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We have searched the audio industry for the very best products. Our philosophy is simple: we want the best sound with great reliability.
Our search has taken us to America, Germany, Italy and Japan.
We currently import Technical Brain electronics, Walker Audio turntables, Capriccio Continuo speakers, Malvalve and others superb products.
We also supply the best of the Clearaudio and Lyra range of phono cartridges
and Stax headphones.
Almost all of our products have won audio industry awards
“Sonically, the TBP Zero v2 is surely a work of genius, and so is the TBC Zero preamp. Their creator, Naoto Kurosawa, is a genuine master.”
Technical Brain is a Japanese company headed by Naoto Kurosawa. He and his team have been making amplifiers for over 17 years. These are artisanal products, made with hand-selected components that have been individually calibrated. Each unit is tuned and retuned many times over many weeks while their temperature is monitored. As a result Technical Brain products are superbly reliable. They require no breaking-in or maintenance, adjustment or parts to be replaced such as tubes or fuses. Their sound is amongst the very best according to reviewers and numerous industry awards.
Technical Brain is extraordinary for an audio manufacturer on two counts: every single product has won at least one prestigious industry award, and not one has failed in proper use. Their amplifiers provide a startling clarity and direct access to the music that makes you realise how coloured, veiled and confused almost every other amplifier sounds.
Most amplifiers add or subtract something from the music, and often both. Typically sounding boomy, harsh or soft, warm, sweet, mellow or bright. These effects are sometimes initially attractive but they tend to produce fatigue or boredom. Their owners tend not to listen to them for long: Technical Brain amplifiers just sound like music!
Which Technical Brain amplifier is right for you? If we do our work well this will not be a technical question for you but a subjective one: we ask that you listen to your favourite music and decide. We are happy to insert your current equipment in our reference system for comparison.
The top of the range Technical Brain power amplifiers produce a powerful 350 Watts for each speaker. These are state-of-the -art amplifiers that will drive any loudspeaker on the planet to perfection, however difficult the electrical load.
Technical Brain also produce a cheaper award-winning one box integrated amplifier with 100 Watts per channel that will drive most speakers. For most people this will be all the amplification that they need. Beware though of confusing quality and quantity; you can easily find far cheaper amplifiers that produce 100 watts per channel or more, but they generally do so without the same quality. The Technical Brain integrated amplifier is a neat and cost effective way to get a sound that is close to the best there is, saving you the complication and cost of extra boxes and cables as there is only one box with its own high quality power cord built in.
… It’s still a genuine paragon of transparency and resolution, matching or exceeding even the best competition. What is different is its tone color, now richer and more beautiful… its bass…”
Vinyl and Technical Brain
Technical Brain make a special amplifier for the tiny signals produced by turntables known as a ‘phono amp’ so you can listen to your vinyl collection, and connect your turntable to the Technical Brain preamplifier or integrated amplifier. This too has won the prestigious Grand Prix award. If you own vinyl you will be amazed by the quality of music stored within them. You will have the surprise of hearing unfamiliar things in pieces of music you are familiar with.
There are many technical features found in the Technical Brain products, some of which are proprietary. However one patented innovation is the elimination of ‘emitter resistors’ which are standard in other amplifiers. With this major obstacle out of the way the music flows with clarity, details and harmony.
Almost all electrical contacts in Technical Brain amplifiers have been eliminated. Over time such contacts, found in their hundreds in ordinary amplifiers, oxidise. That is the metal parts that frequently make and break the electrical contacts react with sulphur, oxygen and water present in the air. Over time these chemicals react, creating a thick dirty layer of oxidised metal through which the music must pass, like light through muddy water. Typically there are hundreds of such layers of oxidation, with the many contacts in the average amplifier. Each muddy layer distorts the music in its passage to the speakers and has a terrible effect on the music that you can only appreciate when it has been taken away.
This long standing American company is famous in the audio world for producing one of the world’s finest turntable, the Proscenium turntable, which has through research and development been gradually improved over many years. Walker Audio have won more than 80 industry awards for their products.
Instead of having a standard bearing grinding away, making unmusical vibrations at the heart of your turntable the Proscenium turntable has an air bearing platter, so that there is no friction, so your vinyl spins on air without added vibrations hiding the music from the stylus as it tracks the groove. There is also a separate air supply for the air bearing of the built in tonearm, and another for the feet of the turntable,each taking you closer to the music by making the turntable more immune to external vibrations.
Walker Audio has received significant recognition by top reviewers in the industry with more than 80 industry awards from The Absolute Sound, 6Moons and others. The Proscenium Turntable has been Turntable of the Year three times.
”Vallin’s reference for the better part of a decade. If you’re looking for the finest in LP playback, look no further.”
”The highest quality phonograph on the market”
”One are the most significant turntables of all time”
”The very stuff dreams are made of”
”The Admonitor 311 possesses a good deal of cutting-edge technology in its design and came across as a wonderfully balanced, communicative, revealing yet suave and sophisticated speaker. I could easily see it being perfectly at home either in the recording studio or a music lover’s listening room. It’s a rare speaker that can do both”.
Joseph Szall heads Capriccio Continuo and is a leading authority on loudspeakers, and has provided advice and designs to many of the world’s best known speaker manufacturers since 1981. We are grateful that Joseph has saved his best ideas for his own creations. Cleverly the most compact of his speakers can be easily upgraded to his finest model. Owners of the basic model possess an essential part of the best Capricio Continuo speaker. If you own the base model and want something better you do not have to sell your speakers, just add on whichever optional extra you need. The base Capricio Continuo speaker is a compact stand or shelf mounted speaker, superbly detailed and musical, slim and elegant, finished in a high gloss piano black, mid grey or a colour of your choice.
You can add a super tweeter for sweet, airy extended treble or a slim bass module that neatly replaces the speaker stand, and yet takes up less floor area than the stand. If you want to increase the volume or the soundstage then you can double up and have a second pair of speakers, arranged back to back for a reference quality system. Joseph Szall’s speakers are a fabulous match with Technical Brain amplifiers, but we will gladly demonstrate them
with equipment of your choice.
We have the finest Lyra cartridge on demonstration: the Lyra Atlas. Because these are made with great care by highly skilled artisans there is generally a waiting list for them.
”It sounds liquid and emotionally engaging. But the truth, to the extent that we can know what it is, is spoken here. The Atlas seems to slow down the LP and extract more ambience, information, and dynamics than almost any other cartridge.
I can unequivocally state that Lyra has handily surpassed its previous efforts with the Atlas. The Atlas is not a cartridge that will leave anyone shrugging his shoulders in indifference. Instead, it is likely to leave you most impressed with its fidelity, purity, and speed. If you possess a large vinyl library and a fine turntable, then auditioning the Atlas is a must.”
We have the best of the famous Clearaudio cartridges on demonstration: the Clearaudio Goldfinger Statement. This cartridge has won many awards and is generally regarded by professional audio reviewers as being amongst the finest.
“Clearaudio has succeeded in producing its richest, most seductively beautiful, most naturally balanced moving coil ever, without losing a jot of the phenomenal resolution, transient speed, soundstage width and depth, bass definition, and dynamic impact that have made Clearaudio’s previous Insiders and Goldfingers famous. Simply put, the Goldfinger Statement is the best cartridge Clearaudio has yet made and in Valin’s view the best moving coil money can currently buy”.
”This range of musical expression is a key analogue attribute and the Goldfinger Statement takes it to new levels. More importantly, it’s universal in its appeal. It matters not whether you play the LSO or Elvis Costello, the sheer presence in the performance, whether it takes the form of almost abrasive guitar riffs or the most delicate of hanging notes, adds to the musical impact and the emotional response it produces. Each instrument or voice is more solid, richer, more vibrant and more present in space, making most cartridges sound either hopelessly pale and insubstantial or clumsy, overblown and overwrought.
Is the Clearaudio Goldfinger Statement over stating its case? No, I really don’t think it is. Instead it is moving you closer to the presence and energy of live music. It doesn’t overstep the mark or exaggerate for effect. It simply gives you more of what separates the live from the recorded. By doing what Clearaudio’s have always done and then grafting on a whole new set of performance attributes, the Statement has seriously raised its game. Much as the Atlas (and Etna) have added new breadth to the established Lyra sound, the latest Goldfinger moves Clearaudio into virgin territory. The V2 was a very good cartridge indeed, bu t its replacement represents a step-change in performance, making it not just the best Clearaudio (by far), but one of the best cartridges ever.”
STAX is a Japanese company that is best known for their extraordinary electrostatic headphones that use super light and thin electrostatic panels instead of using conventional heavy speakers made of large magnets and cones. The result is dramatic: a clear, transparent and detailed sound, and lighter headphones that are very comfortable to wear. We have the Abyss 1266 headphones available for direct comparison.
“The 009s are truly amazing headphones. I smile every time I put them on. They are so transparent, have beautiful midrange and vocals.”
”The STAX 009 are arguably the best headphones that you can buy today.”
“It’s made in Germany and costs a fortune, but the Mal Valve Head Amp Three is the best there is.”
To drive high end headphones such as the Stax requires a special amplifier called an ‘energiser’. The finest we could find is the Mal Valve Headamp 3, which we can demonstrate alongside the Stax energiser. The magical combination of the Mal Valve headamp and the S tax 009 headphones, along with a decent CD player or turntable produces a sound that truly rivals speakers and amplifiers with a combined cost of £70,000, for about 15 % of the price.