Chord Cable Upgrade Workshop at Audio T Preston Thursday 7th September 12noon-8pm

Join Ian Gavin and Andy at the Preston store as we demonstrate the Chord Company cable range. Come and hear how this cost effective upgrade can bring you even more enjoyment from your music and film collection.

Snacks and refreshments will be provided and there will be exclusive special offers for attendees. If you are uncertain about the difference that cables can make then this is the opportunity to listen and make your own mind up.

Click HERE to reserve your place.

Pioneer Special Edition Monitor 5 Headphones

The Pioneer SE-Monitor 5 headphones are the new closed-back premium headphone from the Japanese electronics company. They compliment the excellent open back SE-Master1.

Great build quality adds to the appeal here, not only do they sound great but look good too. The magnesium alloy frame and the leather headband secure the headphones firmly to your head. Maybe a tad weighty, but very comfortable all the same. The copper ring on the capsules and copper coloured plugs on the braided headphone cable add that extra bit of class to the Monitor 5's.

The elegant new Pioneer SE-Monitor 5 headphone.

This beautifully constructed headphone exudes quality. The headband adjustment is reassuringly solid. Magnesium alloy and leather!! Lovely.

Enter Chromey!!. Those velour headphone cups look really comfy Chromey, and did you know they also come with an extra set of leatherette cups to go with your tight leather pants. splendid.

The leather headband looks and feels great.

The 3.5mm jack allows to you disconnect the headphone cable and use a highend aftermarket cable.

Sound Quality
The SE-Monitor 5's sound like a £1000 headphone should, well defined bass that doesn't bloat and stays in check is welcome for a closed-back headphone. The midrange is very well controlled and isn't shouty at all, meanwhile the treble is also lush and well detailed with a hint of warmth. Overall, the stereo image produced by the SE-Monitor 5's can't be faulted and is very accurate.

Fancy a try ? well, why don't you do like Chromey, and zip into Audio T Manchester and give the Pioneer SE-Monitor 5 headphones an audition. We have a dedicated area for our headphones where we use a headphone amp, you can also plug the Pioneer's directly into a portable device such as a phone or a portable audio player if it's how you roll.

Munir, Mike, Dave, Simon and Haden will be on hand to help.    

The Legendary Bowers and Wilkins 800 Series Return To Cardiff.

With a 35 year history and an iconic place for a long time in such institutions as Abbey Road Studios, it’s safe to say the B&W 800 series is one of the most renowned speaker ranges in the world. We are ecstatic to have the newest version of the entire range here at Audio T Cardiff.

The Bowers and Wilkins 800 series has a long and illustrious history, the original 801 was released in 1980. The idea was to give engineers absolute free reign to come up with the very best loudspeaker they could without the usual restrictions placed on them. In fact in the original 801 manual there is a quote that says:

‘‘the first commercial effort to develop and produce a loudspeaker that would reflect the highest standards attainable without regard to any of the so called “practical considerations” that inevitably compromise conventional designs.’’

This is exactly what they did, the use of ultra-rigid Matrix cabinet construction and the idea of separate enclosures for high-frequency drivers or Flowport bass-reflex tuning was brand new innovative technology at the time and was filtered down through the generations of 800s over the years. The new series, 800 D3 to be precise has followed that same philosophy of their forebears but with the very most up to date cutting edge technology that ensures they are on the top of their game.

Words can’t explain how excited we are to now have the vast majority of the new 800 range in store including the HTM1 centre speaker, the stand mounting 805 D3, the more traditional looking floor standing 804 D3, the most compact of the classic 800 look the 803 D3, the immense 802 D3 and the astonishing head of the family the 800 D3.

There is far too much incredible technology that goes into these speakers to cover everything in this blog but let’s go through at least some features. B&W claim that their diamond tweeter technology that they have been using since the beginning and has continued to be improved, provides the most realistic treble possible. The use of diamond means that the tweeter is both as light and rigid as possible which is a very difficult balance to achieve. On these newest versions the tweeter sits in an all new solid body housing which brings even further advances to performance.

A big development in the new range is the abandonment of the iconic Aramid Fibre cone for the new Continuum cone. These are essentially the next stage of evolution in B&W’s cone technology being able to ‘deliver pristine mid-range performance by effectively negating the break-up behaviour that can adversely affect this all-important part of the spectrum.’ The fact B&W have done this when the Aramid Fibre cone was already so innovative and unique show just how much they are striving for perfection.

We are still getting to grips with the whole range but what we have found out so far is that everything B&W are claiming about the sonic properties of this series is absolutely true. The ability to bring out the performance of the music you are listening to is exceptional the clarity and realism of these speakers make you feel like the musicians are right there in front of you. This is true for both stereo and home cinema settings, we have the 800’s, HTM1 centre and the 805 stand mounts setup in our cinema room with Dolby atmos and the result is nothing short of mind blowing.

We have several pairs of the range setup and ready to go for demonstration, so please get in touch if you would like a listen to what are frankly some game changing speakers.

Bowers and Wilkins 800 Series are currently only available at Cardiff store.

All other Bowers and Wilkins Speakers are available in the following Audio T stores: Brentwood, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Enfield, Manchester, Oxford, Portsmouth, Preston, Reading, Southampton, Swansea, Swindon

Musical Fidelity Encore 225 Music Streamer Offers Stunning One-Box Simplicity

After last month's introduction to Musical Fidelity at Brentwood, here is a more in depth look at one of the stars of their range the Encore 225 Music Streaming System

This beautifully built machine is a complete system in one box. The Encore 225 comprises an amplifier with the same power amplifiers as the Musical Fidelity M6si integrated, and CD drive which can rip your discs to internal storage (1TB and 2TB versions are available). It can also play CDs, has a host of inputs for external devices, can access Internet radio and Tidal and can even be seen as a network storage device by other products such as Sonos!

The build quality is exceptional with  very solid casework edged with heatsinks which are necessary as this baby runs weighted very much into class A.

The Encore 225 has a beautiful high resolution display which will show your album artwork as it plays.

In its simplest form just pop in a CD which it will rip automatically to internal storage in a high quality file, go to "my music" and playback from the usual sorted list, but it can do so much more, acting as a digital and analogue hub with enough inputs to satisfy most people.

So what does the Encore 225 sound like? Put simply it is just superb!

Seen here with the Dali Opticon 5 floorstanders it is currently filling our dem room with a big, warm, detailed and expansive sound, full of rhythm and music whether you're listening to the Bruckner Motets or the latest album from Deadmau5. We've been loading ours up with music and playing with the control features, both from the front buttons and the dedicated app and it has been a delight to use.

This one definitely has the Boswell seal of approval!

So in conclusion the Musical Fidelity Encore 225 is a gem of a system, all in one box and a breeze to use!

And there's more......

At the moment Musical Fidelity are offering a trade in for a limited time, where you will get the cost of your old Musical Fidelity amplifier (up to £1550) off the Encore 225 which is a great deal!

Come and have a listen!

Paul Francis Jason and Boswell

Musical Fidelity Hi-Fi products are also available from the following branches of Audio T:
Brentwood, Bristol, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Enfield, Manchester, Online, Southampton, Swansea, 
Swindon

The Arcam rPlay Music Streamer

With the current surge in popularity for streaming music (Sonos et al) we were pleased and intrigued when Arcam announced that they were bringing to market a dedicated music streamer.
After the success and positive feedback of the streamers in their AV amps and Arcam CDS27 CD player it appears to be a natural step for such a music first company.

The Arcam rPlay allows you to add network audio streaming services and internet radio to any system using DTS PlayFi, Apple Airplay or UPnP enabled music sources such as a Network Attached Storage (NAS).

As well as a co-axial (SP/DIF) digital audio output and a fixed line level analogue output, the rPlay also features a variable analogue output which uses the same volume control as their A49 flagship amplifier. This is really handy for connecting to a power amplifier or a pair of active loudspeakers; multi-room audio aficionados also should take note. The rPlay is very nicely built out of satin black aluminium and is a visual match for the other Arcam “small r” components.

At £399 it's fifty quid more than the unit it's going to be compared to - the Sonos Connect Zoneplayer.

So how does it sound? Very good indeed! It was an obvious improvement over the Sonos Connect. 'Solid' is the term du jour; the rPlay has way more body, depth and richness. Meaty and musical. Operationally it isn't quite as slick as the Sonos, but this is just a matter of getting used to the operating system (OS). The dramatic improvement in sound quality more than makes up for it, even using just 16bit (CD quality) files. The rPlay will play back 24bit (studio quality) files, lifting its performance again. By comparison the Sonos units top out at 16bit.

If you needed any more of a testimonial, both Nic and I have bought one. It's on demonstration in our music salon as we speak. Why not come in and have a listen?

Arcam Hi-Fi products are available from the following branches of Audio T:
Brentwood, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Enfield, Oxford, Portsmouth, Preston, Reading, Southampton, 
Swansea, Swindon

Panasonic TX-55EZ952B OLED - Plasma Is Dead Long Live OLED!

John and I have both been eagerly awaiting a new TV which would persuade us to upgrade our now ageing Pioneer plasma screens.  

The new Panasonic TX-55EZ952B OLED precisely fits the bill.

This high end 4K Pro HDR TV is Hollywood tuned and equipped with Studio Colour HCX2 and THX certified processing to produce a full, rich and natural spectrum of colours.  The multiple HDR formats supported include Hybrid Log Gamma, the broadcast HDR format jointly developed by the BBC and Japan's NHK.

Panasonic have fully utilised their plasma experience to great effect with this TV, ensuring it is capable of incredible shadow detail and displaying the deepest blacks.  

These positive plasma attributes are enhanced by the many advantages of OLEDs such as higher brightness, natural colour rendering, much lower power consumption and elegant slimline design.

The high specification includes all iPlayers, Freeview Play, inbuilt Netflix and Amazon 4K. 

The supplied compact central stand avoids the cabinet overhang issues of many TVs and we both appreciated the ease with which we wall mounted our demo screen. It was far less stressful than the back breaking task we recall with our Pioneer plasmas many years ago!

Just phone or email to book or just call in to see the Panasonic TX-55EZ952B OLED with an awesome home cinema system in our Dolby Atmos equipped demonstration room.  We are sure you will be as impressed as we are with this brilliant TV!  

See you soon,

Alan and John

Panasonic TVs are available from all branches of Audio T.

Chord Electronics Hugo 2 DAC Headphone Amplifier 'Knocks It Out Of The Park' Again!

It has been a long wait, but oh boy was it worth it. We now have the all new Chord Electronics Hugo 2 portable DAC and headphone amplifier available for demonstration.

Chord Electronics Hugo2

A complete re-design of the multi-award winning benchmark DAC, the MK2 Hugo raises the bar once again. In truth, they hardly needed to, as the old one still has the gong but that isn't Chord's way; if it can be bettered then they're 'gonna' do it!

Hugo 2 inputs

We are hearing significant improvements in detail, dynamics and timing over the old model thanks in part to the dramatic increase in the number of taps within the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) silicon.

All inputs and filter options are displayed via coloured LEDs much like that of the Chord Electronics Mojo for ease of use. Although initially designed to be the world's best portable DAC and headphone amp in reality the original mostly found it living amongst the best home Hi-Fi systems as the primary DAC, such was its giant killing credentials. This fact was not lost on Chord, so one of its new features is that it automatically stops charging the internal battery when it's plugged into the charger for 24hrs which extends battery life. 

Additionally Hugo 2 is now fully remote controlled, another nod to non-portable application.

Full feature list and technical specification can be found here.

You can read the latest What Hi-Fi? review of the Hugo 2 here.

Hugo 2 is available in black or silver.

Now with remote control

Come in and have a listen at Audio T Reading.

Chord Electronics Hi-Fi products are also available at the following branches of Audio T: 
Brentwood, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Enfield, Manchester, Online, Oxford, Portsmouth, Preston, 
Reading, Southampton, Swansea, Swindon

Dali Loudspeakers Arrive At Audio T Cardiff!

It's surreal! We are very excited here as we have just started stocking Dali products! To get us started we have a quartet of new products, namely: the Katch portable Bluetooth speaker; the Zensor Pico, Zensor 1 and Zensor 3 Loudspeakers.

A Dali family shot. 

Dali Katch Portable Bluetooth Speaker

The Dali Katch is a portable Bluetooth speaker with a few very clever tricks up its sleeve. Capable of a very impressive 24 hour battery life and a full charge after just 2 hours, this is a perfect companion for travelling or just sitting out in the garden. The Katch has two listening modes ‘clear’ is the best for most situations while ‘warm’ pushes out a bit extra bass, more suited for playing in a large room. The Katch connects via Bluetooth AptX and has the option of NFC, it can also be set up as a stereo pair if you have a second Katch. Our favourite feature though is that it has a USB charge out. This opens up a whole new world of streaming as the Katch can power a device like a Google Chromecast or even a player like the Astel and Kern AK70 (pictured below). Send the signal from that device in through the Katchs mini jack auxiliary input and you have yourself a streamer! Most importantly as well as looking incredible the Katch has a fantastic clear presentation through its two 21mm soft dome tweeter and pair of 9cm aluminium drivers. It seemed to handle everything we threw at it with aplomb and left us very impressed.

Dali Katch Portable Bluetooth Speaker

Dali Zensor Pico

The Pico is the first entry in the Zensor range of loudspeakers and the first thing to say about it as they are tiny! Each speaker stands at just 23cm high, however where it lacks in size it most certainly doesn’t lack in sound!  The Pico features the same soft dome tweeter that appears in the rest of the range and the same, albeit smaller, wood fibre woofer all contained in a very classy looking cabinet for the price. When tested we couldn’t believe the sound quality coming from such a small pair of speakers,  the Pico’s have a considerable impact at the low end considering the size and give a great presentation in a small to medium size rooms. We found that the Pico’s had a great energy and presence in the room that made them very addictive to listen to. These will be great in a small to medium room but also fantastic in a compact surround sound system as fronts, back or both!

Dali Zensor 1

The middle brother of the Zensor bookshelf speakers is the Zensor 1.  At 30% bigger than the Pico the Zensor 1 still has a fairly small footprint but defiantly has more of a presence in the room. Using the same tweeter but a slightly larger 5.25” woofer the Zensor 1 shares all the same characteristics of the Pico but you get more of it, a stronger sound stage more focussed, stronger bass and overall a more detailed sound. Like the other speakers in the range it is available in black, white and walnut finishes.

Dali Zensor 3

The newest member of the family is the slightly bigger again Zensor 3. The 3 follows all the same design aspects of the two smaller models and again uses the same tweeter but ups the size of the bass driver to a 7”. The 3’s have an infectious energy about them while still staying balanced with a tight top end and a surprisingly punchy bass for the size of cabinet, we found ourselves sitting back and listening to whole albums when we were meant to be reviewing them!

The Zensor range really has a speaker for many different situations and locations, so please do come and have a listen to them!

Dali loudspeakers are available in the following Audio T Stores: Cardiff,  Brentwood

The Rega Ania MC Cartridge, Hand Made By Rega In Southend-on-Sea

The new Rega Ania has just arrived here at Manchester, seen as the baby brother of the wonderful Apheta 2, the £498 moving coil cartridge could well a be winner in the making.

Officially the third in the range of moving coil cartridges from Rega, this is a much needed price point (in our opinion) and bridges the gap nicely between the Rega Exact and Apheta 2.

Can you spot the Rega Ania?

Hand made completely at Rega headquarters in Southend-On-Sea the Rega Ania is hand wound by the bods at Rega. Amazingly, but not surprisingly the build quality of the Ania is on par with our Japanese cousins, who as you know, can make a mean cartridge.

The neodymium magnet is housed in the high quality and unique rigid plastic body, using the same technique Rega use for the Apheta 2 and the Aphelion but at half the cost of the Apheta 2 because of the materials used. With meticulously wound finer than fine copper wire (as seen below), it requires an infinite amount of patience during the process. This task is not for the coffee drinkers.

The Ania uses Rega's 3 point “tried and tested” mounting to remove any tracking errors. Rega have said it will be factory fitted as an option on some of the turntables. The RP6 and RP8 come to mind straight away, but what a great upgrade it would be to the ever popular Planar 3

The Rega Ania will make a great upgrade for the Planar 3. Watch this space for an update on how it sounds. 

You may have noticed the words “Hand Made In” in our blog. This is something we try and get across every once in a while just to remind  people that we still make great products "by hand" in good old Blighty. The beautiful pocket squares used in the photographs with the Rega Ania are sold by Doherty Evans & Stott, a high end bespoke tailors just up the road from us.

These colourful squares were a collaboration between the Manchester School of Art, silk weavers based in Macclesfield and DE&S. The winning designs were chosen by Andy, Matt and Tom at DE&S. So well done to Jazmine Darson, Kauser Farhan and Maya Elbourki. I'm going to be buying one.

So, in a nutshell if you want to add a bit of pizzaz and and splash of musical colour to your vinyl, why not take a look the Rega Ania. And if your suit needs a splash of summer to brighten your day try one of the colourful pocket squares from DE&S. Simple.

The Rega Ania will be on demonstration at our Manchester store and at our up and coming secret Rega product launch event on the 15th July.

Mike, Dave, Simon, Haden and Munir are usually loitering somewhere in the store. So feel free to ask any questions you may have. 

Hope to see you soon.

Dreaming About Music Streaming? What Does It All Mean?

There are a raft of new products available that allow you to stream your music and the idea behind this blog, is to highlight one or two products and explain the basics of how to incorporate a "streamer" into your existing Hi-Fi system.

Streamers - Clockwise from top left: Bluesound Node 2 £499, Yamaha WXAD-10 £149, Sonos Connect £349, Naim ND5XS £2430, and Yamaha WXC-50 £329

Firstly perhaps I should explain what we mean by "streaming". There are two forms of streaming:

1. Directly from the Internet via a service like Spotify, Qobuz or Tidal. These services are a little like SKY, you pay a subscription every month and get access to their massive, and constantly updated, music library. Prices are usually £10-20 a month. The streamer needs to support the service you are interested in and not all streamers support all streaming services.

2. Music stored locally on a computer or network hard drive (NAS drive). Usually these are CD's that have been copied onto a computer / NAS drive, or music downloaded from the internet.

Bluetooth or Airplay could also be considered "streaming" but neither are a particularly high quality method so I'm not going to cover those. However a number of streaming products do include them.

Our Apple iPad Mini with the Tidal App. 9 out of 10 Streamers use an App as a remote control so you will need an iPad / iPhone or Andriod phone or tablet (like a Samsung)

So why bother with streaming?

The two main reasons are:

1. Easy access to your entire record collection without having to go looking for the CD.

2. By adding more streamers you can get music all around your house, easily controlled by a tablet or smart phone

You can make playlists, or you can just play a random selection from your whole collection, it's great to hear some of the older stuff that got buried at the back of your CD rack and forgotten about. If you subscribe to a streaming service you have access to millions of tracks and never need to buy a CD again!

What about quality?

Typically streamed music is around the same quality as CD. You can make it better if you get the more expensive kit but most of the time it's roughly comparable to CD quality. Tidal and Qobuz are better quality than Spotify if you are using a streaming service but are more expensive, but do allow you to stream (Qobuz / Tidal) and download (Qobuz) 24bit Hi-Res music. 

However copying (ripping) your CD's is where it can seem complicated because there are so many different file types used to store music. Pretty much everyone has heard of MP3, but that's the lowest quality 'lossy' format which in the process of conversion removes some of the information to allow it be compressed down to the smallest possible file size.

You could start with Apple Lossless, it's better than MP3, Itunes is easy to use and it's widely supported - it's a proprietary format and will only work with Itunes and the Apple ecosystem. However, we would recommend FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec), it's the next step up in quality it's an open (not hardware dependent) lossless (No data is removed from the converted file) format and is widely supported. WAV is the original CD source file but it's uncompressed, so it takes up a lot more hard drive space and there can be problems with track information (meta data) being transferred correctly, so unless you are going for high end quality we would suggest using FLAC or ALAC if you're an Itunes user - FLAC will not play on ITunes. If this seems really daunting then there are several products that will rip and store your CD's, making the process as simple as possible. e.g. Innuos Zen Mini or Naim Uniticore

Time to look at kit.

If you want to dip your toe into the "streaming" water, Yamaha have just realised a new product, and at £149 it's very affordable.

Yamaha WXAD-10

The Yamaha WXDA-10 uses Yamaha's MusicCast technology which is also incorporated in a good number of other Yamaha products including most of their recent Home Cinema Amps. The MusicCast app is pretty good with all the normal streaming services like Spotify etc.

Yamaha MusicCast app

The WXDA-10 only has analogue connections so plug it into an aux input on your amplifier and follow the instructions on the app to set it up in 5 mins.

Another recent addition to our collection of streamers is the Bluesound Node 2 £499

Bluesound node 2

The Node 2 can be connected with normal analogue interconnects, but also has digital outputs.

bluesound node 2 back panel

It's an obvious sonic improvement over the cheaper Yamaha. The Bluesound boasts MQA (Master Quality Authenticated)  compatibility (yet another new high resolution music file format!) along with all the other usual features, and a decent app better used on a larger ipad.

Bluesound App

All the streamers mentioned or pictured are available for demonstration in store, where you can try the apps for yourself. We will always try to answer any questions you have.

Yamaha Hi-Fi products are available from the following branches of Audio T:
Brentwood, Bristol, Cardiff, Enfield, Manchester, Online, Oxford, Portsmouth, Preston, 
Southampton, Swansea, 

Bluesound Hi-Fi products are available from the following branches of Audio T:
Manchester, Online, Portsmouth, Swindon

New Denon DM41 Micro System With Bluetooth

Denon have come up trumps once again with the new DM41 Micro System. It has long been a Denon strength and the new model proves to be a winner as we would expect.

Now with Bluetooth connectivity as well as CD replay, DAB/DAB+ and FM radio, analogue and two optical digital inputs, which can be connected up to improve the sound of your TV!

Matched with suitable speakers from Rega, Dynaudio, B&W or Q Acoustics etc. it offers quite surprising results.

Available in black or sliver, this little system does a grand job when space or cost is a particular issue and if you are looking for a compact but great sounding all in one system for another room.

Denon products are available from the following branches of Audio T:
Brentwood, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Enfield, Manchester, Online, Oxford, 
Portsmouth, Preston, Southampton, Swansea, Swindon

New Rega Ania Moving Coil Cartridge

Building on the success of the Apheta 2 and Aphelion moving coil cartridges Rega have introduced the new Rega Ania.

Rega's design approach is unique for moving coil cartridges using an undamped ultra low mass generator with a rhomboid pivot for the cantilever coupled with an exclusively designed neodymium magnet system. This approach requires a cartridge body that has virtually zero tolerances to allow exact positioning of the magnet system relative to the pivot mounting hole. This is achieved in the Apheta and Aphelion models by machining ultra high grade aluminium to achieve the tolerance levels required (Within one thousandth of a millimetre).

Rega Ania

The process of machining aluminium to this tolerance level is exceptionally expensive so when Rega decided to design the Ania moving coil cartridge their solution was to use a moulding process using an unusual poly/glass combination called 'Polyphenylene Sulphide (PPS-Forton). The special attributes of this material are its hardness and stability in shape and dimension after the moulding process. Rega have designed and built a new production mould tool to enable this extremely complex body shape to be achieved to the exacting specifications required.

To achieve the performance of the Ania cartridge they have combined the PPS body with an elliptical tipped diamond stylus and cantilever with an iron cross and micro coil assembly (one of the smallest MC generators). Special three point stainless steel inserts have been used for secure three point coupling to the tone arm.

Three Point Mounting System

Sound Quality:

With the Ania MC cartridge firmly fixed to a Rega Planar 3 my first impression was that it shouldn't be able to do that for the money. It wasn't just good, it was astonishing. I first played Crazy Love by Poco off the album Legend and even though I thought I knew this one inside out the Rega combination laid out the harmony vocals and acoustic guitars within a huge soundstage ....one of those "shivers down your spine" moments! To make sure this wasn't a fluke, on went another demo fave in the shape of Faron Young by the rather wonderful Prefab Sprout and sure enough everything was bigger more open and more detailed than I have ever heard a Planar 3 before. The Thomas Dolby production work really coming alive with great deep but tight and fast bass allied to a wide open mid-range and a sweet top end.

Appetite whetted we then decided to put the Ania in the RB808 arm on the Rega RP8 turntable where it really excelled. The Poco and Prefab Sprout tracks opening up to reveal yet more detail. This really is one of those items of Hi-Fi that makes music fun to listen to and that will have you rooting through your record collection to hear what delights it will reveal next. In fact we were so impressed that Jon has ordered one for himself and I am thinking that my Rega P7 turntable may be paired up with one when my Dynavector wears out!!

The unique design concept of the new Rega Ania MC cartridge has produced a market leading cartridge with exceptional musicality, speed, clarity and detail retrieval not before achieved at this price point (£499.00 Inc VAT).

We have fitted our demonstration Ania to the Rega RP8 and have coupled it with phono stages from the Rega Fono MC, Arcam R-Phono and Rega Aria with outstanding results. If you are looking for a new moving coil cartridge that does not cost the earth a demonstration of the new Rega Ania is highly recommended. 

Almost forgot Kung Foo Hamster

We look forward to seeing you soon.

Farid, Andy and Jon - Audio T Cheltenham

Rega Hi-Fi products are available from the following branches of Audio T:
Brentwood, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Enfield, Manchester, Oxford, Portsmouth, 
Preston, Reading, Southampton, Swansea, Swindon

New Russell K RED 120 Floorstanding Speakers Available

Discover a new world of music with Russell K RED 120 floorstanding speakers. They bring a fresh new sound to music that we thought we already knew!

The RED 120 join an already strong family of loudspeakers, the RED 50 bookshelf, RED 100 standmounts and RED 150 floorstanders.

The Russell K RED 120's are a compact floorstander which are closely related to the RED 50 as they share the same drivers and crossover. Despite the RED 50 and RED 120's shared components, extended low frequencies have been achieved by a carefully calculated cabinet design over the RED 50 bookshelf speakers, that deliver amazing results. 

High quality speaker binding posts are used to ensure performance isn't lost. 

The spikes to level the speaker is a solid straight forward design, which are adjustable from above. Also you may see that you can't see internal wool to dampen the inside of the cabinet... don't worry this is a very deliberate design decision. Russell K speakers don't follow many other designs, very simple crossovers, no internal damping and bitumen damped thin cabinet walls are just a few things that are done differently. 

We love them!

But come down and hear the difference for yourself

Many Thanks

Simon, John, Claire & Mahmood

Audio T Enfield - 0208 367 3132

Russell K loudspeakers are available from the following branches of Audio T:
Enfield, Portsmouth, Reading

Musical Fidelity And Dali Making Beautiful Music Together

We have two Hi-Fi brands which are new to the shop this month Musical Fidelity electronics and Dali loudspeakers. As we have found, they are capable of making beautiful music together.

An array of Dali speakers and Musical Fidelity electronics.

Musical Fidelity is a well established British Hi-Fi company who have been exciting and innovating for many years.

Shown here are the M3si integrated amp, the M3s CD player and the M6si integrated. The M6s CD player will follow soon. All of these components follow the Musical Fidelity ethos of making accurate, but exciting music.

We're also having a lot of fun exploring the M6 Encore 225

Encore 225

This amazing one box system is a music store, CD player, streamer, and amplifier all in one incredibly intuitive and easy to use package. It sounds wonderful too!

Dali are a Danish loudspeaker manufacturer who have been going for over 30 years producing everything from budget to high end speakers. We're still discovering what these can do but we have representatives from the Spektor, Zensor and Opticon ranges plus the beautiful little Menuets and the rather stylish Katch portable bluetooth speaker.

So far we've been throwing all sorts of music at the various pairings, the M3 components with the Opticons loved the new Anathema album "The Optimist" (check it out if you like intelligent melodic rock) 

Both brands seem to major on creating large believable soundstages; a recording of the Tallis Scholars singing Tallis anthems filled the room with the sense of a cathedral, while the perennial "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd was huge!

We'll report more as we get to know these components, but suffice to say we're excited and looking forward to the discovery. Why not come and have a listen yourself?

And finally all components in this blog have the Boswell seal of approval!

Musical Fidelity Hi-Fi products are also available from the following branches of Audio T:
Brentwood, Bristol, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Enfield, Manchester, Online, Southampton, Swansea, 
Swindon

The Wonders Of Room Correction With Arcam And Dirac

If you love music and film but have a strange shaped room or are suffering from a disappointing home cinema experience due to poor room acoustics, then we may have a solution for you.

The new Arcam AVR550 and AVR850 amplifiers have been out in the market for a while, but what you may not know is they have a secret weapon. Arcam's Home Cinema products also include the very latest room correction technology from Dirac Research.

Dirac Research was founded in 2001 from Uppsala University, Sweden, where the founders have been conducting research in signal processing, automatic control, systems modelling and acoustics for many years.

“Dirac Live for Arcam will provide users with world class precision room correction with amazingly transparent results.”, says Charlie Brennan from Arcam.

Using the latest is computer wizardry and a high quality microphone Dirac seeks to compensate for frequency and EQ issues reproduced within the room. A great deal of which are very difficult or impossible to remove with traditional EQ setups. If unresolved this can affect the quality of the sound output which impacts negatively on the listening experience. The advanced Dirac software analyses the speakers as well as the room and corrects these issues with the aim of achieving a much more immersive experience.

Using a microphone, laptop and network access, each of the speakers are measured from 9 different test microphone positions. This way, a clear map of the room and the speaker's acoustic behaviour is built up.  The whole process can take a while dependent on the complexity of your system. After these measurements are taken, the results are processed very quickly and remotely (via the web to Dirac HQ in Sweden) and received back ready to be applied. This file is then uploaded to the Arcam  AVR550 or AVR850 and you're ready to listen. 

Arcam have put together a video on Dirac:

In tests in store using the Arcam AVR550 with a 5.1.2 Dolby Atmos setup we switched between the standard room EQ method and Dirac. The results were amazing Dirac Live brought the whole sound together, tightened the bass response and focused the imaging. Dirac makes the entire system faster, more dynamic and much more fluid. The most amazing effect was how it seemed to make the walls disappear and propel you into the film.

While watching Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation we were transported into the atmosphere of the opera house scene. During Gravity we were there with the astronauts in space, physically ducking to avoid space debris. Then in the insanity of Mad Max Fury Road we found ourselves totally immersed in the massive sand and lightning tornado that whistled and roared around the room.

If you want improve your home cinema experience, I would strongly recommend getting an Arcam AVR550 or AVR850 amplifier and exploring the benefits of Dirac. So call us, ask about the Arcam products and let us show you the benefits of such an amazing technology suite. Don't give up on your system we can help.

Arcam products are available at the following branches of Audio T:
Bristol, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Enfield, Manchester, Oxford, Portsmouth, Preston, Southampton, 
Swansea, Swindon

Neat And Tidy Loudspeakers

We're are delighted to announce the arrival of Neat Acoustics loudspeakers, which are now in store for demonstration or available for home loan.

The Iota Alpha is a small floor standing speaker with a height of only 45cm with a down firing bass driver. We have found this such an easy speaker to work with as far as positioning goes and doesn't disappoint with timing and imaging, giving a very well balanced presentation. This is a small speaker that offers a big room filling sound.

Neat IOTA Alpha

Also in the range we have the Neat Motive SX2 at 76cm high a slightly taller floor standing speaker but still very compact and easy to place, we tried these with various electronics and they performed well with all, a very open sound with a controlled bass.

Neat Motive SX2

The last, but no means least the tiny Neat Iota, a very flexible in terms of positioning, measuring just 13cm high the Iota's can be placed almost anywhere, although a dedicated stand can be purchased for them if needed. We were very impressed with the imaging they gave, and the tight controlled bass gives this tiny speaker a room filling sound.

Neat IotA

If you're in the market for new loudspeakers why not come and have a listen. We look forward to seeing you soon.

Ian, Gavin & Andy

Neat Acoustics loudspeakers are available from the following branches of Audio T: 
Brighton, Cheltenham, Oxford, Portsmouth, Preston, Reading

New Speakers From Dynaudio Are Sure To Excite!

We have recently taken on the new Dynaudio Excite X14  and Excite X18 stand mounted speakers. They may look like stand mount speakers, but in a blind test you would never guess it by the big room filling sound.

The X14 are centre with their big brothers the X18 either side

There are four pairs of speakers in the Excite range comprising of two floor standing and two stand mount speakers. There are also two centre speakers to choose between. The floor standers are the X34 and the X38, the stand mounted speakers (shown above) are the X14 and X18, and the two centre speakers being the X24 and the X28.

We have had a lot fun trying the X14 and X18 on various systems. They are fairly easy to drive so the entry level Rega Apollo-R and Brio could be used, but they really benefit from higher quality electronics like the Naim CD5XS and Nait XS2 or even higher. On each system they had a really fun and musical presentation with clean, refined high frequency and a surprising amount of bass wallop.

Rear View. X14 (Walnut) and X18 (Rosewood) Satin Black and White also available.

We use a number of demo tracks, The King Singers - Good vibrations sounded brilliant giving a phenomenal impression that the sextet was playing in the room with you. Steve Vai - Warm Regards really shows the bass capability, it can sound a little confused on some speakers but the Excites held it together perfectly. With more commercial recordings like Snow Patrol they let you know it's a rougher recording but not so much that it spoiled the music, it sounded fun and kept toes tapping.

Come down to the Portsmouth Audio T and join in the EXCITEment!

Home trials are also available.

We look forward to seeing you soon.

Nick, Joe and James

Dynaudio Loudspeakers are available from the following branches of Audio T:
Brighton, Bristol, Manchester, Online, Oxford, Portsmouth, 
Reading, Southampton, Swindon

New Naim Uniti Atom, Chord Electronics Hugo 2 & Russell K RED 120 Arriving Soon

After quite an extended period of having little new product to blog about; just like the proverbial bus, three come along at the same time... well nearly.

After numerous delays Naim has finally given a likely manufacturing date for the first of the superb Uniti products, the entry level Atom which will commence shipping by the end of this month, we can't wait. I first heard it at the official launch back in November partnered with a pair of Focal Sopra 1s. What seemed like a most unlikely pairing turnout to be a revelation and breaking most system building rules. This promises to be a top seller.

Naim Atom

Not wishing to rest on the laurels of their success, Chord Electronics have launched Hugo2. The original Hugo set the standard for portable a Dac/Headphone amp but they have been beavering away to produce what on paper promises to be a true bar-raiser...again; such is the genius of their designers and Bob Watts in particular. Due this month though we understand the first shipment is already completely sold out but we will have a permanent demo unit so don't delay.

Chord Hugo2 in silver and black

Missing from the line-up in the Russell K loudspeaker range is a slim, affordable floor stander which is by far the most popular speaker type at present. Well, the wait is over. Due to arrive in 2-3 weeks, the all new Red 120. A 2.5 way compact floor stander with a massive heart. We heard these a month back and were taken by them immediately. The competition better look out because these are seriously good!

Russell K Red 120 Shown here in walnut, other finishes available. 

Naturally I will be blogging about these three exciting additions and any others as soon as they arrive so watch this space as they say.

Simon & Marc - Audio T Reading

KEF Reference Loudspeakers Now At Audio T Swansea

The eagle-eyed and bat-eared amongst you may recall that Arcam chose KEF Reference loudspeakers for their astonishing home theatre installation that toured the serious Hi-Fi shows of Europe, including our very own Sound and Vision Show in Bristol.

Nic, Chris, myself (Ade) and a number of the Audio T Swansea faithful heard them in action and were impressed enough to want to hear more. We persuaded the lovely Alex from KEF to lend us a pair of their delightful Reference 3s for evaluation. We were very reluctant to let them go, even though we did have them here for quite a while...*cough* (Thanks Alex!).

Hooked up to our Chord Electronics Dave DAC, CPA3000 pre-amplifier and SPM1200 power amplifier we bathed in their lush, glossy, even, wide and deep soundstage. Virtually every track we played we looked at each other puff-cheeked in admiration and realised we really had to stock them. Fast-forward a few weeks and we're the proud owners of a pair of KEF Reference 1s and a pair of KEF Reference 3s. (Yay!)

As you can see in the picture above and below, the Reference 1's look a million bucks in Gloss Rosewood with that brushed aluminium front baffle. Fitted with the latest iteration of KEF's speciality, the UniQ combined tweeter/midrange unit - here in 125mm (5 inch) - it's designed to provide a common point source for high and mid frequency sound. This gives us a better sense of integration, yielding a much larger sweet-spot and a more natural sound. The all-new 165mm (6.5 inch) alloy woofer that KEF is rather proud of, are beautifully finished and look very pretty too.

Around the back are what can only be described as luxury Bi-Amp/Bi-Wire terminals. In case you were wondering, the centre wing bolts connect the low and high frequency terminals together should you choose to single wire them. (We happen to be using Black Rhodium Encore Bi-Wire in this instance, so have them wound out.)

Initial listening is pretty encouraging as the soundstage is wide open, but they clearly need running in. After a couple of hours they'd fleshed out a fair bit, but are nowhere near their potential yet. We're going to give them a run overnight and report back in the morning. We need to get them singing soon as we've had our first request for a home demonstration - that didn't take long!

KEF Reference loudspeakers are available from Audio T Swansea and Audio T Preston

Acoustic Energy 100 Series Return to Audio T Bristol

It's been a few years since we stocked Acoustic Energy speakers and we are pleased to see them back in store. Like AE's of old this new range offers fantastic value for money.

The AE100 is a compact standmount that retails at a very modest £199.99 in walnut and £229.99 in black, we have to say they offer exceptional value for money. They are a very capable speaker and in store they have shocked us by playing everything we have thrown at them regardless of genre and volume and to a standard of presentation that belies their price tag. The small cabinet houses a wide dispersion soft dome tweeter that never becomes harsh even at high volumes whilst the 4in long throw bass/mid produces a surprising amount of bass for such a small enclosure that never gets out of hand no matter how loud you like to play your music. 

AE100

The AE109 is the floor standing version. It has all the same attributes of the AE100 including the look and finish but has an extra bass/mid resulting in a speaker that produces music with more scale and can easily fill a big room and can also go very loud. Although it is a floor stander it is not all that big, it stands just 800mm tall and as it's only 160mm wide as such they are unobtrusive. It's no lightweight though as the cabinet is loaded with the bottom part filled with sand. At £499.99 for a pair in walnut and £549.99 in black which in our view is an absolute steal. We don't usually stock floor standing speakers below the £800 mark because it is hard for a manufacturer to produce one that performs adequately, but the AE109 certainly does perform and as I mentioned earlier if you like your music played loud you can crank the volume up.

The AE109

So they look good and sound great and offer exceptional value for money. All that's left is for you to come on down and have a listen at Audio T Bristol. Bring some of your favourite music and sit back and relax in comfort in one of our demonstration rooms. 

Acoustic Energy loudspeakers are available at the following branches of Audio T:
Bristol, Cheltenham, Online, Portsmouth, Swindon