It is your last chance to take advantage of our Krystal Upgrade Offer

Offer must end on Saturday, 27 February 2016.

About Krystal

The Krystal has been designed by Linn senior mechanical engineer and analogue wizz kid, David Williamson, to replace the 23 year old Klyde. This new cartridge employs many of the mechanical advantages learned during the development of their £3000 Linn Kandid.

Krystal employs a carefully machined 3 point mount as originally used in the Troika but with a more lightweight and modern superior rigid skeletal generator.

It’s the stunning  £1200 cartridge you have been waiting for. Musical, tuneful and balanced with musical insight beyond other products in this sector.

Linn Krystal Upgrade Offer

Trade Up to Krystal

If you own a Linn cartridge, simply trade it in and receive Krystal at a preferential price.  This offer includes the following Linn cartridges: Klyde, Asaka, Karma, Troika, Arkiv, Akiva.

Take Your Upgrade Even Further

Purchase Krystal before this offer ends and qualify for a 15% discount on a second upgrade for your LP12. This discount applies to all our LP12 components, so whether you pair your Krystal with a Kore sub-chassis or a Uphorik phono stage, it’s the ideal time to upgrade your turntable.

Bring your favourite LPs to our Beaconsfield showroom this week for a coffee and demonstration. Book your appointment with Colin and hear Krystal for yourself.

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Unfortunately, for security reasons, we can not share many photos of the actual rooms in the house, but trust us, the results are quite astonishing!

The project featured 28 individual audio zones, utilising invisible Stealth Acoustic plaster-in speakers throughout and a Crestron Sonnex audio distribution system and amplifiers.  The Stealth speakers mean that no speakers are on view anywhere in the property (other than the media room and courtyard gardens).  Just because the speakers are invisible does not mean their performance is lacking, even we have been amazed by the performance in many of the rooms.

There are 11 zones with TV displays ranging from 85 inch LED screens to 32 inch waterproof Aquavision screens.  All of the high-definition video sources are distributed using a fibre-optic network based on Crestron Digital Media hardware.  We are distributing many sources (around 30 individual sources) ranging from Sky HD decoders to Apple TV to Kaleidescape Movie Players.  The system has the ability to be upgraded to 4K should the family want to incorporate 4K sources in the future.

Control over all audio-visual, heating, lighting and intercom systems is presented in very intuitive, easy-to-use interfaces ranging from simple hand-held remote controls for fast channel-surfing up to 10-inch in-wall Crestron touchscreens.  The ease-of-use was a clear priority for the family and we spent considerable time creating a new series of Crestron layouts that are identical across all interfaces and have had fantastic feedback from all that have used them.

There are around 160 circuits of lighting within the main house and it’s gardens and courtyards.  These, along with a number of electric blinds, are all controlled with a Lutron QS system to offer exceptional dimming performance throughout.  The house had an older Lutron Homeworks dimming system in place and we were able to retain a number of dimming panels from that system which had a very beneficial impact on the costs.  The keypads were all replaced with custom units that have then all been painted to match the décor in the room.

The demands of the client have required us to develop solutions to offer exceptional reliability and resilience against any equipment failures.  We have looked at every facet of what we do, both in terms of the hardware we use and the software used to control these systems.  We have developed a number of innovative solutions that ensure that we are able to both monitor and interrogate any of our systems remotely.  In the case of any failures of sources such as Sky HD decoders, the house staff can simply press a button on an internal website that both emails us to let us know about the failure and simply swaps the failed box out, within software, for one of the spare units we have in the rack.

Beyond the audio-visual elements, we also have complete integration and control with the very large and complex Building Management System from Trend.  We are able to offer the homeowner and their staff very granular control over their environment with a number of very unique characteristics based on the family’s specific requirements.  This was one of the largest number of heating/cooling zones we’ve interfaced with and it has all worked as designed and the family can have the control they requested for this very important aspect of the project.

In one of the more interesting special projects on this large project, we liaised between the many parties involved in creating a full golf-simulation room with a large projection screen and high-speed motion capture cameras to offer the homeowners the ability to play a round on a golf course of their choosing, whatever the weather and all within arm’s reach of a bar!  It was a first for us and a very enjoyable part of the project that we hope will give the family many hours of enjoyment.

It has been a great pleasure to work on such a challenging project and we’re really looking forward to the next phases on the properties.  It has helped us develop and improve in virtually every area as a company and we look forward to applying many of the tricks we’ve learnt onto many future projects, large and small.

Gym with 2 ceiling mounted screens

The source racks

Crestron touchscreens ready for installations

Fibre optics are amazing - all the audio and video comes down this tiny piece of glass.

Crestron facias ready for painting

Plaster-in speaker ready for plastering

Speakers ready for painting

First rack in place

Communications room (before any wiring!)

Racks being installed

Lighting panels ready for modules to be installed

Media room with 85 inch LED screen hidden behind artwork

Fibre being tested during termination

Cables being sorted into type and numerical order

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We now have Linn 530 Series 5 speakers on demonstration in our Beaconsfield showroom.

Offering astonishing Linn sound quality in a system that can be customised to perfectly complement your décor.

With the beautiful, handmade Linn Fabrik covers, every Series 5 system can be uniquely tailored to your tastes.  There is already a broad range of colours and textiles to choose from and collections from Harris Tweed and Timorous Beasties are already due to launch in 2016.

As always with Linn, the music takes centre stage with Exakt technology ensuring that you hear a performance that is optimised for you and your home.

We’re really excited by Series 5 and have been really pleased with their performance.  We have our 520s due very shortly as well.

Please contact us for more information or to arrange a demonstration in our Beaconsfield showroom.

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The three of us spent the day with Linn dealers from across Europe learning all about Linn’s exciting new product releases and updates.

The main focus of the day was the Series 5 speakers which allow you to enjoy music with Linn’s flawless performance, whilst being able to customise the speakers to complement your home decor.

There were also plenty of new options for customers with existing systems to upgrade to Exakt with several new products in the Exaktbox range.  We were particularly excited by the Majik Exaktbox-I that not only offered 8 channels of Exakt powered DACs, but incredibly, also has 8 channels of 100W Chakra amplification built into the same box!  This is a great product for anyone with older Aktiv systems, or new Majik systems that they want to take further.

A great day and really important to spend time both with Linn staff members and other Linn dealers.  Very productive and inspiring.

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The first visit to a CEDIA show in the US for a few years and a great opportunity to put our finger on the pulse of our industry and the technology that we deal with.

Spending time with some of our key suppliers was invaluable for helping us to define our strategies moving forwards as we were able to get some indications on products and technologies that are coming down the pipeline over the coming years.

Both Steve and Marcus attended various excellent training sessions to further improve both of our knowledge in some key areas.

The main takeaway from the show was how challenging 4K (UHD or Ultra High Definition (4K and UHD are not quite the same thing, but the terms are being used interchangeably!)) video is going to be for our industry.  The bandwidth requirements along with ‘improved’ copy-protection will mean that technologies for distributing 4K are going to have to be rock solid.

As ever, screens got larger, with more contrast, higher refresh and so on!  Interesting to see some manufacturers really stepping back up to the top table; Sony screens in particular were exceptionally impressive.

There were some very impressive demonstration rooms with the Sony 4K laser projector (VPL-VW5000ES) onto a 220 inch Stewart screen probably being the best projected image I (Marcus) have ever seen.  Truly magnificent and the queues for the demonstration were enormous throughout the show as the ‘buzz’ went around about it.  Pricing in the UK to be confirmed, but ‘around $60000′ was the price being quoted for the USA.

Very impressive demonstration with Trinnov Audio and JBL in a room offering Dolby Atmos, DTS:X and Auro 3D immersive audio.  Really something special.

A great show and a really good opportunity to see where we are going and how we can help you to get there.

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