Click images above to enlarge. (Wharfdale speakers)

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Eli Mayne (16 years old) shares his thoughts on
the Bristol HI-FI Show 2025 and his hi-fi journey to date.

I live in Dawlish, a small town on the south west coast, near Exeter. I loved the Bristol HI-FI Show.
This is my very first hi-fi show. I was exposed to some amazing kit that I’ve never even heard of before.

Since this was my first hi-fi show, whichever systems and components I first encountered, I found them to be the most impactful. I beleive long-term I aspire to upgrading to Wharfedale speakers. I am looking at the Wharfedale 12.3 or the Mission LX6 MK2. At this time I am happy with my current setup and the joy it brings me, but I believe the above mentioned speakers could prove to be a great improvement and investment overall.

After further exploration of other rooms and speakers at the show, the Quad / Wharfedale and Acoustic Energy rooms would turn out to be my absolute favourites. As mentioned above, I do acknowledge, these rooms were both at the start of my physical travels at the show, so that could have somehow swayed my ‘favourites’ decision. Overall, I did feel the later visited rooms had less of a wow factor ‘less impressive.’

I believe my visit to this show has taught me to aspire to achieving a clearer sounding system that brings me even more joy. Who knows what sort of gear is going to be released in the near future that I might be tempted to demo and own one day?

I believe one of the main negatives of this show was the fact that in one or two of the rooms, the room opposite could be heard during quiet points, which I found breaks the immersion a little. Another negative for me was down to it being my first time experiencing this amount of amazing components. I found myself getting excited for the next room while I was still in the one before. This makes it hard to really concentrate and appreciate ‘the moment!’ I then moved from room-to-room quicker than I really should have. The next time I will work at enjoying each room separately.

Now I have experienced the Bristol HI-FI Show, I will investigate other world-wide hi-fi shows to see and hear an even wider range of hi-fi components and gain more experience.

My current hi-fi-system

Normally this setup would be in my room, however due to pending redecoration,
it is in my dad’s DJ room.

I have been interested in music the majority of my life, but I only started exploring various components in the last few years. I would describe myself as an audiophile! I believe it was my father’s love for vinyl and my grandfather’s ‘music shed’ in his garden which triggered my love for music and hi-fi. My grandfather showed me all his Cambridge Audio gear, his CD and vinyl collection and I was amazed at how much better / accurate certain songs and instruments would sound through a setup like this. I remember thinking to myself ‘…it sounded as if the instruments were in the room with us rather than just being heard through a built in TV speaker etc.’

All of this led to me starting research on how to have my own setup and what would be the best bang for buck to get the best sounds on a very small budget. My first purchase was a Denon PMA-250 II amplifier which I think was around £20 - £30 from Ebay. My father loaned me a pair of Hitachi 2-way bookshelf speakers (I’m unsure of the exact model name) however, I do remember they are 8ohm impedance and 50W input power and they did work well with my Denon amplifier. I saved for a while and added a Denon DCD-460 CD Player and Denon DRM-500 cassette tape deck.

I started to slowly expand my cassette and CD collection. I came across a lovely pair of Dixon Sound Tower Speakers on Ebay (There is very little on the internet about these as I don't believe they were a particularly successful brand and I don’t believe were ever sold in Europe). These speakers consist of a Lynch tweeter and two 5.5 inch midrange speakers (4ohm impedance, 25-180watt power and frequency response of 60-20k Hz).

These were available at a discount as one of the tweeters had blown and would need repairing/ replacing. I decided to buy them and remove the blown tweeter; me and my grandad took it to one of his friends who repairs electronics and hi-fi components. He helped with finding the correct impedance etc and I was able to buy a pretty much identical pair of tweeters from CPC and I replaced both.

I felt the above setup was good, however my Denon PMA-250 II amplifier was definitely holding these speakers back a bit. I therefore upgraded to a Denon PMA-355UK amp and that worked well with the Dixon speakers but there was a very slight gap in the crossover (only noticeable on a few songs). This gap was actually filled out almost perfectly by the previous Hitachi speakers which I added back into the system using the speaker A and B switch on the amplifer. I really enjoyed this system however it was lacking in bass so I did some research and after waiting a while I picked up an Eltax 10 inch subwoofer which I wired in-line with the Dixons speakers. I felt this this really did add a new level and layer of richness to my music.

Fairly recently I got my first Turntable, an early 1970s Goldring Lenco GL-85, which I bought from my grandfather’s friend who I previously mentioned. He put a lot of effort into repairing the turntable and as it is a very old model, there are very few companies who knew about it. I therefore had to try to work out how to repair it myself. This is how I came to acquire my current system - Denon DCD-460 CD Player, Denon DRM-500 cassette deck, Denon PMA-355UK amplifier, Goldring Lenco GL85, Dixon tower speakers, Hitachi 2-way speakers and Eltax 10 inch subwoofer.

I do still love listening to streaming services through this setup, but vinyl is by far my favourite source and I’d say I definitely spend the majority of my time listening to music through this setup.

Eli Mayne
© Michael Valentine Studio
February 2025

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