Latest News and Advice

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.

We have hosted two Musical Events over the last 9 months in collaboration with Cresent Records, a recording studio in Swindon. Working with their renowned recording engineer Damon Sawyer, we were able to present a live performance to an invited audience that was recorded, balanced and rapidly mixed to a first master within an hour. This was printed to a CD-R and played back in the same recording space through an audio system selected and set up by The Audio Consultants. The sound from the recording was considered by all attendees to be remarkably close to that enjoyed as a live performance. Due to these successes, we have been invited by Justin Bird of the Chester Group to reproduce this 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. We will only be doing this recording session on Saturday 7 October between 11am and 1pm. There will be limited number of tickets available to this closed door event. The same ticket holders will be invited back during the afternoon to hear the recording played back through The Audio Consultants audio system. Further details will be announced later.

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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.

We recently had a request from George Sallit, the reviews editor of HiFi Wigwam, to listen to the new D-07X player. George is a big fan of Luxman and recently listened with us to the new integrated amplifier the L-507Z. We invited him over and had an interesting audio session.

Due to the success of our last musical event, we have decided to expand on this theme. Our last Event was held in Crescent Records studio, where we invited a live jazz trio who were recorded and mastered by Crescent Record’s engineer Damon Sawyer.