time for a spot of January news!

Having had our central heating out of action (twice) for some of the weeks before and after Christmas, Signals HQ is finally becoming warm and, we hope, welcoming again. It’s hard to judge the ‘welcoming’ part since post Christmas footfall has been a little bit light. Surely not the cold weather. Worse if it’s the economy.

Whilst the last quarter of 2023 was mainly about electronics and turntables, Late December and this quieter January has seen predominately loudspeaker activity. The stunning burr magnolia ATC SCM 50 towers, pictured above, were delivered just over a week ago. Unusually, the trade-ins for the these were far more expensive Kudos Titan 808s (bought elsewhere and simply too much for the available space). The sale of these has, in turn, generated a pair of immaculate Titan 707s now on our ‘used’ list.

This revolving door of loudspeaker trades has seen ATCs both coming in and going out (SCM 50s have been having a burst of relevance), Russell K, PMC and Dynaudio business too.

One such trade has generated a 2023 pair of PMC Twenty5 26i’s. These, plus some fresh pre-owned electronics from Accuphase and two pairs of ATC SCM 40s are listed on our used / ex dem section of the web site.

Sub-optimal news from Salisbury

Mu-so, Uniti and Fraim seem to be unaffected. As soon as the February ‘24 prices are released we will be posting them on the web site. Any orders placed on or before 1st February will be at current prices.

Update: New Feb 24 list now here

Chord Ultima Integrated

After struggling with previous generations of Chord integrated amplifiers, this is proving to be a revelation. The new all metal handset is a welcome development too. It’s well laid out and a far cry from the plastic or, worse, alloy encased plastic efforts of the past.

Playing with speaker combinations, we can hear some remarkable synergy with Kudos Titan loudspeakers and, spookily, the Kudos KS 1 speaker cable too. It’s no wonder that Kudos and Chord are so keen to ‘buddy up’ for hifi shows!

Nordic Silver Contours

We’ve now got our demonstration Dynaudio Contour 20i’s in this icily fetching silver grey finish involving strips of poplar wood veneer. Not sure how we will perceive them in warmer weather. Personally, I prefer the straightforward walnut veneer but this is definitely fresh and striking.

We don’t do a great deal with home cinema but, since Dynaudio do make a proper high end centre speaker, it seemed rude not to have one. To do this, with, currently at least, no cinema installation in Trimley, I’ve ‘taken one for the team’ by accommodating a Contour 25i centre at home.

Yup, it is good. Big, though. See below.

The eagle eyed might spot that I’ve also borrowed a pair of Dynaudio Confidence 30s from work. Conveniently, the Centre is in high gloss black. It looks great but grandson might just need to be hand-cuffed!

Just before the Christmas break, I migrated from a Naim New Classic NSC 222 / NPX 300 / NAP 250 combo that I had for all of 2023 to see if was as satisfying to live with as to demonstrate.  Answer: yes it is.

The 300 kit that has replaced it still moves the game forward, though, and works well on Lateral stands but I need to get them modified to reduce the compromise level. At the moment, there is an NPX 300 on just the preamp, the NAP 350s are stacked (paper is between them) and the Melco server is on the floor.

By the way, the new NSS 333 streamer is a big step up over the NDX 2.

Given that this room has always had ’issues’ (noticeable peaks around 60 and 120 Hz) and that some of the room tuning that used to keep this in check has now gone, I’m gob-smacked at how well these sizeable floor-standers are fitting in. They’re not exactly bass shy, after all. The room is quite modestly dimensioned and the tightly cropped picture exaggerates the size of the speakers which are positioned well forward of the racks.

Subjectively, they look far more normal to the naked eye in there – although perhaps the enormous centre speaker has helped redefine ‘normal’. Even my wife indicated visual acceptance of the changes.

I presume she will be coming back at some point 🙂

Either way, the system sounds very addictive and I’ve been playing music well into the small hours.

Accuphase etc

G4 is being replaced with a far chunkier and more expensive G5 block priced at £3250. For now, we have a solitary example with more due to arrive soon. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the G5 represents real progress over G4 but it will be a trade-in upgrade, rather than a modification. We also need to find time to do these comparisons and to write them up. Why does feel like January’s not been as quiet as I claim?

We are finally spared the silly situation when we were first selling G4 that we couldn’t really talk about it. For a secret, I have to say it did rather well.

Our new Rega Naia turntable got a mention last month. It has been played a few times (it utterly slays a similarly shod and similar looking P10 ) but it has yet to be properly demonstrated to customers. It deserves to be heard, so I guess we need to start planning open events at Saint Cecilia’s in time for spring. There is certainly plenty to show people.

How ironic that last week a customer came along to audition a selection of turntables at a given level and ended up ordering a Nottingham Ace Space Deck with Ace Arm! This short-circuits roughly 22 years of Signals ‘progress’! Perhaps this proves that we are finally fully saturated with choice and that we had things just about right all those years ago.

Other than adding that those strange Evenstar alloy triangles from Tangerine have been selling even post Christmas and that we still have them available, I think I’ve run out of words.

Thanks for reading this far. Your effort surely merits a gold star. I’m now off for a lie down and Andy can be spared any further emails requesting proof-reading. All remaining errors are mine.

Here’s to 2024 wherever it takes us. Best wishes from Alastair, Andy Mick & Kevin, the signals Posse.