What is an Ultimate System?
By “Ultimate” we do not necessarily mean outrageously expensive systems, (although we will indeed present some in the future), instead we mean systems that “work” better and offer something very special.

Ultimate Systems have synergy

One of the keys to great HiFi is system synergy. In a properly matched system the characteristics and strengths of each component complement each other. Each component’s strengths are magnified and the overall sonic attributes of the resulting system are well-balanced. Two great components which don’t match well can conflict and produce a very mediocre system, while two merely good components which match well can combine to produce a great system. All good dealers know this, and this is why you need to audition a new component in your system at home. Simply buying expensive products which don’t match properly is a waste of money because you are losing the benefits of a properly matched system where the whole is far greater than the sum of the parts.

Ultimate Systems are magical
When everything is just right you know it instantly. The system conveys the feeling and emotion you normally experience only at a live performance. You want to listen more, maybe you feel like singing along, maybe you feel like getting up and dancing, or maybe you just like to close your eyes and be transported to another time or place. Either way – it’s real music, it’s a thrill, and you’re hooked! Once you’ve experienced this emotional connection you don’t need to talk about “transparency and imaging” because it just sounds right and it feels good!

Ultimate Systems deliver value

With proper synergy Ultimate Systems significantly outperform even considerably higher priced systems where synergy is lacking. Or, stated another way, Ultimate Systems deliver any given level of musical performance at a price far less than you would expect. Welcome to high end audio done right. Welcome to our Ultimate Systems.

HiFi – why is it so important?
For most people the mere fact that they can play their CDs, Mini Discs, LPs or whatever else is enough. They enjoy the music and accept or are unaware of the limitations of their systems. However it is clear, even from as long ago as the first edition of Compton Mackenzie’s excellent Gramophone Magazine in the 1920’s, that a proportion of recorded music purchasers want more – they would like to recreate the sound of a live performance.Thus the HiFi Industry was born and for many years good progress was made in improving the quality of sound reproduction.

The objective was clear and constant; to design and manufacture systems that would, as accurately as is technically possible, replay what had been recorded. In Britain names like Radford, Quad, Leak and Williamson became known for electronics and Radford, Quad, Wharfedale and later Spendor, Rogers, Harbeth, B&W and Kef for loudspeakers. (Our apologies to those we have omitted.)Radford must take a special place in Audio because they not only designed the best Amplifiers and supplied key Industry figures with them but they also made some of the finest loudspeakers and even did important design and development work for bigger companies like Goodmans. And it didn’t it stop there, they also made some of the best Audio test equipment and that was used by most of the Industry as well.

The BBC took things equally seriously, they set up a research department at Kingswood Warren to improve the loudspeakers they used to make recordings and broadcasts and, ultimately designed their own and issued licenses to other manufacturers to make them. Spendor, Rogers and Harbeth are companies founded by ex Kingswood Warren engineers. The work the BBC did was very important because, until that time, most recordings were made using loudspeakers whose origins were in public address and cinema sound systems. They were very loud but much more distorted than the ones used by people in their homes. It meant we could hear faults in recordings that the engineers who made them might not. The BBC’s (and the British HiFi companies) influence spread around the world and survives to this day.

By the latter part of the nineteen seventies, HiFi was the third major household purchase after a house and a car, it was a big international business and in some ways that was a bad thing because it fostered companies who were less clear about sound quality objectives but much more clear about marketing ones. In the words of one of these new companies “what did it matter what the sound was like as long as you could tap your feet to the music”. It was a valid argument if the system you were buying was cheap but theirs was not – it was phenomenally expensive. Not surprisingly the traditionalists were incensed and went on the attack, unfortunately, although they were more correct, there were flaws in their arguments too and they were not as persuasive as the “tap your feet” brigade.

The Press loves controversy so lots of magazines were sold and many journalists became converts.The subjective listener won over his objective counterpart and it was now much less clear what the objectives of a top end HiFi system should be. Do we really want to recreate a live experience or do we want to enjoy music? Since even the best systems that were attempting to recreate natural sound were not perfect, would it not be more sensible to look for something more musically enjoyable. Well yes it would, but if you are spending a good deal of money, you have a right to expect more than you get from a cheap commercial system.

The situation did not rest there, people started to find all sorts of magical solutions or musical enjoyment enhancers. So bizarre were some that they made in into the national dailies. You know the sort of thing – your CD’s sounded better if they were kept in the fridge! Your system sounded better after you had drunk a glass of anti-static water and so on. It was mostly phooey and it made the industry look very silly.HiFi had become elitist and a black art. To the outside world an object of derision and to those involved a sort of religion.

It was a great pity for the serious music lover because he wanted none of this; he just wanted his recordings to sound clearer, less tiring to listen to and more like the real thing. Freed of the distortion that exists in normal commercial HiFi, he could listen for longer periods with less effort and get even more pleasure from his collection.
By contrast, HiFi enthusiasts only had a handful of records, it was the equipment and the start up ceremony that mattered – oh dear! As if this was not enough to finish off the industry, along came VCRs’, PC’s, Satellite TV, wide screen, surround sound, computer games, mountain bikes and so on.No longer is HiFi very high on most people’s shopping list, a good midi system or multi- channel surround system will satisfy the requirement of the substantial majority. As a result many specialist manufacturers no longer exist or their names have been hoovered up by large, Far Eastern companies, or even if they haven’t, much of what is sold is made in that part of the world for a fraction of the UK’s manufacturing costs.

Things, in the main, are just not the same. However, for a select few, modern dumbed down, TV is something from which they wish to escape. The relentless attack of a movie soundtrack is not to everyone’s taste, other than as an occasional diversion, what they need is beautifully clear and natural sound only, accurate voice reproduction for speech and drama and the wonderful warmth and naturalness of sound that can only be reproduced by the very finest HiFi systems money can buy.There are huge advantages to owning the finest possible system, not just to the HiFi enthusiast but to everybody – the clearer and less distorted sound is the more pleasant and less tiring it is to listen to. Believe it or not, this means the hard of hearing will benefit even more from really accurate sound reproduction than those whose hearing is good. In short, true high fidelity sound reproduction is what everybody wants and needs; it is just that most do not realize.

Happy Listening, MKoM, Toronto

Our Ultimate Systems, a few examples…