Hi-Fi

For over thirty-five years, SUMIKO has provided a comprehensive range of phono cartridges to music lovers seeking the finest musical experience at a variety of price points. In fact, the great market success of SUMIKO phono cartridges has hinged on their phenomenal cost-to-performance ratio. The Palo Santos Presentation is no exception. New design requirements incorporating advances in material technology and construction techniques have resulted in a significantly improved product which delivers a highly refined and resolved, yet musically satisfying sound quality previously unavailable at or even near its price.

For some Turntables including Regas, we will need to fit a 2mm spacer on you tonearm for this cartridge. Like the HiFi Guru Spacer

Van Den Hul's Crimson Stradivarius is a favourite in the CAV Reference System. It has also become a Superstar with our customers.

The Stradivarius variation of the Crimson cartridge uses a Pau Ferro wooden body but douses that in multiple layers of specialist laquer emulating the laquer used on Stradivarius string instruments. The sound is even more involving, natural and open than the straight Crimson XGW which only difference is the absence of this special laquer.

It is the easiest cartridge to pair with a range of gear. The Colibri range has astounding levels of channel separation but requires more precise matching with the rest of the gear.

Yes, it has now come to pass - Carlton Audio Visual now serves McIntosh!

This is a 'little' unit in the range but it quickly makes its presence felt. It is so shiny that some customers have have to shield their eyes from the sun reflecting off it as they walk into the shop!

A 100W Hybrid tube integrated amplifier with presence and personality. Like Lady Gaga walking the Met Gala red carpet.

I can't help but compare the McIntosh to the Naim gear we now sell too. Both are brands that Carlton Audio traditionally hasn't done. Both are brands that are still made in their country of origin - USA and England respectively. 

But that's where the comparisons stop. McIntosh demands attention when you walk in a room even when the gear isn't on with Knobs and Gadgets and Lights whilst Naim is just a series of well made black boxes that can fade into a background. They often only have an on switch on their front panel.

McIntosh have power and lots of it and Naim doesn't have the same power but what power it delivers, it delivers cleanly, precisely and accurately.

Both are brilliant. Some will gravitate towards one over the other...and that's why we have both!

We first saw this unique design as a tentative and secret prototype while drinking wine from the Krix Vineyard two years ago.

There is no doubt that Krix possess world class R&D facilities with state of the art instrumentation and analysis. It was with interest that I looked under a table in one of their laboratories and found the disassembled carcasses of B&W and Monitor Audio bookshelf speakers during that visit ...

It turns out that Scott has always nurtured an ambition to shake the audiophile tree for the high end bookshelf speaker. The Esoterix Altum is the result of that.

Now not everybody has grooved to their appearance it seems.

Think of them as that bespectacled fair haired girl who always sits quietly at the front of class while the cool kids hang shite on her. Then one day she’s on the front cover of Vogue while taking a break from studying medicine at Cambridge ... these speakers will one day be recognized as classics of sound and aesthetics ...

Matching stands for the Esoterix Altums are available at $1655.

ARIES G2.1 manages every connection so you can explore your entire digital universe right
from our Lightning DS control app and take advantage of features like On-Device Playlists,
Memory Caching, Gapless Playback and Bit-Perfect Multi-Room functionality. With a
supercharged hardware platform

Our Prima preamp forms part of the stylish and compact Choral range and has been designed to complement our Mezzo power amps. Despite its compact dimensions and space-saving footprint, the Prima is every bit a pedigree Chord amplifier.

Precision-machined from solid aircraft-grade aluminium billet, the Prima offers both remote control and front panel operation. Prima’s fascia offers volume and balance controls while its push-button controls atop the unit, offer input selection and tape line selection, the latter enabling its tape outputs to be selected for recording from source components.  Further design features include a top panel display, offering input choice and volume information, plus a clever porthole which enables the internal circuit board to be seen.

The Prima also benefits from our legendary proprietary Ultra-High-Frequency power supply, which is common to all Chord amplifiers. Prima offers fully balanced circuitry throughout and useful flexibility with five inputs, four unbalanced RCA and one balanced XLR, plus a balanced XLR output and a tape output. For added versatility, Prima’s audio circuit offers six independent input gain adjustments for the five inputs and low impedance outputs.

The M8-700 has received outstanding reviews and an enthusiastic reception from knowledgeable audiophiles. The combination of high power and cutting edge technical performance has proved a compelling combination. However some customers do not have the space for two large monoblocs and do not necessarily need that much power. For them we have designed the M8-500s. Pairing it with the matching M8 Preamp gives an amplification system fit of the highest levels of reproduction.

Musical Fidelity describe this Pre-amplifier as one with no limits. 

The inside of this machine looks more like the circuitry on a dual mono integrated amplifier rather than a pre-amplifier. Two big toroidal transformer power supplies sit front and centre. That's unusual for a pre-amplifier and gives it an extraordinary sense of heft and musical importance.

The new reference model pre amplifier from Cyrus has tongues wagging at Carlton Audio Visual. We're massive fans of Cyrus gear and admirers of the expertise and craft that goes into this small boutique English manufacturer.

It's no coincidence that many world renowned HiFi brands like Cyrus have popped up around the University town of Cambridge. Cambridge has forever promoted and celebrated the kind of individual obessed with the pursuit of knowledge, engineering prowess and creativity needed to create amazing HiFi. Brands like Arcam (or Audio & Research Cambridge), Cambridge Audio, Mission Electronics and Quad were all born and produced in this corner of the English countryside.

And like those brands the goal of Cyrus is to produce the best sounding electronics possible. They're able to draw on the rich knowledge and innovation that spews out of a town like Cambridge.

The Cyrus Pre XR is on demonstration now at Carlton Audio Visual.

A customer has decided to change over his SACD player for a serious streamer and this has meant we have a near new PS Audio SACD player Trade-in in stock.

This is the current Transport! And in immaculate condition.

These are incredible machines. Musical, resolving and detailed. 

These units have won accolades and awards galore.

For example the Absolute Sound gave it The Golden Ear award in 2021.

This unit comes with its box and all accessories.

A beautiful beast of an integrated amplifier. 500 Watts of power that's capable of pulling your heart strings. A rich sound that's not shy. Vocals and solo instruments will sit centre stage and come out towards you.

The Dual Mono design of this and the smaller M6si is very unusual. A completely symetrical circuit design that doesn't share components between the two sides of the amplifier. Meaning you get the benefits of a separate mono blocks within the single chassis of an integrated amp.

Fantastic deal on all PrimaLuna models. 20% off until the 31st of March.

This amplifier replaces the Dialogue Premium HP, PrimaLuna's highly regarded original flagship integrated. It builds on the superior performance of the HP by tweaking things here and there but retaining what makes PrimaLuna special - superb Tube amplifier performance.

At 70 Watts per channel, the power of this amp may sound modest but don't be fooled this is a very capable machine that can power the hungriest of speakers. 

Upgraded swiss made wiring inside the unit and german made resistors...that haven't spared any expense with the makeup of the circuitry and the design of the amp.

Available to Audition in our 164 Lygon st Showroom.

The Antila IIS Eco CD player introduces many unique technical and ergonomic innovations to combine state-of-the-art performance with surprising ease of use.

Leema's latest "Quattro Infinity Multi-DAC" employs multiple 24 bit / 192 kHz multi-bit delta-sigma data converters, specifically selected for their audio quality. These are driven from a fully balanced digital data stream. The result is significantly reduced levels of noise, distortion and crosstalk, thereby producing a breathtakingly real musical performance and a tactile panoramic image.

Read more at https://www.whathifi.com/leema/iis-eco/overview#GSADEh4qRgClhfC8.99

Based entirely on the GyroDec, but without the costly acrylic plinth and dustcover, the Gyro SE brings the same qualities in a more affordable and compact package. 

This has been an extremely popular turntable a true high fidelity sound. Tightness in the bass, wide soundstage and the ultra low noise required to let the details of the music shine.

This is where conditioners and power filters get really HiFi. 

This unit boasts separate circuits designed for source components and high current outlets for things like power amplifiers. But each outlet is individually isolated and does not interfere or effect the others.

The HR-200S Reference Tonearm is the next installment of the highly successful Alphason HR range. Built on the foundation of the prestigious HR-100S tonearm, the HR-200S takes the original concept and the knowledge gained, furthering those ideas and improving upon them to create a truly outstanding tonearm. Each HR-200S is meticulously hand assembled, with a titanium one-piece headshell and arm tube along with bespoke bearings, providing the perfect, neutral platform for any high-performance cartridge.

These are available in 9 inch, 10.5 inch and 12 inch versions.

A good stereo amplifier is a lifelong companion and Michael Creek has been designing and manufacturing amplifiers for his whole life.

We love amplifiers to a fault. We are the children in the sweetshop of this marketplace and we behave badly with very little sensible restraint when it comes to putting beautiful and musical things on display on the shelves of Carlton Audio Visual.

The European made Voyage i20 combines an analogue pre-amplifier and digital to analogue converter with a power amplifier, powered by a unique stabilised power supply, housed in a slim and attractive case.

Creek homepage for the Voyage i20 amplifier 

Reviewary on the Voyage i20 amplifier 

Every now and then you get a piece of high fidelity that oozes high class as soon as you touch it, The Yamaha 5000 series preampifier and power amplifier have this quality in spades and so does this the highest ranging CD Player in the range of Yamaha high fidelity kit.

In the trade we can go a long way on the tactility of a product as a real assessment of its build quality, That and the less than minor matter of one's reaction to a component's particular sound quality are simply something that can never be realised via internet shopping. this is a device that begs to be individually auditioned.

There is definetly a Rolls Royce feel to this device and it immediately reminds me of the original Yamaha Centennial CD Player the no compromise CDX10000 that was released in 1987 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Yamaha music products.

The CDS3000 is also an external DAC that is a 32 bit device ...

Nestling in the Choral range, the Symphonic is our flagship MC phono stage, offering a range of advanced features over the entry-level Dual.  The high-performance Symphonic uses our latest high-frequency power supply technology to exploit vinyl’s full potential, along with many new key features, to bring the performance levels in line with the Choral range, home of the DAVE DAC/preamp.

The Symphonic offers an almost infinite number of input impedance and gain options as well as balanced and unbalanced input options to the cartridge, making it a highly flexible device for integrating high-quality turntables into Chord systems. The comprehensive settings options are all externally selectable, with selections signified internally with illuminating LEDs.

A rumble filter removes unwanted low-frequency rumble signals appearing on both channels. The Symphonic Phono stage conforms to the RIAA curve without the IEC roll-off when the Rumble filter is set to ‘off’ Preamps: CPA 2500, CPA 3000, CPA 5000, and CPA 8000. Preamps: CPA 2500, CPA 3000, CPA 5000, and CPA 8000.; this is commensurate with the high calibre of Chord amplification. The IEC curve response can be added by setting the Rumble filter to ‘on’. According to the wiring of the tone arm on the turntable used, the Symphonic can be operated in either an unbalanced or balanced mode.