Sphinx Audio and SME Music at The Taj Mahal Palace: A Mumbai Listening Evening

The Evening

The Sphinx Audio Element 3 chose a setting befitting its arrival. On the evening of 28 February 2026, a small number of invited guests gathered at The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai for what amounted to a private introduction to two of the most consequential developments in Cadence Audio Group’s recent history: the first time the Element 3 loudspeakers had been heard anywhere in India, and the first glimpse of SME Music — the Group’s forthcoming pure-analog record label — presented to an Indian audience.

The reference system assembled for the evening placed the Sphinx Audio Element 3 at its centre. The Element 3 is a loudspeaker that commands attention before a note is played: its sculpted cabinet, inspired by the silhouette of a harp, rises from a curved aluminium base in synthetic stone the colour of pale alabaster, threaded with caramel veins. The effect is closer to antiquity than to consumer electronics — something one might encounter in the Egyptian wing of a great museum. That the form is also the function is the Element 3’s particular achievement: the stone-like exterior dampens resonance naturally, the internal geometry accommodates Sphinx Audio’s proprietary Zero Gravity Bass technology, and the whole design belongs in a room as confidently as any piece of sculpture. Then the music starts, and the room belongs to the Element 3.

The Reference System

Source duties fell to the SME Model 35 turntable, fitted with the new-generation Series Vi tonearm — CNC-machined from a high-density polymer for lower resonance than its magnesium predecessor — and an Ortofon MC A95 cartridge. A Nagra HD phono preamplifier handled the signal before passing it to the Siltech SAGA system: the battery-powered C1 preamplifier, the V1 tube voltage amplifier, and the P1 solid-state current amplifier, a three-box architecture designed to physically separate each gain stage for the lowest possible distortion. Siltech Classic Legend 880 series cables carried the signal throughout — interconnect, loudspeaker, and power — with the entire system presented on a Finite Element equipment rack. Every link in the chain placed the Element 3 in the company the loudspeaker deserves.

The evening’s complete system: Sphinx Audio Element 3 loudspeakers, SME Model 35 with Series Vi tonearm, Nagra HD phono preamplifier, Siltech SAGA amplification, and Classic Legend 880 cabling on a Finite Element rack. The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Mumbai.

Loudspeakers: Sphinx Audio Element 3

Source: SME Model 35 with Series Vi tonearm and Ortofon MC A95 cartridge

Amplification: Siltech SAGA System — C1 preamplifier, V1 voltage amplifier, P1 current amplifier

Phono stage: Nagra HD phono preamplifier

Cables: Siltech Classic Legend 880 series (interconnect, loudspeaker, and power)

Equipment rack: Finite Element

SME Music and the Craft Behind the Pressing

SME Music, the forthcoming pure-analog record label under Cadence Audio Group, received its first presentation to an Indian audience at the same evening. Guests heard newly pressed vinyl from the label, with Rainer Maillard — producer and general manager of Emil Berliner Studios in Berlin, and the engineer responsible for mastering and lacquer cutting every SME Music release — present as an exclusive guest to speak about the work behind them.

Maillard addressed the craft of mastering and lacquer cutting that underpins the SME Music catalogue: the decisions made between tape and groove, the discipline a pure analog signal chain imposes on every stage of production, and the audible difference that discipline produces. The conversation extended to the broader question of analog versus digital audio — not as a matter of nostalgia, but as an engineering philosophy with measurable consequences for what reaches the listener.

Maillard’s credentials speak directly to the seriousness of SME Music’s ambitions. Hired by Deutsche Grammophon in 1990 and a four-time Grammy Award winner, Maillard has spent more than three decades at the intersection of classical recording and analog mastery. Emil Berliner Studios, under Maillard’s leadership, represents one of the last facilities in the world capable of the complete analog chain from master tape to lacquer.

The Forthcoming SME Music Catalogue

The scope of what SME Music intends to release became clear as the evening progressed. The first project is a series of orchestral recordings made with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London — captured entirely in the analog domain, from microphone to master tape, and cut to lacquer by Rainer Maillard in Berlin. The second is an exclusive box set dedicated to Classical Indian Folk Music: a collection that brings together some of India’s finest instrumentalists and vocalists to commit living musical traditions to vinyl in the most permanent and faithful format available. Taken together, the two projects define the ambition of SME Music — a label that records across continents and cultures, united by the conviction that the analog chain preserves what digital conversion cannot.

Among the musicians present at the evening was Rakesh Chaurasia, the bansuri virtuoso, two-time Grammy Award winner, and nephew of the legendary flute maestro Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia. Also in attendance was composer and music arranger Kamlesh Bhadkamkar, alongside fellow artists connected to the forthcoming recordings. Their presence underlined the depth of talent behind the Classical Indian Folk Music project and the seriousness with which SME Music approaches its Indian catalogue.

Ajay Shirke holds one of the first SME Music pressings alongside Rakesh Chaurasia, Kamlesh Bhadkamkar, and musicians from the forthcoming Classical Indian Folk Music box set.

The Makers in the Room

Cadence Audio Group Chairman Ajay Shirke gave the evening its thesis around a conviction that has guided the company for more than thirty years: that analog audio is a discipline requiring control of every stage, from the recording to the playback, and that Cadence now possesses every instrument to prove it — including, with SME Music, the label itself. Kerry St. James of SME offered the perspective of the workshop floor in Steyning, where each Model 35 is still assembled by hand and where the bespoke Model 60 One of One programme turns a turntable into a singular commission. Viktor de Leeuw and Rishabh Kumar of Siltech and Sphinx Audio could trace the signal from cartridge to loudspeaker terminal and explain every conductor and circuit along the way. Rainer Maillard, having already let the pressings make his case through the Sphinx Audio Element 3, spoke about the lacquers with the understated authority of someone who has been cutting masters for Deutsche Grammophon since 1990.

For many guests, the evening offered the first opportunity to hear the Sphinx Audio Element 3 in person, and to understand the recording philosophy that will define every release from SME Music.

Audio Lounge Mumbai is located in The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Heritage Wing, Apollo Bandar, Colaba, Mumbai 400001. To arrange a private demonstration of the Sphinx Audio Element 3 or any equipment in the Audio Lounge portfolio, contact the Mumbai team at [email protected].

More information on SME Music is available on sme.co.uk/music.