ProAc & Primare
By Jack Lawson 11th October 2018
A marriage made in heaven and celebrated everyday at The Music Room.
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It has been announced today the What HiFi best floorstanding loudspeaker under £2,000. ProAc’s DT8. Congratulations to the Team Tyler, a remarkable accomplishment against the everything the whole world had to throw against it!!
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At the other end of the spectrum, ProAc’s K-3 is coming very soon and for 5x the price you may expect diminished returns, but pinch yourself and expect the unimaginable.
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October also sees the launch of the 2018 products from Primare of Sweden. This has been an intense 3-year exercise to present to the market the essence of all that is great in Scandanavian minimalism, updated.
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There are many mistakes made by audiophiles meaning that over 95% of expensive systems we have heard in peoples’ homes are underperforming. We are talking about poor mains, commercial interconnects, dirty contacts, bad vibrations, and so on.
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"By doing home clinics, I have occasionally left people in or close to tears simply by making a few changes and calibrations to their components. The great mistake is to read reviews, act on conventional wisdom, and forget about system synergy"
The astonishing new ProAc K3
Image © ProAc
In my crusade against disinformation and the internet “system synergy” is a recurring theme. If you are buying one thing at a time, it is sensible to plan your aspired destination. Don’t take snow shoes to South Africa or tee shirts to Iceland.
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Now, whether or not Primare CD players and amplifiers are the best at its price point (and there is a strong case for it) to the best of my knowledge the real-world ProAcs are still designed, and therefore voiced, with these source components.
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And when you connect them as a system with “natural sound” audio cables, pure power, on an isolating stand (perhaps simple oak, or elaborate energy dissipation) you will immediately smile at a sound that is far superior to £50k or £100k systems by those products the magazines have been telling you -- for all of my 39 coming on 40 years -- are the ones to aspire to. These are Hi-Fi Lies.
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Yes, you can get more if you spend more …. wisely.
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But the Primare-ProAc party just livened up a lot this month with the arrival of the long-awaited products from the Swedes, and it has been worth the wait.
Big Audio Magic from a lovely little box
The awesome i15 Prisma has already been voted Best amplifier by EISA. At only £1,600 it offers a live natural sound free of artefacts and annoyances, 60 watts into eight ohms and offers a matching CD player at the same price or a stand alone DD15, Compact Disc transport for so many people who love this wonderful format and own a good DAC stage or want it located in their amplifiers (including the Primare).
Through the 25-series, the top of the range CD35 and i35 models are on demonstration and creating a bit of a sensation. In looks, quality and of course sound, they wipe the floor with our rivals in the High Street and their hyped Hi-Fi at twice and three times the price.
Our secret weapons include JPS cables and Lateral Audio Stands. Both stand tall over similar priced rivals and will easily convince the skeptic that yes, most cables and tables are created equal rather than excellent….
At least once a week, someone pops in to The Music Room to discover they have wasted money.
Look further, aim higher, make no assumptions, take no chances.
The Music Room is not expensive because (1) we start as inexpensive as Revo at £179 (“luxurious low end”) and (2) at all price points, cheap dose not equal value.
Keep listening!! And thanks for reading.