Consider what happens when a piece of music reaches a listener’s ears from a vinyl record. Air moves in a performance space. Microphones convert that air movement into an electrical signal. The signal is recorded onto magnetic tape. The tape feeds a cutting lathe that carves the signal into a spiral groove on a lacquer disc. The lacquer is used to create a stamper that presses the groove into vinyl. The vinyl is placed on a turntable. A stylus traces the groove and converts the physical undulations back into an electrical signal. That signal travels through cables to an amplifier, which increases its power. The amplified signal travels through more cables to loudspeakers, which convert the electrical signal back into air movement. The listener hears the music.
Preserving the Signal
Every link in that chain either preserves or degrades the original signal. Every connection, every component, every material in the path either passes the signal through transparently or adds something of its own — noise, distortion, coloration, loss. The goal of a reference audio system is to minimise the total degradation across the full chain so that what reaches the listener’s ears is as close as possible to what the microphones captured.
One Company, Every Link
No other audio group in the world controls every link in this chain. Cadence Audio Group does.
SME Music produces the recording — captured on analog tape without digital conversion. The Garrard 301 or an SME turntable provides the mechanical playback — a precision turntable and tonearm that extracts the signal from the groove with minimal added vibration, noise, or resonance. Loricraft ensures the record surface is clean — free of the contaminants that would otherwise become part of the playback signal. Crystal Cable or Siltech conductors carry the signal — monocrystalline silver or seventh-generation S8 silver-gold alloy, minimising the electrical discontinuities that degrade signal quality in lesser cables. And Spendor or Sphinx Audio loudspeakers convert the signal back into sound — using proprietary driver technologies and cabinet designs that add as little of their own character as possible.
Hearing the Complete Chain
The demonstration of this complete chain happens at Audio Lounge. In the London, Mumbai, and Pune showrooms, visitors can hear an SME Music recording played on an SME turntable through Crystal Cable or Siltech interconnects into Spendor or Sphinx Audio loudspeakers — all manufactured or distributed by Cadence Audio Group, all calibrated and installed by the Audio Lounge team. The chain is auditable from end to end.
Why the Chain Matters
Why does a complete chain matter? Because audio systems are evaluated by their weakest link. An exceptional turntable feeding a mediocre cable produces a mediocre result. A superb recording played through poor loudspeakers wastes the quality that the recording engineer worked to capture. When every link in the chain is engineered to the same standard, the cumulative transparency is greater than the sum of the parts. The system becomes a window rather than a filter.
Thirty Years in the Making
Consider what happens when a piece of music reaches a listener’s ears from a vinyl record. Air moves in a performance space. Microphones convert that air movement into an electrical signal. The signal is recorded onto magnetic tape. The tape feeds a cutting lathe that translates the signal into a physical groove on a lacquer disc. The lacquer is used to create a pressing stamper. The stamper forms the groove into vinyl. A turntable rotates the vinyl. A stylus traces the groove. The cartridge converts the groove’s mechanical information back into an electrical signal. Cables carry that signal to an amplifier. The amplifier drives loudspeakers. The loudspeakers convert the electrical signal back into air movement. The listener hears music. This is the analog audio chain from start to finish.
What makes Cadence Audio Group unique in the global audio industry is that the Group controls every stage of this analog audio chain. No other audio company in the world can make this claim.
Preserving the Signal
The analog audio chain is a series of conversions. Each conversion — from air to electricity, from electricity to magnetism, from magnetism to vinyl, from vinyl back to electricity, from electricity back to air — is an opportunity for the signal to be degraded, distorted, or coloured by the equipment performing the conversion. The engineering challenge in analog audio is to minimise these degradations at every stage, preserving as much of the original musical information as the physics of each conversion allows.
Cadence Audio Group’s portfolio addresses each conversion point with dedicated engineering. The analog audio signal path begins at SME Music, where the recording is captured without digital conversion. The signal passes through SME or Garrard turntables, SME tonearms, Crystal Cable or Siltech conductors, and arrives at Spendor or Sphinx Audio loudspeakers. Loricraft ensures the groove itself is maintained in optimal condition. Each link in the analog audio chain is engineered by a specialist manufacturer within the Cadence portfolio.
One Company, Every Link
The recording: SME Music captures performances by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on analog tape, mixed on an analog console, and cut directly to lacquer by engineers including Tony Faulkner and Rainer Maillard. The playback source: SME turntables from the Model 6 to the Model 60, or the Garrard 301 for idler-drive character, rotating the record with precision speed stability. The tonearm: SME tonearms from the M2-12R to the Series V, holding the cartridge in the correct position with micron-level accuracy. Record care: Loricraft PRC-6 point-suction record cleaning machines keeping the groove free of contaminants.
The signal transmission: Crystal Cable monocrystalline silver or Siltech S8 silver-gold alloy conductors carrying the analog audio signal between components with minimal degradation. The transduction: Spendor loudspeakers converting the electrical signal back into sound with the accuracy and musicality that five decades of Sussex manufacturing have refined, or Sphinx Audio Element loudspeakers offering Dutch engineering ambition at the upper price tier. The demonstration: Audio Lounge showrooms providing the acoustic environment where the complete analog audio chain can be heard under controlled conditions.
Hearing the Complete Chain
At Audio Lounge showrooms in London, Mumbai, and Pune, visitors can hear this complete analog audio chain in action. An SME Music recording played on an SME turntable through Crystal Cable interconnects, amplified and delivered through Spendor loudspeakers via Siltech speaker cable — every component manufactured under the Cadence Audio Group umbrella. The musical signal passes through the entire chain without leaving the organisation’s engineering control.
Why the Chain Matters
The significance of controlling the complete analog audio chain is not about corporate ownership. The significance is about engineering coherence. When the same organisation specifies the tolerances for the turntable bearing, the metallurgy for the cable conductor, the voicing targets for the loudspeaker, and the recording methodology for the source material, the result is a system where every component is optimised for the same objective: the most faithful possible reproduction of the original analog audio performance.
Thirty Years in the Making
Cadence Audio Group did not set out in 1991 to control the complete analog audio chain. The journey began with an electrostatic transducer research lab in Pune and evolved through three decades of strategic acquisition and organic growth. Each brand was added because that brand addressed a specific gap in the chain with engineering of the highest standard. The result, three decades later, is a portfolio that covers the complete analog audio path from recording studio to listening room.
The Unbroken Path
The complete analog audio chain from SME Music recording session to Audio Lounge listening room is an unbroken path. The signal is never digitised, never compressed, and never processed outside the analog domain. What the microphone captured in the concert hall is what the loudspeaker reproduces in the listening room. This is what analog audio means at its best, and this is what Cadence Audio Group is uniquely positioned to deliver.
