At the weekend i popped into a well known hi-fi and tv outlet branch just to kill some time while my wife did some shopping. The sales guy was right over asking if he could help etc, after asking me what kind of system i had and not knowing the sugden he asked what the price was at the time of purchase. I told him it retailed for about 3 grand 7 years ago and that the amp was 34 watts at class AB. After laughing and getting his mate over the both of them told me i was mad and that the cyrus kit they had was a lot cheaper and far superior because it had more power. Now i don,t know what the price of the cyrus was or how it sounded because i left feeling very angry that some little snot had a laugh about me not even knowing how it compaired, but it got me thinking when i got home that maybe he had a point and that 7 years later mybe you can get better for cheaper. Any comments much appreciated.
Well i took the sugden kit along yesterday and asked if he could do a comparison against his cyrus. He already had the cyrus gear set up and said it "wouldn,t be a problem sir, i,ll get one of the guys to make you a coffee, you just sit down while i unpack your gear". After opening the boxes, as he took the sugden components out one at a time, his face changed as he noticed the weight, build quality etc. "Man this stuffs built like a tank, its all solid ally, yer kettle plugs are rubbish but we can sort them out, never heard of these interconnects but can sort them as well". His mate came back with 2 coffees, closed the door behind him and left cheeky and myself to get on with it. I took along some Wes Montgomery, Michael Buble and Martin Taylor CDs. First up was the cyrus through Spendor A6, and very nice it was too apart from the fact that cheeky likes to listen to every piece of music set to LOUD. The sugden was set up with a separate pair of A6 side by side for quick comparison. After about 10 mins of chopping and changing CDs through the cyrus he suggested we try the "wee suggy". I suggested that before we do, that we should pick a track that i really know and play it through the cyrus at a lower volume. He left with the empty cups and let me get on with choosing and loading the track ( Cry Me A River, michael buble). Waited until he came back in with his buddy and then it began. While it played his buddy said " if ye turn it up a bit it,you,ll get more detail", ok did that and sounded fuller. Both of them loved the sound, said the A6s were made for the kit and that they could do me a really good deal today. By the way i think the amp was the 6xp, not sure. Took the disc out, loaded up the sugden cd player sat back down and pressed play. The volume was set very low, so i slowly turned it up to the same level or there about. Difference, yea it was night and day, at low level on the cyrus it was difficult to hear horns while he was singing and the guitar completly disappeared,on the sugden you can hear everything at low levels. When i turned it up to the level that cheeky likes you could feel the hair on the back of your neck stand up and dance. So we listened for a bit longer to some tracks and the guy said that the sugden was as he admitted "blow yer head out the window", and that although he thought the cyrus was amazing value for money, he said it couldn,t give me anything more than i already have. At the end he didn,t even try to sell me connectors or power cables but actually THANKED ME for letting him hear the sugden.