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Audio Research Reference 80S stereo power amplifier

It’s hard to think of a more iconic modern tube electronics company than Audio Research. Yes, there are rivals that make some excellent amplification, but few that make such a complete audio electronics package and have so immediately identifiable appearance as Minnesota’s Audio Research Corporation.

The brand’s models effectively differentiate between the lower cost Foundation range and the more up-market Reference line. The latter is larger, as it is designed to accommodate a wider range of up-scale performance parameters, but the new jumping-off point for ARC’s top-dollar line is the Reference 80S stereo power amplifier. This builds on the (circuit and industrial) design of the hugely popular Reference 160 S/160 M power amplifiers, effectively lowering the power output to make a more flexible and affordable Reference-class power amp.

This means you get a power amplifier that uses an almost identical arrangement of two 6H30 double-triodes in the gain stage with multiple pairs of KT150 power valves/tubes in either push-pull or triode mode with auto-biasing, adjustable fan speed, those excellent look-through ‘Ghost Meters’ and all the trimmings. But by using just a single pair of KT150s per side, the Reference 80S is an amplifier that went on a bit of a power diet, as it puts out 70W per channel into an eight-ohm load. This also means it is ever so slightly smaller, some 17kg lighter and several thousand cheaper than its 140W per channel Reference 160S counterpart, which uses two pairs of KT150 tubes per channel, and the Reference 140M, which also uses two pairs of KT150 tubes per channel but separates them into individual mono cases. This is clearly something of a groove that Audio Research is enjoying!

This might seem like a lot of replication at first, but in fact, it’s a fine way of making a ‘good/better/best’ set of power amplifiers, without undermining any of them in the process. The basic performance of all three is effectively identical, defined by that clever circuit, just you get more power for more demanding loudspeakers or bigger rooms as you go up the line.

In fact, the only real downside in this comes down to reviewers trying to fill space on the page and ending up going over the same descriptions about the amp and its circuit time and time again. On the other hand, if there really is ‘nothing to see here’ it’s because the ground covered by the Reference 160 S and Reference 160 M has been so comprehensively mapped out, and that the Reference 80S continues that process. In fact, it continues the process so successfully and seamlessly that the biggest disconnects between this new stereo amp and the bigger mono and stereo models are the amount of heat each one puts out (unsurprisingly, given fewer power tubes per channel, the Reference 80S is the coolest, but not by much) and absence of a space between ‘80’ and ‘S’ in the name. No, really, that’s about it… the apple isn’t falling far from the tree here.

This ‘nothing to see here’ is a surprisingly hard task to nail, because using the same tubes in a scalable configuration is no guarantee of consistency. Somewhere along the line, one of them sounds different… and it’s often the smaller of the group, which ends up sounding bass light thanks to less transformer ‘iron’. On the other hand, scaling a circuit up and down implies different loudspeaker partners, and an amplifier intended to ‘see’ a pair of mid-sized loudspeakers in a typical small(ish) listening space has a very different sonic ‘fist’ to one that is expected to be used with full-range flagship loudspeakers in a room that could double up as an aircraft hangar. Getting it right is a balancing act that requires some very reliable ears to work for the company.

For Audio Research, those ears sit behind the very large beard of Warren Gehl, Design Engineer and Aural Evaluator for Audio Research. Let’s face it, anyone who has the words ‘Aural Evaluator’ baked into their job title is going to know how to voice an amplifier, but Warren takes this to the extreme. He’s the kind of listener those of us who get paid to listen take seriously. The real deal, and the reason why there is such consistency of sound between these three power amplifiers.

The difficulty for a reviewer who has looked at all three products is ensuring you don’t just unconsciously plagiarise yourself (because if the amps are very consistent, your words should be consistent too, and you might end up using the same descriptions) but you also don’t want to check those prior reviews in case they influence your writing.

The Reference 80S is keenly dynamic in use, both in micro and macrodynamics. If you play a large-scale piece of music [Tennstedt tearing into Mahler’s Symphony 2 ‘Resurrection’, LPO], it manages to cope with both the huge dynamic swings in this masterpiece and the subtle cues that show this to be an orchestra of musicians playing together.

This good dynamic range is partnered with a fine sense of detail across the board from the deepest bass to the highest treble. In fact, that clean, extended treble is a bit of a key point to the Reference 80S sound; play something like ‘Because He Was a Bonny Lad’ by The Unthanks [Here’s the Tender Coming, Rabble Rouser]. The tight harmony of the two close-miked vocalists is extended and shows up any potential granularity in the mid and treble of an amplifier. Here, their voices are sonorous and clean right into the highest ranges and when the rest of the folk instruments kick in, there is clear sonic and spatial delineation.

Beyond this, however, there’s a sense of rhythmic ‘bounce’ to the recording that is often lost in all the detail (it’s why it was a popular demo track of Naim Audio a few years ago). What the Reference 80S shows, however, is that ‘pace’ need not be mutually exclusive with ‘detail’ or ‘dynamics range’. If you want an amplifier to deliver all the filigree soundstaging and inner detail of a recording, this is it… but the same applies if you just want to kick back and play some rock and have some fun.

Where the Reference 80S ‘shows its limitations’ is when trying to push it beyond its very wide comfort zone. It’s impressively loud and dynamic… until you hear what 140W can do instead of 70W, all other things being equal. The Reference 80S is remarkably good at not running out of puff, but once again compared to the sheer headroom of the Reference 160 S and especially 160 M, it’s clear there’s even more to offer. And yet, if the Reference 80S is all you need for room size or loudspeakers, you’ll probably never notice where it runs out of steam… because, in all likelihood, it won’t run out of steam. Ever.

OK, despite claims to the contrary, I’m going to cop to some ‘cheating’ of sorts. After I collated my notes on the Reference 80S, I went looking at both my reviews of its two bigger brothers and then looked at other reviewers’ work on all three amps. In truth, there’s some real consistency in all these words, as if the smaller, medium and larger models all have the same tonal characteristics (or at least, the same tonal characteristics relative to speaker and room size considerations). We’re all barking up the same dog (or something) here… and again I’m going to point to Warren Gehl’s adroit listening skills in fine-tuning these amplifiers to give them such consistency.

That consistency is the joy of this amplifier. If you have a yearning for Big Boy Audio Research, but don’t want or need the additional power and the increased size, space, heat and price tag that top-end amplification requires, the Reference 80S is perfect. Making a bigger amp smaller is often a path to being disgruntled, or at least puts you some way from being ‘gruntled’. This is the first step on the Audio Research Reference power amplifier ladder, and I can’t help but feel that while it is for many the only step they’ll ever need to take, for others the excellent Reference 80S will be the first step into a world of the highest in high-end audio.

 

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

  • Power output: 70 watts continuous from 20Hz to 20kHz
  • Tubes Required: 2 matched pair KT150 (Power output V1-V4); 2 6H30 (Gain stage V5, V6)
  • THD+N (@1kHz): typically 1% at 140 watts (33 watts in Triode mode) per channel, below 0.04% at 1 watt (Note that actual power output is dependent upon both line voltage and “condition” i.e.: if power line has high distortion, maximum power will be affected adversely, although from a listening standpoint this is not critical)
  • Power Bandwidth (-3dB points):
    7Hz to 68kHz
  • Frequency Response:
    0.7Hz–94kHz (-3dB points at 1W)
  • Input Sensitivity: 1.4V RMS Balanced for rated output. (25.5 dB gain into 8 ohms); 0.7V RMS SE for rated output
  • Input Impedance: 300K ohms Balanced, 75K ohms Single Ended
  • Output Polarity: Non-inverting
  • Balanced input pin 2+ (IEC-268)
  • Output Taps: 16Ω, 8Ω, 4Ω
  • Output regulation: Approximately 1.0dB 16 Ohm Load to Open Circuit
  • (Damping factor approximately 8)
  • Overall negative feedback: 15dB
  • Slew Rate: 10 volts/microsecond
  • Rise Time: 4.0 microseconds
  • Dimensions (W×H×D): 48.3 × 26 × 47cm
  • Weight: 28.2kg
  • Price: £14,998

 

Manufacturer: Audio Research

URL: audioresearch.com

 

UK Distributor: Absolute Sounds

URL: absolutesounds.com

Tel: +44(0)208 971 3909

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Album Review: Cavalcade by black midi

Cavalcade is black midi’s second full-length album, following on from 2019’s spellcheck’s-nightmare of an album, Schlagenheim. They have also released a clutch of singles and a couple of really excellent live albums. That last point is important because the band are very different propositions live and in the studio.

The band formed when all four members were studying at the BRIT School, a performing arts and technology school in Croydon, which has an alumnus including Adel, Amy Winehouse, Kae Tempest, Kate Nash and many, many more. I say four members, but one – guitarist and vocalist Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin – sat out this recording due to mental health issues.

The three that remain, Geordie Greep (vocals, guitar), Cameron Picton (bass, synths, samples) and Morgan Simpson (drums), are joined by touring members, while production duties are undertaken by John “Spud” Murphy in Dublin. The aim was to produce an album that was neither lo-fi and noisy or pure audiophile high-fidelity, but both at the same time.

They also adopted a less improvised approach than with their first offering, with songs written before the recording sessions rather than born of in-studio jams. Lovers of the first album can rest easy though, even with this more crafted approach black midi have still produced an album as full of life, passion, noise and the occasional musical volte-face as their debut.

The chaotic opening of ‘John L’. (all stop start, crazy rhythms and layer upon layer of instruments) is immediately followed by the smooth, almost 70s sounding swing of ‘Marlene Dietrich’. A track suggesting nothing less than a Shirly Bassey outtake from a James Bond soundtrack. It’s all lush strings a sepia-toned romance, and it’s a fantastically engaging piece of music.

Other standout tracks include ‘Dethrone’d, which has an 80s funk vibe of bass and saxophone, before building up and breaking down, and the fast-paced, choppiness of ‘Chondromalacia Patella’ (runner’s knee, if you weren’t aware), which benefits mightily from the awesome drumming skills of Morgan Simpson.

Greep’s voice sounds smoother and less affected on this album – which may help broaden their audience. And it’s particularly obvious on tracks like ‘Marlene Dietrich’ and the epic closer of ‘Ascending Froth’; ten minutes of drop-dead beauty to sign off with.

As you have hopefully realised, this review comes down heavily on the I LOVE BLACK MIDI side of the argument, but, even if previous offerings have left you cold, confused or a little bit angry, Cavalcade is well worth 50 minutes of your time.

Lateral Audio Stands LAS-9 Cadenz equipment support

If something’s worth saying, it’s worth saying twice; Lateral Audio Stands’s nomenclature sounds like it comes from the world of military hardware or hard sci-fi. The LAS-9 Cadenz could be an equipment support system that leverages much of the company’s top-end performance at an even keener price, or it could be a battledroid drop-ship plummeting through the atmosphere of the planet of the dog-lizards. Given the title of the magazine, I’m going with ‘equipment support’.

Lateral’s original LAS-4 Integral (reviewed in Issue 173) is a high-end equipment support system, and LAS-9 Cadenz is designed to deliver many of the goals of the Integral at a significantly lower price. Note that even LAS-4 Lateral breaks the link between ‘high-end’ and ‘high price’; there are many support systems that produce similar performance improvements to Lateral’s systems that cost several times more. However, where many companies produce a lower cost model by cutting corners on the original design, Lateral Audio went back to the drawing board with LAS-9 Cadenz; the two share basic concepts, but the approach taken to achieve those concepts is very different.

At first glance, LAS-9 Cadenz is very much the traditional modular equipment stand, with four screw-in tubular uprights at the corner of each platform, with contrasting finials for the top plate and spikes at the bottom. You can choose anything from two to five tiers, with 120mm, 160mm, 220mm and 280mm uprights to accommodate anything from narrow DACs to chunky power amps. It will hold up to 25kg per level on the upper tiers and 35kg on the lowest level. The vicious looking LAS Counterpoint spikes and optional full set of spikes and feet finish the look.

Looks can be deceptive, however. There are a lot of clever techniques used to help dissipate vibrational energy. Those uprights, for example, are not simply well-finished tubes, but end with a Delrin cap to reduce any hysteresis effects those uprights might introduce. Then, if you flip over one of the platforms, a pattern that Lateral calls its ‘Dissipation Array’ is cut deep into the underside of the board itself effectively ‘wicks’ vibrational energy away from the device that sits on the platform.

As mentioned, LAS-9 Cadenz offers a substantial saving on the original LAS-4 Integral, and yet doesn’t compromise on performance. More importantly, I think it offers the best balance of price and performance to demonstrate just how important the support system is to those who are taking their first steps into ‘real’ audio. The original is an even bigger step in the same direction (in a very high-end system, I could also see someone using the Integral for the main components in a very large system, with the Cadenz being used for power supplies and secondary devices, such is the dove-tailing of performance between the two).

In a very real way, Lateral’s LAS-9 Cadenz has a tougher job to do than the original LAS-4 Integral because it must convince those who think ‘furniture’ can’t make a difference to the sound of a system, as well as those more convinced by the effect of a ‘proper’ equipment support system and wanting to check out what Lateral has to offer. By way of contrast, LAS-4 Integral is almost ‘preaching to the choir’.

Fortunately, if the LAS-9 Cadenz has a tough job to do, it rises to the challenge. Unlike some of the more demanding equipment support systems out there, it builds up quickly and easily; you’ll probably spend more time levelling the stand than you will building the stand, but – like all equipment support systems worthy of the title – it’s worth spending that time getting the LAS-9 Cadenz perfectly level and wobble-free.

More importantly, it imparts much of the same ‘light, precise and quiet’ performance of the LAS-4 Lateral but scaled to match the kind of products you might expect to place in three-tier stand at this price. I used it with Primare’s I35 being fed by a Naim Uniti Core with a Nordost Qbase power block on the bottom rack (without any Sort Kones or any other additional support techniques). In this context, the LAS-9 Cadenz imparted a positive ‘let the equipment do what it was meant to’ approach. The Primare had a noticeably lower noise floor and a slight nasality and chestiness to the sound simply went away, this was especially when playing vocalists like Joyce DiDonato [Stella Di Napoli, Erato]. If you think good hi-fi can ‘get away’ with resting on cheap furniture, the LAS-9 Cadenz politely tells you to ‘guess again’.

In comparison with rival dedicated platforms and support systems, the LAS-9 Cadenz makes a similarly cogent argument. Here, I think you are trading performance parameters; many support systems around this price strive for a similar ‘do no harm’ approach, but in the process tend to place emphasis on bass depth or upper bass ‘bounce’. While both are noble goals, the Lateral LAS-9 Cadenz approach is arguably more rounded and grounded; by reducing the noise floor, Lateral brings the innate character of the equipment to the fore. If there is a tonal ‘signature’ it is an open, clear midband precision. The Lateral LAS-9 Cadenz also digs deep into the bass, but there is no sense of enforcing a rhythm or emphasising the upper bass to simulate or enhance timing effects; the LAS-9 Cadenz is far too honest for that.

I can’t help but feel the Lateral LAS-9 Cadenz should be one of the main ‘go to’ equipment stands for those who want to extract more of the performance of their equipment without necessarily opting for additional platforms, cones, or blobs (although users of such things get a Cadenz benefit, too). Best of all, for such users, the LAS-9 Cadenz looks like an ordinary equipment rack even if it performs far, far better. I started this by saying the name sounds like military hardware… who knew it was made for stealth!

 

Price and contact details

  • Lateral Audio LAS-9 Cadenz:  £425 (two tier), £595 (three tier), £795 (four tier), £995 (five tier)
  • Spike options:  LAS-Counterpoint, £75, LAS-Counterpoint Spikes + Cups, £125
  • Shelf Spacing: 120mm, 160mm, 220mm, 280mm

 

Manufacturer: Lateral Audio Stands

URL: lateralaudiostands.co.uk

Back to Reviews

ATC SIA2-100 integrated amplifier

It’s very encouraging that such masters of understatement as ATC manage to thrive in the marketing powered world of the 21st century: a testament to the increasingly challenged idea that quality will out when all around is overhyped mediocrity. ATC isn’t immune to the demands of modern audio enthusiasts but neither does it jump on every bandwagon that trundles by in the hope of making a couple of extra bucks. There are few companies in this business that have stuck to their guns so admirably and yet also appear to succeed in the marketplace through sheer bangs per buck. Compare ATC’s prices and engineering quality to almost any other company that manufacturers in the UK and you’ll see what I mean.

The SIA2-100 is the least expensive integrated amplifier that ATC offers but it generates up to 100 watts per channel of continuous power, has an onboard DAC and headphone amplifier and comes with a six-year warranty. Its design is based on a couple of other ATC components: the output stage has the same circuit as the P1 power amplifier but not the dual mono power supply found in that model. The discrete preamplifier stage was last seen in the CD2 (tested in Issue 183), which, sporting the same 2/3rds width as the SIA2-100, also featured a minijack input and full-size headphone output. The SIA2-100 has a more ‘up-to-date’ digital section based around an AKM chipset that supports PCM up to 384kHz and DSD256 via the USB input. The S/PDIF inputs don’t fly so high.

Its reduced size was a result of a demand from ATC’s Chinese distributor for a more compact design style – I like it but imagine that some may not take this amplifier seriously because it isn’t in a full width chassis. There is often a conflict between aesthetics and real-world requirements in audio equipment; electronics in particular do seem to get more traction if they have lots of bolt heads on view and substantial slabs of aluminium, plus the apparently obligatory hand biting cooling fins on either flank. Yet as this product proves, you don’t need to make something look like lab equipment for it to do a fine job. This ATC has heat sinks, but they are under vents in the top and not likely to cause any harm despite the amp’s near 10kg mass.

On the input front, the SIA2-100 is minimally but adequately equipped for most music lovers’ needs. It has two analogue inputs on RCA phonos and three digital options including coaxial S/PDIF and the aforementioned USB. ATC points out that PCs but not Macs can provide highest DSD option it supports – DSD256 – so for audiophiles at least the less fashionable platform is ultimately the most capable. It’s unusual to see a minijack input on the front of any audio component these days (USBs for thumb drives are more common), but this means that those wanting to play tunes from a smartphone can do so without the faff or sound quality limitations of Bluetooth, albeit that iPhone users are not so well catered for. This amp comes with a system remote of the practical if plain variety. It’s not fancy but it does the job more easily than the single input select button on the front panel, even though fine volume adjustments are trickier to achieve.

For reasons beyond my comprehension, I don’t have any ATC speakers to hand. Well, not totally beyond comprehension, because the last pair I had (SCM150As) were so large that I had to give them up in order to move home. So, the first speakers that fell under the SIA2-100’s command were Bowers & Wilkins 802s: substantial floorstanders with good sensitivity but a difficult load, requiring a goodly amount of power to be kept in check where the bass is concerned. I hooked up a Melco N10 music server to the USB input on the ATC and gave it a spin, which turned into a session quite rapidly, so entertaining were the results. ATC has a strong foothold in the pro audio world and its products have a sound that reflects this. I’d call it firm but fair, others might say warts and all. In essence you get a lot of detail in a very neutral fashion with no apparent ‘voicing’ involved. A few manufacturers rely on measurements alone but most tune their products to some extent, which is to say they select components that sound good to their ears in their systems. The more experienced among them do a very good job of this but few leave amplifiers sounding as lacking in apparent tuning as ATC. This means you hear both the good and the bad in any recording. Any other approach would be useless in a studio that makes acoustic recordings.

The balance is not as open as some amplifiers, but it is highly coherent and appealingly solid: you can hear an awful lot through its detail rich presentation. I enjoyed the muscularity of bass delivered by the amp through the 802s. This gives the music a solidity and drive that draws you in and gets your foot tapping. Power is clearly a strength. I doubt there are any integrateds that have as much grip at the price, and if you like to play low notes and higher levels, this is well worth having. The flip side to this is that the midrange could be sweeter, but this is something that could be balanced by a more sensible choice of speaker than the highly revealing B&Ws. ATC’s own would be the obvious choice of course; something like an SCM19 would be perfect but the SCM40 floorstander would be better still.

Abdullah Ibrahim’s piano playing never sounds soft, it has a metallic solidity to it that the SIA2-100 makes palpably clear. Keith Jarrett’s piano recordings on ECM are a lot more refined, the measured nature of his playing on Testament: London and Paris being very well presented, as was the scale of the venue, which was further defined by the low thud of his foot stomping on the stage. ATC founder Billy Woodman was a professional keyboard player back in the day and that must help. Jarrett’s playing on the Carnegie Hall Concert recording is more delicate with lovely flourishes, the instrument/venue being a little softer in character. All of this and more is easy to discern with this amplifier.

With a twenty5.26i floorstanding speaker from PMC, a company that shares ATC’s involvement in the pro side, results were once again very engaging but with a much more open perspective. This speaker works really well in my room and can sit very close to the wall, which also helps. This, combined with a relatively easy to drive load meant that the fireworks really started to kick in. Especially in imaging terms. The way it places a saxophone front and centre with real stereo solidity on Herbie Hancock’s version of ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’ [Gershwin’s World, Verve] is inspiring. This is embellished by the rest of the band having a similar presence, underpinned by a strong bass line that keeps the groove onside and imbues the performance with a realistic verve.

ZZ Top bass player Dusty Hill sadly passed away toward the end of my listening, so I paid my respects by putting Tejas [Warner Bros] on the turntable and allowing the Rega Aphelion 2’s stylus to work its way across side A to the fabulous ‘Enjoy and Get it On’. The needle was sufficiently warmed by the third track for the raw sound of the band’s precision boogie to really get under my skin and by the time the desired track came around it was smoking, Billy Gibbons’ guitar delivering a scorching solo over the perfectly synched rhythms of Hill and drummer Frank Beard. With a digital source supplying a line level signal you get a bit more detail and finesse than the onboard DAC with equally impressive timing but in truth the result wasn’t dramatically superior to the onboard converter, and that, for a £2.5k component, is a decent result.

The ATC SIA2-100 is a remarkably well-equipped and powerful integrated amplifier that will satisfy the cravings of anyone who enjoys a bit of power behind their sound. It will drive a wide range of loudspeakers and delivers engagingly musical results while doing so. What’s not to like.

 

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

  • Type: Solid-state, two-channel integrated amplifier with built-in DAC and headphone amplifier
  • Analogue inputs: Two single-ended line-level inputs
    (via RCA jacks)
  • Digital inputs: Two S/PDIF (one coaxial, one optical), one USB port
  • Analogue outputs: One single-ended pre-out
    (via RCA jacks)
  • Supported sample rates:
  • Coaxial S/PDIF: 16-bit, 24-bit — 32kHz to 192kHz
  • USB: 16-bit, 24-bit, 32-bit — 32kHz to 384kHz
  • Input impedance: 13.8kOhms
  • Output impedance (line): 10 Ohms
  • Headphone Loads: Not specified
  • Power Output: 100Wpc @ 8 Ohms
  • Bandwidth: < 2 Hz – > 250 kHz (-3dB)
  • Distortion: 1kHz <0.0015% (-96dB), 10kHz <0.002% (-90dB)
  • Signal to Noise Ratio: Wide Band > 96dB, DIN > 108dB, > IEC “A”112dB
  • Dimensions (H×W×D): 113 × 315 × 342mm
  • Weight: 9kg
  • Price: £2,500

 

Manufacturer: Loudspeaker Technology Ltd. (ATC)

Tel: +44 (0)1285 760561

URL: atcloudspeakers.co.uk

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English Acoustics Stereo 21c stereo power amplifier

Alongside the recent resurgence in all things audio, there has long been interest in classic audio electronics. As Hi-Fi+ aims to be truly global in its outlook, those classic designs of the 1950s and 1960s pose a slight problem as most of them didn’t travel. A classic Dynaco ST-70 has less ‘resonance’ with English classic audio collectors, and a Saville Double-Six is not high on the wish list for American enthusiasts. However, the input of Japanese audio obsessives from the 1980s onwards changed much of that; they recognised much of what was good from our collective pasts, and frantically bought it all up. As a consequence, some of Leak’s ‘point one’ power amplifier designs – such as the TL/10, TL/12 and 12+ and the Stereo 20 – were some of the brightest stars in the classic hi-fi firmament. Also as a consequence, mint condition versions are now rare and command a good price. Fast forward to 2021 and there is still a lot of mileage in those circuits.  A Wiltshire start-up called English Acoustics has taken one of those designs – the Stereo 20 – and lovingly recreated it, with more than a sprinkling of 21st Century sensibilities. The result is the English Acoustics Stereo 21c. ‘Made in England’ is often stretched beyond all credulity, but this time it’s entirely genuine, with little more than the terminals sourced outside the shores of ‘Blighty.’

We can’t look at the English Acoustics Stereo 21c without looking at the amplifier upon which it is based; the Leak Stereo 20. Engineer Harold Leak founded H.J. LEAK & Co back in 1934 and from the outset, the company made high-performance audio equipment. However, it was in the post-war era that Leak really took off. The company’s Type 15 amplifier of 1945 was the first commercially-available amplifier to feature a push-pull, negative feedback design (this was about the time when D.T.N. Williamson published his ground-breaking circuit design in Wireless World). Leak’s initial design was soon followed by a series of ‘Point One’ models (the name taken from their then-exceptional 0.1% distortion figure). In 1958, the world of hi-fi was all about the move from monophonic to stereophonic sound, and Leak launched the Point One Stereo 20 chassis in that year. This power amplifier was one of the first to include two channels on a single chassis and used three ECC83 driver valves, a single GZ34 rectifier valve and two EL84 valves per channel, delivering 10 watts per channel. A subsequent transformer change and slightly higher operating bias in 1961 eeked out a little more power from the circuit, and it’s this 14 watt per channel circuit that is lovingly recreated and updated here.

English Acoustics itself began in 2018, with ex-BBC engineer Peter Farrow as its Chief Technical Officer and Jordan Jackson as Chief Operating Officer.  One of the company’s first projects was a restoration of a Leak Stereo 20. This itself is an understatement; this isn’t ‘restoration’ in the ‘repair, rewire, revalve’ sense… it’s more like the sort of Concours d’Elegance rebuild one might get when you throw above-the-odds money at a company like Aston Engineering. But, soon after one such restoration, Farrow and Jackson (which sounds like they should be making high-end wallpaper) realised they could engineer a new Stereo 20 from scratch, and add a few improvements along the way. This is a difficult task, as it’s easy to move from ‘curation’ to ‘homage’ to ‘pastiche’, but fortunately, English Acoustics stayed firmly on the side of the angels.

Of course, making such a design comes with its own baggage; those of us who have experienced the Leak Stereo 20 are going to struggle not to see a carbon copy of that amplifier. Especially if that experience is rose-tinted memory. Let’s be truly honest here; for all its sonic excellence, the Leak Stereo 20 was a bit ‘raw’ by today’s standards in finish terms. A folded metal chassis with sharp ends and corners are not that popular today (damn snowflakes and their dislike of bloodstains). Similarly, creating a chassis without a baseplate in 2021 might not end well from a legal perspective, given there are some really high rail voltages in all that exposed wiring. So, in that part alone, the Stereo 21c makes for a more refined design, with its nicely finished, well rounded CNC milled chassis and baseplate with the company brand used as ventilation. Then there’s the finish itself; Leak made them in a rich shade of dark gold, but that wasn’t the thickest coat of paint in history. Even those that spent most of their lives cocooned in a closet ended up looking beaten up with chipped paint and lost logos. English Acoustics would have upped the game if it had reached for the Hammerite, but instead has made the finish a feature. The range of finishes is being added to all the time; as we went to press, the company announced a ‘flip-paint’ version that varies between blue, purple, and green depending on the angle of view… a colour scheme popular with sea monsters and their friends and family, no doubt! But in all seriousness, the review sample came in a rich British Racing Green the depth of which you wouldn’t find on a Bentley made this side of the 1930s. This contrasts nicely with the Art Deco English Acoustics logo, which occupies the same space the Art Deco logo of Leak once lived. There are twelve standard colours, with two additional finishes unique to stores (the Navarra Blue exclusive to PJ Hi-Fi and the Porsche Perlmutt Weiss finish unique to Art+Sound) and custom finishes in their infinite variety command a £500 premium.

The amplifier itself is wired point-to-point with discreet components on boards, just like the original, although what used to be a series of small mica boards connected by low-cost wiring is now a single board with beefy etched tracks connecting the sections. The wiring connecting the valve seats to the board – and the board to the transformers – is immaculately ‘dressed’ (not dissimilar to a Naim amplifier), no loose assemblage of wiring loom here, everything is laid out like a Frank Pick tube map. That, together with the considerably more rigid tolerance of high-grade components on the circuit (even down to the silver mica caps of old; they could never be made to this precision in the 1950s) makes the Stereo 21c perform like a ‘blueprinted’ version of the Stereo 20.

Even those two large, potted caps on the top plate are given a touch of English, with the screen caps hiding some exceptionally high-grade caps stripped back to fit perfectly; given you could shine a light into the amp on most older samples on this part of the top-plate, this is an improvement to both looks and safety. On the subject of safety, this is where English Acoustics parts ways from the 60+-year-old design. First, it has a soft-start round power button (against the ‘plug and pray’ nature of the original). Then it has both thermal and motion-detection cut-outs, so tubes about to blow or someone knocking the amp off its perch is unlikely to cause any kind of electrical crisis. This is useful in a product that doesn’t include a valve cage, even if this puts the Stereo 21c somewhat at odds with current thought regarding valves. That being said, I can’t think of an easy way to create a cage for these valves without materially changing the aesthetics, and not every brand follows this edict anyway.

OK, so Leak fans will argue there was a form of thermal cut-out in the original Stereo 20 in the shape of a sacrificial resistor. Personally, I prefer a more modern approach to one that requires a soldering iron. There is also a digital display close to the power socket to tell you how many hours you’ve racked up on a given set of tubes. This is handy because the amp can do with a few dozen hours of new-tube shakedown before it gets into its stride. Moreover, given the quality of the sound the Stereo 21c produces, it might be good to know just how long you’ve been listening and when it’s time to get more Tung-Sol tubes.

Bringing the best of the 1960s into the 21st century needs some addressing. First, there was an operational ‘quirk’ to the Stereo 20 that is echoed here; the phono connectors are on what might seem like the front right of the amplifier and the logo runs along the right-hand side, meaning the amp is designed to sit at 90° to most designs. More importantly, while a 14W stereo amplifier will meet (and exceed) many listener’s demands, loudspeakers with more challenging sensitivity and impedance figures will result in a smaller, quieter or even thinner sound (of the line-up of small loudspeakers I regularly use, the 21c fared well with the KEF LS50 Meta, was fine (but no roof-raiser) with the Audiovector R1 Arreté and didn’t like the upper-bass impedance dip of the Wilson Audio Duette Series 2 at all.

In truth, how the Stereo 21c sounds is how everyone might expect a Stereo 20 to sound, except with a few minor improvements to frequency extension at both ends. This is no bad thing; the Stereo 20 was one of the sweetest sounding, most inviting amplifiers of its time, with very good bass and a slightly congested high treble. That midrange was beautifully enticing, natural, and projected perfectly into the room with an articulate and ‘bouncy’ presentation. And the Stereo 21c does nothing to change the shape of that midrange, instead just making the bass a little bigger and more ordered, and the treble a tad (an Imperial measurement) less uneven and more extended. In short, it’s a Stereo 20 that sounds a bit better and a bit more ‘now’. Who’d have guessed it?

English Acoustics’ Stereo 21c retains much of the original’s musical warmth, grace and finesse. It almost invites you to play vocals through it, just to showcase that ‘just the right side of lush’ presentation that grabs you firmly by the feels. My first draft of this review just kept saying ‘beautiful’ time after time, but there’s a good reason for that; that sound just draws you in and makes everything you play sound, er, beautifully beautiful with an added side order of beautiful.

The Stereo 20 covered its tracks well; it took a lot of listening to begin to hear that slightly rolled-off top-end, especially when playing with the equipment and recordings of the time. However, with brighter metal dome tweeters, that top-end never quite sounded fully extended into the ‘Piccolo Symphony for Dogs’ level. Fortunately, whether it’s the latest grade of components or 60+ years of transformer development in the driving seat, the Stereo 21c sounds far comfier and soaring in the upper registers. I’d still argue the Stereo 20/21c is not best matched to metal dome tweeters, in the same way, this is not meant to be partnered with low-sensitivity loudspeakers with an impedance plot like a map of the Himalayas.

Play to its strengths, though, and this warm, enticing sounding and (here it comes again) beautiful sounding amplifier sings sweeter than almost anything made today. While this is a high-precision, high-fidelity (in the old-school sense) amplifier, it’s not the kind of soulless beast designed to reproduce test tones. It’s a musical instrument from the classic era of the best in British audio, brought right up to date. English Acoustics is more than simply a recreator of audio antiques; the company has a Stereo 41c and an all-valve preamp waiting in the wings.  Further down the line, English Acoustics will have a range of monoblocks and other stereo amplifiers that break away from the 21c look. But with the Stereo 21c, English Acoustics took a classic and made it their own, and in the process helped remind us what good hi-fi is all about!

 

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

  • Type: stereo valve power amplifier
  • Power output: 14W/channel ultra linear
  • Valve complement: 3× ECC83, 4× EL84, 1× GZ34
  • THD+N: Less than 0.1%
  • SNR: Better than 90dB reference 1W
  • Frequency response: +/-1dB 13Hz–35KHz (full power bandwidth)
  • Finish: CAD designed steel chassis with laser cut details. Transformer endcaps CNC machined from billet aluminium. Automotive-grade metallic paint finish available in large range of colours.
  • Valve sockets: Ceramic, gold-plated
  • Fixings: Custom English manufactured
  • Wiring: Point to point hand-wired valve sockets with lead free silver solder
  • Transformers: hand wound transformers locally in Wiltshire, England
  • Protection: Thermal, vibration and tilt safety cut out
  • Power Inlet filter: Medical grade
  • Remote power on: available as an option
  • Display: Digital LCD hour meter
  • Finish: various
  • Price: from £5,000

 

Manufacturer: English Acoustics

URL: englishacoustics.co.uk

Tel: +44(0)1249 736180

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Shostakovich, Boston SO, Andris Nelsons

Shostakovich Symphonies 1, 14, and 15, Chamber Symphony Op110a (arr Barshai) from the 8th string quartet

Boston symphony orchestra, Andris Nelsons (Cond)
Deutsche Grammophon 4860546

Is there a more precocious or original first symphony from any young composer than that of Shostakovich? He began it in 1923, and completed it two years later, aged 19. 46 years later, the enigmatic and bitter-sweet 15th was Shostakovich’s final symphony. Completed in 1971, the work puzzled everyone. With quotes from Rossini’s William Tell overture, Wagner’s Die Walkure and Tristan. It seems the composer started out with the intention writing something light hearted and fun, and the first movement certainly has moments of levity. But depression, misery, and despair were meat and drink to Shostakovich, and the music soon takes a darker turn…

This set couples Shostakovich’s first and last symphonies, and adds in the vocal 14th symphony of 1969, which was preoccupied with images of suffering and death (The composer had many serious health problems in his later years, and he was not comforted by belief in an afterlife). Regardless, Shostakovich’s last symphonies represented a return to form for the composer and are worthy of a place among the greatest works written in the second half of the 20th century.

Andris Nelsons is currently recording all the Shostakovich symphonies with the Boston symphony orchestra for Deutsche Grammophon, and with this new release of symphonies 1, 14, and 15, only symphonies 2, 3, 12, and 13, remain to be issued.

Nelsons’ Shostakovich cycle has been hugely impressive. By a country mile it’s the best and most important thing the Boston symphony orchestra has done on records since Colin Davis taped the Sibelius symphonies with them way back in the mid/late ‘70s.

The first symphony gets things off to a great start, and the orchestra plays brilliantly. Nelsons treats the work as a mature and serious piece, rather than a virtuoso orchestral firework, and this gives the music a weighty sense of purpose and gravitas missing with many other performances.

The 14th symphony is a tough often bleak work, and Nelsons pulls no punches. His interpretation is dark and powerful, and the orchestra produce an impressively-full and sonorous sound with rich weighty double basses and crisp percussion. The two soloists are excellent.

The 15th symphony has received many good recordings, starting with the first from the composer’s son Maxim on Melodiya, and Eugene Ormandy on RCA. Nelsons adopts measured tempi, and what emerges is sombre and introspective, especially in the second and fourth movements.

For the Adagio, Nelsons adopts daringly-broad tempi, and takes around 17m 27s for a movement that even ‘slow’ interpreters (Sanderling, Haitink) get through in 16m 30s or less. But Sanderling’s 20m 21s finale (Cleveland) remains the longest – Nelsons is faster, at 18m 06s.

The important percussion parts are well-played, and their contribution at the end of the work is fascinating. For me, it creates the aural impression of a clockwork machine that suddenly splinters into fragments.

On the second disc, Nelsons and the strings of the BSO give us Rudolf Barshai’s arrangement of Shostakovich’s 8th string quartet – an ‘autobiographical’ work that dates from 1960. Here the sound seems a little more distanced, and I would have preferred a closer more visceral recording.

All three symphonies are very well recorded, with impressive bass quality. Whether it’s the rich woody rasp from the double-basses, or a sense of impact and depth when a bass drum is struck, the lower frequencies are captured with striking weight and immediacy.

Those collecting Nelsons’ cycle of the Shostakovich symphonies on Deutsche Grammophon will need no urging to acquire this latest instalment, which maintains the high standard set by previous issues. It’ll be interesting to hear what Nelsons can do with the ‘problematic’ 2nd, 3rd, and 12th symphonies!

Focal Naim 10th Anniversary Edition system

From the press release

Focal and Naim are celebrating a decade together with the stunning Focal Naim 10th Anniversary Edition. This ready-to-play system features iconic Naim Classic music streaming and amplification powering sublime Focal Sopra 2 speakers, both in unique finishes.

Available in limited quantities, the system has some truly special design touches, including a concrete-effect cabinet and metallic baffle detail for the Focal Sopra 2 speakers and a matching, lighter look for the Naim components.

The ready-to-play system comprises:

  • Focal Sopra N°2 speakers- in a unique new finish, with concrete-effect side panels and a ‘tin’ baffle (Tin is the traditional gift to mark a 10th Anniversary).
  • Naim NDX 2 music-streaming player – in a unique matching finish
  • Naim NAC 282 pre-amplifier – in a unique matching finish
  • Naim NAP 250 power amplifier – in a unique matching finish
    Naim HiCap DR and NAPSC power supplies – in a unique matching finish
  • All cables required, including a pair of Naim Super Lumina speaker cables

The Focal Naim 10th Anniversary Edition is available in limited quantities now, with a suggested retail price of £28,000/€34,000/$38,000.

Manufactured by Focal and Naim Audio

URL: Focal

URL: Naim Audio

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Classics Rock! Mission 770 stand-mount loudspeakers

From the Mission press release

Mission resurrects a classic speaker from its formative years, the iconic Mission 770, re-engineering the design to fuse vintage style with cutting-edge performance – and made in the UK too!

Cambridgeshire, England – Mission is one of Britain’s best-loved loudspeaker brands, established on 07/07/1977 by the late Farad Azima (who was famously fond of the number seven). The following year, Mission launched a speaker that rocketed the company to the forefront of the burgeoning British hi-fi scene – the highly influential Mission 770.

44 years on from its debut and Mission is bringing back the 770 – re-engineered to reap the benefits of modern techniques and technologies whilst invoking the spirt of the original in terms of technical ethos, look and sound.

The appeal of the Mission 770 was always the way it sounded. That might seem obvious, but it was born in a time when subjective evaluation through listening tests was secondary to technical specifications – both in terms of how products were designed and how they were reviewed. On the face of it, the original 770 did not appear especially radical, despite its distinctive white baffle and clever engineering. But crucially, its sound was perfected over hundreds of hours of listening tests with input from budding industry luminaries such as Philip Swift and Derek Scotland (soon to be founders of Audiolab), and magazine editors such as Paul Benson of Hi-Fi Answers and John Atkinson of Hi-Fi News. This gave it an edge over the competition and a reputation for exemplary sound was quickly earned.

The project was a labour of love for Farad Azima. His intention was to deliver the BBC-influenced midrange accuracy and transparency of a speaker like the Spendor BC1 while also achieving tighter bass and a more propulsive and engaging sound. It was a breath of fresh air that put the music first and gave definition to the term ‘musicality’. This was the essence of its success.

Pair of Mission 770s with walnut veneer – one with grille on, one with grille off – sited on their dedicated stands

Back to the future

These days, Mission is part of the International Audio Group – the custodian of famous British audio brands that also include Audiolab, Castle, Leak, Quad and Wharfedale. The popularity of Wharfedale’s recent Linton and Denton revivals (two classic British speakers from the 1960s and ’70s), as well as the arrival of the first new Leak electronics for more than 40 years, emphatically shows there is great demand for the reappearance of classic, much-loved British designs in re-engineered form.

Nostalgia is a part of what fuels this demand, but it is also a recognition that these designs have stood the test of time, exuding authenticity and engineering gravitas often lacking in the age of smart speakers and digital streaming. This appeal goes hand-in-hand with the recent vinyl revival – products that were created for a simple, singular, tangible purpose: the sheer enjoyment of music.

This, then, is the ideal time to bring back the Mission 770 in re-engineered form. The new speaker is faithful to the original blueprint – one of the most influential British speakers of all time – whilst making full use of modern techniques and technologies to elevate its performance to an entirely different level. The sonic spirit of the original is intact; but its sound and build quality have evolved to deliver a speaker that meets and exceeds customer expectations in 2022.

 

Labour of love

The project’s design and engineering team was led by Peter Comeau, Mission’s current Director of Acoustic Design. Peter was a young reviewer for Hi-Fi Answers when the original 770 launched and well remembers its impact (he subsequently co-founded loudspeaker maker Heybrook in 1979). For Peter, the new Mission 770 is a labour of love; just as it was for Farad Azima all those years ago.

When Peter revisited the original speaker at the start of the project, he confirmed that two key elements were fundamental to its highly musical performance. First, its polypropylene cone – claimed to be unique in a consumer product at the time – and second, the impressive resonance control of the cabinet. Naturally, these elements also became the cornerstone of the re-engineered design, yet every part has been improved – from the drive units, to the crossover, to the cabinet – bringing the design thoroughly up to date whilst capturing the musical spirt that was so refreshing when the original speaker arrived on the scene.

Mission 770’s completely redesigned
mid/bass driver assembly with new-formulation polypropylene cone

Key elements: the drive units

A new 20cm polypropylene mid/bass driver was developed for the re-engineered 770, mimicking the extended response and low coloration of the original, while upgrading the motor system to take account of modern power handling and dynamic requirements. Like the original, the driver is built onto a die-cast chassis with large rear ‘windows’ to reduce early reflections back through the cone. Special care has been taken to marry a low-density nitrile surround to the cone, to match its impedance and reduce reflections from the cone edge.

The new polypropylene cone is loaded with minerals to make it stiffer than the original, yielding fast, tight bass that enables the listener to hear exactly how bass instruments are being played. This is balanced by tuning the cabinet and reflex port to a very low frequency, avoiding the ‘one note bass’ that is typical of a lot of bass reflex systems. In addition, the port is strongly flared at both inlet and outlet to smooth airflow and eradicate distortion. Bass extends powerfully and cleanly to below 30Hz in room, which is remarkable for this size of speaker.

In the original 770 design, Farad Azima focused on the midrange performance, which was always the strength of hi-fi reproduction from vinyl records. For today’s digital sources and superior turntables, the performance of a speaker at the frequency extremes is now considered of equal importance to the midrange. The new 770’s treble unit uses a lightweight, damped microfibre dome with an ultra-smooth response, backed by a damped rear chamber that pushes the fundamental resonance well below the crossover region. The quality of this 28mm dome marries perfectly with the mid/bass driver to ensure evenness of character throughout the range of the whole speaker.

All-new treble unit with 28mm microfibre dome delivers smooth and extended high-frequency performance

Key elements: the crossover

The original 770 used a single coil to equalise the bass to midrange response as well as cross over to the treble unit, the latter driven by a resistor, capacitor and coil combination. Using just these components to perform both functions was always going to be a compromise, and this is likely the reason why Farad Azima could not resist tinkering with the crossover and producing so many variants.

Today’s advanced software crossover mapping and measuring techniques allow Mission to perfect the balance between bass and midrange and adjust the crossover to the treble unit by mapping the acoustic crossover slopes with extreme accuracy. Even so, the choice of EQ and crossover for the new 770 involved hundreds of hours of listening sessions using a wide variety of music, and over 170 circuit iterations were tried before the final crossover was settled upon.

The circuit was then mapped out onto separate bass and treble PCBs using very short signal paths and accommodating high-quality components such as super-transparent polypropylene capacitors and air core inductors, maintaining the simplicity and elegance of the original whilst improving critical elements. The resulting transparency to musical detail ensures the thrilling emotion of music is fully conveyed, whilst maintaining a seamless transition between the mid/bass and treble units.

 

Key elements: the cabinet

The drivers and crossover are housed in a real-wood veneered cabinet, measuring 59x30x30cm (HxWxD), with a white laminated front baffle echoing the style that made the Mission 770 a stand-out hi-fi product in the 1970s and ’80s. Beneath the rich, rosy-tinged walnut or black veneers lies a further technological advancement. While the original 770 reduced midrange coloration using the BBC-influenced technique of a thin-wall cabinet damped by mass loading with bitumen pads, the new 770 features a twin-wall sandwich of high-density MDF and particleboard bonded by a layer of high-damping adhesive. This results in a cabinet with panel resonance well below audibility, allowing the drive units to do their job unsullied by cabinet coloration at all frequencies.

Internal bracing adds strength to the front baffle and braces the drive unit to the cabinet, creating a mechanical support that aids the dynamic performance of the bass unit and reveals the micro-dynamics of the musical performance. This is complemented by a layer of acoustic foam and damping fibre, strategically placed to absorb reflections inside the cabinet without overdamping the bass quality.

Peter Comeau is justly proud of what he and Mission’s acoustic engineering team have achieved. Speaking about the launch, Peter said: “To repeat the original 770 brochure’s claims of ‘staggering bass definition and response; lack of coloration; uncanny imaging; information retrieval; transient attack; depth and perspective; accuracy and linearity; speed and dynamic range’ is only to hint at the true capabilities of the new 770. Instead, we prefer to focus on its uncanny ability to reveal the true depth, emotion and drama of whatever music you care to feed to it. A much-loved British hi-fi classic has been emphatically reborn.”

Not only designed in the UK but made here too, thanks to new production facilities in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire

Made in the UK

The new Mission 770 is not only designed and engineered in the UK; it is made here too. Mission’s parent company, IAG, has expanded its facilities in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire – the traditional home of Mission – to incorporate key manufacturing, assembly and finishing processes for specially selected products, in addition to the R&D function already located here. A 9,000ft2 production facility has been added to the existing building in Huntingdon, including a new anechoic chamber, making a total of 25,000ft2 of office, lab and manufacturing space.

Like most British audio brands, especially those operating at the more affordable price points, manufacturing of Mission speakers was moved to Asia (to IAG’s purpose-built factory) many years ago – essential in order to maintain retail prices at the level the market demanded – while design functions such as R&D and industrial design remained in the Huntingdon. IAG’s new Made in the UK initiative has been devised to enable the manufacture of specific products to be brought back to the UK without skyrocketing costs. ‘Heritage’ products are the focus of this initiative – speakers that are steeped in British audio history, where ‘Made in the UK’ adds to the sense of historical authenticity. The new Mission 770 is the first to benefit; products from other brands within the Group, including Wharfedale, Leak and Castle, are set to follow.

 

Price and availability

Manufacturing of the new Mission 770 is now under way, in strictly limited quantities to serve the most discerning of music lovers. The first pairs will be available to purchase from the end of March, in a choice of walnut or black wood veneers, at an RRP of £3,500 per pair.

The price includes a pair of dedicated floor stands, custom made in the UK to ensure each speaker is positioned at the perfect height, with a damped carbon steel frame and large stainless-steel spikes to protect from unwanted vibrations. The package is completed by a set of stainless-steel spike seats for hard floors and a pair of handling gloves.

Building on the iconic style and consummate musicality of the original design, the new Mission 770 is set to capture the hearts of music lovers all over again.

 

Technical Specifications

  • Speaker Type: Two-way stand-mount
  • Enclosure Type: bass reflex
  • Treble Driver: 28mm microfibre dome
  • Mid/bass driver: 200mm mineral-loaded polypropylene cone
  • Sensitivity (2.84V @ 1m): 88dB
  • Nominal Impedance: 8 Ohms
  • Recommended Amp Power: 25-200W
  • Frequency Response (±3dB): 42Hz-20kHz
  • Bass Extension (-6dB): 30Hz
  • Cabinet Volume: 38.5 litres
  • Speaker Dimensions (HxWxD): 590x300x322mm (inc. cable terminals)
  • Weight (each speaker): 19.2kg
  • Stand Dimensions (HxWxD): 445x300x300mm
  • Weight (each stand): 17.9kg

Manufacturer: Mission

URL: Mission

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Kuzma SAFIR 9 tonearm

From the Kuzma press release:

 

Franc Kuzma does neither design nor releases new products for the sake of historical symmetry of any kind. Ever. But, when he does, it shifts the limitations of the hitherto possible into another dimension. Welcome the new SAFIR 9 tonearm!

It took more than 5 years of laborious R & D to bring a pivotal manner of analogue LP playback to this level. Higher than in any previous Kuzma tonearm and, possibly, higher than any tonearm before.

The essence, heart and soul of the SAFIR 9 tonearm is an extremely rigid, conical arm tube made out of sapphire – the first of the kind and the first implementation of the precious stone for this purpose. The overall rigidity and resilience to all unwanted resonances are key natural properties of sapphire. As such, it outperforms any arm tube used in any tonearm, remaining resonant free up to a very high 5kHz frequency. This gives the phono cartridge generator a true “ground”. Owing to the natural density of sapphire, SAFIR  9 tonearm has to have a considerably high effective mass.

SAFIR 9 bearings are, as with all Kuzma multi-point designs, a proprietary in-house design consisting of 4 sharp spikes resting against ruby cups. They are a further improvement over a solution already found in all Kuzma 4Point tonearms with great success.

The sapphire arm tube is fitted into a massive ensemble of solid aluminium and brass blocks, providing extremely inert and mechanically quiet support to the arm tube itself as well as the Point bearing spikes. This dissipates vibrations which occur inevitably as the phono cartridge stylus tip rides the grooves of an LP to a substantial extent.

A twin section brass counterweight with a lock mechanism accurately balances the tonearm. Azimuth can be adjusted in small, accurate and easy to repeat increments with zero play (using an Allen key).

The new Kuzma SAFIR 9 tonearm fits conveniently a vast majority of today’s best turntables, retaining the well-established Kuzma arm base layout. The VTA of the cartridge is adjusted with a very fine threaded screw within the arm base. Again, accuracy and ease of repeated adjustments are possible in a simple and effective manner.

The new Kuzma SAFIR 9 has a special silver alloy internal wiring as standard specification. A single, uninterrupted (1.5m long) cable connects the phono cartridge between the headshell pins and high-quality RCA connectors at the opposite end.

The new Kuzma SAFIR 9 will reveal the ultimate potential of any high-quality phono cartridge and bring more music out of the LP grooves than we have heard ever before. In short – a new record collection altogether!

Kuzma SAFIR 9 tonearm will be launched at the High End 2022 exhibition in Munich (19-22 May 2022). Please contact your national distribution outlet for further details and arrangements for reviews and other media coverage.

 

KUZMA SAFIR Technical Data:

  • Effective Length: 229mm (9 inch)
  • Mounting Distance From Spindle: 212mm
  • Offset Angle: 23 degrees
  • Effective Mass: 60g*
  • VTA Adjustment: Yes
  • Azimuth Adjustment: Yes
  • Bias Compensation/Adjustment: Yes
  • Internal Wiring: Silver Alloy (Kondo)
  • Overall Mass (Weight): 1,250g
  • Projected List Price: €20,000

* compatible with phono cartridges of CU (compliance) 25 or lower

Kuzma

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DALI Rubicon 6C Wireless floorstanding loudspeakers

The wireless speaker system is nothing new. The desire for convenience drove the wireless speaker’s earliest development and. Performance – beyond the ‘does it make a sound?’ requirement – was initially, at best, an afterthought. But as audio began stepping out of its decades-long ‘prissy’ phase, many venerable manufacturers of hi-fi electronics and/or hi-fi loudspeakers have been hard at work developing a high-fidelity wireless music reproduction solution, and with companies like BluOS realising that dream, the smart money is on a meeting of minds; the DALI Rubicon 6C floorstanding speakers and accompanying BluOS-based streaming hub is an obvious and logical result.

On the face of it, it’s a straightforward enough exercise. From DALI’s standing, take a pair of the well-regarded Rubicon 6 three-way floorstanders (which sell for around £3,400 per pair), strap on some amplification and wireless connectivity, and Bob’s your close relative. Or, from BluOS’s way of thinking, take your Tidal, Qobuz and high-performance network platform and amplifiers (not dissimilar to the £849 Gen3 Powernode), bolt a pair of high-quality loudspeaker towers and all your waterfowl are carefully aligned.

Each Rubicon 6C tower is fitted with a couple of 250w Class D amplifier modules – one powers the wood-fibre mid/bass drivers (which are in a separate chamber, and each of which is augmented by a rear-firing reflex port), the other the hybrid soft dome/ribbon tweeter. Before the amplifier modules do their thing, though, the incoming digital audio information is dealt with by a digital signal processor capable of running at 50m instructions per second. The audio processing aspect is capable of handling 1024 instructions per cycle, and output is governed by a 24bit/96kHz Burr Brown digital-to-analogue converter. The amplifiers are connected directly to the drivers, with all of the required crossover filtering handled by the digital signal processor.

Visual clues to this thorough overhaul of the speakers’ innards are fairly subtle. At the rear of the cabinet there is a socket for mains power, naturally enough, and a ‘power on/off’ switch. A button marked ‘Link/Connect’ connects the speaker to the BluOS-based Sound Hub. There’s also a USB port for firmware upgrades, a set-up display (just to let you know everything is going to plan) and a single RCA socket as a line-in. This last is just in case you don’t want your wireless music system to be too wireless.

At the front the changes are, if anything, even more subtle. Each speaker now has a strip of numerous tiny LEDs across its lower portion, acting as tell-tales as to input status, volume level and what-have-you. Otherwise, though, it’s business as usual: a cabinet more accurately described as ‘purposeful’ rather than in any way ‘handsome’, but built and finished with unarguable expertise. The gloss black finish of our review sample is lustrous, flawlessly applied and collects fingerprints like a particularly zealous scene-of-crime investigator. Each speaker stands on a couple of mildly angular bolt-on outriggers that can be fitted either with spikes or soft feet – both are supplied.

Getting information wirelessly on board the Rubicon 6C is a job for DALI’s Sound Hub. It’s a reasonably compact (7.6 × 30 × 21.3cm, H×W×D) box with a volume control front-and-centre. There’s a small graphic display inside the volume control, giving an indication of volume level. It also shows which input has been selected, via a series of symbols, the most instantly recognisable of which is the Bluetooth rune.

At the back of the Hub there are a series of physical inputs: analogue 3.5mm, stereo RCA, a digital coaxial and a pair of digital optical sockets. There are also stereo RCA pre-outs alongside a subwoofer pre-out, and (naturally enough) there’s a ‘Link/Connect’ button given due prominence. DALI has also included two expansion ports on the back of the Hub, allowing for later upgrades if and when they become necessary. Our review sample has one of its plug-in module slots occupied by a BluOS module that features an Ethernet socket and two USB inputs, and brings MQA certification with it too.

Given that BluOS is among the most stable, most logical and consequently most useful control apps out there, this is undoubtedly a good thing. But there’s also a remote control handset included, which covers the obvious functionality.

No matter the source you feed into the Hub, the audio information is delivered to the speakers (using either the 2.4GHz or 5.8GHz band) at 24bit/96kHz. For the purposes of this test, the Hub is connected to a phono stage-equipped Cambridge Audio Alva TT turntable via the stereo RCA inputs, a Cyrus CDt disc transport via digital coaxial, and via Bluetooth (the Hub can handle AAC, apt-X and apt-X HD) using an Apple iPhone X. In other words, although this is notionally a ‘next gen’ wireless loudspeaker system, it’s actually very easy to link to traditional audio equipment, without the haughty dismissal of calling these devices ‘legacy’.

Set-up is gratifyingly straightforward – it’s little more than ‘press the ‘Link/Connect’ button on a speaker, and then press the corresponding button on the Hub. Then do it again for the other speaker’. After that it’s simple to let each speaker know which side of the stereo pair it represents, and from there you’re good to go.

An extremely worthwhile 180g reissue of The National’s High Violet [4AD] is a good place to start, and the Rubicon 6Cs don’t waste much time establishing their credentials. Firing more-or-less straight ahead (DALI has long since suggested this is the best way to position its speakers) and standing a good 30cm from a rear surface, the Rubicon 6C establish a large, easy-to-follow soundstage and, even when playing a slightly murky mix like this, lay it out unequivocally.

There’s proper spatial depth and width to the DALI sound here, and a tasteful sort of tonality – just fractionally warmer than ‘neutral’, with a polite level of bite at the top end and an equally considerate serving of wallop at the bottom. Treble sounds are as airy as they are crunchy (not for the first time, DALI’s hybrid tweeter arrangement proves its worth), while the bass equivalents are properly shaped, texturally diverse and marshalled, well, martially. There’s just no overhang here; not a hint of blur or uncertainty where the entry into or exit from low-frequency sounds is concerned.

It’s in between, though, that the Rubicon 6C is at its most impressive – and it’s ably illustrated by a listen to Camera Obscura’s Underachievers Please Try Harder [Elefant] as a TIDAL Masters file. A copious amount of detail is revealed in the midrange, and as a result the DALI are communicative at an almost forensic level. No detail of vocal technique, no indication of effort or toil is overlooked. The Rubicon 6C system delivers the complete picture, in an utterly non-judgemental manner.

There’s considerable dynamic headroom available for when the going gets properly rowdy, but the DALI are capable of handing over the transient harmonic subtleties of Nils Frahm’s The Bells [Erased Tapes] just as readily. And while this system is able to generate quite oppressive volume levels, it retains all its poise and, just as importantly, its full frequency range presence, even when playing at very modest background levels.

Ultimately, though, there’s not what you’d describe as a huge difference between the performance of the Rubicon 6C with Sound Hub and a pair of passive Rubicon 6 driven by something like a Naim Nait XS3 integrated amplifier at a broadly similar price. Granted these are different solutions creating very different systems and connectivity options, but this misses the point. This is a wireless system that takes on a highly-respected ‘conventional’ audio system and stands toe-to-toe with it on performance terms. We started wireless on convenience terms, but just look how far we’ve come!

Take it on its own terms and there’s plenty to admire about the DALI Rubicon 6C system. It combines an extensive specification (with upgrade potential), impressive workmanship (especially in the loudspeakers themselves, naturally), and expansive, robust and impressively balanced sound. Leveraging the power of BluOS makes it a very potent performer in sonic terms, too. If this is the future of wireless audio, it’s in good hands.

 

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

  •  Type: Three-way, four-driver floorstander with ported bass reflex enclosure
  • Driver complement: 1 × 29mm soft dome tweeter, 1 × 17×45mm ribbon tweeter, 2 × 165mm mid/bass driver
  • Frequency response: 37Hz–30kHz
  • Crossover frequencies: 800Hz, 2.6kHz, 14kHz
  • Sensitivity (voltage strength): 1250
  • Dimensions (hwd, cm): 99 × 20 × 38
  • Weight (kg): 46
  • Finishes: Gloss black, gloss white, walnut
  • Price: £4,900 per pair, DALI Sound Hub, £549 (£649 with BluOS module)

 

Manufacturer: DALI

URL: dali-speakers.com

 

Distributor: DALI UK

URL: dali-speakers.com/uk

Tel: +44(0)1462 337320

 

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Music Interview: Stephen Duffy

On the afternoon that I phone singer-songwriter Stephen Duffy, at his home in Falmouth, Cornwall, the eyes of the world are on the town and its neighbouring areas.

“It’s full of police because Boris Johnson has just turned up and Biden’s here for the G7 Summit – it’s a stupid place to put it, as there isn’t a motorway here and loads of the roads you can’t get two cars down simultaneously,” he says. “Whovever thought that was a good idea is nuts.”

Unsurprisingly, we’re not here to talk about traffic logistics, or politics – although his last album with his country-folk band The Lilac Time, 2019’s beautiful Return To Us, did tackle Brexit-related themes – or his time as ‘80s pop star Stephen “Tin Tin” Duffy; or his stint as a writer for Robbie Williams, or his short-lived Britpop supergroup Me Me Me, with Alex James of Blur and Justin Welch of Elastica.

Instead, we’re delving back into his early days, when he was a 19-year-old art student and struggling post-punk musician in Birmingham, where he was born and grew up.

Duffy, who turned 61 last year, was the original vocalist with Duran Duran – he left before they got famous – and then, in 1979, he went on to form the band Obviously Five Believers, who were also known as The Subterranean Hawks and The Hawks.

The ‘great lost group’ (Duffy – vocals, Dave Kusworth – guitar, Dave Twist – drums and Simon Colley – bass), put out one single, ‘Words of Hope’, which is now highly collectible, but, after failing to get signed by a label, they split up in 1981, after only 18 months, and very quickly Duffy went on to bigger and better things.

Now, more than 40 years later, following Kusworth’s death in September last year, Duffy has unearthed some archive cassette recordings of The Hawks and worked with Grammy-winning audio engineer John Paterno to restore and improve them, and make them available as an album for the first time ever.

This month, the record, which is credited to The Hawks and called Obviously 5 Believers, is released on CD and vinyl.

It’s a fascinating listen – naïve, yet charming, quirky, raw and rough around the edges – ‘60s-inspired post-punk, with plenty of teenage angst and melancholy.

There are moments of brilliance, like the jangly guitar pop of ‘The Bullfighter’; the wailing, Dylanesque harmonica on ‘Something Soon’, Velvet Underground homage ‘A Sense of Ending’, and the ‘50s-rock- ‘n’-roll-meets-garage of ‘What It Is!’

These fledgling, ramshackle songs provide a tantalising glimpse into what could’ve been and pre-date the sound of The Smiths, who they often sound like, by a few years.

SH: How have you been during the COVID crisis? Did The Hawks album project come about because of lockdown?

SD: I was about to start recording a new album, so I was writing that. I hate having records sitting around without being finished – you start to pick at them and second guess them, and start thinking ‘Is it any good?’, or ‘will it go out of date?’

My last record [The Lilac Time’s Return To Us] wasn’t about Brexit, but it was very current politically. I sat on that for two years and thought, ‘oh God – this is going to seem so out of date by the time it comes out’, but now it seems more relevant than it did when it came out because of everything that’s going on.

I like to finish a record and then release it, but I didn’t record the [new] songs – I just carried on writing… and then, unfortunately, that was when David Kusworth died.

The last time I’d seen him was when I played at The Glee Club, in Birmingham [in 2019] and I think the last thing he said to me was ‘Release the Hawks tapes’, which he’d said many times before, but when it’s the last thing that somebody says to you…

Before he died, I had begun to look at the tapes and I’d been talking to David Twist about it. We’d thought we’d do some work on it before showing it to David Kusworth but, unfortunately, he died and we never got a chance to do it, which was a shame.

The cassettes followed me around. I’ve lived all over the world, but every time I left England, I’d put everything in storage and then get it out when I came back.

I’d never really listened to them because I thought they were hopeless, but then when David Kusworth spoke to me about them, I thought they had a kind of period charm.

I agree – they have a lovely, adolescent innocence to them. They’re quirky and rough and ready, but very endearing…

In our innocence, we assumed that we’d just make a tape, go down to Rough Trade and they’d put it out – we didn’t have any ideas about signing with anyone else. Rough Trade have never signed me – the bastards…

I’d write a song with David [Kusworth] we’d rehearse it and then we’d record it – we wouldn’t think about it again. We’d just write another one – we didn’t have a plan.

Photo Credit: Brendan Jackson

We probably played 50 or so gigs. In the beginning I just used to jump around, but then I started playing the guitar. We did a gig at The Hare and Hounds [in Birmingham] and I took my Fender Twin amplifier on the bus.

Afterwards, I was left in Kings Heath with it, but, luckily, a girl who was at the gig called her dad and I got a lift home. Otherwise, I’d still be sitting there now, on top of my amplifier.

How much work was involved restoring the Hawks tapes?

I worked with John Paterno, who’s done all of the last few Lilac Time records, so I knew if he said it was OK to release it, it was going to be OK. He’s done his very best to get whatever was on tape out of it.

We had to try and get rid of some of the hiss and to get some separation – these cassettes had been sitting around for 40 years and some of them weren’t very well made. We had to bake some of them.

It was a gruelling process, but it’s an entertaining record, in a vague way, especially for people who are fans of David and are interested in my records.

I can’t imagine people sitting around and listening to it that much because it’s taken from 40-year-old cassettes, but it’s an interesting thing and you can hear that there’s something going on. We could’ve gone on to make interesting records. I feel like we’ve done justice to it.

How was it going through the Hawks archives?

It was sad because David Kusworth was gone, but it was a fun thing to do because the pictures of us looked so good.

You look at them and you think ‘I would’ve signed that band just on the strength of the pictures, let alone what they sounded like’. They had fantastic hair!

Those pictures and the name Obviously Five Believers – that’s got to be a deal in anybody’s lifetime! It doesn’t matter what the music on the cassettes sounds like, just get them in the studio with somebody – [Duran Duran producer] Colin Thurston, probably, and it will sound fine. But nobody had that feeling at the time.

Why was that?

Going right back to the ‘60s, Birmingham had been such a great place for music – my uncle and cousins had played in bands, and you had The Moody Blues, The Move and, later on, ELO, but, unfortunately, because it’s so close to London, people drifted away from Birmingham, so when the next wave came along, instead of there being all these great managers and studios, and people with experience to help you, there was nobody.

That meant that the next wave of musicians, like The Beat, UB40 and Duran Duran, signed to London record labels and had London management. The only people left in Birmingham who knew anything about the industry were complete stoners – you were just getting advice from very stoned people all the time.

The Hawks were together for 18 months. We made some tapes with Bob Lamb, who then went on to make records with UB40, in his little flat in Kings Heath – he was an absolute genius with his four-track machine.

Bob had been in the Steve Gibbons Band – we all looked up to him, as he’d actually done things. He’d toured the States with The Who and he had lots of Rolling Stone magazines – we were very enamoured with him.

As a band, we didn’t have any idea of what we were doing – we didn’t make demos of songs and then think we’ll listen to them and look at how we could make them better to be a record.

The tapes aren’t demos – they’re just field recordings. We recorded the band and then I sang over the top of it.

Photo Credit: Brendan Jackson

We didn’t even get our first single cut properly – we sent the tape off, but we didn’t master it.

I just don’t understand what we thought we were doing – we didn’t think about making records. We were just living, and we were quite happy doing what we were doing and making a bit of a racket. It was kind of like the ‘slacker’ thing before ‘slacker’.

But then all the other bands got record deals and were on Top of the Pops, so we started to think ‘well, what exactly are we doing?’, which is when I left, in Christmas 1981.

I had two ideas about what I was going to do – one was to be a folk singer with an acoustic guitar – and the other was to do an electronic thing.

By the summer of 1982, I’d bumped into John Mulligan [of Birmingham new wave band Fashion] recorded ‘Kiss Me’ and I was signed to WEA – it was that quick. The idea of me becoming an acoustic folk singer went out of the window for a few years.

What music were you into when you were in The Hawks / Obviously Five Believers? Both names have links to Bob Dylan…

We were in with that early Echo & The Bunnymen and The Teardrop Explodes scene and we were listening to the same sort of things they were – ‘60s stuff. There was a heavy Velvets, Stones and Dylan thing going on. We were also into Beat poetry.

We’d been kids in the ‘70s – it was funny how quickly we’d gone through all of that stuff, then punk and post-punk, and had already got back to the ‘60s before most people had even forgotten about it.

Where did the name The Hawks come from?

When I was in Duran Duran, we had song called ‘Hawks Don’t Share’. We were going to be called The Subterraneans after the Jack Kerouac book, but then Nick Kent [music journalist] put out a record as The Subterraneans, so we had to change our name – we became The Subterranean Hawks. We shortened it to The Hawks, which I thought was a terrible name. I wanted us to be called Hawks Don’t Share, but people said to me ‘why do you keep coming up with these incredibly long names?’

I thought that was cool – then when Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark came along, I was proven completely correct.

The Hawks had a jangly, melancholy sound at times. Were you The Smiths before The Smiths?

Yes. When The Smiths came along, in 1982, it did occur to me that I had gone the wrong way by doing the electronic thing – I was never really suited to it. I didn’t have a feel for it, like I did for playing the acoustic guitar.

Somebody said that we were either hopelessly old-fashioned, or incredibly ahead of our time. Our greatest fan was Nikki Sudden from the Swell Maps, who David Kusworth went on to work with. The only review we ever got in our lives was in ZigZag [magazine] – Nikki wrote it.

Do you have any regrets about leaving Duran Duran?

No – when ‘Planet Earth’ came out, it was exactly what they wanted to do, which is exactly why I left.

Obviously 5 Believers by The Hawks was released on August 27, 2021 (Seventeen Records). It’s on CD and vinyl.

stephenduffy.com

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Titan Audio Eros Signature power cord/ForceField Module RFI control

Titan Audio is a comparatively new company out of Northern Ireland in the UK. Titan’s area of specialism is power products, making a tidy collection of power cords, distribution blocks and accessories related to said power-line products. There are currently five power cords – each with its own separate ‘Signature’ version – in the range, and Eros and Eros Signature is smack in the middle of that line-up. There are also three distribution blocks, with Eros being the most high-end of the lot.

The prices of Titan Audio range from £100 for the entry-level Nyx up to £2,500 for the Nemesis Signature. This is a useful indicator of intent; the company goes from where the entry point in power cables currently resides up to the upper reaches of ‘attainable’ rather than the ‘stratospheric’ (the upcoming Apollo cord might revise that statement). Regardless, £600 for the Eros Signature is a something of a power cord sweet spot, as it straddles both the very well ‘sorted’ system that might cost under £10k and the high-ender who’s convinced of the need for a good power cord but is unconvinced their £20k amplifier needs a £5k power cord.

Eros Signature features four 6mm OCC multi-strand conductors, with an external multi-core dual drain wrapped around the main grey/black sheath. The conductors themselves are sheathed in a PTFE dielectric and a braided steel screen. The connectors at both ends are cryo-treated custom variants of red copper IEC and Shuko/US plugs, with the UK variant getting custom versions of the MS HD UK plug and fuse.

Each Titan power cord is a minimum of 1.5m long; this is not designed to sell people up into buying longer power cords; research performed with Queens University Belfast concluded this length has the best balance of resistance, capacitance and inductance, thereby giving the greatest benefit to performance; shorter cables reduced the sound quality. As many other brands (often brands with far more esoteric products than Titan) have come to the same decision through listening tests and measurement, it seems Titan is onto something with this 1.5m optimum length for power cords.

Keen-eyed Titan Audio watchers might note the Helios, Eros and both their Signature editions have a flying lead coming out of the IEC connector. This hooks to the deliciously named ForceField Module, which is a powered, active RFI and EMI shield around the mains cable itself. It uses a plug-top power supply with a range of sockets for UK, EU and US use, and the module itself attaches to the power cord with Velcro straps. More power cords in the Titan range are expected to use the FFT (ForceField Technology), and a multi-way power supply is expected soon too.

I was very taken by the immediacy of the performance of Eros Signature. It has excellent bass, with depth and clarity shining through immediately. This was also not at the expense of anything further up the signal chain. The midrange is open and expansive, with excellent clarity and vocal projection and the high-frequencies are admirably lithe and free from any kind of edge. The overall sound is dynamic and energetic, but without the zingy leading-edge of some similarly priced contenders. I’d suggest that it’s the perfect partner for decent performing electronics (in the Hegel or Primare class) rather than an entry-level cord for the highest of high-enders, but even when used in more lofty systems, the Eros Signature’s sense of overall balance, coupled with that good, deep bass, shines through.

Some cables impose their sonic signature on the music and it is why power cords are often so important in creating a good foundation for the sound. While that has often ended with companies creating whole families of cables for a ‘nose-to-tail’ cable approach. That doesn’t seem to be so important with Titan Audio; the absence of character (in a good way) means the Eros Signature is a neutral canvas upon which the rest of the system makes its mark. The bass depth, the impact-free sound on the mid and top, an absence of background noise, edge, or zing all make for a very honest presentation overall.

Titan Audio FFT

I’m in two minds about the FFT, however. When it works well, it seems to make the power cord deliver even more clarity with less ‘spikiness’ or harshness (not that there is much harshness to hear from the Eros Signature without FFT). When it doesn’t, it over-smooths the sound. In part, the difference is situational; use a system with a lot of wal-wart power supplies, have a house filled with phone chargers and the like, or live somewhere where the AC ‘juice’ is never less than ‘awful’ and ‘using the Force(Field)’ makes the sound significantly improved over the base Eros Signature. If you live in the rolling hills of the South Downs, where your nearest neighbour’s Wi-Fi router is a mile or more away and everything has its own dedicated linear PSU, then there’s no need to raise the forcefield. However, the overall balance was positive with or without FFT and even if it acts a little too strongly for your setting, such things are relative. I guess in an ideal world, you might want to dial the FFT’s impact up or down according to the environment. But no biggie either way.

Titan Audio is clearly confident about its products in that they come with a lifetime warranty. I am always wary about such things with power products (it’s like the old joke about the lifetime warranty on a watch… when it breaks, the mainspring springs out of the watch and kills you), but for once I think this is genuine. The Eros Signature is a fine power cord and more than has a place even in this most contended of markets. That it can be enhanced by the ForceField Module makes a lot of sense in some systems, too, but where the Eros Signature is an easy recommendation, the FFT is more qualified and system-dependent, so if you can try it first… all the better.

 

Prices and Contact Details

  • Titan Audio Eros Signature power cord: £600/1.5m, £1,000/3m
  • Titan Audio FFT module: £250

Manufacturer: DGR Group

URL: titanaudio.co.uk 

 

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