Merry Christmas to all!
Here’s our characteristically negative view of the year now largely behind us!
2025 : the year’s good, bad and ugly
First : the Ugly.
I guess we have to place the sudden demise of Auralic under this. As we understand it, the US tariff situation was the last nail in their coffin. They ceased trading a couple of months ago and are officially out of business. We’re not the only retailer to be left with stock, both new and ex demonstration.
The Auralic products still work and have always been at the reliable end of the spectrum but support is currently not available from the manufacturer.
Deals on these are us!
Bad news?
Naim appear to have been taking pot-shots at their own feet with their decision to clear the decks of the older products beneath the current New Classic series. It’s easy to criticise and if you think it through, it’s more understandable than baffling. As the inventors of the incremental upgrade path, it seems mad that Rega are actually doing this better than Naim at the moment. We hope they will rectify this with new more affordable quality separate components but, for the foreseeable, it seems likely that Uniti will take over the job of providing the lower rungs of the range.
In fairness, this puts them in a very similar situation to Linn whose range starts with all in one systems too.
As of now, Rega only have the high end Isis CD player listed as available, so they are capable shooting their lower limbs off too!. The entry level Apollo ceased production some time ago, although we are hoping for a resurrection to line up with the new Brio Mk7. Saturn has now run its course too, although we do have some unopened stock plus a demonstration unit here. What the future holds is unclear.
Good? Here are the stars of the year.
Stand-out products this year have been plentiful. Rega sales have been solid and, ironically, so have Naim with their old streamer upgrade programme having stimulated a fair number of uniti, 200 and 300 series sales.
Rega Brio Mk7
We have an affection for giant killing products and Rega’s new Brio mk7 amplifier qualifies. The second up the ladder Brio is now equipped with an internal DAC, a decent headphone output arrived in a previous model revision, so its fully equipped. This is an extremely musical and capable amplifier.
As ever, the in-built phono stage is a cut above the norm.
Innuos Stream3
Actually, make that Stream1 and Stream3. These innovative players have evolved out of music servers. These can be specified with internal storage and with digital or analogue outputs at various ability levels. All the options can be plugged, so there is very little redundancy. There isn’t much sense of sonic compromise either. So far, they’ve mostly been purchased as digital ‘transports’ for use with external DACs but the internal conversion is actually very good too.
The free Innuos app behaves quite a lot like Roon and we were really impressed with how Stream3 sounds via the digital output with the new Dynaudio Confidence 20A loudspeakers. I’ve drizzled on about this before.
These are proving to offer a sensibly priced replacement for Auralic Aries G2.2, Naim NDX2 and ND5XS2 players.
Linn Majik DSM
The latest Majik DSM is a very serious piece of kit, capable of giving stellar results with both Linn’s own offerings.
Matching it with the £6000 Dynaudio Black editions produced a very compelling ‘mullet’ system! Just add a Vertere mains lead to enter nirvana.
I should say that, despite the evidence below, it’s not actually blue.
Dynaudio Contour 20 black edition
The black edition is far more than simply a gloss black version of the standard Contour 20i. Sizeable amounts of Confidence technology have been woven into the design. Esotar 3 tweeter, much improved bass driver, better crossover, even the cabinet is different despite the visual similarity.
Linn’s Bedrok, new Radikal and Keel SE
There is an (ever diminishing) part of me that want’s to mock, but, dammit, this deluge of upgrades really does move the Klimax LP12 a long way forward.
Dynaudio Confidence 20A
We’ve been keen advocates for the Dynaudio Confidence series for some time. Part of the appeal is the ease of matching. They get the best from Accuphase, Chord, Naim and Rega amplification.
Active speakers simplify the amplification chain and usually reduce cost too. By being very receptive to a digital feed, the 20A’s take this to a new level. All you need is a good digital source with a volume control. Step forward Innuos!
Bluesound Node
At the seriously affordable end of the scale, Bluesound nodes all offer a lot of capability at a very sensible price. To pick a star product, the diminutive £299 Nano takes some beating.
We have the full range of Nodes in stock and on demonstration. The Node Icon, that launched at the end of 2024 is the best sounding one that they’ve made and includes a colour display of artwork for under £1000.
Rega Planar 3 RS edition
This £999 package has been our best selling turntable in 2025. It does everything you expect from Rega in terms of musical performance and impressive value for money.
QUAD 33+303
At the turn of 2024 / 5 Quad brought out their re-issue of the 33 / 303 pre / power combo. This was not a case of simply building old 1960’s products, it’s all quite fresh, but a lot of effort went into replicating elements of the fundamental design and the original character.
This was always going to be a niche product, particularly since there was no matching source component. Whilst its arrival did bring about a modest stampede of interest, this pre / power has now retreated into the background.
With Quad and Audiolab both coming under the IAG ownership umbrella, there were widespread assumptions that they are the same under the skin. This, you will one pleased to hear, is not the case and it was drummed home by comparing the similarly priced Audiolab 9000Q preamp / 9000P power amp combo. Let’s say that both retain their respective family sound signatures and the physically oddball Quad combo has managed to win quite a few hearts, not to mention comparison dems.
Mid 2025 saw the arrival of the excellent Quad 3 integrated amplifier. This has an in-built DAC and the matching CD transport should arrive on our shelves before Christmas. Stylistically, the retro styling is maintained in quite an appealing way.
Dela S5
Having written about my experience at home of using an ADOT ethernet to SFP adapter along with a Direct Attached Copper cable into an older Melco S100 switch, I couldn’t resist borrowing the new Dela S5 from work. We’ve learned that dropping network speed, which you can do on a per socket basis on these devices, suits the ND555 streamer incredibly well. I tried this with the Naim NSS333 at home and, my goodness, what a transformation!
Slowest speed on the S5 is 10 base, with the older Melco switches, four of them were fixed to 100 base and the rest to gigabit. Suffice it to say that my home system now includes a Dela S5. The cheaper S50 is good, and has the same speed options, but the S5 is a long way ahead. And far cheaper than the range topping S1.
If you fancy an inexpensive toe in the water taster, we have this offer.
Vertere DG-X
This really is a humdinger of a turntable. At our open day, through a highly resolving system, it ran the more expensive MG-1 far closer than you would ever expect.
We have the full set of cartridges and, with the new quick release unipivot arm, quick changes for comparison are a doddle.
2025 : the events we’ve had
In February we held a Dynaudio Contour Legacy event. It truth, this was an instance of us getting things wrong. Aware that many of the attendees had Naim 500 kit, we used our 555 / 552 / 500 system. It sounded OK but not as compelling as it should have. It subsequently transpired that our NAC 552 was decidedly off-colour and this was the root of the issue. Oops! We really should have noticed.
Lovely as they are, these ‘Legacy’ products tend to divert people away from the arguably even more capable Confidence series. Still, they’re excellent speakers with widespread appeal. We have some recently traded-in late 1990’s Contour 1.8 MkIIs (the one on the right in the picture below) and the comparison with the Legacy is stark. Progress has definitely happened in spades!
In March we had the honour of hosting an evening with broadcasting legend, Whispering Bob Harris. This came courtesy of Dynaudio who booked his attendance and filmed an interview with him. They put together a lovely video of the combined event that makes us look inexcusably ‘cool’. Around 50 people were able to squeeze in and a thoroughly lovely time was had by all, including Bob who claims to have enjoyed the event too. He is a very polite individual, mind you 🙂 His playlist is on Qobuz.
As spring and summer came along, we held several more open events. This started with ATC who wowed us with the Active 50 SEs. We’ve been deeply impressed by the 100SE’s in the past and the 50SE’s replicated much of what we remembered.
Kevin arranged with Ben from ATC to do an interview session at the beginning of each day. It proved to be a good idea and overall ‘vibe’ of the events was extremely positive and upbeat.
Considering that we were espousing the benefits of actively driven speakers over passive, it’s ironic that our little soiree resulted in sale of some passive ATC50’s. It also led to the sale of the black demonstration SE’s that ATC brought along and arrival of some traded in active tower 50’s. Where its gone a little off the rails is in us having a fairly cracked sun drenched pair of active 50s that we originally sold around 25 years ago in lieu of the rather tasty Burr Magnolia 50 towers.
Much as we love the tall, slender, Dynaudios, it’s interesting to see that UK domestic acceptance seems quite a lot better disposed towards the aesthetic of shorter, fatter, dumpier loudspeakers!
For the first time, we were able to compare 50SE’s with the standard versions in the same familiar setting. The better electronics and curved, layered and damped cabinets of the SE’s really do bring about a magical transformation. These are very special loudspeakers indeed.
The week after the ATC ‘bash’, we held a Vertere one. Main man, Touraj, supported by the characterful Mike Burn, knows how to put on a show. From the hardware perspective, this was all about the new, relatively affordable, DG-X turntable which punches far above its weight.
This was also our opportunity to hear the final production version of their high end Calon phono stage. We had heard a pre-production example before but this was significantly better. The system used in the big room was the ATC SCM50 SE’s from the previous week connected through the Naim Statement preamp. Needless to say, we’ve now got one on demonstration.
The weather was glorious and a member of the Vertere ‘family’ brought along a photographic drone which gave us a fresh perspective on our environment.
When Touraj launched Roksan back in the mid 1980’s, he was up against what turned out to be the might of Linn who were then closely allied with Naim Audio. These days, high end turntable sales are even more heavily influenced by what Linn are offering.
Spookily, a few weeks after the Vertere ‘do’ we held a Linn one. Just ourselves, this time, playing Linn’s new and very impressive Klimax Solo 500 power amps.
With an enormous number of LP12’s loose in the world, Linn are in a spectacularly strong position to keep selling upgrades and, hey, do we have upgrades for you! The latest are the Bedrok plinth, the new Klimax Radikal DC motor and power supply, the Keel SE sub-chassis.
In a sense, it doesn’t matter which is the better design, Linn or Vertere. The line of least resistance, certainly for an existing LP12 owner is to keep updating that Linn. In reality, it’s not as if this is a terrible idea either. Much as it feels as if Linn are repeating themselves, these latest improvements are the most persuasive they’ve ever been.
When it comes to the electronics, Linn have made huge strides. The entry level Majik DSM streamer is by far the most compelling of the series to date. At our event, several listeners remarked that, if they were looking for a compact system, it would be on their shopping list. The 500 Solo power amps are great and we gather that the 800 Solos are better still.
Of course, none were actually looking for one. . .
I know that this wasn’t our best attended event but the fact that I cannot find a single piece of photographic evidence idence seems odd, almost spooky.
One event that was pitched as spooky was our Sugden Samhain event at the end of October. For those like me who didn’t know, Samhain is Celtic Pagan name for what became Halloween.
It all went very well indeed and the class A Sugden kit was a revelation to many. Did we take pictures? It seems not! Here is part of what was played, though.
We borrowed some substantial Masterclass MPA 4 class A/B mono bloc amps, a matching LA 4 preamp and DAC 4 fed by Innuos Stream 1. None of these were as expensive as they appeared. Running through some Dynaudio Contour Legacy speakers, they were hard to fault on large Classical / orchestral music. On other genres, the jury was less positive. Mind you, swapping an inexpensive USB lead for an Audiomica one brought a disproportionate upgrade in timing and dynamics.
Final event of the year was another Dynaudio one. This time it headlined with the new active Confidence 20A loudspeakers with more exposure for the Contour 20 Black editions as a sort of footnote. Very interesting it was too!
We had played with 20A’s in the past in pre-production form and, more recently, we borrowed the finished articles. Their voicing seemed more suited to Naim ancillaries than Linn, for some reason, but when you find yourself using a Naim Statement Preamp and twin power supplied ND555 streamer, you realise that you’re kind of missing the point.
We had heard from the Dynaudio development team that running connecting to them in the digital domain was optimal and, to date, we had been unable to do this. A few weeks before the event we received our Innuos Stream3 unit and various output boards. This proved to be the golden ticket to a truly well sorted high end but high value digital replay system and is the unassuming black box in the title.
Our own (black) Confidence 20A’s have now arrived and been playing since Friday 12th December. Vertere Balanced analogue cables have been the preferred connection for analogue use, as they are with ATC actives too.
Some new XLR digital cables should arrive from Vertere in the next day or two. Life has become a little more interesting!