Editorial December 2024

December 2024

I delayed my editorial this month deliberately to gather some information on a system that I was invited to listen to.

I can safely and honestly say that I have never heard anything quite like it before. It is, shall we say, retro? Retro from an amp and speakers but with a digital streamer source being the popular Cambridge CXN which having heard a few times now is every bit as good as the Node. It’s an experimental setup that I have often wanted to test but have lacked the time (and kit) to implement myself. This however is a lived system and the results were nothing less than Properly Interesting.

Speakers further apart than I have ever seen, an amp delivering all of around an estimated 7 Watts (valve, details to follow) and a large room. Speakers are 1960’s style Coral BYD25 DIY horn affairs and listening levels were set quite comfortably loud.

I can honestly say I had no expectations of what was coming. You’re expecting me to say it blew my mind and rapturously transported me to the halls of Audiophile Nirvana (I seem to be abusing capitalisation and my apologies but it is justified). In all honesty it didn’t quite do that but I can say quite safely that it expanded my mind as to what eclectic sound is like and what music making can become in the hands of a rabid fanatic who is accustomed so highly with his system that the vagaries and nuances of the system are explained in almost real time as they happen with music that he didn’t know (mine).

Was it good?

You bet it was! With an excellent source the system is given every opportunity to deliver what it is being fed and for tech that is nigh on 60 years old to be able to punch as well as it does is astonishing. I am going to pull a ‘Deon’ and refuse to compare it to modern kit because I don’t believe that to be the point. What I am going to say is that any audiophile is going to walk away from the system with a sense of enlightenment and that any music lover is going to walk away from it with a sense of enlightenment. As I have said it is simply unlike anything I have heard before and it is something that I think everyone should experience. It is absolute fun with sheer outrageous entertainment of an inherently different but musical nature that grabs your attention in a completely inoffensive fashion. I absolutely loved it and it put me into a good mood for the rest of the week.

I don’t think you can ask for more from your system and it is a case of simple joyous exuberant happy contentment with what it is. Amazing and a privilege in every sense of the word to have heard it.

This is why we hi-fi nuts do what we do.

Happy holidays to all!

William Kelly

Publisher