phase 3

Diamonds and Ravioli Are a Hi-Fi's Best Friend

Hello again to all those that are checking back here to make sure I'm not dead after the vast span of time it has taken me to get around to writing another little blog entry, and to anyone new - Welcome to Phase 3 Southampton! I hope that my ramblings are of some interest to you and my thoughts can in some way enlighten your day........

So, what's new in our little part of the H-Fi world? Well here in sunny Southampton we have ventured into the spectacular digital wizardry that is Wadia; after playing with their iPOD transport and appreciating it immensely we realised that we'd neglected to mess about with their ‘proper' hi-fi which nowadays comes in entry level form in the 381 CD player (also with an ‘i' version), so we promptly called the guys at MDC who distribute it here in the UK and had one delivered.

This rather exciting package turned up alongside some other pretty tasty kit in the form of a pair of B&W's brand new 802 Diamond and Leema Acoustics' Reference Series Pyxis Pre-Amplifier and completely bonkers Altair Mono Block Amplifiers.......which, if looked up on Wikipedia as a system, must surely say nothing more than "Aspirational to the point of the loss of control of the salivary glands" - it's a bit good, should we say! It has been happy times living with a Hi-Fi such as this on our shop floor, watching as many people smile when a piece of music is played for them in the way that a smile just grows with no controllability, great equipment all round!

We've also been experimenting with a strange product that has been around for a while, but is so ‘tweaky' that most don't get to hear about it - a product called Black Ravioli, and trust me, its sounds a lot better than it tastes! Developed by a Scottish nuclear marine engineering company, it takes energy control to a whole new level (approximately an inch higher, literally!) allowing for you system to be both coupled to your rack solidly and de-coupled at the same time as the vibration entering the mystery material is converted into heat, energy cannot be destroyed but can change state - beautiful physics at work and you can hear it......

I have tried this wonder pasta under many things (including speakers) and can truly and honestly say that they work spookily well, dropping the noise floor in system after system to some of the lowest levels I have heard, and they do this across the board - whatever your system these are well worth a listen, pop in we have a full set to experiment with!

Also just into us is Meridian's latest offering in the Sooloos Media Server world, their Control 15 is here and now ships with an internal 500Gb hard drive meaning it can now be used as a source AND a core AND a control in your Sooloos system! Just add DSP loudspeakers and you've got a blisteringly simple Hi-Fi that looks and sounds amazing, winner!!

And with brand new LCD LED Backlit TV's from Loewe and Teac back with us it all makes for a fun summer in AV!

Thanks for listening, I'll REALLY try to do the next one quicker,

All the best,

Sam