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. The main listening room is also the family’s home theatre but the only indications of its cinematic capabilities are discreet ceiling speakers and a slot in the ceiling for the screen to magically roll down from.
What’s far more obvious is the full Avid system in all its chrome and matt black glory, I was aware that this brand which originally started out making turntables had turned its hand to electronics and loudspeakers but I hadn’t had the chance to see or hear a complete system before. Visiting Studio AV was an easy way to do so, easier than setting the whole thing up at home that’s for sure.
The system source is the Avid Acutus Classic in chrome (£17,500), not the biggest model that the company makes but one step down from the Reference, so big enough with its substantial 10kg platter, record clamp and three point skeletal plinth. The arm chosen is the best in the book, the titanium Nexus (£4,500), which is an elegant but far from simplistic design that offers progressive bias adjustment.
The cartridge fixed to the Nexus headshell is the Ruby Reference (£6,500) so called because it has a ruby cantilever for maximum stiffness at this crucial point. Any flex in a stylus results in reduced signal accuracy, most cartridges use aluminium cantilevers, the better ones have boron but only the best have gemstone cantilevers like this.
The phono stage is built into Avid’s Reference preamplifier (£75,000), a no holds barred analogue only design that is so hardcore that it doesn’t have remote control. The argument here is that vinyl users are likely to be getting up to change the record and so get the opportunity to change volume at the same time, it probably keeps them fitter than those of us with streamers and remotes!
The amplifier chosen for this system is the Reference Power (£60,000), this substantial beast sits between the speakers housed in a very distinctive combination of matte black machined aluminium and stainless steel. It is rated at 250 Watts per channel and has huge power reserves, it just about warmed up when I put it through its musical paces, I suspect that only the most challenging of speaker loads at the most extreme volumes would cause it to brake a sweat.
The last part of the Avid chain is the Reference Three speakers (£60,000), these are housed in matte black and stainless to match the power amplifier and look extremely substantial on the machined aluminium three point stands. There are two larger speakers in the Avid catalogue and four smaller, the Reference Three seems to be the sweet-spot in this decent size but not huge room.
Cabling consists of Atlas interconnect and speaker connections alongside Shunyata power cables and distribution. The only other source in the system is a dCS Vivaldi streaming DAC.
The Avid sound
First up on the turntable was Waltz for Debby, the Bill Evans classic that was recorded in what sometimes sounds like a restaurant and here you could hear every tinkle of cutlery but not so much that it got in the way of the music. Detail is clearly an Avid strength, I don’t think I have ever heard so much from a recording that admittedly I usually play on the streamer, this system certainly made an excellent case for the all analogue alternative. The snap to the snare drum and the sizzle of the cymbals was particularly well defined. We tried something a bit different in the form to the Irresistible Force’s Nepalese Bliss, a tune that has been getting heavy rotation in my system of late, this revealed that the Avid system’s bass is extremely well controlled and tight, those metal cabinets are not vibrating in the way that wooden ones do and it shows. Midrange is also very strong, the spoken words on this piece being precisely enunciated and direct, it’s proper full exposure stuff.
Listening commenced on seats that were about four metres from the speakers and relatively high, checking out the sofas a couple of metres further back and naturally lower down proved to be a good move. With ears at about the same level as the tweeter the imaging improved notably and the extra soft furnishing either side smoothed the balance very nicely, proving once again that experimentation is the key to good sound whatever the system.
I found my current Joni Mitchell favourite The Hissing of Summer Lawns in Studio AV’s eclectic collection and dropped (a figure of speech!) the ruby needle on Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow, once again the sound was replete with fine detail, it felt like the entire recording was exposed for my aural delectation. The much more recent release Fantomes… Futurs by double bass player Kham Meslien sounded superb, the muscularity of his playing given tactile presence by the Avid system, and the silent background allowing even the quietest of harmonics to come through. Again the tightness of the bass proved uncanny especially when Meslien started to loop a phrase in a style not far from trance.
My final choice was a dub favourite in Step It Up (Black Star RMX) by Scientist, this revealed that while the Avid combo has excellent control in the bass it can also plumb the depths, delivering impressive extension for the size of speaker. I tried another bass track in the form of Bjork’s Aurora via the dCS streamer and while this didn’t have the clarity of the turntable it delivered some serious low frequency weight and proved most entertaining.
I had a very enjoyable time at Studio AV thanks to Matt and Mike who must be the most restrained dealers in the business, I wasn’t there to buy of course but they treated me royally and I can only recommend their services if you are in the market for something a bit special. The Avid system they have is more detailed than most and while it’s not exactly cheap you get a lot of serious engineering for your money.