Leema Acoustics products range from the classic award-winning Constellation series, new remarkable Stellar series, sleek half-size Element series and the small but premium-grade discrete Essential add-on series; all of which are complimented by Leema's high-end handbuilt cables.

Leema was founded in 1998 by ex-BBC engineers Lee Taylor and Mallory Nicholls who wanted to explore their keen interest in audio reproduction. The began by focusing on pushing the limits of loudspeaker design to create a miniature loudspeaker able to outperform much-larger systems.

The available design principles and algorithms at the time were unable to bring this vision to life, so Taylor and Nicholls embarked on four years of extensive work accumulating in a micro monitor of unprecedented technical and musical excellence which they named Xen. It was initially only available to the professional audio market but as audiophiles learnt of the quality of Leema products, Xen moved into the domestic market.

Following this success and inspired by the overwhelming reception, they shifted their expertise to additional speakers and complementary audio electronic components resulting in the release of the Tucana integrated amplifier in 2006 which won the coveted HiFi News "amplifier of the year award" a few months later. The Antila CD player followed soon after and almost immediately swooped up the prestigious "What Hi-Fi? Sound & Vision best CD player" award in 2007.

To date, Leema Acoustic's industry-leading products has expanded to include the Reference, Elements and more recently the Essentials range. These products continue to accumulate global acclaim, “best in class” reviews and countless prominent awards.

In 2007, Leema formed a partnership with a local Welsh manufacturer Davlec to supply an increasingly high demand. Established in 1983, Davlec originally designed and manufactured electronics for the Dairy industry. In 2014 Davlec and Leema joined forces to bring together decades of experience from the production and design teams and over 30 years of manufacturing expertise to continue to produce top-standard audio products.

Most CD players feature digital outputs, typically optical and coaxial, enabling you to use your unit as a transport and take the digital output and feed it directly into an external DAC. This enables you to upgrade your CD player in the future, and improve the overall sound experienced from it. As with amplification and many aspects of hi-fi, the use of separate boxes and units can have a profound effect on the overall sound quality. Separating noisy power supplies from delicate circuitry can result in greater overall fidelity and sound quality, which is why separate CD transports and DACs are regarded as the pinnacle of hi-fi, just as a separate power and pre amplifier are the pinnacle of amplification. All in one units often represent excellent value, and are not necessarily worse than separate transport and DAC solutions. In fact, at entry level and mid level price points, an all in one CD player typically outperform a similarly priced separate solution.

The quality of the CD transport mechanism, whether that is a standalone unit or the transport in a one-box CD player, can have a massive effect on the overall sound from your Compact Discs. Some high end models use a manual drawer rather than a slot-loading or mechanised disc tray, which eliminates the need for additional motors, circuitry and potential noise interfering with the sound quality achieved. Internal resonance control and prevention of laser refraction ensures that a precise read can be achieved, which ultimately results in the best sound quality.

One box CD players feature analogue RCA outputs for connecting to a pre amplifier or integrated amplifier. As mentioned, some models also feature digital outputs, enabling you to connect a DAC which in turn is connected to an amplifier via RCA cable. A good quality cable can also offer an improvement to the sound you achieve, and can also help to alter or adjust the tonal characteristics of your system – for example adding a more well-rounded sound to an overly bright system.