SME / B&W

[The Grand Wazoo]

I spent a couple of days at my parents place this week.
They live in a little town in Sussex - the place I went to school, where I had my first pint, where I met my wife, where I did all sort of stuff that I should regret but don't - where I did all sorts of stuff that I should regret and do.

Let's call it HOME. Though I haven't lived there since 1987, that's how I think of it. We moved there in '76.

The thing is, this little old town has a bit of a hi-fi connection because it's called Steyning & that's where SME live.

http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/2420/bw2jt.jpg

Mill Road is about halfway between my family home & the school I attended. Crucially, the bridge over the mill-stream was where the smarter smokers used to go for a nose-warmer at lunch times. A venue never discovered in my time by the school staff, though often attended by a close friend of mine - the son of the Headmaster!

I went past the SME premises this morning, took this photo & saw men in real lab coats, working away on building products that the British hi-fi community is proud of.
However, I see that nowadays the skip where the reject stuff is dumped no longer lives within easy reach of schoolboys with 'enquiring minds'!!!!

There are countless legends in Steyning of the fastidiousness with which Alaistair Aikman used to run his business & his life. The thing is, when you saw & handled his products, you knew them all to be true.



The other hi-fi connection in Steyning is B&W - they built their research & development lab in what was an old orchard (I used to walk through it on my way home from school every day & once got a clip round the ear from an innocent victim of friendly fire in one of our regular Battles of the Bramleys).


http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/1531/30137792.jpg


I went to school with a good number of folks who worked for these two companies - a couple of whom have gone on to big things in the electronics industry -

Here's to what's left of British hifi.

(Please excuse the wonky pictures - all taken undercover in the interests of AoS reportage!!)
Cheers

[Kris]

Apparently Alaistair Aikman had a purpose built listening room that was legendary. Audio Research Electronics and Quad Electrostatic speakers. The speakers were set up very strangely (2 pairs at right angles to each other), but sounded fab.

I had an SME 3009 years ago. Wonderful tonearm. And If I won the lottery one of my first purchases would be a 30/12 with a Series V tonearm.

SME, truely one of the greatest manufacturers of all time. B&W aren't bad either. I got 5 pairs of their speakers!

[Rare Bird]

Apparently Alaistair Aikman had a purpose built listening room that was legendary. Audio Research Electronics and Quad Electrostatic speakers. The speakers were set up very strangely (2 pairs at right angles to each other), but sounded fab.

I had an SME 3009 years ago. Wonderful tonearm. And If I won the lottery one of my first purchases would be a 30/12 with a Series V tonearm.

SME, truely one of the greatest manufacturers of all time. B&W aren't bad either. I got 5 pairs of their speakers!

I seem to remember he had Krell power! The Quad '63's i remember position forward firing & another pair side firing in a 'L' type configuration! This be the time the then new SME turntable appeared, maybe i'm wrong..

[Alex_UK]

I think "2 pairs at right angles to each other" is the same as "position forward firing & another pair side firing in a 'L' type configuration!" - or at least I imagined Kris's description to also mean "L" shaped? :confused:

[Alex_UK]

Great post, BTW Chris - a bit sad, in a way, but in today's environment I guess we should be thankful companies like SME are still around at all...

[The Grand Wazoo]

When I got to know about the system it used Oracle turntables (2 Alexandrias, I think), ARC SP11, 4 Krell Reference monos & 2 pairs of ESL63's in the 'L' shape / 90 degree format described above. They were dustcover-less, but crucually, were built into sturdy frames & they had massive (100lb) steel weights on top - that'll stop the buggers wobbling!

A previous incarnation had a semi-circular array of 16(?) closely spaced Quad 57's to give a true point source. The speakers all hide behind a motorised curtain.



By the way, the B&W building once had a Nakamichi Dragon turntable in it - well, if you were the distributor of Nakamichi, you just would, wouldn't you?!!

"Your record has an off-centre spindle hole sir? - No problem just givie it a spin on this little beauty!"
http://www.niji.or.jp/home/k-nisi/tx-1000-h.jpg

Japanese advert:
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.niji.or.jp/home/k-nisi/tx-1000-h.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.niji.or.jp/home/k-nisi/tx-1000.htm&usg=__AFFPhVfI3kTOCr8PG1Ispo5pBiA=&h=558&w=860&sz=50&hl=en&start=2&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=FW_OoCeqeyyGSM:&tbnh=94&tbnw=145&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dnakamichi%2Bturntable%26hl%3Den%26rlz %3D1T4DKUK_en-GBGB250GB250%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1

Review / info:
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.regonaudio.com/tx-1000-h.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.regonaudio.com/&usg=__OMP_yXCYsxNk8lOfou-eT2PG1Fs=&h=558&w=860&sz=90&hl=en&start=10&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=2hhJ13GNeXiaOM:&tbnh=94&tbnw=145&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dnakamichi%2Bturntable%26hl%3Den%26rlz %3D1T4DKUK_en-GBGB250GB250%26sa%3DX%26um%3D1

[Haselsh1]

What a shame... what an absolute bloody shame in the same way the British motorcycle industry ended it's days. That industry is now making pseudo British bikes designed in Japan. What a disgrace.

[Rare Bird]

I think "2 pairs at right angles to each other" is the same as "position forward firing & another pair side firing in a 'L' type configuration!" - or at least I imagined Kris's description to also mean "L" shaped? :confused:

Yes he probably did mean this.. (Sorry for contradicting Kris) :)

[Kris]

Yes, that's right, L shaped config. I also remember seeing the pictures of the speakers "built into sturdy frames & they had massive (100lb) steel weights on top - that'll stop the buggers wobbling!"

I also remember now that the speakers were raised on a 'stage' with acoustically transparent curtains.

I wonder what's happened to the room now? probably turned into a snooker room with a Tesco/ Currys stereo :(

Can anyone remember the room dimensions? Was it the classic 1 to 1.6 to 2.5 / 1 to 2.5 to 3.2 ratio?

[The Grand Wazoo]

Well, I don't know for sure but I think the house remains in the family. Cameron Aikman (his son) now runs SME.

[Jason P]

I'm from you're neck of the woods Chris, born and bred in Lancing. When I was at college in Worthing I went to see someone connected with B&W who was donating an old video recorder to the college along with some other gear - when we went to collect it, we saw the most amazing room. It was his home cinema/hifi room - complete with curtains, cinema seats (this was long before the current fad for home setups) and the original recording console from Abbey Road wot the Beatles recorded on (according to this chap). I wish I could remember who and where it was (though I think it might've been near Steyning) but it was a fascinating place.

Jason

[Kris]

Just seen your sig Jason:
I used to have a Linn but I'm better now.

:rofl: That has to be the best sig line I've ever seen. Brilliant!

[hifi_dave]

I visited the SME factory and Alistair's system twice and it was a very interesting experience.

The first time I went to the factory was just after they had introduced the Series III arm and I had said some unkind things about it in one of the mags I wrote for at the time. I remember the factory was spotlessly clean with not a thing out of place. I asked about the 'listening room' and was told that there wasn't one and that the arm had been designed and built without it ever being tried prior to production. Of, course, once it was made, a couple were installed in Alistair's system on SP10's, IIRC. The rest of the system was a heap of BGW amps into 14 Quad ESL 57's, mounted on frames to allow orientation.

Second time round is a bit hazey for me but I seem to remember only 6 or 8 Quad's, a heap of Krell and an LFD phono stage. Still a good day out though.:cool:

[The Grand Wazoo]

Ah yes, the big battery powered LFD.

[Kris]

the arm had been designed and built without it ever being tried prior to production.

:eek: I am truly shocked.

Dave, have you any lasting impressions of how the system sounded or the size of the room?

[Jonboy]

My wifes cousin visited his house to fix his telly or something in the seventies, and listened to his system with the Quads, he was duly impressed, another mate/dealer has also been there several times and had a listen, apparently Alistair fitted Van-Den-Dull carbon cables to it all and killed the sound :doh:
I will ask them both when i next see them to see if they know the room size, i'm sure i have seen pics of it somewhere, perhaps a magazine artical

[Rare Bird]

The best open day for me was J.A.Michell .. Freindship grew from then on.

[hifi_dave]

:eek: I am truly shocked.

Dave, have you any lasting impressions of how the system sounded or the size of the room?

I can only recall the first visit as the second time around, I believe, we had lunch first and it all got a bit fuzzy round the edges after that.:drunk:

The system with 14 ESL'a sounded LARGE, very LARGE, which was fine with full orchestra but with solo voice etc, the image was far too big for comfort. Another major problem was that the amps were clipping like buggery on the loud parts. It was all a bit embarrassing really.:o

After all these years it is difficult to recall the room dimensions but I would guess around 60 feet square. I can remember a lovely view across a valley, the massive Chinese rug and the 'Blackamores' I believe they are called. Life size gents with Turbans and holding lamps.

[The Grand Wazoo]

The valley is called Clays & Fever Field - it's where they buried all the plague victims! It'd be a bit different now - they dug a lake in it (good) but also put a bypass on it (bad!)

[hifinutt]

i am extremely proud my b&w spearkers are british and made in worthing, they are doing great things , and reading what hi fi recently [rarely] its good to see their top recommendations for amps were british [cyrus and leema]

[Kris]

i am extremely proud my b&w spearkers are british and made in worthing

Same here. We have 5 pairs of B&W speakers. I'll post more about them in my Gallery thread once I can get my hands on my house-mates camera phone.

[REM]

It's good to see that SME got the kontrakt for the keel from Linn, too. Word is though if SME sold it direct it would cost about £500, only just a rumour, you understand;)

[Jonboy]

I use B&W speakers in my av system, i can look out of my window and see the roof of B&W on the right and just about make out Audionotes building on the left, and SME is just over the hill

If anyone is interested i have been offered a pair of B&W 801's for £250, cabinets arn't perfect but the crossovers have been rebuilt and the drivers are all good

[Kris]

If anyone is interested i have been offered a pair of B&W 801's for £250, cabinets arn't perfect but the crossovers have been rebuilt and the drivers are all good

Are you interested yourself? £250 sounds good, depending what generation they are. You could make yourself a good profit by selling them on. I've heard some bad things about the 801s, mostly that they are very unbalanced (personally though I think the problem is room interaction. These babies need a large room to work at their best). It would be nice to know the truth first hand from someone rather than just Chinese whispers for a change . . .

[Jonboy]

Not sure of age but they have they the swivel tweeters on top, prob 1980's, i think they take a bit of driving with a good solid state amp, although they worked well with a Push Pull 300b amp so i'm told