As I live in Banbury in Oxfordshire my local dealer for all things Naim related was Overture HiFi. They sadly wound down a few years ago & so Nintronics became my dealer of choice. Nintronics have subsequently stopped dealing with Naim product. I was contacted by Chris (ex Overture) to advise that a new local dealer has now started up in the area. Mike (ex Naim & also Overture employee), Mark & Chris are now all running Cultured Audio in Long Hanborough so we drove over yesterday to check them out
We had a listen to some Neat Iota Alpha, ATC scm11, Kudos Titan 505 & 707 all with various Naim kit behind them. We enjoyed their hospitality & left looking forward to our continued journey in HiFi!
I have no affiliation with Cultured, just wanted to give a heads up to anyone in the area, that they are certainly worth a visit
I used to chat with Mike Heath when he was the Naim rep for my dealer, lovely guy and knows his Hifi inside out. I Wish Mike all the best, but too far away for me, and Signals my dealer are great to deal with.
Good to hear of a new dealer, it is rare these days. Rather too far away for me now to visit but when I lived west of Oxford I used to occasionally go to a Hifi dealer in Headington/Summertown., many years ago.
Oh nooo. Chris sold to me the LP12 that I still have from Overture MANY years ago. And then sold the Nova and other bits to me (and serviced the LP12) when helping out at Audio T in Oxford. Long Hanborough is not too far away and they are obviously carrying some of the speakers I am interested in hearing. Divorce looms…
Out of interest how would you rank the speakers from your visit. The reason I ask is that the Iota Alpha would be a good compromise in my living room. I’m 18 months away before seriously looking at new speakers but interested on your thoughts on how they compared.
It was quite the informal visit so we weren’t strictly demoing kit but from what I took from it:-
Alphas sounded great for such a tiny speaker, they were running off a Uniti Atom & had the optional metal out-rigger feet on them. A surprising amount of base & sweet top end. Not sure I can get past the ‘pedal-bin’ looks though…
ATC is a brand I aim to pursue as I’ve not had chance to hear much of their range at all. the SCM11’s sounded bigger than the Alpha’s but I think they needed a bit more juice up them than the Atom imho…
The Titan 505’s were running off a Linn all in one box (sorry I didn’t know which box it was). They sounded very nice indeed as they should for 8.5k
The Titan 707’s were running off a 252/SC/300/NDX2 rig & they sounded like they could suck the paint off the walls should you so desire!! The acoustic guitar on one of tracks was so vivid, with closed eyes, you would swear someone was sat playing it in the room.
I miss Overture too. My first ‘oh wow’ amplifier came from there. An arcam A19 integrated that i have now passes on to my father. Also used to frequent the shop nearby that sold new and used photography equipment.
The acoustic guitar on one of tracks was so vivid, with closed eyes, you would swear someone was sat playing it in the room.