour having your cranium felt, prodded and measured. Hardware House specialise in radio-based modifications and one-offs, and are, for example, building a transmitter into Howard Jones' Prodigy, as he mentioned in our April interview. More info: Hardware House Sales Ltd, (Contact Details).

Who played on "Watching The Detectives"? Not the Attractions, it seems. In our Best Drum Beats compilation in April, we said that Pete Thomas bashed the Detective. In fact the rhythm section consisted of our own Andrew Bodnar on bass and Steve Goulding on drums – at the time the Rumour's dextrous duo. So it was Steve Goulding who "chooses his moments really well". Sorry Steve.

We haven't got the photos to prove it, but here are the names of the lucky, lucky winners of our JVC competition, back in the February ish. Miss Greta Bernard of Finsbury Park, London, collected the wonderful KB500 keyboard and runner up prizes of CQ 22K personal stereos went to Anthony Woods of Belfast; Joe Field of Richmond, Surrey; G. E. Sellars of South Humberside; Paul Newman of Watford, and Robert Eves of Carterton, Oxford.