Clearaudio Concept vs Performance DC

We have recently had the opportunity to compare these two fantastic turntables from the Germanic stables of Clearaudio.

Starting with the Concept, priced at £995, this is fitted with the Concept MM cartridge and has a great, solid feel of build quality about it. This package offers a good level of detail retrieval whilst retaining a smooth top end, open midrange and tuneful bass. Making music that is involving and easy on the ear!

This turntable comes fully assembled from Clearaudio and is pretty much ready to go  straight from the box. Making it a great choice for those wanting great performance without setup fuss and with little ongoing maintenance.

The Performance DC, fitted with the Concept MC cartridge, is priced at £2595. It feels substantially heavier than the Concept with an even more solid construction, thanks to its multi layer sandwich plinth.

Upon playback, it presents a more open and transparent soundstage with greater width and depth. The Performance DC offers even more detail whilst remaining beautifully sweet and smooth in its delivery. Low level detail is also improved, thanks to a smoother, quieter running platter, courtesy of the Performance DC's ceramic magnetic bearing. Vocals are well expressed within the mix and bass is tauter, faster and more detailed (in comparison to the Concept).

Overall, the Performance DC offers a wholly more involving and immersive listen, its much improved timing and dynamics offer a very stable and three dimensional presentation of your favourite vinyl!

Sit back and enjoy!

Classic Vinyl Evening Thursday 13 February

From 6.30pm we shall be playing Fleetwood Mac 'Rumours' through a fantastic vinyl replay system.

Consisting of:

Clearaudio Performance turntable @ £2600

Leema Tucana Amp and Elements phono pre-amp @ £3800

Neat Momentum speakers @ £3200

If you want to hear a great album through a great system please let us know :-)

01865 765961

Monitor Audio ASB-2 Soundbar

At £1000 this hefty piece of engineering is near the top of the price range for Soundbars. However upon listening we think you may think it well worth the money. What HiFi awarded it their best Soundbar over £800 and in this case it is hard to argue.

It differs from the excellent higher spec Yamaha Soundbars in that whilst they are more geared towards a simulated surround sound, whereas the ASB2 really scores as a massive improvement on your TV's own speaker system. Not to mention that it will aso stream music via DLNA and Airplay.

Whist not the smallest of speakers (measuring in at 100cm wide and weighing 15Kg) this speaker does not require the addition of a separate subwoofer for bass (although there is the option to add one). If I was to describe the sound quality in one word, that word would be dynamic!

Inputs include three HDMI, optical, co-axial and analogue connections.

If you would like a demonstration, please get in touch.

Audiolab MDAC/MPWR. Compact HiFi with high end sound.

With a footprint of less than 10" x 10", this compact digital pre-power with DAC and headphone output is equally suitable as the heart of a high quality desktop or HiFi system.

The sound quality is dynamic, detailed with excellent speed and agility. It is really hard to criticise at the retail price of £1100.

MDAC

2 x Coaxial inputs

2 x Optical inputs

USB with asynchronous data processing.

Digital filter presets

Up to 24/192kHz sampling rates.

Sabre chipset.

Balanced and unbalanced outputs

Remote control

MPWR

40 WPC

Balanced and unbalanced inputs

Please feel free to let us know if you would like a demonstration and click if you would like to read some impartial reviews on our web site.

Ruark MR1 Active Speakers

If you are looking for affordable active speakers then you really should look at these little beauties.

Ruark MR1's are truly versatile speakers, equipped with both line and high quality Bluetooth aptX inputs, plus a subwoofer output for potential upgrades. Using Ruark's own bespoke high quality drive units and class a/b amplifiers, they sound amazing and retail for only £299.

Suitable applications include: HiFi, computer audio, Bluetooth streaming and as an upgrade to your TV audio (either via the line in or your television's Bluetooth output if equipped).

Available in white, black or walnut veneer. A remote control comes as standard and an optional battery pack can be added for truly portable use.

If you want to find more about these speakers please visit the Ruark Audio website.

Or if you would like to see them on our website and read reviews from our customers.

Simply a Bargain!

We have a number of ex-dem Simple Audio Roomplayer 1's for sale at the bargain price of £449.

A saving of £150! Nearly the same price as a SONOS Control Amp.

Able to stream at up to 24 bit resolution aroung the home. Connect it to your itune library and able to support MP3, AAC, WAV, AIFF, FLAC, and Apple Lossless files. Control it from either your desktop or Apple Device.

Capable of multiroom use. Listen to your stored music, Deezer, and Tune In radio anywhere in the home.

This is a great chance to get high quality streaming at a bargain price.

Music Maniac Headphones

It is rare for us to stray from the usual (but generally excellent) suspects of Sennheiser, Grado and B&W headphones but when we heard the new Denon AH-D130 closed back headphones we were so impressed we new we had to stock them.

Priced at just £179 these are astonishingly good value. The sound is truly engaging with a wonderous punchy bass. They bring a smile to your face!

For use both at home and with portable players (control of iPod/ iPad plus a microphone for i/Phone).

These may also be the most comfortable headphones you will ever wear.

Denon studied over 4000 pairs of ears (seriously)! before coming up with their pentagonal shaped ear pads and memory foam cushions.

Pop in and have a listen for yourself. They might make you smile as well.

REL Habitat 1 and Neat Iotas Sub-Sat system

With so many people put off by the size of some high quality loudspeakers it, the benefits of high quality sub sat systems are often overlooked.

It is however entirely possible to have your cake and eat it! The Rel Habitat and Neat Iota combination is a perfect solution that really should be auditioned, should you want the best of both worlds.

The Habitat 1 is the nearest thing to a revolution in sub woofer design that I have come across in my 25 years in this industry. Habitat 1 is a brilliant new concept that takes sub bass to new levels. Descrete, wall mountable and with a small wireless transmitter so no unsightly cables need be seen. A sophisticated crossover optimises sound for both music and movies. Perfect, deep bass that emanates almost invisibly from somewhere hidden within the room.

Two 6.5" divers and a 10" passive driver provide the bass necessary for this sub woofer to reach down to 25Hz.

The price is just £1299.

Click here to watch the video and read more about the Habitat

Neat Iotas deliver amazing performance from a tiny cabinet. they are intended to be used very close to walls or on desktops or bookshelves etc.

The cabinet is well damped allowing the 100mm polypropelene and 50mm ribbon tweeeter to do their thing.

5 colours are available to match almost any decor.

The price is £695 per pair.

Click here to visit the Neat website

If you would like to hear this combination for yourselves we would be most happy to demonstrate them.

You Cannot Be Sirius!

Well in fact we can...

The Isotek EVO 3 Sirius is a very serious 6 outlet power bar that will protect and improve any Hi-Fi system. Priced at £450 it may be the best value upgrade you could ever make.

For the techies amongst us the salient features are:

Removes common and differential mains noise.

Drops the noise floor by 40dB!

No cross contamination between sockets.

22,500A of instantaneous protection.

2,300W maximum power

Multi-strand silver plated OFC cable with a PTFE dielectric.

If you own a good HiFi system then you owe it to yourself to try this out (idealy with a matching IsoTek mains lead).

 http://www.isoteksystems.com

Neat Momentum 4i

We do love our speakers here at Oxford, so you can imagine how delighted we were when we rediscoverd Neat Acoustics last month after a gap of nearly 20 years. I can hardly overstate how great these speakers sound.

We will be keeping a representation of three ranges but at the moment the top model that we hold is the Momentum 4i: Click here to read the Hi-Fi World and Audioreview reviews.

This is a 2.5 way floorstander that is unusual in having integral iso-baric bass units. An 'Ultimatum' bass/midrange drive and Titanium tweeter complete the driver line up.

If you are looking for a fast, detalied, dynamic speaker with wonderful bass then please contact us for a demonstration.

Leema Acoustics

We are proud to be stockists of Leema Acoustics.

For value, sound quality and sheer ability to drive loudspeakers, this is a hard brand to beat

The elements series is the latest in the line of Leema high performance audio equipment, squeezing class leading audiophile performance into beautiful hand built half size chassis'.

The Integrated Amp is 56 Watts into 8 Ohms and more than 100 into 4 Ohms. Available with an optional inbuilt 24 bit 192 kHz DAC with SPDIF and asynchronous USB inputs. Like all Leema amplifiers, tricky speaker loads are not a worry.

The CD uses a dedicated TEAC audio transport producing extremely low levels of jitter, whilst the DAC posesses extremely very low levels noise, distortion and crosstalk. Dual analogue outputs are available for both balanced and unbalanced applications.

The DAC is 24 bit 192 kHz, with the USB being asynchronous reducing jitter to virtually zero. Inclusion of an analogue volume control enables it to be used as a very high quality pre amplifier.

The Phono is switcheable for use with both moving coil and moving magnet cartridges, posessing astonishing performance for the price.

The Antila IIS Eco CD player introduces many unique technical and ergonomic innovations to combine state-of-the-art performance with surprising ease of use.

Leema's latest "Quattro Infinity Multi-DAC" employs multiple 24 bit / 192 kHz multi-bit delta-sigma data converters, specifically selected for their audio quality.  These are driven from a fully balanced digital data stream.  The result is significantly reduced levels of noise, distortion and crosstalk, thereby producing a breathtakingly real musical performance and a tactile panoramic image.

The drive mechanism with custom servo, features a high quality metal tray and Leema's own control software. State of the art jitter levels, of around 40 pS @ 1 kHz are achieved, significantly improving low level resolution.  The Antila IIS Eco provides even higher levels of performance to maintain its position at the forefront of high-quality CD playback.

Finally, as with other Leema components, the new Antila IIS Eco offers eco-friendly low power standby mode.

Chord Company Training Day

On Monday 4th March we had the pleasure of spending time with the Chord Company in Salisbury.

The day started with a factory visit. What immediately struck us was the lovely working environment. The work areas are spacious and full of natural light. Music is played continuously and there is music and movie memorabilia is everywhere. Everyone was enthusiastic and proud of their product.

After a lovely lunch we were given the opportunity to make up some cables ourselves! It soon became obvious that the attention to detail and care was second to none. If you buy a Chord cable, you can be assured that it has been lovingly assembled.

The best and final part of the day was spent listening to the entire range. This is something that we could never do in store and it was so useful. We progressed from Crimson (£55) to Sarum (£1600) with interconnects, and Carnival (£4.10) to Sarum (£5.50) with speaker cables.

To be able to hear each difference and improvement as one cable was substituted for another was truly interesting. We even heard the improvements that the new VEE 3 plugs make (and it was not subtle)!

We would really like to thank all those at Chord for a lovely day.

B&W M1 Speaker Package

Anyone looking for a good quality sub-sat AV system should really consider these.

At first glance these look very similar to the old model but do not be fooled, on audition these are a massive audio ugrade. The sound is much sweeter with a greater bass extension and sweeter midrange.

At £149 per speaker, these are a steal!

The Amazing New Arcam A19 Integrated Amplifier

We now stock the new Arcam A19. This product has already been widely praised in the press.

Visually this is nearly identical to the previous A18 but wow, what a differance in sound quality!

We should have guessed at something special by the sheer increase in weight, it is a heavy little amp.

Sonically it is better in every single respect. Increased drive, clarity, timing and musicality were the the first things that struck us.

If you are loooking for a sub £1000 amplifier then you really must add this to your shortlist.

Dynaudio Xeo Evening (the aftermath)

Well it is the day after the night before and I can safely say it was a great success. We had a full house and could not have squeezed another person in..

The wine, beer and food were all consumed with great gusto! I myself am gutted that I was so busy that I only managed time to eat the one famous Manee Thai spring roll :-(

Bill Livingstone gave us a fascinating talk, not only on the Xeo speakers, but also how to get the absolute best quality out of music files stored on computers. I would be surprised if there was anyone who did not gain some useful insights from this alone.

The Xeo's needless to say sounded fantastic and we had people staying late into the night blasting out there favourite tunes. We also took a number of orders, which was great.

To everyone that came I would like to say thank you, for making it such a fabulous night.




Leema and REL Musical Evening Thursday 15th November

We are combining two great British brands on the evening of Thursday 15th November...

Leema Acoustics and REL subwoofers

The elements series is the latest in the line of Leema high performance audio equipment, squeezing class leading audiophile performance into beautiful hand built half size chassis'.

The Integrated Amp is 56 Watts into 8 Ohms and more than 100 into 4 Ohms. Available with an optional inbuilt 24 bit 192 kHz DAC with SPDIF and asynchronous USB inputs. Like all Leema amplifiers, tricky speaker loads are not a worry.

http://www.leema-acoustics.com/shop/elements-series/integrated-amplifier

The CD uses a dedicated TEAC audio transport producing extremely low levels of jitter, whilst the DAC posesses extremely very low levels noise, distortion and crosstalk. Dual analogue outputs are available for both balanced and unbalanced applications.

http://www.leema-acoustics.com/shop/component/cd-players/cd-player

The DAC is 24 bit 192 kHz, with the USB being asynchronous reducing jitter to virtually zero. Inclusion of an analogue volume control enables it to be used as a very high quality pre amplifier.

http://www.leema-acoustics.com/shop/elements-series/dac

The Phono is switcheable for use with both moving coil and moving magnet cartridges, posessing astonishing performance for the price.

http://www.leema-acoustics.com/shop/elements-series/elements-phono

The Tucana II shares DNA with the reference series Altair IV. Performance, drive and clarity are absolutely amazing for a sub for thousand pound amplifier.This is the perfect partner to our bigger Dynaudio speakers.

http://www.leema-acoustics.com/shop/component/amplifiers/tucana

The Antila IIS Eco CD player introduces many unique technical and ergonomic innovations to combine state-of-the-art performance with surprising ease of use.

Leema's latest "Quattro Infinity Multi-DAC" employs multiple 24 bit / 192 kHz multi-bit delta-sigma data converters, specifically selected for their audio quality.  These are driven from a fully balanced digital data stream.  The result is significantly reduced levels of noise, distortion and crosstalk, thereby producing a breathtakingly real musical performance and a tactile panoramic image.

The drive mechanism with custom servo, features a high quality metal tray and Leema's own control software. State of the art jitter levels, of around 40 pS @ 1 kHz are achieved, significantly improving low level resolution.  The Antila IIS Eco provides even higher levels of performance to maintain its position at the forefront of high-quality CD playback.

Finally, as with other Leema components, the new Antila IIS Eco offers eco-friendly low power standby mode.

Rel will have available a variety of sub woofers. From the tiny but brilliant T zero, all the way up to the G series. We shall be focusing on the improvements to stereo that a high quality, well integrated sub-woofer can bring.

http://rel.net/products/gibraltar/

Demonstrations will be from 4 pm untill 9 pm.

Snacks and drinks will be provided.

Leema Coming Soon

We are really looking forward to receiving these astonishing British products. Whilst all the model range wil be available to us, we shall be carrying in stock permantly the Elements series and the Tucana integrated amp.

The elements series is the latest in the line of Leema high performance audio equipment, squeezing class leading audiophile performance into beautiful hand built half size chassis'.

The Integrated Amp is 56 Watts into 8 Ohms and more than 100 into 4 Ohms. Available with an optional inbuilt 24 bit 192 kHz DAC with SPDIF and asynchronous USB inputs. Like all Leema amplifiers, tricky speaker loads are not a worry.

http://www.leema-acoustics.com/shop/elements-series/integrated-amplifier

The CD uses a dedicated TEAC audio transport producing extremely low levels of jitter, whilst the DAC posesses extremely very low levels noise, distortion and crosstalk. Dual analogue outputs are available for both balanced and unbalanced applications.

http://www.leema-acoustics.com/shop/component/cd-players/cd-player

The DAC is 24 bit 192 kHz, with the USB being asynchronous reducing jitter to virtually zero. Inclusion of an analogue volume control enables it to be used as a very high quality pre amplifier.

http://www.leema-acoustics.com/shop/elements-series/dac

The Phono is switcheable for use with both moving coil and moving magnet cartridges, posessing astonishing performance for the price.

http://www.leema-acoustics.com/shop/elements-series/elements-phono

The Tucana II shares DNA with the reference series Altair IV. Performance, drive and clarity are absolutely amazing for a sub for thousand pound amplifier.This is the perfect partner to our bigger Dynaudio speakers.

http://www.leema-acoustics.com/shop/component/amplifiers/tucana

Yamaha RXV 673 wins What HiFi group test.

We have always loved Yamaha AV here but it is great to see it getting the recognition it deserves from the press.

We were very pleased to see that the £500 RXV 673 beat models from all the main rivals to bag the group win.

'Fantastic steering of surround effects; seamless surround field; scale and a fine feature set' made this the winner.

We keep this and other Yamaha AV receivers in stock, so if you would like to book up a demonstration please call us on 01865 765961.

http://uk.yamaha.com/en/products/audio-visual/av-receivers-amps/rx/rx-v673_g/?mode=model

Dynaudio Xeo wins top award

The new Dynaudio Xeo series has been awarded with the prestigious EISA award for best wireless HiFi.

16 international HiFi and AV magazines voted it the best product in this catagory.

In addition, What HiFi awarded the Xeo as one of the top 10 products at the recent CES show.

If you want to hear what the fuss is all about, please call us on 01865 765961 or e.mail us for a demonstration or an invite to the musical evening in November.

The Vinyl Revival!

As everyone is hopefully aware, vinyl is undergoing a massive resurgence.

For the music lover this is great news because, out of all the formats available, a record (in good condition), played on a good turntable, will outperform any other source!

With so many new releases coming out in vinyl, you no longer have to solely rely on replaying your existing record collection.

In Oxford, we stock turntables from as little as £200 up to £1000. So if you would like to hear music that really grabs you on an emotional level, please call us on 01865 765961 to arrange a demonstration.