Last week I had the opportunity of attending the launch of Audio Lounge- Chennai thanks to an invite extended by a friend.
For the uninitiated, Audio Lounge is a premier Audiophile showroom in London that gives audiophiles the opportunity to experience and buy some esoteric brands like Arabesque, Nagra, Siltech, Burmester, Clearaudio, Devialet, Spendor, SME, Unison Research, Vivid Audio, etc. Obviously, I was super excited when my friend called me over to drop in.
Audio Lounge Chennai is on Ormes road in Kilpauk. On walking in I was pleasantly surprised to find another forum member Mr Venkat at the venue. I was in for another sweet shock as he welcomed me and introduced himself as the owner of Audio lounge Chennai. It was an extremely satisfying feeling to know that the most high-end brands have been brought to India by an Audiophile and a fellow forum member.
The showroom itself is a residential bungalow that has been converted for this purpose. Ample parking space and a serene lawn welcome you into what can only be an Audio lovers paradise. The setup in the lounge was the kind of stuff dreams are made of Nagra HD DAC Nagra Jazz Preamp 2 Nagra Valve Mono Amplifiers driving a pair of Arabesque Glass Master. The whole setup was drool worthy and one could just keep looking at it. The speakers were a piece of art. The source was a Alienware PC running a dedicated Audiophile software. Extremely clever as this is what most audiophiles are migrating towards.
The first floor has a dedicated home theater room and another room for stereo. While the home theatre room was just being setup, the other room was again dedicated to stereo. Here were placed Spendors flagship speakers the SP100R2. They were connected to Siltech Signature SET amplifiers & Siltech SAGA C1 preamplifier.
I truly loved the fact the listening rooms were very much alive and devoid of excessive acoustical treatment, damping, diffusers, etc. This is how most of our listening environment is so it gives a good idea of how it would sound in a realistic environment. Of course the usual curtain, carpet and wisely placed artifacts do do their bit to add to the sonic qualities and fine tune the environment but nothing artificial has been done to enhance or colour the sound artificially. Kudos to the team for adopting this approach!
A friendly chat with Mr Venkat made me realize what this place actually stood for. In the gross consumerism that has taken over this field, where home theatres have replaced vital showroom space sacrificing good old stereo which is firmly believe is what is best for music, Audio lounge comes in as a breath of fresh air to the audiophile in us. Here is a place that celebrates pure unadulterated two channel music like nothing else currently does. The brands represented by Audio lounge need no introduction.
And if this was not enough, the highlight of the show was Mr Ajay Shirke who incidentally owns the Audio lounge brand personally going through the last minute nuances of checking phase, toe in, room acoustics and speaker placement. It was truly amazing to see a person of his stature being present and supervising minute details. His knowledge on audio setups was second to none.
The evening was well spent. Extremely glad that we now have a dedicated stereo flagship store in India. Wish all the very best to Audio Lounge Chennai.
Mr Venkat may be reached on 94443 69900
A few pictures of the launch and showroom
For the uninitiated, Audio Lounge is a premier Audiophile showroom in London that gives audiophiles the opportunity to experience and buy some esoteric brands like Arabesque, Nagra, Siltech, Burmester, Clearaudio, Devialet, Spendor, SME, Unison Research, Vivid Audio, etc. Obviously, I was super excited when my friend called me over to drop in.
Audio Lounge Chennai is on Ormes road in Kilpauk. On walking in I was pleasantly surprised to find another forum member Mr Venkat at the venue. I was in for another sweet shock as he welcomed me and introduced himself as the owner of Audio lounge Chennai. It was an extremely satisfying feeling to know that the most high-end brands have been brought to India by an Audiophile and a fellow forum member.
The showroom itself is a residential bungalow that has been converted for this purpose. Ample parking space and a serene lawn welcome you into what can only be an Audio lovers paradise. The setup in the lounge was the kind of stuff dreams are made of Nagra HD DAC Nagra Jazz Preamp 2 Nagra Valve Mono Amplifiers driving a pair of Arabesque Glass Master. The whole setup was drool worthy and one could just keep looking at it. The speakers were a piece of art. The source was a Alienware PC running a dedicated Audiophile software. Extremely clever as this is what most audiophiles are migrating towards.
The first floor has a dedicated home theater room and another room for stereo. While the home theatre room was just being setup, the other room was again dedicated to stereo. Here were placed Spendors flagship speakers the SP100R2. They were connected to Siltech Signature SET amplifiers & Siltech SAGA C1 preamplifier.
I truly loved the fact the listening rooms were very much alive and devoid of excessive acoustical treatment, damping, diffusers, etc. This is how most of our listening environment is so it gives a good idea of how it would sound in a realistic environment. Of course the usual curtain, carpet and wisely placed artifacts do do their bit to add to the sonic qualities and fine tune the environment but nothing artificial has been done to enhance or colour the sound artificially. Kudos to the team for adopting this approach!
A friendly chat with Mr Venkat made me realize what this place actually stood for. In the gross consumerism that has taken over this field, where home theatres have replaced vital showroom space sacrificing good old stereo which is firmly believe is what is best for music, Audio lounge comes in as a breath of fresh air to the audiophile in us. Here is a place that celebrates pure unadulterated two channel music like nothing else currently does. The brands represented by Audio lounge need no introduction.
And if this was not enough, the highlight of the show was Mr Ajay Shirke who incidentally owns the Audio lounge brand personally going through the last minute nuances of checking phase, toe in, room acoustics and speaker placement. It was truly amazing to see a person of his stature being present and supervising minute details. His knowledge on audio setups was second to none.
The evening was well spent. Extremely glad that we now have a dedicated stereo flagship store in India. Wish all the very best to Audio Lounge Chennai.
Mr Venkat may be reached on 94443 69900
A few pictures of the launch and showroom
