Arcam, ATC, Audio Technica, Creek, Chord Company, Eichmann, Dynavector, Epos, Focal / JM Labs, Grado headphones, Harbeth,
Isoblue (and special branch), Kudos Audio, Lyngdorf, Lyra, Michell Engineering, Naim Audio, Neat Acoustics, Nordost, Origin Live, Ortofon, Nottingham Analogue, Partington, Primare, Rega, Roksan, Sim2, Graham Slee, Shahinian, Something Solid, Stands Unique, Stax Earspeakers, Sumiko, Trichord, Wireworld, Wyrewizard
issue 12 of our 'interconnect' newsletter is now out.
If you are not already on our mailing list (UK only, I'm afraid) then please email us your postal address.
You can download the PDF right now in either high or low quality from our downloads page.
Signals are suppliers and installers of music hi-fi and a/v products to all areas of Suffolk,North Essex, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire including : Ipswich, Woodbridge Wickham Market, Aldeburgh, Norwich, Colchester, Bury St Edmunds. Offering Iconic brands and a fusion of sound and vision products for the home.
Fear not, I'll get bored with all this flash stuff soon enough . . .
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Some months ago, John Burns from Pear Audio was demonstrating us the full range of Dynavector cartridges. To do this, he brought along a Well Tempered Classic turntable fitted with the extraordinary Dynavector tone-arm. The musical ability of this combination was sufficiently impressive for us to mistake a £350* cartridge for a £1000 one. Mind you, some aspects of the design did seem a little odd (the use of thread for a belt sticks in the mind) but it sounded stunning. Devastating with the XV1S.
We wondered what this amazing arm would do for our Nottingham Dais, after all it could hardly be the bizarre deck that sounded this good. In case you're interested, we tried: it was rubbish, a really bad combination.
At the time of his visit, Well Tempered Labs had nothing in production. Bill Firebaugh, the interesting guy behind these designs, was, however, working on bringing a new, affordable, deck to market : the Amadeus.
We now hear that the Amadeus is shipping. Pricing is yet to be finalized, but is likely to be well under £2000 for the complete deck, including arm. And it's some arm, an amazing silicone damped affair involving a golf ball. John has played with one sample and claims it to be an improvement on the one we heard. There will be a more expensive all-acrylic version too. The jury is out on whether this will be better or simply cooler. Dude.
Our order is placed and now we wait . . .
*oops, it was a £400 one, which probably explains it.
click on the above images for full pictures
Having taken this long, I think we're allowed a little bit of hyperbole. Customer orders satisfied, we now have our demo unit settling in. It might not look imposing, but it is having a huge impact.
We knew from our open day that the Naim Superline (it's their reference level phono stage) would be a cracker, but hands-on with it was still a surprise. Even without a power supply of it's own and powered from the pre-amp, it is superb. The loading adjustments allow you to get the best from a wide range of MC cartridges.
Adding HiCap or Supercap, Hi-Line, Power line, all enhance its ability further. Sneaky feeling that this £1650 stage could turn out to be the cheapest part of the chain!
A few days in, and we've experimented a little more. Fed its power from the Naim 552 pre-amp, this is indeed a very fine thing. The cartridge loading adjustments (via plug-in) seem far more effective than dip switch adjustments on other stages. Dynavectors and Lyras require completely different settings, but you can optomise both.
Adding a Supercap power supply(fed via burndy lead) increases scale and resolution quite dramatically. Replace a standard 4pin to 5 grey lead with a Hi-Line lead and the nearest parallel is of the system going active.
In comon with other Naim items, the run-in is slightly bumpy and not quite linear. I thought it sounded rather off-colour on Sunday but, by Tuesday, it was singing again. And what a voice.
