Ah but when I win the raffle for the EE1, it will be 100% discount 
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@Cohen1263 Welcome - it was nice going back through the day and collecting my thoughts together and making sense of what iâd heard.
@twofifty Agree, it was a great shame (and surprise) that the Naia wasnât being used as a reference source. Rega seem to be missing a tick as thereâs definite potential for it to act as a halo product for the rest of their range, as well as generate sales for the deck.
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Forgot⌠Also on demo in The Audioworks room was the new innovative Supertrac tonearm. Some would say not the prettiest of designs, but my word did it deliver on a modified Linn LP12. Rest of the system was Accuphase and Tannoy, and the Tannoys were a little bit forward and strident for me, but the LP12 and Supatrac helped tame things a little.
Similarly to Allchris speakers, great things from âa man in shedâ.
Image: Supatrac website.
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Was the man who designed the Supertrac tonearm Richard Braine?
Yes, thatâs the chap. 
Iâm saying this as a Chord DAC owner but have you seen V-Tech toys for kids?
For âprogressiveâ read âpointlessâ As user interfaces go theyâre awful.
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Having never used any Chord unit in either my own system or during a dealer demo, I simply couldnât comment on their usability on a day to day basis. I was simply referring to moving away from predictable rectangular black box design.
If the Chord interface is that compromised, then perhaps raising your concerns with Chord directly may be of value.
My two friends and I met Richard Braine at the NW Audio on Saturday right at the end of the day.
We were listening to John Lee Hooker, and discussing the excellent Radford Revival tube amp one of his colleagues had designed and built.
Braine came into the room and began a speech to explain the inspiration for the name of his Supertrac tonearm.
He said he had discovered a heavy ambient Germanic electronic track that was called âSupertracâ, and that as the pounding rhythms of this music built up the feeling he got was that, âit made me want to invade Polandâ.
Itâs worth looking up his name in Wikipedia or similar before you spread the rumour that he is just a man in a shed, though.
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Oh I think we can be confident lots of people have long since been doing that.
Interesting where he got the name, less interesting that his inspiration was a heavy electronic track. The use of heavy electronic tracks to demonstrate streamers in particular seems to be a thing at hifi shows. Of all the music available electronic music is surely the easiest to play well/thumpingly loud.
I quite like the look of the Supertrac - think it would look at its best on a smooth, modern, glossy LP12 or similar. I hope he sells plenty. I believe itâs reasonably priced.
According to an interview I read he was an event photographer before lockdown, and set a lockdown project of making arms for his Garrard 301 decks.
âSo I thought to myself, âHereâs the moment: Iâm going to make the best tonearm in the world.â I didnât actually think Iâd succeed but why not at least have a go?
The original prototype, âcobbled together from bits and pieces and garden twineâŚâ
I had a Black&Decker Workmate, a hand drill and basic tools. How hard could it be?â
Sounds like the definition of a man in a shed.
Really interesting Supatrac article and interview here. Work In Progress⌠- Page 5 of 7 - Gy8
Visited on Sunday, third year for me, visitor numbers definitely growing so guess the word is getting round.
Enjoyed it again, free entry and a free refreshment on entry in this day and age very impressive.
For me itâs just a chance to experience a massive array of products in one place.
Did the Chord dem really only to hear the new PMC 23 actives, room was pretty much empty so felt a little like sitting an exam, clip board, pencil and questionare in hand, to be honest after the first part of the demo I was asked did I hear a difference to which I replied no( not totally true, I could hear a slight difference but felt unable to put it into words, so didnât) and this followed for the rest of the dem, had a similar feeling for all steps in the dem, other people where asked their thoughts and both nodded enthusiastically must be my cloth ears.
I think I may have upset the gentleman doing the dem when I thanked him as he saved me a fortune, he didnât look too impressed but I just didnât share what he was finding, everyone is different I guess.
Enjoyed the Kerr demo for all the reasons pointed out earlier, for me had it all, very happily live with that sound, if I had the funds, left the very nice guy doing the dem my best in show card he seemed a very genuine fella, could only imagine a chat over a beer would of been entertaining.
A few others sounded good, Neat, Tannoy a few others so generally an enjoyable day out, even had a brief chat with my local dealer who was there visiting with his partner.
If you havenât been well worth making the effortđ.
Yes, Iâve seen that.
But are you aware of his other previous jobs/roles?
His political background doesnât stop him being a man in a shed when that is literally what he was.
@mikehughescq Is the user interface really that bad then?
@JimDog Let me be clear about this⌠I wasnât âspreading a rumourâ as you put it. The âman in a shedâ term used was not meant in any way as a derogatory reference to either Richard Braine, nor Allchris Audio either. Quite the opposite in fact. I personally think it shows what one person can achieve on their own with a fresh idea and the determination to carry it through is quite remarkable, certainly more so without a brand behind them and a healthy R&D budget. Apologies if you or anyone else interpreted it in a negative way.
Interesting that you met him at the show and good to read about the origins of the name - unexpected for sure.
@Eoink Ah, I didnât know he was a photographer, I thought he was a former physicist, that is if I remember correctly from the interview with Michale Fremer.
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I donât think Braine is a physicist.
At least not according to what I can see of his website and Wikipedia.
I also think that a man (or even a woman! 
) in a shed building something excellent is a wonderful thing - and much more interesting in many ways than a person in a corporate R&D dept doing so.
In fact, at the show I also met and had a long, informative chat with the founder of Longdog Audio, who said that he does his audio engineering mostly on his own in a large shed in his garden - including designing and making the open baffle speakers I showed above.
He also said that if I wanted to make a pair for myself he would share with me the name of the company who constructed the acrylic baffle and structure of the speakers, and let me know the spec of the drivers and xover network.
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I donât know enough history outside the UK, but isnât a man in a shed, or perhaps cottage industry, a vital part of our history. I grew up surrounded by people that made things at home. My grandfather worked for Thrissell Engineering, his garage was a workshop where all the machinery was made in his own time at work as part of demostration pieces for apprentices. My father was a Post Office Telephones engineer. In those days valves were routinely changed for reliability, not at end of life, so he had a mate who made amplifiers and tuners from surplus parts, dad made the cabinets for those and for speakers in the shed. We used to walk to the local timber yard to buy veneer, then later Formica and Evostik.
I have dim memories of description of post war austerity, a speaker maker using army surplus yellow dusters and shellac to form speaker cones.
My first big hifi buy was a Nytech CTA 252, definitely a garage industry when based in Chew Magna. My current amp also a home grown design.
So man in a shed, without doubt a celebration, not derogatory.
There remain numerous people who will defend it because it is in some ways unique and they must literally not know any better but I remain of the view that itâs just poor design; creates accessibility issues and requires you to do more than if the interface was designed for the user than for novelty. It is right up there as 1 of the worst user interfaces I have used for anything. It remains a mystery to me how they have got away with it for so long.
I have a Hugo TT2. Love the sound. Donât worry too much about the looks as itâs on the bottom shelf and sufficient distance away. The intereface though. Bah.
1 - I love the different colours for different sampling rates. Neat idea on paper but why plonk the lighting in a window on the top of the device in the middle so that itâs not even at the edge youâd have closest to the edge of your shelf. Unless itâs on your top shelf and you have dimmed the lights it is not generally possible to see the colour unless you lean forward or go look.
At the moment mine is in for repair/service so Iâve a Qutest on loan. Smaller box but you can see the entire thing at the front edge of my Hutter Racktime shelving. Absolutely canât see the sample rate at all even if I shut the curtains at night and put the 1 lamp on.
If itâs important to know the sample rate - and at minimum Iâd want to know that what I think is a high-res download actually is a high-res download - then the 1st problem is that the information is colour coded. If youâre colour blind, then what?
The 2nd issue would be that if the window itself is in the wrong place for viewing. If you want people to see it rather than be easily impressed by it at a show then put it on the front where, weirdly, it can almost certainly be seen.
3rdly just put the numbers on a display. You can have the pretty colours too if you want but the numbers do the job. There is a reason other manufacturers do this. Itâs not because they are dull and boring. It is because itâs the best user interface solution.
2 - the damn coloured balls. The TT2 is attractive because it has but the 1 but thereâs no colour at all in DAC mode and in PRE mode the colours generally make it even harder to see the sample rate colours because the ball is in front of them.
The coloured ball generally doesnât need to move once set. If youâre going to alter the volume youâ\ll use the remote control. If youâre setting the voltage in PRE mode then youâll be sat right in front of the thing anyway as the colours for that lack any other information so you need the display to say â-6Lâ for 2V etc. and that information is only available on a display which is, incredibly, also positioned top left at the front of the device but on the top surface not the front so, again, you have to be above the box to view it as it canât be seen at all when you move away or are sat down doing that weird thing called âlisteningâ.
As the coloured ball has no need to move then it gathers dust. As it gathers does so it becomes less able to move when you actually need it to do so.
3 - 3 buttons front left. All look identical (a huge accessibilty win there then!). Logically power would be the left most, but no⌠The other 2 relate to scrolling through the various menu items and then setting them. Okay, but this introduces 2 steps for every 1 you can execute on the remote. On the latter a move to Bluetooth for example requires a single button press. On the box it requires you to 1st remind yourself which is the Menu button as the labelling is of course the same colour as the box itself and thus unreadable from more than a couple of inches away. Once youâve spotted which is Menu and squinted to identify Set then you can click the former as many times as it take to get to your desired option (which can be a lot of presses) and then use Set to, er, set.
Remember that remote control? 1 press and all the above is avoided. Important to not let your intuition and instinct interfere with these process. If youâre stupid enough to assume the power button would be where everyone else puts their power button then the number of times you will scroll through the menu and instead of Set you will accidentally power down your DAC.
This of course is before we get into the fact that almost all other manufacturers have the Power button as being separate to and a different size and shape to every other control on your box.
All this would be funny if it werenât true. The design itself will divide people and I understand that. It should not be confused with the user interface which derives from those design decisions though. The design I could live with or dislike. Itâs a matter of personal taste. The UI isnât though. Thatâs just borne out of a refusal to listen to customers; understand that certain things are accepted norms for a reason etc.
Iâve often wondered what would happen if they did a black box alternate version
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Yes, I think many Hifi show exhibitors restrict the tracks to pop music and electronic music in order to cater to the mass audience, and play things that Show their kit in a favourable light.
Thatâs why I normally try to ask Whether people can play Recordings of live concerts played with acoustic instruments, because those for me reveal the ability of the system to reflect reality as it is musically created, rather than something based on synthesised sound.
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