Peter Qvortrup (Audio Note UK) invited me to visit him in Brighton, England, and I immensely enjoyed visiting with Peter, his family, and meeting all the fine people of Audio Note UK.
Peter Qvortrup of Audio Note UK.
I have so much I want to tell you about my adventures with Peter and Audio Note UK, and I suspect it will take me a fair number of blog posts here at Jeff's Place, as well as a few feature articles for Positive Feedback, to cover everything I want to say.
Consider this post to be my introductory post, where I'm mostly going to share my personal impressions and emotional reactions to what I encountered during the visit, to be followed in subsequent posts with an increasing level of details as my jet-lagged brain gets back up to speed.
Audio Note UK room at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest some years ago.
First of all, long time readers of my writing know that while visiting audio shows in the USA over the years, that I have reported that the Audio Note UK rooms were pretty much the only rooms that I encountered that provided consistently good musical experiences throughout my years of show attendance.
The rooms at audio shows are notoriously variable and difficult to get good sound from, and I've heard quite a number of manufacturers and distributors bemoaning that fact over the years, and sometimes they get good sound and other times they don't.
The exception is Audio Note UK, who always seem to get superb musicality and sound quality from their rooms, which ought to tell you something about Audio Note UK's equipment, and the success you'd have with it in your better home listening room.
How does Audio Note UK get such consistently good musicality and sound in their rooms when it is so hit and miss for everyone else?
Vincent Belanger - Audio Note UK room.
Hint: Peter and those at Audio Note UK know what music really sounds like, to the extent that they even bring musicians into their show room - like Vincent Belanger - to play for show attendees, so they can hear how the Audio Note UK equipment captures the essence of live music - by comparing live music and recorded performances - in real-world rooms like those of audio shows, and they come remarkably close to the live music experience.
I figure if Audio Note UK can get that kind of consistently good performance in audio show rooms it's a shoo-in to get even better performance in your own listening room.
Based on show experiences I thought I knew a little about what to expect from Audio Note UK, but what I found out was that I didn't know diddly, and what I learned during my visit to Audio Note UK totally blew me away, and I came away extremely impressed.
Ok, with that little introductory preamble to whet your appetite, let me get to it and tell you some impressions about my Audio Note UK adventures!
Daniel Qvortrup of Audio Note UK, Peter's son, joining Peter and I for a little listening in Peter's home listening room.
After a nice long flight from the home of Jeff's Place in Washington State across the pond to London, England, Daniel Qvortrup - Peter's son (above) - picked me up at Heathrow and drove me to the Audio Note UK facility located just outside Brighton.
Daniel and I had fun chatting on the drive to Brighton, and I like Daniel a lot, he's a good guy, smart, and with a lot of insight, and I can tell you that Audio Note UK is going to be in really good hands should Peter ever decide he wants to retire.
I can't imagine Peter ever not being involved in Audio Note UK though, as Peter simply loves what he does, and for good reason - it's really magnificent what he has accomplished with Audio Note UK, and it would be any music and audio lover's dream come true!
Audio Note UK headquarters.
Audio Note UK headquarters outside of Brighton, England.
Audio Note UK headquarters.
Audio Note UK HQ
As Daniel and I pulled into Audio Note UK headquarters (above photos), I couldn't help but notice the great taste in automobiles of the Audio Note UK people - Porsches, AMG Mercedes, and the like, lined the front of the facility.
Peter Qvortrup, Chief Wizard of Audio Note UK.
Upon entering the Audio Note UK headquarters facility, Peter greeted me in his office, and after a couple of espressos to help me get over jet-lag, we had one of the most delightful conversations about politics, economics, history, literature, and the current state of the world, that I've had in a very long time!
I was so enchanted by Peter's references to the books he has been reading in our conversations that I asked him to make me up a reading list, which will no doubt help expand my consciousness significantly!
And we hadn't even got to music and audio yet!
Next we did a facility walkthrough, and Daniel and Peter walked me around introducing me to the staff as we toured the facility.
For now I'm just going to show you some photos and give some brief descriptions, with more details to come in subsequent posts.
In the photo above you can see some Audio Note UK kit going through the warmup & conditioning process to make sure everything is operating as it should.
Customer order being conditioned.
Audio Note UK builds everything to order, so a particular amp, preamp, DAC, loudspeakers, etc., are built just for you when you place an order in real time.
The amps in the photo above are so gorgeous I could have just stared at them for hours.
Customer orders getting a good run-in.
I thought you would enjoy a few photos of orders built for customers that are getting a little run-in time on the rack prior to their performance check.
That was just the first 20 feet of the entry hallway!
I have so much more I want to show you and tell you about, but I just hit the jet-lag rev-limiter, so I'll be back with much more shortly about the facility tour, research & development, and other exciting topics!
As always, thanks for stopping by Jeff's Place, and may the tone be with you!
