Consider what happens in analogue audio 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 analogue 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 analogue audio chain. No other audio company in the world can make this claim.
Preserving the Signal
The analogue 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 analogue 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 analogue audio signal path begins at SME Music, the pure analogue record label of the British turntable maker SME, 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 analogue audio chain is engineered by a specialist manufacturer within the Cadence portfolio.
One Company, Every Link
The recording: SME Music captures performances on analogue tape, from Indian classical and folk music to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and jazz, mixed on an analogue console by Tony Faulkner, the Grammy-winning luminary of classical recording, whose microphones have captured thousands of acclaimed performances. At Emil Berliner Studios in Berlin, Rainer Maillard, four-time Grammy winner and the foremost authority on analogue production, edits and masters each recording, and Sidney Claire Meyer, head of the studio’s vinyl department, cuts it directly to lacquer. The playback source: SME turntables from the Model 8 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 Vi and VA, holding the cartridge in the correct position with micron-level accuracy. Record care: Loricraft PRC4i and PRC6i point-suction record cleaning machines keeping the groove free of contaminants.
The signal transmission: Crystal Cable monocrystalline silver or Siltech G9 silver-gold alloy conductors carrying the analogue 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 British 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 analogue 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 analogue 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 analogue 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 analogue audio performance.
Thirty Years in the Making
Cadence Audio Group did not set out in 1991 to control the complete analogue 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 analogue audio path from recording studio to listening room.
The Unbroken Path
The complete analogue 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 analogue domain. What the microphone captured in the concert hall is what the loudspeaker reproduces in the listening room. This is what analogue audio means at its best, and this is what Cadence Audio Group is uniquely positioned to deliver.
