five short yearsCannot quite believe that we allowed May the fourth 2022 to pass without mentioning that it marked five years since we relocated to St Cecilia’s House. At the time we held a three day open house event so we really should have done something to celebrate. Reasons? Well, there was already a demonstration booked and, besides, we’re out of practice! It has been heartening to finally break free from our previous, rather secretive, life operating from my home in Bucklesham. We’ve become rather fond of our new HiFi home, too, even if it is becoming overrun with equipment. Amusingly, we had a customer here the other day who genuinely wondered why we had ‘labelled’ the rear wall ‘the wall’. . . |
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| The above only sightly edited image reminds us of what a fun time we had during our opening events! | |
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Chord Electronics news |
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| Most urgent news is that prices will be going up at the beginning of June. Rises are not too dramatic overall but Dave is going up by the thick end of £1000, so if one of those is burbling through your thought process, now is the time!
We had a play the other day with the new £6k Ultima Pre 3. We’ve had the Ultima Ultima 3 mono blocs on demonstration for a little while now and there is an Ultima 6 stereo due to join them. The Pre 3 sounded excellent even into the larger amps, and struck us as being remarkably close to the rather more expensive Ultima Pre 2. Accordingly our order for Pre 3 has been placed. Looks, particularly in silver with all the additional metalwork, is a little bit other worldly but there is logic in the control options, it’s pleasantly tactile and is clearly well engineered. As with the power amps, we’ve requested the demo units in black, without the ‘oil rig’ support structures and with acrylic side infill blocks instead. Time will tell if this has been the correct decision although a customer order for an Ultima 6 placed around the same time was for a similar pared back specification. Short links: |
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| It is common knowledge that the supply situation on new equipment from Naim has been rather slow. This remains the case, although there is some evidence of light at the end of the tunnel.
We are in the bizarre situation of having Naim Statement and 500 series power amplifiers without the matching preamps. We hope for a resolution by the end of May. Our previous attempts at pre-emptive stock buying mean that we do still have some brand new items in stock that can be supplied immediately. At time of writing, there is one NDX2, a couple of HiCap DRs, one remaining Supercap DR and a couple of NAP 300 DRs. This is not a mail order offer, by the way. |
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| We seem to be turning ourselves into something of an Accuphase centre with three CD players, three preamps, a DAC, three stereo power amps and three of the integrated amplifiers that started off the whole merry-go-round.
Last months admission that we had bought two rather serious preamps has been followed by the arrival of a fairly expensive A-75 Class A power amplifier to join them. I’m reasonably sure, not to say hopeful, that our accountant does not read these missives . . . Yesterday, having been using the C-2900 for a few weeks, we finally opened up the brand new C-3900. I know that Chris the killer salesman was trying to guide our hands quite benignly when he suggested we try the 3900. It was us that thought we ought to have the cheaper one too. Quite honestly, the C-3900 is stupidly better. He was right! |
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| A very compelling offer from Meze that has already attracted some high end headphone traffic. You have until 24th June 🙂 | |
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| Star products for us over the past few months have been the ATC SCM40 loudspeakers in both active and passive configurations. They have been ‘hitting the spot’ with monotonous regularity.
The combination of SCM40 A (active) with the Auralic Altair G2.1 streamer / pre was a particular success, sounding far more accomplished than it seems reasonable to expect. Both items offer stunning performance for what we think is fairly modest outlay and the combination offers the low box count simplicity to which many people aspire these days. Twenty odd years ago, active speakers like these were treated with unease and suspicion. How times change. |
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New! Naim Uniti and Focal Aria K2 package
Silver too brash? Black too, erm, dark?
Why not have a Naim Uniti Star in ash grey with matching Focal Aria K2 loudspeakers in a similar hue. We now have the package here.
They look & sound rather nifty too, if we may say so. . . More
There you go, that’s me out of waffle. Thank you for dealing with it!
All the best.
Alastair, Andy & Mick @ signals
Naim’s Steve Sells doing his ‘thang’ back when events were cool. These days are coming back.