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Is this an amplifier or is it performance art?
Chord Electronics, not the cable guys, make futuristic, quirky, stunning and mental hi-fi equipment.
Not saying they are mental engineers though as their lead digital guy, Rob Watts, designed FPGA dacs and filters long before other manufacturers caught on. DACs loom large in the Chord portfolio with names like Mojo, Qutest, Hugo and Dave pushing the most amazing sampling rates.
Though famous for digital technology they also know their onions around amplifiers and this new one pictured above is pretty special.
This is the new entry level of their Ultima range, with amplifiers going up to over £ 100,000 this is top value at only £ 8500!
Pick it up though and this it feels anything but cheap! I referred to Chord and quirky and this has it's cool part too.
Chord love their colour codes.
What input are you on? Don't know, what colour is the ring round the the volume? Yellow, Blue, green?
On the Hugo TT2 the roller ball for volume changes colour as you change volume, cool!
This amplifier is gorgeous, beautifully engineered and sounds great.
I've been playing it with Kef Reference Ones, excellent combination.
As other manufacturers, Linn and Naim, are moving to having streamers built in to their amplifiers this is an old school lots of guts and dynamics real amplifier. And you'll love it!
We now have this on demonstration along with HugoTT2, M Scaler, Qutest and Huei, sold a few Mojo2s as well.
Drop us a line to hear this behemoth.
Also later this year we will host a Chord demo event so drop me a line if you're interested in that.
We hope that Doug Graham from Chord will be here to explain more of their philosophy and play a few tunes.
We might also see a new modular amplifier, welcome little Suzi !
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Wanna tell you a story, as Max Bygraves used to say, who? Nevermind
Long long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile, no no no!
Long long time ago there was a company called Amplification & Recording, Cambridge. Yes that's the right start!
Two young guys, John and Chris, who grew the company until they attracted the attention of a larger company that said No no no you can't be called that.
You are infringing on our name AR. No problem John said our name also says Cambridge
But we're from Cambridge Massachusetts, see you in court. Eh, no, let's not go there, John said sensibly.
And so A&R Cambridge became ARCAM
Many products and categories followed and Lo Arcam employed many people making cd players, DACs , dvds, blu-rays, preamps. power amps, av amps, even a few speakers. Through good times and bad ARCAM has always been a premium brand that you could depend on for well made great sounding gear. They outgrew manufacturing in Cambridge and many of these new technologies although designed in the UK had to be made in China.
And Lo Arcam attracted the attention of an enormous company who couldn't understand why these Cambridge folk had such a following for their premium products when some of their brands didn't command the same respect from hifi retailers and enthusiasts.
And so they hatched a plan and bought ARCAM.
Arcam are now part of the Harman Luxury group, formerly Harman Kardon and now including JBL, Revel speakers, Mark Levinson and Lexicon.
And the Harman group is owned by an even bigger fish, Samsung
So when you own all these brands and you have the clever Arcam research team at your disposal the next stage is logical.
Use your Arcam boffins to design keenly priced mass market gear that you can then distribute in larger quantities through your distribution channels.
And Lo above is a JBL AV ampliifer that I have just had supplied by Arcam, or Harman and at a price that Arcam would not have the volume to possibly reach.
There are 4 models to be launched:
MA310 5.2 channel, 4k, 60w at £ 499, really, only £ 499 ??
MA 510 5.2 channel, 8k, 75w at £ 699, seriously?
MA 710 7.2, 8k, 110w at £ 999, and more?
MA7100 High Performance 7.2, 8k, 125w, £ 1399
There will also be a MA9100 to follow
310s and 510s have arrived first, eagerly awaiting the 710 which is probably what we will do most of.
Also available black but the white looks great!
Now if you had a huge organisation with marketing gurus who know which way is up you would have matching speakers badged JBL,
lo and behold that has also happened
With bookshelf speakers from £ 599 and floorstanders from £ 999 a decent AV system entry point has just dropped in price.
Being Lyric I'm more cynical about the speakers and will report back when we hear them.
