Hifi Pig Advertising Promotion

Hifi Pig brings you a series of promotional articles about our Great British Brands exhibiting at High End Munich 2017. We let them tell you all about their philosophy and products.

Atlas Cables originated in Scotland in 2001 to design, build and distribute high quality, no-nonsense Hifi and AV cabling solutions to audiophiles the world over.

The company was created with a real focus to make the best performing cables using engineered solutions that would give a real improvement in quality of performance. Setting out to dispel the smoke and mirrors approach that has blighted cable products for years, Atlas went back to the drawing board and designed a comprehensive range of unique cables and connectivity options utilising the latest manufacturing techniques. Crucially, Atlas is an engineering-led business that employs professionally qualified engineers to design and manufacture its products. The company’s philosophy is that users of its products should only hear the signal in its purest form, with nothing added or taken away. Therefore, Atlas Cables have no sound ‘signature’. They just allow the electronics to perform at their best.

To reach this goal, Atlas designs and manufactures products that eliminate sources of signal degradation wherever they may influence a signal and use real material science, construction and/or the manufacturing approach to explain the differences across its range of products.

Importantly, Atlas differentiates itself from other cable manufacturers by some of the processes it doesn’t use in the design and manufacturing of its products:

• Atlas doesn’t solder any of its analogue cables – it crimps (cold welds) all of its interconnects and speaker cables for a more reliable join.
• Atlas doesn’t silver plate any of its analogue cables as this, in the company’s experience, delivers a bright and often tiring sound, which affects a user’s long term enjoyment of their systems.
• Atlas doesn’t allow splicing of speaker conductors during manufacture, as this leads to variable performance etc.

The resulting best practice process relies on every Atlas analogue product being hand-built to the very highest standard at its own manufacturing plant in Kilmarnock, Scotland. Fiercely proud of the high-performance of its products and the value it offers its customers, Atlas continues to develop new products on a regular basis, always looking to add real improvements that will enhance a user’s listening pleasure.

Atlas Cables offers a wide range of products for use within a HiFi or AV system. From standard RCA-RCA signal cables and complementary speaker cables through to XLR, Din, Digital (coaxial and optical), USB and HDMI, Atlas’s wide range allows users to retain the company’s design philosophy throughout their systems. Additional products that include the company’s Zeno headphone replacement cables and a range dedicated for use with personal audio products also mean that users can experience the same increased performance when out and about.

As well as signal cables, Atlas also has a wide range of power cables and power management products. By utilising the same practises as developed for its signal cables, Atlas’s range of Eos power products continue with its philosophy of reducing the amount of unwanted air-bound interferences that affect delicate audio signals (even via the mains supply) thanks to its unique shielding techniques.

The latest development from Atlas introduces its Grun range of independent earthing solutions. This involves connecting the cable screen to system ground externally via an independent grounding cable and directly to the home ground point (earth). The results are simply outstanding, with no circulating current in the screens and no modulation of the 0v at the screen connection point. Therefore, the true capability of the interconnect can be heard and crucially demonstrated. In the Atlas range, this type of cable topology would be represented by the Asimi and Mavros Ultra Grun RCA interconnects.

So a little more about what makes Atlas Cables special.

As we all know too acutely, businesses face many challenges. However, Atlas feels it is essential to maintain the quality and consistency of its products. It is very easy for a brand to go to a Far East supplier and buy off the shelf solutions and simply rebrand what is available. Atlas designs and manufactures in house, which makes it a very agile business and allows it to respond to sales orders very quickly. It also means it can assure quality. Atlas hand builds 95% of its products with its staff signing each individual product built by them so the company can guarantee the build and sound quality that its customers demand. Atlas believes it is the only UK producer still manufacturing entry level products within the UK, which although being great for the company and its customers, is a pity for the UK audio industry.

Managing Director Kevin Kelly joined Atlas in 2012 after running his own small design consultancy and CI business and this year will celebrate 30 years in the specialist HiFi industry. In 1987, he was designing thermal imaging cameras for military use and fancied a change so responded to a job advertisement for Linn Smart Computing (Rekursiv computing project). He didn’t get that job but got introduced to Bill Millar at Linn and due to Kevin’s love of music (he has been playing in a Brass Band for 45 year, at least two nights per week!) and digital design experience, he was asked to join Linn as an electronics design engineer. During his time at Linn, Kevin played a big part in helping them develop their digital design platform and helped design and deliver their first ranges of studio and consumer digital products – Numerik (professional and domestic), Karik and Mimik CD players etc.

Having been employed now in a sales and marketing function for over 20 years, Kevin is proud that he still retains his IEE membership, as at heart he is still an Electronics Engineer (C.Eng.). The move to Atlas was obvious, as the company engineer cable solutions for people who simply want to get the purist musical performance from their systems. Atlas creates its products following genuine design into conductors, dielectrics and the best connections, backed up by a commitment to demonstrate these differences to consumers and retailers alike. It’s a passionate business, but one that can be explained by the application of technology.

Atlas believes that once you have heard its products, from the entry level Element range right up to the range-topping Asimi range, users will gain an immediate understanding of its philosophy and appreciate the advances in performance its products can offer any audio or video system. From the materials used throughout its range to the way they are implemented in the design of its products, Atlas Cables only use real engineering techniques and solutions. Rather than just say a product sounds better, it understands the principles of why and, importantly, can explain the differences throughout its product range. This understanding allows it to only introduce products that it feels will improve performance. After all, it’s all about the music and nothing but the music!

Still to come in our Great British Brands At Munich 2017 series are articles from Harbeth, Funk Firm, Tellurium Q, Quadraspire, PMC, Living Voice and Graham Slee.