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We now have all of the latest integrated amplifiers from Hegel incorporating some substantial upgrades to their technology and have been very impressed by them, especially the H400 and the H600 reference integrated.

The Audio Consultants are returning to the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Reading East at Winnersh Triangle for their Musical Event No 8. This will be held on the Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 July 2024 in the Sandhurst Suite between 10am and 5pm. We are very familiar with his quality venue which allows for a more comfortable and controlled listening experience for our visitors. The Suite is well proportioned and allows for a good acoustic. The two sources will be the Origin Live Calypso turntable with their Illustrious tone arm and fitted with a Hana Umami Blue cartridge , and the new CD player from Hegel called The Viking . The amplification duties will be split between the Soulnote A2 integrated amplifier and the Exposure 5010 pre-amplifier and 5010 dual-mono power amplifiers . The Soulnote A2 amplifier an above average proportion of Class A from a Class A/AB principle.

We are collaborating once more with HiFi + magazine and offering a PRO X vinyl cleaner as first prize in their competition. This is the current version of the original ultrasonic vinyl cleaner whereby the sonic improvements are much more than just removing dirt from the LP grooves. The sound quality dramatically changes, not only because of a lower noise floor, but that the stylus is extracting more detail from a pristine vinyl surface. 

This new model from Audiolab takes streaming to the next level. This product has been the result of over three years of development to bring out a stable, high-res capable, wired or wireless, streaming solution. This is a big step up in both build and performance from the 7000 series and we have been very impressed in our initial listening tests.

We now have received the two new flagship amplifiers from Hegel and Luxman – the H600 and the L-509Z. We have now run both amplifiers in for over 300 hours and have done our first listening tests. For this close evaluation auditioning we invited George Sallit of HiFi Wigwam to participate as he is a fan of Luxman products and has assisted us before with his erudite analysis.

The recording session on Saturday 7 October will be between 11am and 1pm. There will be a limited number of tickets available to this closed door event at the registration desk.

Following the successes of our previous Musical Events with Crescent Audio, we have been invited to reproduce the Live vs Recorded Event at the UK Audio Show 2023. Clearly this will be more challenging doing such remotely from a studio environment but Damon Sawyer and The Audio Consultants have worked on a plan together to be able to present this at this UK Audio Show.

GutWire Cables are among the very best sounding cables on the market today and have proven very popular with our customers over many years. In home audition comparisons they outperform other better known brands that are well reviewed and have large marketing budgets.

We hosted two, day-long, sessions of this live music event, a collaboration with Crescent Records in their beautiful recording space in Swindon. This was similar to our Musical Event No 6 but with longer, more relaxed, sessions and with the addition of Fleur Stephenson on vocals to the trio led by Pete Billington. We heard various arrangements of tunes that were recorded by Damon Sawyer, Crescent Records recording engineer. Over the course of the two days, several tracks were recorded, which included a couple of a retakes to some, which we are likely to include on the final CD to show the organic evolution of a particular musical arrangement. A trio consisting of piano, acoustic bass (this time being the acclaimed Alec Dankworth), and drums was chosen, as these instruments cover a wide range of the audible spectrum we listen to. For this event, Fleur Stephenson a very fine jazz vocalist to the mix gave an extra dimension and interest. Damon took a lot of care pre-setting some of the microphones prior to our sessions and explained in some detail how he had selected the different microphones for each application, including ambient microphones. The majority were used on the drums, with just a stereo pair on the piano and single microphone for the upright bass. A very fine valve microphone was used for the vocals. Damon further explained his method of placing microphones, recording, blending, and mastering based on his long experience in the industry, The principal aim being to capture the individual instruments as realistically and as naturally as possible. He explained how he records t PCM 384 kHz/24 bit, controls factors such as audio spill, includes room ambience during the recording, and the EQ and compression techniques he needs to employ in post-production to balance the instruments and in this case, the singer. To be clear, this was a recording session, rather than a live ‘gig’. This was interesting, as Fleur’s projection was nuanced but very quiet. She could hardly be heard in the recording space itself but could be clearly heard in the mixing suite. This gave a great insight into the recording process.