We took the opportunity of our first show to put together a system combining some very rare and exotic elements, to be honest this for almost completely selfish reasons but thankfully many visitors also appreciated what had been put together.

We wanted to show people what a classic full range horn speaker could accomplish and it was also and excuse to put together an almost entirely silver wired signal path that used transformer coupling wherever possible - in fact when playing CD’s we effectively had a capacitor-less signal path.


Friday was business as usual at the shop, except for a lot of preparation and packing until closing time, after which we loaded up (3 vans and a car in total) and dashed off to Heathrow.

We’d intentionally chosen a large room to give the speakers plenty of space to breathe, but seeing it for he first time we realised it was a bit more cavernous than we expected! For an empty room it didn’t sound overly lively which was a plus point but the walls were awfully resonant and insubstantial - our worst fear when using corner horns that literally use the walls to extend the horn mouth!

Our aim was to try to get the system playing as soon as possible, we had a deadline of 9.30pm after which we weren’t supposed to run the systems in case it troubled the residents, which didn’t give us long to get everything up and running, so the six of us got to work.

Despite the show being planned for many months in advance there were one or two last minute hitches, the Dac 5 we were intending to use was sold just before the show meaning we had to use a Dac4.1 Balanced which was brand new and really needed a couple of hundred hours running in to sound at its best. There was also a rush with the silver wired pre amplifier, this being only the third one ever made and was completed just hours before the show deadline.

Well the 9.30 curfew came and went and still the system wasn’t ready to run, the speakers taking time to wire and install, particularly as I’d bought along an added complication in the form of a set of tweeters to extend the top end response.

By 12pm we had sound but it wasn’t right at all! The system wasn't projecting as well as it should have and it sounded rather 'off'. It was a steep learning curve, as despite knowing many of the individual elements used in the speakers this was our first exposure to such a rare design. We decided to leave the electronics to warm up overnight. A quick dash back home got us on average about 4-5 hours of kip before an early start Saturday morning to have a tweaking session before the show opened.

Following some thought overnight a plan of action was drawn up, the mid horns were more heavily angled to cover the seating area better and the crossover and phasing tweaked gave us a sound that was definitely getting there.
The trouble is each crossover change required the speakers to be moved and partially disassembled, which made each change a time consuming and exhausting procedure!
But slowly the they came to life and started projecting the way we knew they could and just as the final pieces were put into place at 10am the first visitors of the day turned up to have a listen. The next 7 hours went in a blur of great music and copious cans of Redbull!

Despite the show not opening for another two hours, I took the opportunity to sneak in early before anyone else to selfishly listen to the system. With the lights set low, slipping some Debussy into the transport produced a wonderful illusion, the lack of external noise from other rooms helped and the sound was simply one of the best experiences I’ve had with any system. The realistic image scale, subtlety and effortless dynamic range is rarely experienced in any system. There were certainly limitations, the room acoustics were far from perfect and the walls far too reverberant. Imaging was not as precise as many show visitors were perhaps used to, partly due to the speakers corner position, partly due to their rather wide spacing and I also suspect partly due to the ‘hoods’ that covered the 4 cell mid range horn we used.. However impact and scale were of of course in the league that you'd expect of a design of this nature.

but still it managed to transcend every conventional system in many musically important areas.

Overnight we’d be lent some new amplifiers to try from a designer who's work I had read and respected, (if, I have to admit not always agreed with). Well the sound of the amps were very interesting and quite different from the Tron amplifiers that we’d be using for the majority of the time, and were also approximately the same cost. The other amps were making detail rather more pronounced but were lacking the mid range magic and texture to the lowest frequencies, so for me (if not the designer!) it was a fairly straight forward choice, and the Trons stayed on.

The system was steadily improving throughout the weekend and seemed to be getting better by the hour, so it seemed a shame to have to start pulling it all down at 4pm as even the most ardent enthusiast had headed homeward. Loading and boxing everything took less time than expected and went without incident (always a good thing when you’re the custodian to someone else's very expensive and heavy speakers).

The show was certainly exhausting but we felt very worthwhile, we met a lot of new people and received many very positive comments about the sound we were making at the show including several ‘best sound at the show’ comments which made it all worthwhile.

Any system using speakers originally designed in 1949 was always going to polarise opinion, which are naturally both sonically and cosmetically rather different from what many audiophiles now expect, but for those people that took the time to sit down and acclimatise they were rewarded with a sound that jut isn’t available through lesser means, and again proves that a good design is just that, no matter when it was produced.

We’d like to thank the many suppliers for their assistance in helping us put together this system, with particular thanks to the guys from Octave Audio who manufacture the CN191’s for letting us use them for the show.



We’ve taken the opportunity of the show to compile a system from some rather exotic components that reflect the Noteworthy Audio philosophy. Therefore the system uses valves throughout the signal chain combined with high efficiency loudspeakers.
The system is detailed below:

The Opus Continuo turntable is probably one of the best kept secrets in the hi-fi industry having been in production for 18 years. The latest version is the Granite Reference which finally gives the deck the finish it has always merited. This 40kg turntables plinth is made from Granite that is cut with a high pressure water jet for a high quality finish, and uses a high mass platter.
The deck is designed to be left running continuously (hence the name Continuo), but thanks to the massively engineered bearing and everlasting belt its well up to the task.
We are demonstrating the Continuo with a combination of the Opus Cantus passive parallel tracking tonearm, Music Maker 3 cartridge and Project Speed Box SE power supply.

We are using the CEC TL-2X transport (Ed: now discontinued) as its the most dynamic and musical design we’ve come across. This belt drive model also provides tremendous spatial resolution, revealing ambient clues around instruments that others miss.
On display was an exclusive showing of the Thunder 2.2 Transport that sadly turned up too late in the day to be used.

Critical to a two box digital front end is the digital interconnect and for this we are using the Chord Signature digital which offers tremendous performance.

For digital conversion we are using the Audio Note DAC 4.1 Balanced which uses their one times oversampling technology which we feel is unmatched from extracting the best performance from CD imaginable. This particular model is completely filterless and uses transformers to couple its output instead of capacitors.

The Music First Audio TVC (Transformer Volume Control) gives the resolution of a conventional passive preamplifier without any of the dynamic limitations or cable constraints normally associated with such designs. For the show we are using thesilver wired version, both inside the transformers and externally to the controls and connectors. Compared to the outstanding copper wired version this model reveals an extra level of refinement, subtlety and depth that the standard version misses.

We are proud to be launching our first audio product at this show, called the PhoNote this is an all valve phono stage designed by valve guru Graham Tricker to our specification. It is available in either MM or MC guise (the latter by internal high quality step up transformers) and uses passive RIAA equalisation. Its ultra low noise and output impedance make it suitable for use in almost any system. Please note that the case work shown is a prototype and does not represent the standard of construction, design or finish that the production versions will offer. We are anticipating that it will be available from early May 2005.

We will have a variety of amplifiers on hand throughout the show which will include the Audion Silver Night PSE 300B monoblocks, the Tron Cantata Monoblocks and Stoetkit 300B monoblocks. All three of which employ the 300B valve in a single ended topology, with outputs ranging between 8 and 18 watts.

We feel extremely privileged to be able to use the Vitavox CN191 loudspeakers for the show. These speakers are two way horns, using massively built Alnico mid range compression drivers coupled to 4 cell horns. Frequencies below 500Hz are dealt with by a 15 inch driver in a corner bass horn enclosure that uses the rooms walls to extend the bass response. The sensitivity of the system is an immense 105dB meaning amplifiers from 3-5 watts and upward will suffice in most circumstances, which results in ultra low distortion, maximum energy retrieval and practically complete dynamic contrast.
Each pair is hand made to the owners specification (the cabinets taking 5 weeks of work alone), with various finish, driver and wiring options available. Because of this each pair is unique prices start in the region of £25,000 per pair. For the show these speakers have been wired with our PurerNote speaker cable (see cable section below) and we also added a pair of JBL 2405 slot tweeters to extend the systems response in the top octave.

After years of development Something Solid, a well respected, but little known audiophile stand manufacturer, have developed the outstandingly high performance XR rack.
Based around a solid steel skeleton from which each shelf is individually suspended via tensioned braided polymer cord. The shelves themselves are made from a combination of materials including end grain balsa and carbon fibre pad feet.


To achieve the most natural sound a cable needs to carefully balance many parameters, and through careful use of materials and construction we feel that our new cables achieve this. These are an evolution of designs we have been developing and enjoying over the last few years and we are now finally able to offer them to the public. Designed from the outset to work with very high resolution systems they are naturally suited for use with very high efficiency speakers.
The PurerNote speaker cable uses multiple runs of thin diameter pure silver wire, each of which is individually insulated within natural cotton tubing. This provides good surface area for long runs whilst removing the smearing effect we hear with conventional stranded cables.
Optional cable suspension is being used during the show to get the greatest benefit from using these natural
insulation materials, and is particularly useful where carpets using man made fibres are in situ.
The InterNote interconnect uses the same raw ingredients as the speaker cable. They are effectively
unscreened as we feel this gives the best performance possible and are terminated with the superb Silver Eichmann Bullet plugs. To add the finishing touch many hours of toasting are completed before the cables ready for sale.

To reduce noise from the mains supply without resulting to intrusive sounding filters we are using isolation transformers for all of the low current front end components. This is via an Isol-8 Substation which costs in the region of £1,000 depending on specification chosen. Mains cables used come from a variety of suppliers, including Cut Loose Audio, Nordost, Music works and others.





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