Following the success of Cool Gales’ ‘Take Five’ event last year, proprietor Ivan Kursar decided to repeat and extend the formula, the result being the Cool Gales Analogue Fest 2011 which took place on Saturday 4^th June 2011 at the Bath & County Club, a lavish retreat in the heart of the historic city of Bath, Somerset, UK.

Several notable figures from the hi-fi community were there to demonstrate their latest products and to answer questions. Returning for the second year were Leema Acoustics’ Lee Taylor and Mallory Nicholls, Audio Reference UK’s Martin Brewster, Aesthetix president and designer Jim White, Diverse Vinyl’s Paul Dawkins and Hi-Fi+ editor Alan Sircom.

This year’s event was bigger than last years’ so joining these hi-fi luminaries were Hideto Watanbe and Chris Tuck of Eclipse TD, the ‘man in the white coat’ Jonathan Monk with the Keith Monks record cleaning machines, Nigel Crump of high end distributor Symmetry, and Thomas Mayer with his exquisite single-ended valve amplifiers.

Despite a security alert on the main Paddington to Bath railway line, which prevented many London-based audiophiles from getting there, attendance was up by approximately 60 per cent.

The show witnessed at least two outstanding product debuts. Leema demonstrated its new Elements series, still in prototype phase, for the first time. The new babies of this range are beautifully put together and promise to set the bottom end of the audiophile market alight with their combination of cutting-edge technologies such as 24 / 192 asynchronous adaptive USB DAC inputs and fabulous sound quality. The Elements amplifier in particular seems like a sure-fire winner, featuring as it does typically Leema excellent drive capabilities, outstanding flexibility and bullet-proof build quality in a very elegant design that’s smaller than a shoebox.

Also drawing attention in the Leema room was the new SA-1 turntable, designed by Frank Schroder and manufactured in California by Artemis Labs. This very elegant turntable was making great sounds with the matching TA-1 tone-arm through Leema’s Elements Phono phonostage, Pyxis and Hydra amplifiers and Xeta loudspeakers.

The main hall contained a very different system built around Thomas Mayer’s beautiful hand-crafted single-ended valve amplifiers and Aspara Acoustics horn loudspeakers. Also in the main room was a vast selection of new vinyl on sale courtesy of Diverse Vinyl’s Paul Dawkins whose encyclopaedic knowledge is a very welcome aid when record browsing wanders into unknown territory.

The second main demonstration room contained a system comprising a Brinkmann turntable, Esoteric amplification and the highly unusual but equally unbelievable Eclipse TD loudspeakers. These single driver, egg-shaped loudspeakers give an almost unbeatable insight into a recording. They certainly deserve to be heard because what they do well, they do better than any other loudspeaker that I can think of.

The third main room contained the other real highlight of the show. Jim White was presenting his new flagship, the Aesthetix Io Eclipse phono stage. The Io Eclipse is available in various configurations and making its UK debut was a two-box stereo power supply version complete with volume controls that allow it to bypass a line stage and feed the power amplifiers direct. Designed and built to be the best phono stage in the world, with entirely passive RIAA correction and 80 dB of all-valve gain, the Io Eclipse certainly is in a league of one. Detail, clarity, sound staging, speed and musicality were simply jaw dropping. The Io was being fed by the gorgeous Clearaudio Innovation Wood turntable, which was fitted with the brand new Graham Phantom Supreme tonearm. When configured with volume controls the Io Eclipse also includes one line level input and this was being put to excellent use by the long-awaited Aesthetix Romulus DAC/disc player. First shown this time last year, the Romulus was making extremely good noises for a digital component and is now only a matter of weeks away from full production. 

Ex BBC recording engineer Mike Valentine gave a very interesting, if slightly long-winded presentation about different recording techniques and microphones. The event was another great success for Cool Gales and I, for one, am looking forward to Analogue Fest 2012.