FROM OUR LOUNGE TO YOURS

Based in Brighton, the Audio Note Lounge specialises in a particular quintessential English brand – Audio Note (UK). Regarded by many as ‘Music’s Finest Conductor’, Audio Note over the years has built-up quite a following of devoted and loyal customers from all over the world…

BRIEF INTRODUCTION AND SOME FOOD FOR THOUGHT | Imagine if you will that you have designed a beautiful valve amplifier. After hundreds of hours of research, testing, listening and testing again, you know you have produced something truly remarkable. You then take your amplifier to Hi-Fi Dealers around the country so they can listen to your creation. Naturally they partner it with a variety of different brands, brands they like for one reason or another and the results are disappointingly mixed.

While a few Dealers like what they hear, most turn and look at you as if to say “is this amplifier you designed broken or faulty in some way or just plain bad?”.

It’s frustrating and disheartening because you know what your creation is capable of, but in a variety of different environments and systems, you and others are simply not hearing it at its best. You then of course have to ask why?

AN IMPORTANT LESSON | It comes down to a very important lesson that we at the Audio Note Lounge feel has been forgotten or at the very least, somewhat lost over the years as the market has become flooded with new products. How can anyone design a piece of audio equipment that will work in true harmony with other products from other brands? While we are not saying it isn’t possible, we often ask the question; just how well can it really work?

To put it another way, it’s like trying to build a high performance car by throwing together an engine from manufacturer 1, a gearbox from manufacturer 2, a suspension from manufacturer 3, and a chassis from manufacturer 4 and expecting it to perform amazingly. Yes granted, it will probably work but the results will be mediocre at best.

In reality, different brands follow different design philosophies and approaches. Their use of different technology and components makes the interaction with products from other brands unpredictable.

SYSTEM BAND-AIDS | When a system consisting of a number of products from different brands really does not sound good, how do you identify which components are causing the problems? Maybe they are all causing an issue because each is simply doing its own thing, in its own fashion? Of course, one manufacturer might blame another’s product, you might be told that you need to upgrade to the latest version or maybe change your cables or put in some isolation or some mains filtering and it goes on and on… Really it becomes an exercise in swapping one product for another or adding a product or two in the hope that, at some point, you transform you system and experience a sound you like and can live with. It’s almost like adding band-aids to a system, which is absolutely the wrong thing to do in our view.

THE REALISATION | Audio Note (UK) quickly came to the conclusion that, if they were to have any chance of building a respected and successful business, they had to look at ways of ensuring that music lovers would be able to hear their valve amplifier at its finest. To do this, they set about creating a family of sympathetically designed products so that the customer could purchase a complete Audio Note (UK) system from source to speaker. Only then could customers truly experience the Audio Note (UK) sound as they were meant to and just as importantly, the music would be reproduced as accurately and faithfully as possible.

THE ADVANTAGES | Making everything from the source, to the amplifier, to the speaker and even the cables is no small task, but Audio Note (UK) did this admirably. The results left even the most die-hard of audiophiles and reviewers from around the world absolutely enamoured with their music when reproduced on a full Audio Note (UK) system. That trend continues to this day!

The advantages of a complete system from the same manufacturer are obvious and it just makes so much sense. By doing this, Audio Note (UK) has built a strong range where each product shares the same DNA, be it a cable, speaker or amplifier.

Audio Note (UK) really do deliver some of the most desirable products and systems money can buy. Products that can sit next to the finest cars, furniture, designer watches, clothes and jewellery. The family consists of: CD Players, CD Transports, DAC’s, Integrated Amplifiers, Pre-amplifiers, Stereo Amplifiers, Monaural Amplifiers, Phonostages, Step-up Transformers, Turntables, Tonearms, Cartridges and cables.

ON MANY LEVELS | Products are placed into a level system (from Zero to Six) and priced accordingly. Audio Note (UK) find this helps customers build an appropriately balanced sounding system and they go to great lengths to ensure that whatever level a product is placed in, it has a complementary and synergistic influence on the system sound and represents excellent performance and good value for money.

By offering a very wide product range, end to end and bottom to top, all of which have the same aim, Audio Note (UK) products can also be matched from different levels. This allows for systems to be upgraded or higher-level products purchased gradually and put into the system seamlessly. It also ensures that the performance level can be taken up in steps.

It is this kind of thought and care that really shows Audio Note (UK)’s investment in their customers who have in-turn invested in the brand.

VISIT US AT THE AUDIO NOTE LOUNGE | From the entry-level iZero system to the mighty Meishu, to the extraordinary AN‑E speakers and legendary Ongaku, we invite you to bring some of your favourite music and visit the Audio Note Lounge soon.

Telephone: 01273 590 716

Website: www.audionotelounge.com
Audio Note Lounge is a specialist Hi-Fi shop, based in Brighton, East Sussex.