Cheshire Audio website down

The Website is down today unfortunately, our hosting company is having server issues

We should hopefully be up and running later today

Stax SR407 secondhand

Just traded in an immaculate pair of Stax SR407 headphones

Give us a call on 01270 580734 if you are interested

What Hifi Awards 2016

Congratulations to Rega on their success at last nights What Hifi awards! Planar 1, Elex, Elicit and Fono all winning their categories!! And best of all, the Planar 3 won Product of the year ...again! Excellent stuff

Early Rega Planar 3 in for service

We really like getting these early Regas in. This one will be around 35 years old no is still fitted with a classic A&R P77 cartridge. (A&R evolved into Arcam, but unfortunately no longer make cartridges) A Rega Bias2 is an excellent replacement

This deck has been unused for a while, but there is unlikely to be any problems. Occasionally there can be speed issues, but this is an easy fix. The only common problem with early Regas is that the R200 tonearm wiring can start to break down...unfortunately Rega don't supply parts for these (as they didn't manufacture them) so problems here may require a new tonearm

We are now agents for Trilogy Audio

We are pleased to announce that we have now added Trilogy Audio products to our pages. Trilogy produce some of the very best Phonostages and Headphone amplifiers on the market.

Hand built in the UK these units offer unrivaled build quality and sound absolutely superb

See the Phonostages here:

http://www.cheshireaudio.co.uk/acatalog/Trilogy-Audio.html

And the Headphone Amplifiers here :

http://www.cheshireaudio.co.uk/acatalog/Trilogy-Audio-1.html

All units will be available for home demonstration, give us a call on 01270 580734 if you are interested

Trilogy also produce High End amplifiers, these will be added to the pages soon

More exciting news from Rega

Get back into your Vinyl with the new Rega Planar 1. 

Just launched, the Planar 1 replaces the very successful RP1

see the range here http://www.cheshireaudio.co.uk/acatalog/Rega.html

New Rega Planar 2 announced

After the success of the new Planar 3, Rega have now introduced another new model which takes the icon 'Planar' name. The Planar 2 comes in at a lower price than the 3 but is still a built to a very high specification. Though you can see the family resemblance, the new 2 shares no components with its iconic predecessor and easily outperforms even the original 3 by quite a margin.

 To see the new Planar 2 on our Website - Click Here

Secondhand Stax Headphones and Energisers

We have a very good selection of used Stax at the moment

Have a look here: http://www.cheshireaudio.co.uk/acatalog/Secondhand-Stax.html

Any question call us on 01270 580734

And remember we will usually trade your old pair in

Bristol Hifi Show 2016

Bristol was reassuringly busy this year and there was a very promising vinyl presence too. A few years ago virtually every room was taken up with Home Cinema, which now seems very much in the minority (one room in fact)

There was certainly a bit of a Star Wars theme going on ... our friend Dennis from Atacama/Nordost was dressed in a full Storm Trouper outfit ... unfortunately we didn't manage to get a photo.

 Star of the show for us was the new version of the Rega 3 ... Rega have reverted back to the original Planar 3 name, which is a great idea. The new deck is a real thing of beauty, high gloss finish and an upgraded RB303 arm.

In the Wilson Benesch room we found Nigel Crump, importer of Stax, Lyra, Kiseki .. and many others. And were introduced to Peter Madnik, the designer of a new range Nigel is bringing into the UK called 'Audio Alchemy'. You may remember this ground breaking brand from the late 1980s. Well the 21st Century incarnations look very interesting  .. so watch this space.

We were hoping to get to speak to Max on his very busy stand ... but every time we passed there seemed to be a queue :-) But then Townshend do have some fascinating products.

No a great photo. REL were demonstrating the benefits of adding twin subs to a stereo system. Now this can work extremely well .. or extremely badly depending on the system and room, but if you do get it right subs can add a level of coherence to music that just isn't attainable from a conventional speaker. I think REL were a little unlucky with their room acoustics. The Harbeths they were using in the with /without dem were already overwhelming the room with bass .. so the the subtleties were a bit lost.

 An absolutely vast pair of Mono Blocks in the Icon room

Quite a nice sound in the PMC / Bryston room ... though not brands I'm generally that into really

Other highlights : Sound Fowndations demonstrating the DS Audio cartridge which uses an optical system instead of magnets. It sounded very good indeed ... even with Chris Green from SF dancing in the corner. Ophidian speakers ... tiny, but room filling sound. We may need to look into these further.

And finally, one of the best sounds at the show .. Our friend Dave Sprake from DSE demonstrating a Rega CD and Amp with a £300 pair of Tannoy speakers and  around £20000 of cables and accessories ... which may have been a mad thing to do ... but proved a point

Until next year ...

New Product - Project VC-S Record Cleaning Machine

Project VC-S Record Cleaning Machine

Exciting news from Project, a fully featured Record Cleaning Machine for under £300.

Dust and dirt are common problems with vinyl playback as the stylus tries to navigate through the grooves coming across debris causing undesired noise and potential groove and stylus damage.

The VC-S by Pro-Ject is the most effective and efficient way of keeping your records clean without breaking the bank. Designed to penetrate deep dirt within your records, the VC-S uses a double strategy of cleaning fluid to loosen the dirt along with a dual brush and vacuum combo to remove the dirt and dry the record simultaneously.

The included record clamp keeps the record label dry while holding the record in place during the cleaning process and easily screws on and off for quick record change over.

The VC-S Package includes the VC-S System, Record Clamp, Goat-Hair Brush and Wash-IT fluid.


Link to Project VC-S

For more information, call us on 01270 580734

Naim Audio Hi-Line for sale

We have just put a Naim Hi-Line interconnect onto EBay

See the listing here 

Link to Ebay

Stax SR-L700 customer review

The overwhelming level of interest in the new Stax models took, even us, quite by surprise. We ordered probably twice the number we thought we needed ... but before they arrived, every one had sold ... not only that but the entire UK allocation from Stax had gone too.

Stax SR-L700

We are expecting another batch soon, but here is an evaluation from a good customer (a bit of a Stax collector) against his pair of Stax SR507

" Hi,Philip:

   I am well impressed by the L700's! Even against the 507's,the clarity,delicacy,and bass response are outstanding and make one wonder about the sound of the 009's. Lottery win notwithstanding, even at their present price, the 700's are something of a bargain,IMHO,                                                                                                                                                           John"

We could tell that the new range were going to be something special, we even got a phone call from Nigel whose company Symmetry have been the UK importer of Stax for as long as we can remember, saying : 

"The new 700s are the best Lambda by a huge margin, astonishingly good"

To see the range, go to : http://www.cheshireaudio.co.uk/acatalog/Stax-.html

On the Jig today - Elite (Townshend) Rock and Excaliber

We've got a bit of a classic on the Jig at the moment, also one of our all time favourite record players too. This particular Rock came in to be recommissioned after a long period of storage. Even though it's easily 35 years old, all the parts and service items are still available.

The Rock was very innovative in it's day, most of it's competition were complex sprung designs which relied on isolating the record and stylus from medium to high frequency vibration. The Rock on the other hand addressed the issue of low frequency vibration by use of heavy inert materials and clever damping. The 'Trough' that can be seen in the picture was filled with silicone fluid and very effectively controlled resonance from the cartridge which normally would travel down the tonearm and reflect back, causing noise.

The sound of all the versions of the 'Rock' is extremely solid and stable (as the name suggests) the bass quality is quite uncanny and would be quite unattainable on any of the sprung subchassis alternatives.

We can supply Townshend Rock parts and accessories, give us a call if you are interested. They will be added to the website shortly

Call us on 01270 580734

www.cheshireaudio.co.uk