The 12 Days of Christmas, with Apologies from Audio T Southampton

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me:

Twelve DAVE's a DACing (ahem!)

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me:

Eleven Pioneers playing (groan!)

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love sent to me:

Ten Chords a linking (yes, I know!)

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love sent to me:

Nine Aries playing (Oh dear!)

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love sent to me:

Eight Naims a streamin' (did you see what I did there?)

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me:

Seven stands supporting (yes, really!)

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love sent me:

Six sleeves for vinyl (this isn't easy you know!)

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me:

Five Goldrings (Yes! Success at last!)

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me:

Four Cyrus Ones (OK, it's not even close)

On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me:

Three Flexsons (kind of works...)

On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me:

Two turntables (Close? No. OK, one more try...)

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me:

A cartridge in a fir tree!  Oh, yes!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of our customers

from

Alan and John

Chord Music And Chord Electronics Launch Event At Audio T Southampton

We are delighted to say that we will be hosting a launch event for the very exclusive ChordMusic range of cables on the evening of Friday 18th and all day Saturday 19th November.

As if this isn't enough we will also take the opportunity to launch full range Chord Electronics, having recently taken delivery of the awesome DAVE DAC and mighty SPM1050 MkII power amplifier.

Along with showcasing this stunning reference system in our demonstration room, fully wired with the ultimate ChordMusic interconnects and speaker cables, we will also be one of the very first retailers to demonstrate the new Chord TToby power amp partnered with Hugo TT DAC/pre-amp.  A wide range of Chord Company cables will be available to hear on this system.

We hope you can join us for a terrific opportunity to hear some awe inspiring high end electronics and cables create a truly unforgettable listening experience.

Refreshments will be provided and representatives of The Chord Company and Chord Electronics will be here to answer any questions.  

Exclusive offers will be available only to those attending this unique event on the evening of Friday 18th or during Saturday 19th November.

See you soon!

Alan and John

Audio T Southampton Get DIRACTly To The Point!

Having just recently returned from Arcam's headquarters in Cambridge to complete my Advanced DIRAC training I thought I would take a few minutes to guide you through what it can do for your system in the context of one of Arcam's wonderful home cinema receivers.

Part one of the course was all about getting the basics of your system right, the simple things we all know but perhaps don't take the time to get right. DIRAC is a wonderful tool but it can only do so much, so it's important to get the fundamentals of your system right.

Firstly, set up your speakers so they meet the ITU standards for a home cinema system. This is the specifications that all mixing studios use to set up a 5.1 system so engineers travelling around the world know that as they go from studio to studio they will experience the same conditions for mixing their soundtracks. This is something that can be replicated within your home environment with a simple chart and a laser guide.

Make sure your speakers are level and don't rock and make sure your speaker stands are filled and don't ring, check your cables are all free moving and not twisted around mains cables. These are simple things that can make a big difference to your system before you begin any form of room calibration.

DIRAC as a room calibration tool is an incredibly powerful piece of software but it's only as good as how well you know the software and how to achieve the soundstage you are looking for, whilst retaining the things you loved about your system before applying DIRAC.

Taking the measurements is one of the early steps in the calibration process and there are several important things to take into account.

1. The first measurement is absolutely key. It has to be in the exact sweetspot for your listening position and at ear height.

2. You need to remove as much ambient noise from the room as possible. Turn off the projector if you have one. Aircon units can be very noisy, also ensure no noise intrudes from other rooms in the house. If the microphone can detect it then its going to affect your calibration results. If something happens whilst your taking any of your measurements, like the phone ringing or someone walking across the floor upstairs, the simplest thing to do is stop the measurement capture and start again.

3. Depending on your seating position you can use DIRAC to help make your sound stage more consistent. If you get a bass boost from your rear wall directly behind your listening position you can adapt your measurement points to counteract this and get a far more seamless bass performance across your listening position.

After you have completed your 9 different measurements its time to look at saving your progress before moving on to customising your EQ curves and counteracting room problems.

When it comes to using the software its always easier to take away than it is to add, so looking at your EQ measurements you should be able to see natural problems in your room below 400Hz. You are always looking to achieve a nice smooth EQ curve and if your room is giving you some things for free like extra bass weight at the really low end you can use this to your advantage without letting things get out of control.

Below are the recordings taken from our own demonstration room. It adds some energy at the really low end which I have attempted to keep whilst dealing with a fairly substantial bass suck at about 135Hz.

The target line in Orange is what DIRAC will try to achieve and the green line is how close it managed to get to the target line.

Above the 400hz frequency point most of the things you will see are the natural characteristics of the speakers you own. If you use DIRAC on its auto system it will try to implement the perfect speaker curve into the system but this will change the sound of the speaker you love and bought because of its sound characteristics. The key is to work with the software to emulate the original sound of the speaker whilst dealing with problems created by the room and interaction with items in your room. Here you can see the natural sparkle in the Monitor Audio speakers used in this calibration. They both measure a rise towards the 5Khz mark and I have emulated this within DIRAC to keep the characteristics of the speakers.

Listening is always the key, you can always go back and change things after everything is finished and make further fine adjustments.

The other thing to watch out for is high frequency break up. As speakers rise above 20khz they can begin to break up and will give odd measurements. You can use DIRAC to give an equal response to both speakers so they tail off to the same point in the very high frequencies.

Once you have finished your custom curves for all of your loudspeakers, including your Atmos in ceiling speakers, which you can now do after Arcam's last update, it's time to send your curves off to DIRAC themselves to do the number crunching for you.

After a few minutes you will get the results back of how close DIRAC has managed to get to what you wanted to achieve in terms of your custom EQ curves, This is represented by the green line.

Also very much worth mentioning is the amount of work DIRAC does in the time alignment and phase control domain. Shown on the picture below the spike on the left is the original impact response and decay from your speakers, On the right in green is what DIRAC have achieved, notice how much sharper the impact is and how much noise from the decay has been removed. This has the ultimate result of resolving more information from the system as detail could easily be lost in all the decay noise of that original impact.

A great example of this is Dolby's own Atmos demonstration disc where there is a track called Rainstorm. By the time you have used DIRAC and got your system singing it sounds as if there are twice as many raindrops compared to DIRAC turned off.

The final stage of the process is to drop your new calibration file into your Arcam AVR. This takes a few minutes to install into your receiver but once it does it is safe to start having a play and see how effective all the work has been.

Although the calibration programme will guide you through the set up and you can achieve good results with the microphone in the box , we would like to recommended that you get someone fully trained in getting the best out of DIRAC to come and set up your system for you. We have invested in a higher quality £350 calibration microphone and have the experience to get the best out of your system for you.

I find it hard to express how impressed I am with the results you can achieve with the system but with time and effort it will bring you a great deal closer to action or music than perhaps had been possible before.

Come in and see us to hear what Arcam's home cinema amps can do. The range will very soon include the new FMJ AVR390 which at just £1999 still features the same full DIRAC calibration system found in the AVR550 and AVR850 at £2699 and £4499 respectively.

ChordMusic Arrival Leads To Summer Fever At Audio T Southampton!

We are thrilled that our much anticipated ChordMusic demonstration cables have just arrived!

ChordMusic Cables

Just out of their luxurious packaging we have a 1m stereo RCA pair at £3800, a 1m RCA digital interconnect at £3500, a 1m 4DIN to 1XLR for Naim NAP250 at £3500  and a 3m pair of ChordMusic speaker cables retailing for £6600.

These aren't insignificant sums but once we'd heard how much ChordMusic raised the performance of high quality systems we just had to have it.

We will now get on with running in our demo ChordMusic cables.  It's a tough job but...

Watch this space for our thoughts once everything has settled in and for details of forthcoming events which will feature the stunning ChordMusic range.

In the meantime please feel free to phone us or call in to arrange a demo or home loan of ChordMusic, just give us a week or two to run them in.  It won't take us too long!  Whatever the weather this summer we will be happy to stay in and listen to the ChordMusic!

Alan and John

Audio T Southampton Summertime Store & Hi-Fi News!

We may have been quiet on our store blog for a while but we have certainly been busy!

We have just finished a makeover of our store.  It's now looking clean and bright with freshly painted walls and new carpet throughout. 

Here's part of the shop front with walls resplendent in crisp Atlantic Surf, white with a hint of blue, replacing tired old magnolia! The new carpet tones in with both the new shop colour and the dem room.

The dem room walls are painted in soft grey, befitting the lower light conditions required for home cinema.

To go with our new shiny shop we have a lot of new products to show you.

Here's a taster!

Sony VPL-VW320ES 4K Projector

Our new Sony VPL-VW320ES 4K projector is producing spectacular images to complement the great sound in our Dolby Atmos dem room. 

Dynaudio Contour S 3.4LE

With the demo room in music mode we have been wowed by the awesome sound of these stunning Dynaudio Contour S 3.4LE speakers, in beautiful high gloss Bubinga finish.  Running from a Naim NAC N-272 streamer/pre-amp into our brand new NAP300DR power amplifier, with mains conditioning courtesy of an Isotek Sigmas this system is truly spectacular.  IsoTek's Titan and Mosaic Genesis mains regenerator are currently on hand for those who want to push audio performance to even greater heights!

Interest in vinyl continues to grow and we have some new turntables in store to suit all budgets.  

TEAC TN-300

Teac's TN-300 is a well engineered and beautifully finished record player for £299.95.  Ours looks great in lacquered cherry, one of five superb finishes available.

Rega Planar 2 

Rega have impressed us with both the superb build quality and performance of the new   Planar 2 and Planar 3 models. Fantastic sound at affordable prices as always from Rega.

Michelle Gyro SE

We thought it was time to offer another great British turntable brand so now have a magnificent Michell Gyro SE. Currently fitted with a Dynavector 10X5 it's not just beautifully engineered but sounds superb.  It looks good on our new carpet too!

Moving from source to speakers, we are delighted we now have some of the new PMC Twenty5 range on demo.

PMC twenty5 21

The Twenty5 21 look splendid in oak.  The cabinets are even better quality than the Twenty 21, our previous favourite compact speaker, and improvements in all key areas have really raised the audio performance to great effect.

PMC twenty5 23

Twenty5 23 looks set to overtake Twenty 23 as our most popular floorstanding speaker, building on the strengths of the earlier model whilst maintaining the all important compact, domestically acceptable, cabinet.

PMC twenty5 24

The Twenty5 24 is a revelation, sounding markedly superior than it's predecessor.  Our demo pair look splendid in Amarone finish.  Twenty5 22 and 26 will be in store soon.  We can't wait!

So, we have lots of new products for you to see and listen to in our newly refreshed store.  We look forward to welcoming you into our comfortable demo room very soon.

Alan and John

P.S. Watch this space for exciting news of a very exclusive product range arriving imminently!

Isotek Mains Power Conditioning Event Update

With just a week to go until our Isotek event on the 4th and 5th September we have some exciting news updates for you!

Isotek distributors Sound Fowndations have confirmed that they will be bringing the entire range of Isotek products all the way up to the awesome Super Titan and Genesis!

Prepare to be amazed as you hear the improvements each Isotek upgrade makes from replacing a standard plastic trailing socket all the way up to the world's most powerful audiophile mains conditioner, Super Titan and the world's first multiple mains generator, Genesis!

As if this isn't enough to tempt you in we will have exclusive Isotek offers during the event and a prize draw with first prize of a Polaris power bar with mains conditioning, worth £294.95, and second prize of a Premier mains cable which retails for £99.95!

It's a great opportunity to experience the enormous audio benefits of mains conditioning, meet and quiz Isotek experts, enter the prize draw, and to take advantage of the event offers.  

We look forward to welcoming you in store on either 4pm-8pm Friday 4th September or 10am-6pm Saturday 5th.

See you soon,

Alan and John 

What is the ultimate source? Discover the truth with Isotek at Audio T Southampton

Debates continue to this day amongst hi-fi enthusiasts as to which source is the best.

Many say good old vinyl but streaming quality has advanced in leaps and bounds and the current choice of great CD players and DACs shows that there is still plenty of life left in the silver disc.  

Whichever format you favour, they are all capable of providing enormous listening pleasure and musical involvement.  We will explore and demonstrate the quality of some outstanding turntables, CD players, DACs and Streamers at our forthcoming audio events so do check out our store page regularly to ensure you don't miss out on our Autumn Audio Extravaganza!

We will have exclusive offers to tempt you as well as prize draws and the opportunity to listen to some great music on awe inspiring systems!

Our first event, on the 4th and 5th September, features Isotek products with experts from the company present, to explain the science and demonstrate the performance of their impressive range of power cables and and mains conditioners.

This event aims to dispel arguments about the relative benefits of different source components and to demonstrate that the real source for any hi-fi system is not the digital or analogue front end.  In fact it's the mains power supply.

We all know the source first principle of sytem hierarchy, and, however much we all tweak our hi-fi systems, in the search for hi-fi nirvana, Isotek will show that the first priority should be to tackle problems with the mains supply.  It really is a case of rubbish in rubbish out.

Without the mains supply we all take for granted our hi-fi systems would remain silent but there's a lot more to the electricity supply than just the provision of voltage.  We are all bombarded with RFI and EMI from the ever growing number of electrical, especially wireless, items in use preventing our hi-fi systems from working optimally, however much money we spend on other upgrades and tweaks.

Isotek have solutions to deal with all aspects of cleaning up the dirty and worsening mains supply and getting your system singing.

Just £99.95 for an Isotek Evo3 Premier power cable to replace the throwaway mains lead provided with most products will yield huge benefits.   

Isotek will show how much more can be done to ameliorate the negative effect of dirty mains on your musical enjoyment with better power cables such as Sequel at £199.95.

Prepare to be amazed when a system is transformed by the mightily impressive Sigmas Mains Conditioner!

The improvements Isotek mains products can make to any system, regardless of price, are so profound that we really don't want you to miss this golden opportunity to quiz the experts from Isotek and we are sure that you will be as stunned as we were when you here what Isotek can do to enhance your hi-fi!

Don't forget we will also have exclusive Isotek offers and a prize draw - watch this space for more details very soon!  

Do come along after 4pm on Friday 4th September (until 8pm) or between 10am and 6pm on Saturday 5th.

In the words of Keith Martin, founder and Managing Director - think power, think Isotek! 

Audio T Autumn Hi-Fi Extravaganza!

Summer (did I blink?)  may be starting to fade away but we have lots of exciting audio events planned this Autumn to keep our spirits up!

The evenings may soon be drawing in but that's just an excuse to play more music!  What can be better than a cosy evening at home, feet up with a glass of your favourite tipple, a log fire crackling in the hearth and your favourite tunes playing on a great hi-fi system.

To assist you with this goal we will be hosting a number of events showcasing some great hi-fi brands as well as demonstrating the massive improvements possible when attention is paid to signal and mains cabling and conditioning.

Event number one is 4pm - 8pm on Friday September 4th plus 10am - 6pm on Saturday 5th and will be all about the benefits of mains cabling and conditioning with Isotek products.  At least one Isotek technical expert will be on hand to explain the principles of their products and to demonstrate the clear and dramatic upgrades which can be made to any audio or visual system.  

Event 2 is a week later at the same times, i.e. 4pm - 8pm September 11th and 10am - 6pm Saturday 12th.  On this occasion we will be featuring range topping Cyrus Signature Hi-Fi components and The Chord Company interconnects and speaker cables including the awesome Sarum and Super Aray range!

Nick from Cyrus will be here with at least two Mono X 300 Signature power amplifiers, maybe four or, if we are really lucky, six to drive our PMC Twenty 26 speakers to audio perfection!  Matt from Chord will ensure that everything is connected with the best possible cables.

We take a (well-deserved?) break the next week to ensure that Event 3 is perfectly timed for the official launch of the Rega Queen turntable.  Friday September 25th is the day we can release the first of these much anticipated and eagerly awaited special record decks.

As if this isn't enough excitement we are delighted that Mark from Hundred Records in Romsey will be here during the evening of the 25th (6pm - 8pm) and all day Saturday 26th (10am - 6pm) running a pop-up record store with a selection of great vinyl for you to browse and buy, and, even better, if you confirm an order very soon, you may even be able to collect your brand new Rega Queen turntable and the stunning  Queen box set during the event!

Containing all 15 studio albums re-mastered by Bob Ludwig onto 18 different coloured 180g LPs with a 108 page hardback book of album intros, lyrics, quotes and photographs and memorabilia this is a must have for any Queen fan, music lover or vinyl collector.

Please be aware that both the Queen turntables and box sets are creating such a buzz that demand is exceptionally high and neither Audio T or Hundred Records can guarantee that orders will be available to collect on the 25th or 26th September.  All orders will be honoured and those placing orders the soonest stand the most chance of collecting during the event.

Rob from Rega will also be with us on the Saturday.  Get here early if you want a chance to buy LPs from Mark or Rob will beat you to it!  

We will have at least two great turntable based Rega systems running in store, including the mighty RP10 through Aria and Elicit R with our newly arrived RX5 speakers.  You really won't want to miss this event.

Finally, nudging into October Event 4 will be featuring Arcam with both James and technical expert Andy joining us to explain and demonstrate the stunning performance of their new G class amplification.  Our brand new arrival A29 plus A39, A49 and maybe even C49 and P49 will all be available to listen to.

Not only will Matt from Chord visit again to ensure that only the best Sarum cables link the Arcam components to our favourite PMC Twenty 26 speakers but we are delighted that Tom from PMC will also attend to answer any PMC queries.

All of this Arcam, Chord and PMC action will commence between 4pm - 8pm Friday 2nd October and continue during Saturday 3rd from 10am - 6pm

That's all for now!  Watch this space for further updates as the events evolve and unfold.

Best mark them in your diary now and don't forget to place any Rega Queen and box set orders as soon as possible!

See you soon,

Alan and John

P.S. There will be exclusive prize draws at each of these events.  Another good reason to come along!