New Black Rhodium Samba Speaker cable

We seem to have a very Black Rhodium theme going on on the blog at the moment, partly due to Black Rhodium's Graham Naulty, whose almost obsessive pursuit of cable perfection ensures a flow of excellent new models for us to try

Delivered today the new Samba Speaker cable

Black Rhodium Samba

Samba owes a lot to our favourite budget cable BR's 'Twist' (as previous blog) ... its twisted pair construction and careful choice of connector make it suitable for mid and even quite high end systems.

The connectors look a lot like WBT but are branded as Black Rhodium and Rhodium plated .... I need to find out a bit more about these, but John at BR suggested that even though the connectors effectively doubled the cost of made up lengths, the difference more than made up for it.

We need to get this run in and properly evaluated, but the gut feeling here is that Samba is likely to be a winner ..... You get to know which manufacturers are driven by passion and Black Rhodium are up at the top of the list ... the excited phone call I got from John about Samba said it all really

Upgrade on a budget - Black Rhodium Twist cable

Following on from the previous post

Years ago the first upgrade anybody did to their Hifi was to replace the budget Bell Wire cable normally supplied with QED 79 strand ....the improvement in clarity was easy to demonstrate. It was a long time before the technology around cable design was properly understood, so only years later did higher end cable start to appear.

Now the starting point tends to be 79 strand cable ...usually a poor quality copy of the QED original. So where do you go from there? There is a fairly big jump in price when you look at most of the cable available from specialist companies and most of them are aimed at mid to high end systems. What we need is a good, straight forward cable that comfortably outperforms 79 strand for not a lot of money ... We think we have the answer

Black Rhodium Twist is based on one of their top models, but just uses the 'bare essentials' of the design ... the result is a very open and clear sounding cable which is very compatible and will really lift the performance of budget to mid range set ups .... particularly good on 'old kit' (we've run it on an early 80s A&R A60 and a slightly older Nytech CA252 and were really impressed)



Black Rhodium Twist, put new life into your classic Hifi

 

For more information call us on 01270 580734 or email mail@cheshireaudio.co.uk

http://www.cheshireaudio.co.uk/acatalog/copy_of_copy_of_Black_Rhodium.html

Classic Hifi in your loft?

We have had quite a few phone calls recently from customers who are recommissioning old hifi systems ... Its seems to be due to the resurgence of interest in vinyl

Most classic kit from the 70s and 80s is still in good health (or easy to rescue) and perform easily as well as modern equipment (sometimes better)

We've had a series of Linns and Regas in for service  ... various speakers for recone ... a memorable set up was a Rega 3 / A&R A60 / HB1. The Rega just needed a service and a cartridge .. the A60 a squirt of switch cleaner. The Heybrooks needed a bit more work. It is quite common with speakers over 20 years old for the bass unit surrounds to have crumbled...we can replace these (at around £50 per driver) and £100 is very good value for a speaker as capable as the HB1

If you would like any advice or would like anything serviced ... give us a call on 01270 580734

Atacama Eris ECO bamboo rack

What Hifi - Best Equipment support 2012

The Atacama Eris ECO

The Eris is yet another product benefitting from the use of bamboo ... the shelves are of a bamboo / resin composite and extremely light and rigid. These properties are ideal for shelving as transmittion of resonance is kept to a minimum.

The Eris is similar in design to previous Atacama hifi racks, being a modular.... a very simple design, each unit just sits on top of the next located by spikes and cups.

A two shelf base unit cost around £230 and each extra single shelf module is £115. We have bundled a base and two modules for £415 as we feel this is the most likely combination ....if you would like any other permutation just give us a call

 

Various colours are available for the columns ... Red, as above, but also white, black and silver

 

 

The only shelf colour available at present is the natural bamboo, but Atacama tell us that stained versions are in the pipeline

 

 

See the range here

 

 

http://www.cheshireaudio.co.uk/acatalog/Atacama_Eris_ECO.html

 

 



 

Ortofon reintroduce the MC20 Super

Good, and quite intruiging news from Ortofon

They've reintroduced the classic MC20 Super cartridge, 25 years after its original launch. Priced at £750 and supplied in a cute miniture case it perhaps seems a little expensive at first... but actually it still holds its own even at that price and if you remember the original and had always aspired to owning one ... here is your chance!

It makes me wonder though ... what other classics from the past would be worth resurrecting? Quad have had similar ideas with the Valve Pre Power .... I'd like to see the original Naim Nait amplifier ... Acoustic Research AR18s speakers ... Nytech NA252 amplifier .... Crimson 510/520 pre/power ....Pink Triangle PIP preamp

http://www.cheshireaudio.co.uk/acatalog/Ortofon.html

Atlas Asimi V Nordost Valhalla part2

The evaluation of Atlas Asimi continues ....

It has been very interesting. Up to now our favourite speaker cable by quite a margin has been Nordost Valhalla...it doesn't always match systems, but generally it is very compatable and wins with it's complete lack of colouration and astonishing dynamics. Asimi, or at least so far, has it beaten, even greater dynamics, better image placement, much much better defined bass. I would say the Asimi even beats Valhalla in the one area that it really excels at, rhythm ....it pulls the music out of the recording in a much more tangeable way.

Obviously system synergy will play a part, and it's always wise to pull out the new cable after a couple of weeks and live with the old one again as sometimes you only hear the new stuff and dont realise if somethings missing .....but so far, I think we may have a new champion!

Atlas Asimi cable v Nordost Valhalla?

We have just been give a set of Atlas Asimi cable to try out.

We're great fans of Atlas's range, other than Nordost there are very few ranges of cables which have a 'family sound'. I dont mean colouration, but a linear characteristic which marks them out.... I've been selling Nordost for many years and one of its main virtues is that you can start off in the range with say, a Blue Heaven interconnect... and when it comes to upgrading you can just pick something from further up the range and you know its going to have all the attributes you are used to but have more dynamic ... more detail etc. There are so many cable companies out there who have quite random ranges with very different sounding models.

Most good cable ranges work better the more you use .. so if you follow through from interconnects, to speaker cable and on to mains leads of the same brand you get a cumilative result that is greater than the whole. Nordost does that ... and so does Atlas

The Asimi is Atlas's top flight cable ... so this needs to be wonderful

We are setting up a comparative dem against our favourite Nordost Valhalla shortly and will post the results up here