Avid Reference system Studio AV is a select retailer in a select position within Chobham, Surrey. This is a modern high end specialist that’s not on the high street but in the owner’s substantial house which makes it a luxurious but comfortable place to enjoy fine sounding systems from a collection of carefully chosen brands. […]
Lowther Hegeman horn speakers John Howes has been involved with audio electronics all of his life, his father was a radio and television engineer and he followed in those footsteps but his passion has always been valve or tube amplifiers. As far back as the sixties he was building valve electronics and that enthusiasm lead […]
Triangle Manufacture Electroacoustique Soissons is an hour and a half north east of Paris and seems like a quiet place, it has two cathedrals and one of them still has a roof on, but otherwise it is a typical small French town. But there is plenty going on behind the quiet facades not least loudspeaker […]
Coherent Systems Not your average hi-fi retailer would be an understated way to describe Coherent Systems in Gerrards Cross just outside the M25 in Buckinghamshire. Owner Tony Sallis has to be the most technically capable engineer selling audio equipment in the country, his workshop contains more test and measurement equipment than many electronics manufacturers in […]
Trevor Butler visits International Noise Day at the Vienna Institute Noise is around us pretty much all the time, at different levels and across different frequencies. But how much is good for us? And should we take more care of our hearing. These are questions addressed every year on International Noise Day at the Vienna […]
Gentle giant and hi-fi guru Paul Messenger was my mentor and the man that got me into this game when he was draughted in to edit Hi-Fi Choice magazine in 1987. That was the year the title changed from being a quarterly A5 publication to a monthly A4 magazine, Paul handled the transition seamlessly because […]
Deutsches Schallplattenmuseum, Nortorf A record collection totalling 180,000 LPs and 78s, plus the history of audio under one roof comprises a most unusual German record museum. The German depository of records and recording began life as part of Nortorf town’s museum in Schleswig-Holstein. When that building had to be demolished those behind the incredible collection […]
Audio Consultants at Crescent Records Crescent Records recording studio is tucked away in a rather unlikely place among the elegant Victorian villas clustered on a hill overlooking the ugly sprawl of modern Swindon. Next to an agreeable but unimposing house, the studio is in an extension originally intended to accommodate an indoor pool. The story […]
Kii Audio factory tour When we reviewed the Kii Audio Three BXT active DSP loudspeaker system the sheer complexity of the design wasn’t easy to fully comprehend. What was clear is that this loudspeaker system with onboard processing, DAC and power amplification is one of the most dynamic and revealing on the market today. Given […]
The flurry of European hi-fi shows in the latter part of 2022 meant that I had to miss the milestone anniversary party staged by high-end Italian company Gold Note. Enjoying their sound at the hectic Warsaw show I arranged to visit the company’s headquarters early in 2023. So it was that I boarded a flight […]
Larger-than-life David Jefferys was one of the first people I met upon joining Hi-Fi News & Record Review in 1988. David was then at Tannoy, having previously been sales manager at both AKG and Haden Labs which distributed Sennheiser (as well as Denon and Dual). I recall how we discussed things that I knew about […]
Ansuz, Aavik & Børresen There are some unusual developments coming out of Aalborg in the north of Denmark. Michael Børresen and Lars Kristensen are developing products based on the resonant characteristics of the human body. To put it more plainly they are using metals that are sympathetic to this frequency including tungsten, titanium and zirconium. […]