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Our Philosophy
Product selection
The products you see here and in the shop are very carefully selected, whatever the price. Our number one priority is sound quality, which is an easy statement to make, so we feel a little explanation is necessary.
To get as close to the sound of live music we feel that life and dynamics are the real keys to a fulfilling system, sound that breathes, is natural and that doesn’t favour (or limit you to) one genre of music.
Naturally build quality and reliability are also critical, if it fails on either of these it wont find it’s way into the shop.
We do not buy products based upon their appearance, in fact the cosmetics of a product are not a high priority. We do sell some very pretty items but none were chosen for that reason. We also do not follow fashion and certainly don’t flit from one product to another depending upon what the magazines are printing this month.
We find some of the most exciting equipment comes from smaller specialist brands, they don’t have the large budgets to court the press and get the rave reviews and many have no desire to (imagine trying to cope with hundreds of orders for the short period whilst a review is on the news stands).
We choose products based on what we find enjoyable to listen to, please remember that our stock is equipment we’ve bought ourselves, using the same criteria we hope our customers will, so any product we stock has already passed a very stern test.
Our choice of stock may seem a little eclectic at first, we are very proud of the items we feature. Our philosophy is simple, a product has to involve us musically and either has to be the best we’ve found at the price of offer a worthwhile alternative to an item we already rate.
Most of our products share a common design philosophy, and this is no accident. In our experience capturing the dynamics, energy and involvement of a performance requires great care, and this almost invariably means the use of pure materials, simple signal paths, and minimising energy wasted at every stage of the signal path.
Great sounding systems are not about single flavour of the month components, the whole system and acoustical and electrical environment are critical. This is why we will often ask a lot of questions about your listening room and system before making recommendations.
Independence
We are completely independent. We feel this should be quantified, many other ‘independent’ dealers are not, they are still dictated to by their suppliers and have contracts that stipulate they have to stock a whole product range, or in some instances cannot stock a competing product range.
Above and below: Our three demonstration rooms
We took part in the Hifi Choice Dealer Systems feature in February 2012, where we assembled three system spanning different price levels. Writer Ed Selley wrote
“All were brilliant”
“This is an incredible endorsement of the Deco philosophy”
“where Deco is more unusual is the different price levels it can create systems at and the level of attention it puts into ancillaries”
You can read the full article here
Home > About
The Company
Deco Audio is the brainchild of Peter Empson (formerly of Noteworthy Audio) and Mark Orr (manufacturer of the Something Solid equipment support range). Between us we have over 40 years of experience in the hifi industry on both the retail and manufacturing sides of the industry and have very similar ideas about what makes a great sounding system.
In 2016 we moved into new premises, you can read more about the build process here.
Our Aim
We aim to offer a relaxed, pressure free environment where everyone is welcome to call in for a chat and a coffee.
We do not employ staff who are on commission. We have always believed that this is completely the wrong way to run a hi-
We do give priority to visitors, but if we miss your phone call we promise to get back to you as soon as practical.
About us