SHOP NEWS

Wintertime News Letter
[ 30th November 2008 ]

WISHING YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS

Starting next year we have the idea to improve communications with our customers. Consequently we have now started to gather email addresses from willing customers so that we can send some future letters and any special offers out via email instead of snail mail. This will be in addition to the usual newsletters and invites to 'Musical Evenings' that you may have historically received. If you would like to be included in these emails do either ring us here at the shop or email us at: -info@soundorg.co.uk and let us know your e-address so that you can be included in this scheme. (We have never shared our database with anyone - and have no plans to do so in the future).

Credit Crunch Special: -

Despite these unsettled financial times the shop has remained buoyant this year. Turntable upgrades have been popular. David has been demonstrating, selling, fitting and installing many a Linn Keel subchassis kit and Ekos SE tonearm to customers' own LP12 turntables. Without exception, the feedback from these upgrades has been very positive with owners surprised and delighted with the results. B&W iPod Zeppelin sales and the introduction of new hard drive streaming and storage technologies first from Linn and now from Naim creating increasing interest. Nevertheless, the world as we know it from this corner of Gillygate is not all about to change as interest and sales of traditional good quality CD Players, Amplifiers and Speakers continues, albeit at a slower pace. There is increasing demand for small and neat which has been going on for some years now but has, this year, become the norm. Most people understandably want 'no wires' and whilst wireless technology is sucessfully employed in the inexpensive Sonos Multiroom solution we sell, wireless speakers of good HiFi quality have yet to be offered by any major manufacturers we deal with. No doubt it will come.

Linn Limited offer on Digital Streamers.

During this Winter until the end of this year on 31st December 2008, Linn are offering 10% off Linn Klimax DS, Akurate DS and Majik DS players* when they trade in ANY brand of CD player in any condition.
This makes it easier than ever to access these Digital Streamers and benefits they can bring over CD.
Offer excludes Sneaky Music DS.

Much has aleady been written about the ease and sound quality of having your music stored on hard drive and played back to CD standard or better. Indeed Linn's latest promotion suggests:-
"Linn DS outperforms any CD Player…. You'll never go back".
Come in and judge just how good they are for yourself - we have them all available for demonstration.

Linn have also updated their Klimax Kontrol Pre amplifier with a new motherboard now offering a twin mono volume control instead of the previous stereo configuration. This transforms their hitherto best pre-amp into something very special. The sound improvement with this upgrade is dramatic. - Older models can be upgraded in the shop.

Current Three Shop Best Sellers

B&W's Apple iPod player Zeppelin continues to carry all before it. Great sound, well made, and stylish to boot. Heavy, with five speakers on board including a subwoofer, it is outselling everything in the shop at the moment. A boon in the living room or kitchen.

Close on it's heels is the Vita R4 the all in one CD Player, FM & DAB Radio and iPod Player. The R4 sports a round remote control which fits snugly in the top panel and doubles as system controller. It also features a built in subwoofer with variable volume control. Vita, are another UK company fast gaining a reputation for innovative, elegant designs.

Lastly, the Arcam Mini Solo with Muso Loudspeakers, This is the smaller brother to the larger and more powerful Solo, but offers the same features of CD playback, FM & Dab Radio with additional iPod dock available. It plays music to a very high standard and should be heard. The Mini Solo is available together with Muso speakers and Arcam iDock at a package price.

The Naim HDX Hard Drive Player stores music files on its inbuilt hard drive, and offers the option of operating as a high end CD player by directly playing a disc loaded in its drawer. The HDX sports a full colour touchscreen which negates the need for a separate screen to navigate and choose your music files. Very well engineered by Naim. Easy as it can be to add CDs to the hard-drive - just load one in and turn the kettle on. It's as easy a that! It's all done for you - complete with album artwork and copious track details. All accomplished with Naim's traditional attention to detail. We're full of admiration. A firm shop favourite.

Power Line Mains Lead.
Well, we have it here in stock at the shop and have to admit that we're very impressed and not a little astounded as to how a mains lead can make so much difference!
Better or just different? If better means clearer, more musical and more enjoyable, then better it is. Naim are of the view that the Power Line decoupled lead has more influence on the sound than their highly acclaimed Hi-Line interconnect lead. This must be heard to be believed.

Naim Superline
This top of range moving coil amplification stage is able to make the very most of your precious moving coil cartridge. It can be powered by any of the current range of Naim Preamplifiers, a Flatcap 2X, Hicap or ultimately Supercap Power Supplies. Uniquely, the Superline can be configured for any moving coil cartridge.

Superline comes in the same case as the Hicap2 and has a brass counterbalanced leaf spring suspension system similar to their flagship CD555 CD Player & 552 Pre-Amplifier. This aims to eliminate microphony, resulting in a cleaner, more precise sound.

The Superline is capable of truly outstanding results - giving quite the best sounds we've ever heard from Vinyl records - that's a claim! Come and check it out for yourself.

Adding the Keel to your Linn Sondek LP12 turntable offers a significant leap in performance and helps get even more music from your record collection. Keel is a combined ‘machined-from-solid’ sub-chassis, armboard and collar, delivering a revelation in performance to your LP12 turntable for an even more involving musical experience
Keel is machined from a single solid piece of aluminium to provide extremely rigid support to the tonearm and platter. Eliminating screws, fixings and joins between each component removes virtually all vibration, resulting in more accurate music reproduction.
Keel has been engineered to maintain the same mass and centre of gravity as achieved with the separate sub-chassis, armboard and collar, ensuring that it integrates seamlessly with the suspension system of every Sondek LP12 turntable.

…"...The Linn presented me with uniquely emotional moments I had never experienced before. I cannot bestow a more deeply felt compliment on a hifi product...The best turntable of all times? A few high mass competitors may be even better all-rounders, even more neutral, even more incorruptible, though technically speaking the LP12 is damn close indeed. And most of all, the Linn always points to the emotional side of what one's listening to, something that doesn't work with each and every recording, to be sure, but sometimes we were as close to the music as never before..." LP Magazine, Germany

Ekos SE is Linn’s flagship tonearm,designed to nurture your vinyl and extract the maximum information from your cherished vinyl collection. Setting a new performance benchmark, Ekos SE features advanced materials carefully selected for their sound performance and low resonance properties to minimise interference, resonance and microphony, and extract even more from your record collection. These include a machined titanium arm tube to reduce resonance within the arm and a stainless steel bearing housing which helps reduce unwanted tonearm movements.
We think that the new Ekos SE is the best sounding tonearm we've ever had at the shop!

A new performance-upgradeable NAIT joins the family. This week sees Naim launching the NAIT XS: the latest addition to the long-established NAIT family. Naim has developed the NAIT XS to sit between the NAIT 5i and SUPERNAIT. Tremendous value for money, the NAIT XS is packed with the latest in Naim’s integrated amplifier engineering expertise; refined to deliver optimum performance within the 5 series chassis. No stone has been left unturned in terms of utilising the space available to optimise the XS’s signal path, while ensuring that components that like space are given it. This approach ensures the maximum performance possible is delivered.

Linn have also very recently introduced their new high performance three-way bookshelf loudspeaker the Majik 109. They are standmount, based on the popular Majik 140
floor standing speakers. They can either be played Single wired, Bi-wired, Tri-wired or, for the ultimate upgrade in Active mode using Linn's own amplification with internal Aktiv boards. The Majik 109's are new speakers that we tip to become little winners from a company that over the years has produced several classic small loudspeakers.

Arcam's AVR 600 Receiver is due to be released around Christmas time. Offering a mighty 7 channels of 120 watts amplification. It is also claimed that "By waiting for HD technology and chip sets to mature Arcam have been able to use latest generation technology silicon to deliver higher quality than competitors. Video Scaling and Processing for all sources is remarkable bringing even standard definition input close to HD quality."
"The new DTS-HD Master, DTS High Resolution, Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus decoding standards are all supported." - We've seen a pre-production model and we were very impressed.

WISHING YOU ALL COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON,
HAMISH, DAVID, BOB & JOHN.

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