ATC
ATC is celebrating its 50th anniversary in style with the most elegant and sophisticated version of its active 50 loudspeaker yet. The EL50 has an elliptical profile cabinet and stands over 1.4m high in its curvaceous leather and walnut clad form. While the three drive units are much the same as the conventional SCM50 the electronic crossover and amplification are all new. With a fourth order crossover, separate power supplies for each amplifier and SMD PCBs; this side of the equation is considerably more advanced than its predecessor. The EL50s sounded better than pretty well all the other systems at the show, the presence of a dCS Bartok DAC and ATC SCA2 preamplifier will have helped but no one else could muster the controlled dynamics and growling bass that the EL50s managed with ease.
Rega
Rega surprised everyone by introducing the Planar 6 RS Edition turntable. This gets the tonearm and twin belts from a P8, the former having a metal shafted vertical bearing, a metallic silver grey finish plus an Nd9 cartridge for £2,000. It offers near P8 sound quality from a traditionally shaped and lidded design that many found very appealing.
Equally interesting is the Aos MC, this is a half width phono stage that is essentially a cost engineered version of the Aura MC, Rega’s top phono stage (£4,620). The Aos will be around £1,500 when it comes to market and uses the symmetrical Aura circuit with some of the more pricey parts replaced, we think it will be another giant slayer from the brand.
Lyngdorf
Lyngdorf have a new streaming amplifier in the TDAI 2210 at £3,500. This sits in the middle of the range with a new fully digital platform, meaning that it’s a power DAC rather than a conventional Class D design. It converts PCM into PWM (pulse width modulation) and only converts the signal to analogue at the outputs. It has a lot of features including HDMI input and Room Perfect EQ. Analogue inputs are converted with a 24-bit ADC and the power rating is 210W per channel. This amp was making the Dali Sonik 7s sound rather good in the next room, the £5,000 combination proving that great sound can be had for realistic money.
Chord Company
Chord Co took us back to its birth in the ‘80s to demonstrate a new approach to bi-wire linking. The V-Link replaces the usual jumpers that connect one pair of terminals to the other on a bi-wire speaker with two pairs of cables that plug into all four terminals on the speaker and have a single pair of sockets at the other end. The picture reveals all. The theory is that the signal gets to each terminal at the same time rather than having to travel from the treble to the bass via a link. Chord demonstrated Epic XL and Music V-Links to good effect albeit the Eurythmics’ There Must be an Angel doesn’t improve with higher fidelity, not for me at least. Pricing is not yet released.
Elite Audio UK
Down in the basement distributor Elite Audio had put together two systems based around Electrocompaniet electronics and Top Gold cables. The £8,403 option was fronted by a Woodnote Solo streamer and had Revival Atalante 3 speakers while the £22,548 combo features an Electrocompaniet ECM 1 MkII streamer with Audio Physic Classic 25 speakers. Elite encouraged industry insiders to contribute tracks to their playlist which meant that if I had stayed around long enough I would have been able to enjoy some of my picks. Qobuz users can find it as ‘Bristol Real World Playlist 2026’, the real world referring to the fact that they are not the usual audiophile pieces but tracks that people who have decent systems love. Those that I heard sounded very good.
Origin Live
The new Ground Anchor tonearm grounding device was being pressed into service and helping Origin Live’s system sound vital and resolute, the Calypso turntable sporting a Gravity Two record weight and the signal being stepped up by one of Consolidated Audio’s substantial transformers.
Pro-ject
The latest turntable from Pro-ject is the Debut Reference 10 (£999) with its 10 inch carbon fibre arm and Ortofon Pick It Pro balanced cartridge. This source was sounding remarkably good playing Max Richter’s Recomposed rendition of Vivaldi’s the Four Seasons through an all Pro-ject system. I was impressed that they were playing modern classical and equally taken by the sound quality being produced.
Chord Electronics
Chord demonstrated their new Ultima Phonostage with the help of a Michell Orbe SE turntable and some Wilson Sabrina V loudspeakers, there may have been some Chord Ultima amps in there as well. The result was very clean indeed and I plan to get hold of this impressive phono stage at the earliest opportunity. Equally interesting is the Quartet upscaler, Chord’s most ambitious digital product to date, this is not due to be launched at present but we are intrigued about what it can achieve with its two million plus lines of bespoke code. Both units are anticipated this summer and both will be quite spendy, not least the Quartet which contains five times more FPGAs than the Dave DAC.
Wilson benesch/Trilogy/CAD
The conservatory has become Wilson benesch’s Bristol residence but it’s a difficult space to get a good sound in. This year with the help of an Innuos streamer, CAD’s 1543 MkIII DAC, Trilogy 925 amplifier and a whole host of CAD Ground Control devices the Discovery 3Zero speakers were singing. The spaciousness of the sound was off the scale when I put on Bill Frisell’s Boubacar and Ray LaMontagne proved equally expansive, if you like 3D imaging there was nothing in the place to beat it.
Fyne
Fyne took over the huge space vacated by What Hi-Fi to demonstrate two of their more ambitious loudspeakers, the F704SB is the larger of the two with pair matched veneers, while the F502S in black was used for the first public outing of the S Trax supertweeters (£999). The latter has been designed for use on third party speakers as well as Fyne’s own and provides 360 degree dispersion for high frequencies, the aim being to create a more natural, lifelike sound.
Creek
Luke Creek has designed a new loudspeaker, the Cymatics 6, the first speaker to bear the brand since the ‘90s. Cymatics is the study of visual sound, most obvious when acoustic frequencies create patterns in water. The Cymatics 6 is the first of three models and runs a 6.5 inch mid/bass driver alongside a 25mm metal dome tweeter in a wave guide that’s designed to produce an even response and control break up. This driver is built in-house by Creek. The speaker is available in rosewood or piano black finishes for £2,800 – I have to say that it sounded rather good on the end of a Creek Voyage i20 amplifier.
Leema
Leema’s new i85 integrated amplifier is built to the same high standards that you see in the company’s classic Tucana design but carries a £1,750 price tag. Rated at 85W per channel it has a meaty power supply based around a substantial transformer and runs high quality parts that mean the eight output transistors per channel never run out of juice. The heatsinks alone give some idea as to the build quality of what looks like a very competitive analogue amplifier. It sounded very confident driving a pair of Scansonic M12.2 speakers which also sound like great value at £1,450.
Ultrafide
Following last year’s Dias U8 muscle amp Ultrafide have created an integrated called Enso, this is specced to produce 125W into eight ohms and twice that into four. It has tone controls that only affect the treble or bass, leaving the precious midrange unscathed, which has to be a good thing. With balanced and single ended inputs, an MM phono stage and onboard DAC it puts performance before prettiness in true pro style. It sounded solid playing Joni Mitchell with a Vertere DG X turntable and Kudos Titan 505 speakers.
Proac
Proac unveiled their smallest ribbon tweeter equipped speaker yet in the Response DB1R at £2,945. This is the same design and price as the regular DB1 with its dome tweeter and means that customers have the choice of high frequency character when choosing a compact speaker from this respected brand.
Art Loudspeakers/Sugden
The Dunlop brothers brought down a selection of their laminated Art Loudspeakers to Bristol and combined them with a rather nice Sugden system. The electronics consisted of a PA-4 phono stage, LA-4 preamplifier and SPA-4 power amplifier, the source was a Systemdek Revolution turntable also made by Messrs Dunlop. This looks like good value at £6,250 with its laminated plinth and Delrin platter, it made a colourful Take Five pressing sound very listenable through this system and the Impression Diamond 8 speakers (£28,950).
Soulines
Sound Fowndations were using the new Soulines TT23 turntable in a very tasty sounding system. This £5,300 turntable has an acrylic platter and stainless chassis as well as a highly engineered unipivot tonearm. The system had a Jackery battery power supply which probably helped the Music First Baby Reference pre and Gamut power amp driving Kerr K320 speakers with all cabling by Furutech. I really enjoyed the track Duran (Take 4) by Miles Davis from an album called Champions taken from the Complete Jack Johnson Sessions, this revealed that both Miles and John McLaughlin were on top form at the time.
Cyrus/Kerr Acoustic
Cyrus took over Naim’s old room near the bar and brought in the beefy Kerr Acoustics K200 on their new fluted stands. Cyrus were demonstrating the 80 Amp integrated (£5,400) first seen at High End last year and now nearing completion. There will also be an 80 Pre (£4,500) and 80 Power (£4,000) built on the same chassis. The 80 Pre offers balanced headphone out while the 80 Power can bridged in mono to produce considerably more than the 150W stereo output.
Jes Kerr meanwhile revealed his smallest design yet the K400, this is a scaled down K300 standmount that is designed for the smaller spaces that many enthusiasts are limited to, price will be in the region of £4,250-£4,500 when it becomes available in the spring.
Neat
Neat have revised their compact floorstander the Iota Alpha now in mk2 guise. The difference between this and its popular forebear (speaker review specialist Trevor Butler uses them as a reference) is in the main drive unit. The polypropylene cone in that model has been replaced with a treated paper driver in the Alpha 2 (£1,995), this involved a change to the crossover and the result is greater power handling, deeper bass and the elimination of port noise, though that was hardly an issue before. These mini marvels were sounding very enjoyable on the end of an Atoll SDA 200 Signature streaming amplifier (£2,999).
Jason Kennedy