Exploring Naim Power Amplifier Alternatives - Guest Contributor Clive

He's back!  After only a short gap, Clive is back with more insights into experiences with his system.  Opinions are Clive's own. Enjoy.

A couple of months ago I was speaking with John Jackson aka JJ about improving the amplification of my system without swapping my 2 x 250s for 4 x 135s - I didn't want to increase the box count. My 250s have already been upgraded with the addition of Avondale HCR200 power regulators & John's Phoenix amplifier boards, sound amazing & outperform standard 135s so I appreciated it might be a tall order... but read on.

 

For those of you who don't know him, JJ is ex Naim Senior Test & Service Engineer & was Witch Hat Lead R&D Engineer before their demise. He is now operating under his own name as JJSThatcham (https://www.jjsthatcham.uk/) offering Naim servicing & upgrades. When I put my question to him, he told me that there was a modification that's he'd been thinking about for a while but not got round to trying - did I want to be a guinea pig?

 

The modification involved taking a pair of his highly acclaimed Dragon Newts (which will elevate the performance of your Hicap or Supercap) tweaking them to produce +/-42 volts rather than +24 and using them to power a specific section of the Phoenix boards, which would benefit from these ultra-low noise power regulators.

 

So I took a deep breath, put my system back to passive & handed one of my amps over. The development had to overcome a couple of hurdles. The first build of the 42 volt Newts wasn't a quiet as John wanted, but a redesign solved that. Secondly a variation to ensure PSUs start up safely in all conditions caused another issue but that was soon resolved. And about ten days ago John called me to say my amp was ready for collection.

 

 

Those of you that don't know my system may be thinking that, when I mention Aktiv& 250s in the same breath, there'd be something like a 52/supercap/snaxo/ in front of the power amps, and in fact there used to be. But the clue is in "Aktiv" rather than active. Now at the front of my system is a Linn Klimax System Hub which is a streamer/pre amp followed by a Klimax Exaktbox Organic which performs DAC & digital crossover filter duties. I found that the Linn Aktiv implementation is a significant improvement over the Naim snaxo. My speakers are now Kudos 707s although until recently I had SL2s with bespoke crossover filters created by SpeakerFilters / http://speakerfilters.blogspot.com/

 

 

So how does it sound? I've initially left my system passive so I can easily compare to the existing amp. Straight out of the box it was obvious that the addition of the Dragon Newts had made improvements but now they've got 200 hours /10 days under their belt, I sat down do a serious comparison. I pulled up my Test Tracks playlist (link at the end) & chose five tracks. First up was Mary Coughlan - The Beach. It was immediately apparent from the open opening notes that the sax intro has more detail, more of a rasp to it. When Mary starts singing, the vocal has more air & is more breathy. The guitars are more distinct & more defined. Notes start & stop with more precision. But the overall impression is of a more musical, more real, more live performance.

 

Other tracks I listened too were Hanne Boel - After Midnight, ERA - The Mass, John Campbell - Way Down in the Hole & Nils Lofgren - Little On Up (you thought I was going to say Keith Don't Go didn't you). It was the same story. Snare drums have more snap, bass lines are tighter, there's more air round instruments, there's more vocal inflection & everything is easier to follow. On the ERA track the timpanis sound more - well more like timpanis& the track has more drive. The Nils Lofgren track while it's easier to separate the two guitars, the whole track is more poignant, you can feel the emotion.

 

 

 

To summarize, the modification retains all the PRaT that Naim amps are famed for and gives you more of the attributes you'd want - tighter bass lines, more precision, more decay on sustained notes, more shimmer & shine on symbols, airiness & separation, greater insight into vocals & individual instruments. However it manages to do this in a hugely musical & real, non HiFi sort of way. It sounds more like a live performance, be that in a controlled studio environment, on a stage or in your local pub. It sounds like the musicians are having just so much fun. Fantastic. Swapping back to the original amp (very briefly) & that sounded a bit dull & pedestrian by comparison, & bear in mind that this is an amp that out performs standard 135s.

 

I was now itching to have Dragon Newts fitted to my other amp so I can go back to AktivExakt.

 

Well a couple of weeks later I got my second 250 back from JJ with Dragon Newts fitted & put my system back to AktivExakt and gave it a couple of weeks for the second amp to burn in. I listened to the same playlist (links at the end) that I used in my initial assessment of with / without the Dragon Newts - so how does it sound?

 

 

Short answer - awesome. Longer answer - I have my amps configured so that, rather than one for bass/mid & one for tweeters, one powers left bass/mid & left tweeter & the other the right speaker drive unit. Linn's ExaktAktiv implantation brings a depth & precision to the sound stage and separation between performers that you just don't get in passive configuration.

 

In ExaktAktiv configuration, the Dragon Newt modification to the amps brings an extra level of airiness /breathiness & dynamics to the performance. On the first track the rasp & inflection on the sax was more obvious, more real. Bass lines gain in solidity & Mary Coughlan's voice is anchored centre stage - close your eyes & she could be in the room with you along with the saxophonist & bass player (although that makes it quite crowded in my lounge)

 

On the Era track you really get more of a feeling of a massed choir. There's a greater sense of menace with the  timpanis like rolling thunder, and the driving bass lines sound like something from an Indiana Jones movie when the bad men are lowering him into the pit of hell

 

John Campbell's  voice sounds even more gravelly if that's possible, ravaged by years of smoking cigars & drinking cheap whisky. And if Little On Up doesn’t bring a tear to your eye you must be made of tough old boot leather.

 

Going ExaktAktiv takes the attributes that I experienced after JJ had added Dragon Newts to my first amp - tighter bass lines, more precision, more decay on sustained notes, more shimmer & shine on symbols, airiness & separation, greater insight into vocals & individual instruments and builds on them. But importantly, it does so in a hugely musical & real, non HiFi sort of way. It sounds more musical, more real, more like a live performance in your living room. It sounds like the musicians are having just so much fun. Fantastic.

 

 

As a foot note, I've heard the new white logo Naim 250, and I know some people are raving about it. For me, that is hifi, amazingly detailed but ultimately not engaging. If you are looking for the PRaT that Naim are famed for, but in spades, get an Olive 250 & have JJ breathe his magic on it. And if you fancy going down the ExaktAktiv route, but have speakers that aren’t supported (I previously had Naim SBLs & the SL2s) contact SpeakerFilters:  http://speakerfilters.blogspot.com/

 

 

Test Tracks (subscriptions may be required to access these playlists)

https://open.qobuz.com/playlist/7693858

https://tidal.com/.../5822bbac-97fc-4471-83bf-d6e284571a13

 

Kudos Audio - Exclusive Factory Visit, August 2023

Now a very visible and significant player on the international high quality audio scene, Kudos Audio has taken a different approach to producing music for its enthusiastic customers and are actively pursuing new ideas, as I type.

Favourable reviews are now the norm for the company's Titan range, including a number on Audiophile Musings.  Step this way to get a flavour of what the reviewers are saying about the company's products and some of the numerous awards and accolades bestowed upon them:

HiFi Critic Titan 505 

The Ear Titan 606

HiFi+ Titan 707

HiFi+ Titan 808

Hifi Critic Super 20A

What Hifi? Super 10A 

Hifi Choice C10 

Audiophile Musings "Sound of the Show" (Titan 808) and "Highly Commended" (Titan 505) at Chester Show, 2019

Audiophile Musings "Sound of the Show" at Bristol 2020 with Titan 707

Audiophile Musings went to find out what makes the company tick, being invited for an exclusive factory tour in the North East of England, UK - it turned into a 5 hour history lesson, factory tour, Titan 808 listening session, and zero nonsense...

Most of you will be familiar with the old joke:

Tourist: "how do I get to Town X"

Local: "well, I wouldn't start from here if I was you..."

I came away with the impression that the Kudos story has a similar origin.  Derek Gilligan, founder and head honcho at Kudos has a solid background to work from with a family in the music and live music PA business, but the route from there to today took an interesting path. Today's Kudos is a testimony to thinking differently, building a team that incudes family & those you can trust, being obsessive about quality and ensuring the basics are right.

As a fellow Darlingtonian, it was easy to chat with Derek about the pros and cons of "Darlo" and the area in which we grew up.  Different schools though, so not totally parallel experiences. I very much remember my early forays into hifi in the 1980s and they were supported by some canny purchases from used audio specialists in High Northgate, Darlington "North East Audio Traders". Derek became part of the team there and may even have served me in the shop, but thankfully neither of us remember! North East Audio Traders was a novel idea in the region at the time and was reasonably successful. Going to hifi shows to demonstrate their equipment was part of the game, but speaker consistency proved a challenge. Hence the guys at N.E.A.T. put together a small standmount of their own to enable easy comparison between equipment that's just not possible when a stock of used speakers is constantly changing from day to day. Soon reviewers were asking to review the speaker in its very rudimentary form, but were very complementary about the way it performed. Derek was involved in the speaker using a renowed driver from earlier speaker products that needed to be sourced from wherever they were still available from stock. Eventually this driver had to be re-manufactured once the speaker took off in the market. It was partnered with a modern dome tweeter. The NEAT Petite is now a very well known speaker and continues in a revised form to this day, as the Petite Classic.

Original NEAT Petite Loudspeakers

The design process of Petite, based on listening for musicality and a try and re-try approach set the tone for the future. What Hifi? were impressed with the result "as tuneful as they come".  When demonstrating the speakers, N.E.A.T. used the exceptionally substantial Kudos speaker stands...

Derek parted ways with NEAT for a few years, pursuing other activities until he returned for a second stint with the company to work on speaker designs such as the Ultimatum, where we can see techniques such as isobaric bass loading being deployed, as it is in today's Titan range (also used elsewhere such as Linn's Akubarik). NEAT bought the Kudos brand as part of buying up the stock of speaker stands as Kudos' then owner moved on to different products and markets. During this time Derek had developed some design ideas he wanted to try but the opportunity wasn't presented to go in that direction.  Time for a new direction...

So we come to the inception of Kudos Audio as a speaker manufacturer in its own right - a "do or die", "all or nothing" decision for Derek and his wife.  With a good network of contacts in the industry and dealerships, understanding what was wanted in the market and what was possible from a design perspective, the initial Cardea products, although fairly conventional in construction, were very well received and the business was underway.  The basic tenets behind those early designs hold true today - listen, listen, listen, use high quality components, gentle slope crossovers to minimise component count and phase distortion, build in the UK using UK producers and components wherever possible. But the scale has moved on, as has the size and breadth of the product range.

Based in the North East of England (close to Derek's roots) isn't the UK hifi heartland, but everything is within easy reach and, of course, electronic communications mean distance isn't the blocker it used to be.  The company is split across 3 sites on the same compact business park - storage, manufacturing and design / demo buildings. This is the second location for the company and it has grown into the current arrangements organically - annexing a next door unit here, installing a mezzanine floor there, plus the major investment in the design / listening / demo suite. Its a compact, cleanly presented, logically laid out facility. This appears to work very well for the core workforce, consisting of Derek, production manager Mark with Derek's son Louis looking after quality control and his daughter Kay joining the team on the week of my visit to take on office management, accounting etc. after several years experience in similar roles in other companies. The extended team includes another 7 colleagues across sales, marketing and export colleagues based locally or where the dealer network needs them to be.

We talked through the design and manufacture of the higher, and very successful, Titan range of products to understand the Kudos approach.  Essentially Derek uses the experience of existing designs and applies new ideas to those products or completely new concepts to push the boundaries of what's possible and what's effective - sometimes it shows promise, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it takes very little refinement to be just what he's hoping for.  The exact percentage of those outcomes wasn't shared with me :)  An example is using isobaric loading for the mid-bass drivers in Titan 505, 606 and 707. Basically isobaric means 2x drivers - one internal, the other on the front baffle - linked by a sealed air chamber between those drivers, giving the impression of a much larger single drive unit in a larger cabinet. Its unusual in the industry to use isobaric so high in the frequency range, but Kudos found that allowing a minimal air gap around the voicecoil of the driver, coupled with "back to back" driver mounting reduced the effect of differences between drive units (even very expensive drive units are never identical) to give a better performance over a wider frequency range.

Another example of experienced based innovation is the cabinet construction of Titan.  Its core is a relatively thin MDF structure, the panels of which flex (the deflection is not visible to the eye) because the outer panels of the cabinet, in heavier gauge veneered MDF, are compliantly coupled to damp the flex of the inner cabinet wall. A mix of 2 existing, usually mutually exclusive, philosophies in the industry, but applied in a different way. The composition of the damping disks connecting inner cabinet to outer cabinet and the exact location of the mounting points were subject to the iterative try, listen, change, listen, change, listen approach until the best sounding materials and mounting locations were established. A further example of the design approach is that each panel in the internal cabinet has one of a number of thickness options - to vary the natural resonance of each panel rather than having all the panels contributing one resonance.

Titan 606 Inner Cabinets and Connector / Crossover Panels

Kudos work very closely with Norwegian driver manufacturer SEAS who have been found to be exceptionally co-operative and collaborative on driver design changes - be that cone materials, coil winding, cone shape, doping etc. etc. Only the basic driver basket remains unchanged for mid-bass drivers, everything else is available to change and Kudos exploits that opportunity with drivers going through several iterations before being custom manufactured to their final spec.  The Krescendo tweeter used in Titan is another example of the collaboration with SEAS, being based on a existing metal dome driver but with the magnet from a different SEAS model and the dome using a fabric and shape of Kudos' choice. As a component, compared to those in many other loudspeakers, the Titan tweeter is "reassuringly expensive".

SEAS Mid-Bass Drivers to Kudos Custom Spec

 

We step through the build process.  Cabinets are, of course, Kudos designs, but built by specialist suppliers.  A subject of intense discussion in the UK speaker manufacturing industry right now as one of the major suppliers of cabinets to the vast majority of UK loudspeaker brands has abruptly ceased supply.  For a small company this means a great deal of disruption to source a new supplier, but this looks to be resolved for Kudos and supply will continue to be delivered to customers as there are good stocks of parts in place right now. Every cabinet (internal and external damping panels, stand components etc) are inspected for any imperfections before being accepted and placed into stock. With Titan the internal cabinet remains consistent and the external damping panels bring the differences in colours and veneers. A number of veneers are available as are piano black and white gloss.

Drive units come in from SEAS in batches, passive crossovers are constructed on the production benches. Crossovers for Titan are hand built on the connector panel with components being direct wired (no circuit board) and use very gentle crossover slopes and the natural roll-offs of the drivers in the cabinets as Kudos believe this reduces "stuff getting in the way of the music".  Its a relatively expensive way of making crossovers, but demonstrates the passion for getting the right end result.  All the components for a complete speaker pair - drivers, internal cabinet, external damping panels, crossover, stands, packaging, connector panels, etc, - are gathered together onto a single pallet.  This pallet is then transferred to the build area for assembly by one member of the team. Seeing the details of the drivers, and the layered construction of what look like relatively simple stands opens my eyes to how much effort has gone into the design of Titans, something not at all obvious to the customer. Every pair is then put through listening tests before being packaged ready for despatch. 

Alongside the build area is a newly constructed office unit and the basics needed to keep the team fed and watered through the day.

Titan 808 Crossovers - Bass on the Left, Mid and Treble on the Right

 

We move over to the design / listening / demo suite where, in typical Kudos fashion, we enjoy a straightforward sandwich and cuppa whilst listening to the system currently set up.  At this point we also discuss the "active" option for Super 10A, Super 20A and the Titan range, and why Kudos chose to go in that direction, another distinctive differentiator in the market. It is, unsurprisingly, a fairly simple answer - to get a better musical result.  As an independent manufacturer, with no ties to existing electronics partners, Kudos can work with multiple different active electronics partners with ease.  Linn, Naim, Exposure and Devialet options have been made available and the speakers can be converted to active operation with a simple change to links on the connection panel.  

Listening Room with Titan 808

Kudos have long been a favoured brand of speaker amongst Naim electronics customers and that manufacturer's kit has featured extensively during the development of Kudos products and demonstrations at hifi shows (in passive and active form), along with Linn's Exakt active option. But today we have a system fronted by an Innuos server / streamer, Chord DAVE DAC, Chord Ultima Pre and Ultima Power amps. This was a surprise choice for me, given my past experience with Chord amplification hasn't been so enjoyable.  But this new Ultima range changes that completely, being musical, with coherent timing.  This system was feeding Titan 808s passively through, of course, Kudos KS-1 speaker cables. We range through some church choral recordings (great representation of the space), electronic dance music (great pace, controlled impactful bass lines) and Leonard Cohen (expressive grumbling vocals) and the time passes very quickly enjoying the music (note, the music, not the treble nor bass nor mids!).

Chord Stack on the Left In Use for Our Demo - alongside Naim including the active SNAXO crossover option. Another rack in the room contained other manufacturer electronics including Linn, currently being refreshed to Selekt spec.

What of the future?  Well Kudos have lots more ideas to take through their iterative, listening based process of product innovation and improvement. Some interesting ideas on drive units and active options could be on the way if they meet that essential criteria - is it musically more enjoyable than what went before? If today's products are anything to go by, the results will be interesting indeed.

Thanks very much to Derek and the Kudos team for your time, openess, straightforward discussion and hospitality.

NAIM SBL Loudspeakers: From SNAXO Active to Linn Exakt: Guest Contributor

Here's something a little different.  The first ever "guest contributor" post on AudiophileMusings.  Below is Clive Gidney's experience of working with SpeakerFilters on development of Linn Exakt filters for the Naim SBL loudspeakers.

Full disclosure: the lead designer at SpeakerFilters is also the "editor at large" of AudiophileMusings.  Note the article below is entirely Clive's own words without any edits.  Enjoy, and thank you Clive for your contribution.

NAIM SBL: FROM SNAXO ACTIVE TO LINN EXAKT by Clive Gidney

At the beginning of the year, having been running a pair of SBLs with a pair of 250s sort of bi amped (one for left channel only & one for right - just because I had 2 x 250s & hadn't got round to swapping them for a pair of 135s) I decided that it was time to do the proper thing & go active. 
 
 
 
 So SNAXO  & Supercap added and this gave a significant improvement in detail, soundstage, PRaT & all the things that SBLs are famous for... But I was still left with the feeling that they are a bit forward & a bit bass light. In fact a non audiophile friend described them as "a bit shouty".  And yes - I'd done all the set up things, as close to a solid brick wall as the skirting board would allow, re-sealed the bass loading box etc.
 
Then a couple of months ago I was at Brian & Trevor's in Manchester for a musical evening  listening to a Linn/Kudos Exakt active system thinking this system sounds amazing (although I would have liked to hear it with Naim power amps) but the transparency that the Exakt technology brought, which performs the crossover in the digital domain, was breath-taking. In the interval I remarking to one of the other attendees how great Exakt was & that I wished it was available for SBLs! And he said "I write Exakt filters for speakers that Linn doesn't support" OMG!! That person was Neil Hallworth of speakerfilters.com
 
So we embarked on the Exakt SBLs project.
 
Step 1 was to physically measure the SBL cabinets, the position of the drive unit centres, the front baffle slope etc. These numbers were then plugged into Linn's system to enable Linn's Space Optimisation to be enabled. That is available now for free for anyone using a Linn DS or DSM with SBLs via Konfig! 
  
Step 2 involved Neil calling at my house to take some electrical measurements of the drive units to measure their impedance.
 
Step 3 Neil then took these measurements together with some information on the crossover frequencies & slopes obtained from Naim to work some digital magic to create a first cut of the digital Exakt crossover filters. In fact he sent me three versions with different crossover slopes, 2nd order, 3rd order & 4th order. It was very quickly apparent that the 3rd order (which is what Naim used) was the best. The 2nd order sounded congested in the mid-range while the 4th order sounded as though there was a hole in it. He then sent me a 3rd order v2 without telling me what he'd done. When I tried it, it was clear that this was an improvement over v1 with better definition & spatial separation. The sound stage was more clearly defined & I was in heaven. The slightly bright & comparatively bass light presentation was gone without losing any of the strengths of musicality & PRaT that SBLs are renowned for. Neil assured me that there would be more to come in step 4 but I was so impressed that my SNAXO & Supercap were already up for sale!
 

 
Step 4 Neil called again to fine tune the filters. Firstly we agreed that in taming the brightness, they had lost a little of their sparkle. Now apparently, the sound waves emanating from all drive units have an interaction with the speaker cabinet front baffle and to compensate for this, within the Exakt crossover Neil had created a 0.8 dB treble filter. Now I'd been advised by John Jackson (ex Naim Senior Test & Service Engineer & currently Witch Hat Lead R&D Engineer) that the SBL cut away foam grill was designed to overcome the treble baffle interaction issue. So Neil removed the filter, updated the Exaktbox & sparkle was back. Hi hats shimmered, room acoustics were tangible, the space around instruments & performers improved. 
 
Next we played with the actual crossover frequency. With v1 the bass/mid roll off & treble roll on were at the same point 2.4khz which we'd got from one Naim source. In v2 the bass/mid was rolled off at 2.3khz & the treble rolled on at 2.5khz (from a different Naim source) So we tried widening the gap by 50hz either way - not as good. Leaving the bass/mid where it was but bringing the treble back again - immediate improvement!
 
Adding baffle filters for the bass/mid drivers for both the length & width of the cabinet added further improvements and the subtlety  of the changes that could clearly be heard was mind blowing;  -0.5 dB - too much, - 0.25 dB, not enough so we settled on - 0.4 dB. Adding a 1.5 dB lift in the bass from 0-60 hz - too much, 1.2 dB - still too much, 1.0 dB - bingo! In all we went through 17 variations fine tuning the Exakt crossovers in just over two hours. Imagine trying to do that with resistors & capacitors in the analogue domain!
 
The end result? Absolutely stunning. If you thought going from passive to active with a SNAXO was a big step... from SNAXO to Exakt is like having seven league boots on! Really, it's that good. 
 
Oh, the cost?  Well  I'm going to make a few assumptions. If you're already active with SBLs, then presumably you've got a good front end - LP12 around Akurate spec, a Naim NDX minimum, maybe NDS, or a Linn Akurate DS/DSM Katalyst, Naim 82/Supercap or more likely 52/Supercap, SNAXO / Supercap.
Hardware. You keep whatever power amps you're using - in my case a pair of olive Nap 250s which will retain your signature sound. Ideally you'll need a Linn Akurate System Hub which becomes your pre amp - £2700 new or about £1600 pre owned, & a Linn Akurate Exaktbox Katalyst which is where the majik happens (see what I did there) - £5000 new or I picked one up pre owned with 4 years warranty for £3200; And, you'll need a set of  Exakt filters from speakerfilters.com  which are just £295. These  can be tested for a free 2 week  trial period before purchase. Total cost  about £5400 pre owned or ~£8000 going new
But you can recoup say £1500 on your NDX, or £2000 on your Akurate DS, £2000 on your 82 /Supercap & £1500 on your SNAXO /Supercap = £5/5500 so approx. cost  neutral going pre owned And if you've got a 52 or an NDS you might even have some cash left over


A huge shout out for Neil of speakerfilters.com for all the work designing & refining the filters. 

Clive. 

Scalford System 2015 - Feeback From Around the Forums

Here are the comments from around the forums (I've listed them all, where I've found them - both positive and negative):

LINN:

Dasher: I think that you surprised quite a few people yesterday! Congratulations - it worked really well

PINK FISH MEDIA:

Ginger: A digital set up of Fiio/MF VDAC, tisbury passive and Linn Katans (all for under a grand according to it's owner) sounding lovely, especially at this money. I've heard none of this stuff before but the speakers disappearing, imaging nicely, again unforced, out of the boxes, I could live with that no problem. 

Muzzer: Ginger I agree about some of those big money systems being amongst the poorer sounding systems, also was not really impressed by the much hyped Event Opals and did not rate the Linn Katan active setup much.

Joolzdee: My first, but won't be my last Scalford show.
Favourites for me were...in no particular order....
Room 200 with the Mac mini/ Grimm active speakers
Room 201 with the Royd Sapphires. What a big sound!
Room 202... Activ Katans
and Room 22... High spec LP12, Gato, Art Alnico speakers (stunning!!)
Well done to all exhibitors though.....plenty of good sounds and lots of hard work too!!
Thanks everyone.

TonyL: I enjoyed a couple of systems mentioned rather negatively upthread, the active Katans & Events both sounded good to me, I've certainly never heard passive Katans sound anything like that good before, but in both cases I managed to bag a good front and centre seat.

Foot Tapper: I made a point of popping in for a listen yesterday and was really pleasantly surprised. For such compact speakers, I thought that the sound was punchy, fast, tuneful and went surprisingly deep. The very small source components were also digging far more of the music out than I had expected. Not being a fan of Linn's current electronics, I really wasn't expecting much, but the system far, far exceeded my expectations. In fact it was great! Thanks for making the effort to set it up so well.   (also, from the same contributor on the Naim Forum: Your room sounded amazingly good this year, especially for such a compact system.  
It must have been the active amplification for the speakers.
Either that, or the carefully selected grade of goose down in your bass traps

jhud1952: Couldn't agree more - truly excellent sound from such a compact system.

CYRUSUNOFFICIAL:

hifinutt: so good to catch up with quite a few from cu and the rooms sounded good with the opals and I must say sunbeams room was absolutely brilliant as usual. those katans with the linn and flac source was very holographic. well whatever you did it was magic !!!!  As you know sunbeam was using his (Tisbury) in his marvellous set up at the wam show and it sounded pretty fine

mickbald: Sunbeams set up. How can you possibly get so much sound for £1000? Tiny speakers delivering the impossible, and where was the subwoofer hidden? Sunbeam never stood up while I was there so I have my suspicions

maro73: Some systems to point out
1. Sunbeam .. World beater system
2. The mingda system was really good
3. There were some high high end systems , good to listen to but in a house impossible , unless you wife is blind or likes hifi

abozo: sunbeamgls: very impressive sound/pound. Your system was making a lot us think!

Dan1502: Having been meaning to find your room all weekend Edun telling me how good it was gave me a nudge to go and find it on Sunday afternoon. It ended up being a much needed break and I sat there relaxing for half an hour or so up until the point I noticed nobody else could get in the room so I moved on for their sakes.

Callen24: Sunbeam system was one of the few able to create a soundstage, I only heard 13 rooms, but most of them sounded like the sound was in the speakers, not around them....The two packed duvets, in the corner, and the closed curtains suggest to me that sunbeam spent a lot of time thinking about what he was doing. He has obviously had an affect because the price of katan speakers has gone up a few notches, on the bay, since scaffold.

CrimsonDonkey: Loads of cred for sunbeams room he did a great job

HIFI WIGWAM:

Petrat: ... and Sunbeamgls ... those little Aktiv Katans will stay long in my memory.

syep2001: Sunbeamgls - Probably them most relaxed room i went in all day, smooth low volume, and the female vocal that came out of the Katans sounded very nice.

JamPal (nee hifiwigwam at the time): However, it was some of the smaller rooms which really got me thinking. SunbeamGLS's little Linn Katans fed from a FIO was absolutely stunning, I stayed a long while in there.

Steve H: The speakers I enjoyed listening to most today was the Linn Katan in room 202 followed by the little Harbeths P3. The produce to my ears, a sound that is fast and clear. I could have stayed much longer to enjoy the music and conversation.

NAIM FORUM:

naim_nymph: This system was top draw imho, the small speakers didn't challenge the acoustics of the room, no colourisation, just easy on the ear music. If there was a prize for giant killing this system would have got 1st place.

Wanted to stay longer but much to go see and hear : )

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HiFi Wigwam Scalford Show Report 2015 - As An Exhibitor

After working through the check list and packing the car in 2 short stints in between the rain, on the way just after 1pm, arriving just before 4pm.  Checked in then my brother arrived just in time to unload the car.  We had a small ground floor room in the new block which had the expected twin beds set up, so not much room for boxes and kit.

Once the car was unpacked we headed for the bar, chatted with a few wammers but it was fairly quiet there.  Then we got the kit out of boxes and up and running, just so we could be sure everything was working, which it did straight away - I guess it took about 90 mins elapsed time once all the unwanted boxes and spares were back in the car.  We listened for a bit, decided it sounded OK, but there's no point in going for a result when the beds are in the room.  Got the bits n pieces off to the room to contribute to the charity bring and buy hifi stuff stall.

So a brief wander around a couple of rooms on the same floor, then off to the bar for a drink to join the curry.  A bit after 7pm the curry was available and the dining room filled up quickly.  Beef, chicken and veg curry plus rice, naan and bhajis etc., on a help yourself basis (so that'll be 2 platefuls thanks!) went well with the very well presented hand pulled Doom Bar ale.  More natter over the curry.

Then for the very relaxed wander around the rooms that were up and running to try and get as many done over the quieter hours of the evening - Sunday is always too busy to get around everything, particularly when there's a room to look after - even when there are 2 too share the work.  See separate report (to come) about the rooms I really enjoyed at the show.

Can we not have the show over the clock change weekend next year please?  :-)  Losing an hour doesn't help - not a biggie, but a preference!

We were up at 7:30am (BST), showered etc., then down to the decent breakfast where we learnt a good deal about reel to reel professional tape machines, tape mastering, the carelessness of the industry when it comes to preserving masters, how to unstick gummed up tape reels etc. etc from Lodgesound.  Didn't realise it was so complex!

Back to the room and we started with furniture moving (its about 8:45 now with visitors due around 10:00) to clear out the beds and bring in the chairs.  With there being 2 of us, we didn't wait or call for hotel staff, just got on with it.  The bed bases went into the en-suite, one mattress stayed in the room and one went out of the room.  The small bedside tables came in handy - I was thinking for putting small lamps on them, but it turned out they were great for creating bass traps in the front corners of the room.

We messed about for some time moving the speakers too and fro to try and get the bass boom in the room to a minimum - being in a very square room is only exceeded by a completely cubic room.  We did at least have a concrete floor to spike the speakers down onto though, so that helped.  The best place for the speakers was a long way out into the room and would've left only one row of seats - never going to be enough for visitors.  We pushed the speakers back closer to the wall again (about 45 cms from the wall) and stuffed socks into the rear ports on the Katans.  The bass boom was gone, but so was the music - the life was sucked out of it.

So the bedside table went into the front corners and were stacked with bean bags underneath and duvets on top.  This was a vast improvement, but still not enough, so the bean bags went on top of the tables and the spaces underneath were packed with pillows, with one of the mattresses propped up against the back wall of the room.  Believe me, if you want a good sound, make sure the house you buy doesn't have a square room!  At this point we were happy enough to say we'd done enough for a reasonable result - and enough room for 2 x 3 rows of seats for visitors.  I noticed that the room sounded at its best with 4 to 6 people in the room.  Curtains closed and some low level lighting to help the atmosphere :-)

First arrivals at around 9:50am (show opens at 10!) and we have 2 or 3 folks in the room at a time until around 10:15 when it starts to get busy, then we have a steady stream throughout the day through to 4-30pm.  Sometime there are 2 or 3 people, sometimes we have 12 in (game of sardines!) and sometimes folk try and open the door and give up trying to get in - maybe some of them came back later.  We did have a few that opened the door when there was room to get in, but decided they didn't like what they heard (which is, as I've said a good few times before at other shows, not a good way to make any evaluation, particularly when you consider how much effort goes into getting the speakers to just the right place in the room).

Throughout the day we are lucky enough to get several re-visits and some come back for a third session, with lots of really encouraging comments about the system.  Also, I noted that pretty much every visitor made the effort to smile, nod or say thank you as they leave the room - I think that was a massive improvement on previous years when many folks never bothered.

The FiiO was on shuffle going through the playlist here, but during the quieter times a few people asked for particular tracks to be played - very happy to do this!  Brother John and I took turns to look after the room and tour around the other systems.  The day whizzed by (it always surprises me this, the 7 hours of showtime seem to stretch out in front, but then it all disappears so quickly) and we enjoyed the music (mostly, I guess John wasn't that happy with some of the dance tracks on the playlist, but he knows how to move it on...).  Having technology that just gets on with playing the music makes the day quite easy (and give time to answer visitors' questions) and takes the heat out of deciding what to play next as the machine just gets on with shuffling through what I've already decided would be suitable.  It does take a bit more time in advance of course, so adds a bit of pressure in advance, but removes so much of it on the day. We did get some feedback on the music choice - particularly that it was "real" music choices rather than simple well recorded jazz-lite which is what seems to be always on offer at the commercial shows.

We had an empty room at 4:30 but then at 4:40 we had a couple of returnees who requested a few tracks and shared their thoughts on the day (they'd managed to visit every room - that's quite an impressive feat and bit of organisation, particularly as several rooms were impossible to squeeze into for a good part of the day, being so popular).  We were very happy for the re-visit, but with a 2.5 hour drive to look forward to unfortunately had to politely ask them to leave at 5pm so we could pack away.

Amazingly the packing was done in an hour and everything was back into the car.

Must say a huge thanks as follows:

James and the organising team at Hifi Wigwam
Those that organised the raffle and/or supplied prizes
Those that worked on the other charity efforts
The hotel (they're so tolerant, AND they now serve hand pulled Doom Bar)
Visitors to the room (who were happy to come through the door despite the brands listed on the door)
The kind comments from visitors about what they heard in the room
All the exhibitors who put in so much effort and are happy to help each other out
JVS for the pies and the excellent Wam-taxi services
And anyone else I should be thanking, but have forgotten

But most of all, thanks to my brother John who supported the room with box shifting, many hours of room sitting and assisting with the beer drinking and to my fantastic family for giving us the time to go out and do something a bit daft with the weekend  :-)

Here's a picture of Room 202 at the show:

DETAILS OF THE SYSTEM:

On the bench, from left to right:

First (on the perspex stand): FiiO X3 portable hi-res player, loaded with FLAC files, most of which are 16 bit CD rips, but a handful of 24 bit files too. Music chosen on the basis of music I enjoy first, but then narrowed down based on production . SQ qualities. This was being used purely as a digital transport. Using the coax digital output the signal was fed down a Chord ProDAC Pro Gold digital coax cable to the DAC.

Second (small silver box): a Musical Fidelity PSU-2 which is a linear power supply for the DAC

Third (small black box): a Musical Fidelity V-DAC 1 which feeds its output down a pair of Linn Silver interconnects (silver is the model name based on the colour of the sleeve, there's no actual silver involved) to the pre-amp

Fourth (wooden front with silver knobs): Tisbury passive pre-amp - basically a source selection switch and a potentiometer in a box. This was connected by Linn Silver interconnects to the power amp

Fifth (large blue box): Linn AV5125 multi-channel power amp (125W per channel). In here there are active crossover cards. For each channel the signal from the pre-amp is split into treble and bass frequencies before the amplifiers, then the treble signals go to one channel of the amplification, bass to another. The signal is then sent down one pair of speaker cables (each Linn K400 speaker cable has 2 pairs of conductors) directly to the appropriate driver in each speaker (there are no crossovers in circuit in the speakers). So 4 channels of the power amp are in use - 2 power amps for each speaker, 1 power amp per driver.

The electronics are all on Mission Isoplats and a single shelf and legs of Quadraspire QAV (with a home made brace halfway down the legs)

Speaker cables are Linn K400, which, at 5m each are too long for the room, but we laid them in S shapes rather than coiling.

Speakers are Linn Katans with the back panel connections set up for active operation. They are on the original Linn stands which are spiked, adjusted to be level and no rocking movement. Katans blu-tacked to the stands.

Corners of the room heavily damped with bedding and bean bags (we ended up with more than shown in the photo) and a mattrass against the rear wall. Being a perfectly square room is a real pain! Took us about an hour to get the sound to the best we could with the room we had and the materials available. We even tried socks in the Katan's rear ports for a couple of minutes, but that killed the sound. We also had the system playing quietly the evening before and from about 7:30 on Sunday morning.

Power cables were all standard issue stuff, including a normal extension lead. The Linn amp has been refinished in MG Trophy Blue - one of the reasons the system has been so cost effective as the amp was very scruffy when I bought it, so it cost me about 55% of what they normally sell for.

I mention all the details, which you might think is very long winded, as I think all the little bits add up to a better total.

Hope that helps.

Link here to pictures of setting up the Katans and installing the active cards in the amp: http://audiophilemusings.blogspot.co...th-av5125.html

And another picture by Phil Morgan, with the full bass trap treatment (and a decent camera by the look of it!)

The Hifi Wigwam Scalford Show 2015: Room 202 Playlist

THEHIFISHOW.COM

Here's the kit list we're exhibiting at the show this year, in Room 202:

FiiO X3
Chord Prodac Gold coax cable
Musical Fidelity V-DAC 1 with V-PSU 2
Linn Silver interconnect (its only a description of the sleeve, no silver involved)
Tisbury passive pre-amp
Linn Silver interconnect
Linn active crossover cards inside AV5125 (using 4 of the 5 power amp channels)
Linn K400 speaker cable
Linn Aktiv Katan speakers on their dedicated stands

Also, a fun system in the bar area on Saturday night.

And here is the list of 16 bit and 24 bit tracks that will be on shuffle and visitors will be able to ask for particular tracks from the list too:

$olal	Psycho Girls & Psycow Boys (Haaksman & Haaksman remix)	Electronica	2007
Afterlife	Makes Me Feel	Electronica	2000
Agnes Obel	Fuel To Fire	Jazz	2013
Ane Brun	Words	Folk/Rock	2011
Ane Brun	Worship (Feat. Jose Gonzalez)	Folk/Rock	2011
Annie Lennox	Why	Pop	1992
Art Of Noise	Moments In Love	Electronic	2008
Black Mighty Orchestra	Ocean Beach (Cybophonia Cinematic Remix)	Electronic	2008
Black Sabbath	Planet Caravan	Rock	2000
Blues Company	Cold Rain	Blues	1997
Blues Company	Dark Day	Blues	2007
Brendan Perry	Death Will Be My Bride	Folk	1999
Brendan Perry	Medusa	Folk	1999
Chris Rea	Looking For A Rainbow	Rock	1989
Chris Rea	Texas	Rock	1989
Daft Punk	Give Life Back To Music	Pop	2013
Daft Punk	Lose Yourself To Dance	Pop	2013
Damien Rice	Cannonball	Folk/rock	2003
Damien Rice	Cold Water	Folk/rock	2003
Damien Rice	Delicate	Folk/rock	2003
Damien Rice	Volcano	Folk/rock	2003
Dead Can Dance	Agape	Folk	2012
Dead Can Dance	All In Good Time	Folk	2012
Dead Can Dance	American dreaming	Folk	1994
Dead Can Dance	Amnesia	Folk	2012
Dead Can Dance	Anabasis	Folk	2012
Dead Can Dance	Children Of The Sun	Folk	2012
Dead Can Dance	Opium	Folk	2012
Dead Can Dance	The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove (Remastered)	Folk	1993
Dean Fraser	Big Up/Armageddon Time	Jazz/Reggae	1997
Dean Fraser	Dick Tracy	Jazz/Reggae	1997
Death Cab For Cutie	Doors Unlocked And Open	Indie Rock	2011
Death On The Balcony	Them 3 Words (Original)	Electronic	2012
Devon Allman	Strategy	Blues	2013
Devon Allman	Time Machine	Blues	2013
Dire Straits	Fade to Black	Rock	1991
Dire Straits	Planet of New Orleans	Rock	1991
Dirty Vegas	Days Go By (Acoustic Mix)	Chillout	2003
Disclosure feat London Grammar	Help Me Lose My Mind	Rock	2013
Eddi Reader	Dear John	Folk	1994
Elbow	Asleep In The Back	Indie	2001
Elbow	Mirrorball	Indie	2008
Elbow	One Day Like This	Indie	2008
Emily Barker	Nostalgia	Folk/Rock	2012
Erykah Badu	Next Lifetime	R&B	1998
Erykah Badu	Rimshot (Intro)	R&B	1997
FAC15	Stay With Me Til Dawn	Electronica	2007
Fink	Perfect Darkness (Live from Union Chapel, London Oct 5 2011)	Rock/Indie	2012
Fink	Warm Shadow (Live from Epicerie Moderne, Lyon â?? Oct 28 2011)	Rock/Indie	2012
Flash And The Pan	Walking In The Rain	Pop	1990
Fleetwood Mac	Go Your Own Way	Rock	2011
Fleetwood Mac	The Chain	Rock	2011
Ganga	Don't Wake Me Up	Electronic	2006
Ganga	Down But Up	Electronic	2006
Ganga	You Are My Sun	Electronic	2006
Gare Du Nord	Pablos Blues	Dance	2002
Georges-Emmanuel Lazaridis	Grandes Etudes de Paganini Etude III	Classical	2007
Goldfrapp	Let It Take You Away	Electronica	2005
Goldfrapp	Ooh La La	Electronica	2005
Gotye	Don't Worry We'll Be Watching You	Rock/Indie	2012
Gotye	Puzzle With A Piece Missing	Rock/Indie	2012
Gotye	State Of The Art	Rock/Indie	2012
Holly Cole	Train song	Rock	1995
Hue & Cry	Makin' Whoopee	Jazz
I Am Kloot	Hold Back the Night	Rock	2013
I Am Kloot	Let Them All In	Rock	2013
Ian Shaw	A Case of You	Jazz	2006
It's Immaterial	Driving Away From Home (Jims Tune)	Pop	2008
Jakatta	American Dream (Afterlife Mix)	Electronica	2001
James Taylor	Gaia	Folk/Rock	1997
Jay Fisher	Old Man McKeensley	Folk/Rock
Jennifer Warnes	Way Down Deep	Pop	1992
Jenny Lewis	Bad Man's World	Country	2008
Jenny Lewis	Pretty Bird	Country	2008
Jesca Hoop	Peacemaker	Alternative	2012
Joan Armatrading	Love And Affection	R&B	1976
Joe Bonamassa	Feelin' Good	Blues/Rock	2009
John Lee Hooker	The Healer (with Carlos Santana & The Santana Band)	Blues	1989
John Martyn	A Little Strange	Folk/Rock	1996
John Martyn	Feel So Good	Folk/Rock	2000
John Martyn	Sunshine's Better	Folk/Rock	1996
Justin Currie	No, Surrender	Rock	2008
k.d. Lang	Constant Craving	Pop	1992
Kaiser Chiefs	Everything Is Average Nowadays	Indie	2007
Kaiser Chiefs	Ruby	Indie	2007
Keb’ Mo’	For What It's Worth	Jazz	2004
Keb’ Mo’	Wake Up Everybody	Jazz	2004
Keb’ Mo’	What's Happening Brother	Jazz	2004
Kiki Dee	Amoureuse	Folk
Kiki Dee	Don't Go Breaking My Heart	Folk
London Grammar	Hey Now	Rock	2013
London Grammar	Strong	Rock	2013
Lorde	Royals	Pop	2013
Lux	So La Ra Dsa	Electronica	2000
Lyle Lovett	North Dakota	Alternative Country	1992
Lyle Lovett	Record Lady	Alternative Country	1994
Lyle Lovett	She's Already Made Up Her Mind	Alternative Country	1992
Malia & Boris Blank	Magnetic Lies	Jazz	2013
Malia & Boris Blank	Tears Run Dry	Jazz	2013
Marta Gomez	Lucia	Classical/Jazz	2009
Mary Gauthier	Falling Out Of Love	Country	2005
Massive Attack	Three	Electronic	1994
Michael Jackson	Liberian Girl	Pop	2001
Millenia Nova	Beautiful	Electronica	2000
Nalin & Kane	Beachball (Joris Voorn Remix)	Electronica	2010
Nick Drake	'Cello Song	Folk	1969
Nick Drake	Fly	Folk	1970
Nick Harper	The Kilty Stone	Folk	2002
Nils Lofgren	Black Books	Rock	1997
Nils Lofgren	Keith Don't Go	Rock	1997
Nils Lofgren	Wonderland	Rock	1997
Nitin Sawhney	Broken Skin	Chill	1999
Nitin Sawhney	Letting Go	Chill	1999
Nitin Sawhney	Nothing	Chill	2001
Pete Alderton	(She Said That) Evil Was Her Name	Blues	2012
Pete Alderton	Jesus In A Bottle	Blues	2012
Pete Alderton	Passing Ships	Blues	2012
Pete Alderton	Song For David (alternative version)	Blues	2012
Peter Gabriel	Don't Give Up	Folk/Rock	2012
Peter Gabriel	Mercy Street	Folk/Rock	2012
Renegade Creation	Bullet	Blues	2012
Renegade Creation	Nazareth	Blues	2012
Renegade Creation	Too Much Of Nothin'	Blues	2012
Rhodes	Grinding Wheel	Rock	2013
Rhodes	You Are The North Wind	Rock	2013
Richard Thompson	Easy There, Steady Now	Folk	1994
Richard Thompson	Mingus Eyes	Folk	1994
Robben Ford	Make Me Your Only One	Blues	2002
Robben Ford	Peace Love And Understanding	Blues	2003
Robben Ford & The Blue Line	I Don't Play	Blues	1993
Robben Ford & The Blue Line	Mystic Mile	Blues	1993
Royksopp	Sparks	Drum & Bass	2002
Sam Cooke	Chain Gang	Blues
Sam Cooke	Cupid	Blues
Samantha James	Breathe You In	Electronica	2007
Samantha James	Right Now	Electronica	2007
Sarah McLachlan	Hold On	Folk/Rock	1994
Sarah McLachlan	Ice	Folk/Rock	1994
Sarah McLachlan	Sweet Surrender (DJ Tiesto Mix)	Folk/Rock	1997
Sarah McLachlan	Wait	Folk/Rock	1994
Seal	Kiss From A Rose	Soul	1995
Semisonic	Closing Time	Rock	1998
Semisonic	Secret Smile	Rock	1998
Shawn Colvin	Kill The Messenger	Rock	1992
Shawn Colvin	Polaroids	Rock	1992
Silverchair	Israel's Son	Rock	1995
Sinead O'Connor	Nothing Compares 2 U	Folk	2003
Slovo	Killing Me	Electronica	2004
Slovo	Whisper	Electronica	2002
Sofa Sweeper	Voice Of Core	Chill	2009
Solu	The Way I Feel (Extended Mix)	Electronica	2002
Solu Music Featuring Kimblee	Fade (Full 12 Vocal)"	Electronica	2003
Steely Dan	Babylon Sisters	Jazz/Rock	2000
Steely Dan	Cousin Dupree	Jazz/Rock	2000
Steely Dan	Hey Nineteen	Jazz/Rock	2000
Steely Dan	Two Against Nature	Jazz/Rock	2000
Steely Dan	What A Shame About Me	Jazz/Rock	2000
Stéphane Pompougnac	Eden (with Nicole Graham)	Electronica	2008
Stéphane Pompougnac	Sunday Drive (feat. Charles Schillings - Remix)	Electronica	2007
Stephen Fearing	Dublin Bay	Folk	1989
Stephen Fearing	Welfare Wednesday	Folk	1989
Sun Kil Moon	Half Moon Bay	Acoustic	2010
Sun Kil Moon	Third And Seneca	Acoustic	2010
Swing Out Sister	Breakout	Pop	2001
Talking Heads	Road To Nowhere	Pop	2008
Tchaikovsky	'Dance Of The Reeds' From The Nutcracker	Classical	2003
Tears For Fears	Mad World	Pop	2007
Terri Walker	This Is My Time	Electronica	2006
The Australian Pink Floyd Show	Time	Rock	2004
The Black Keys	Dead And Gone	Blues/Rock	2011
The Black Keys	Lonely Boy	Blues/Rock	2011
The Black Keys	Sister	Blues/Rock	2011
The Blue Nile	Let's Go Out Tonight	Rock	1989
The Blue Nile	The Downtown Lights	Rock	1989
The Brand New Heavies	Boogie (Eric Kupper Mix)	Electronic	2004
The Cardigans	Erase/Rewind	Pop	1998
The Farm	All Together Now	Rock	1995
The Jeff Healey Band	Blue Jean Blues	Blues	1988
The Killers	Human	Rock	2008
The Memory Band	Why	Electronic	2007
The Ray Gelato Giants	Exactly Like You	Swing	1995
The Ray Gelato Giants	That Old Black Magic	Swing	1995
The Wailin' Jennys	All The Stars	Folk	2011
The Wailin' Jennys	Bird Song	Folk	2011
The Wailin' Jennys	Swing Low Sail High	Folk	2011
The Zutons	Valerie	Rock	2007
Thea Gilmore	Bad Moon Rising	Folk	2003
Thea Gilmore	Ever Fallen In Love	Folk	2003
Thea Gilmore	God's Got Nothing On You	Folk	2010
Thea Gilmore	Icarus Wind	Folk	2009
Thea Gilmore	The Old Laughing Lady	Folk	2003
Thievery Corporation	Heaven's Gonna Burn Your Eyes (feat. Emiliana Torrini)	Electronica	2004
Thievery Corporation	The Richest Man In Babylon	Electronica	2010
Thievery Corporation	Until The Morning	Electronica	2010
Tiny Tunes	Will You Catch Me (Twin Tunes Mix Edit)	Electronic	2001
Tom Baxter	Night Like This	Jazz	2007
Tom Baxter	Skybound	Jazz	2007
Tom Jones	Thunderball	Soundtrack	2002
Tom Robinson	The End Of The Rainbow	Folk/Rock	1993
T-Rex	Get It On	Pop	2001
U2	Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me	Rock	1995
U2	In A Little While (N.O.W Remix)	Rock	2003
Underworld	Caliban's Dream (feat. Dockhead Choir, Dame Everlyn Glennie, Only Men Alound, Elizabeth Roberts, Esme Smith, Alex Trimble)	Electronic	2012
Underworld	Sola Sistim	Electronic	2002
Underworld	Twist	Electronic	2002
Wamdue Project	Forgiveness (feat. Jonathan Mendelsohn - Beach Angel '07 Mix)	Electronica	2007
Was (Not Was)	Papa Was A Rolling Stone	Pop	1992
Willie Nelson	What Is It You Wanted	Country	1993
Willy Porter	Cool Water	Folk	1995
Willy Porter	Jesus on the Grille	Folk	1995
Wyclef Jean	911 (ft. Mary J. Blige - LP Version)	Pop	2000
X-Press 2	Lazy (Original)	Dance	2002
Yello	Friday Smile	Electronic	2009
Yello	Get On	Electronic	1999
Yello	Indigo Bay	Electronic	2003
Yello	Kiss In Blue (Feat. Heidi Happy)	Electronic	2009
Yello	Ocean Club	Electronic	1991
Yello	Stay (Feat. Heidi Happy)	Electronic	2009
Yello	Till Tomorrow (Feat. Till Brönner)	Electronic	2009
Yello	X-Race	Electronic	2009
Zero 7	Destiny	Electronica	2001
Zero 7	Give It Away	Electronica	2001
Zero 7	In The Waiting Line	Electronica	2001