Hi-Fi - Mytek
A well set-up hi-fi system can sound incredible and dramatically improve your enjoyment of music. We specialise in proper hi-fi separates and matching these to suitable hi-fi speakers and pride ourselves on offering expert advice by phone or e-mail and in our showroom. Our carefully selected range of hi-fi equipment includes many industry award winners and spans between great value products, exclusive Audio Affair hi-fi offers and some of the finest music systems available.
You can browse our range of Hi-fi Separates, which includes hi-fi amplifiers and music "source" components, like hi-fi streamers (for enjoying music over the internet and stored on your home network), DACs (for the best sound from your Mac or PC), media servers (for storing music including high res files) and CD players. We also sell a range of one-box hi-fi systems like the Naim Uniti range - just add speakers!
You can also browse our range of Turntables & Cartridges to view our range of turntables, phono cartridges and turntable phono stages (pre-amps) or select Vinyl & Accessories to browse our range of music LPs and turntable essentials and upgrades.
We pride ourselves on good service. If you need any further advice on a new hi-fi system or upgrade for your existing system, please call or e-mail us.
Mytek builds the Brooklyn and Manhattan DACs and Clef running USB or Bluetooth audio through a portable DAC for exceptional sound. Consumer and pro audio products are built and designed, at least in part, by the founder.
Mytek was founded in New York in 1992 shortly after Michal Jurewicz graduated from Warsaw University of Technology. The brand benefits from his experience of working in the renowned Hit Factory and Skyline recording studios, the latter of which he created his first commercial product for, a multichannel monitor system. He went on to develop a series of A/D converters built to improve the quality of digital mixes and many recordings by popular artists including Mariah Carey, James Taylor, James Brown and Lou Reed among others were mixed with prototypes of Mytek converters.
The focus of the company started as building converters for other large Manhattan studios. The idea formed from Michal's work with extraordinary designers building new unprecedented types of devices to improve the recording process. From 1995 to 2000, Mytek grew steadily with all production carried out in the USA. The main concept behind Mytek was always technological innovation for the recording production process and to preserve the highest possible sound quality.
Mytek's digital converters have been used in recording studios for many years. Their latest creation, the "Brooklyn Bridge" is a versatile and simple to use solution for hi-res digital music streaming and playback combining the features, shape and sound quality of the Brooklyn DAC+ with a WiFi streamer. Mytek aims to create sleekly designed products boasting the Mytek sound precision with numerous features desired by music lovers such as digital hi-res as well as vinyl playback through speakers or headphones.
Traditional hi-fi speakers (either bookshelf speakers or floorstanding speakers) are passive and require a separate hi-fi amplifier. The most popular type of amplifier is an integrated amplifier (a single box designed to be the heart of your hi-fi system, connecting to all of your music "source" components like hi-fi streamer, CD player etc and to your speakers).
Generally however, the most desireable and best sounding type of amplification though is to have a separate power amplifier (which connect to your speakers) and pre amplifier (which connects to your music "sources" and the power amplifier). By having these two boxes rather than one combined box (hence the word "integrated"), each box is designed specifically to perform that part of the amplification and by splitting these duties up, each section benefits from this dedicated design, separate power supplies, and sometimes better components, resulting in better sound quality through your speakers.
Whatever your choice and budget for amplifier and speakers, we have a range of equipment to suit. We also sell a range of valve amplifiers, which offer a warm, rich sound and a heritage of hi-fi listening that is as endearing to look at as it is to listen to. This valve amplifier range also includes in itself both "integrated" and "pre" / "power" valve amp models.
As mentioned, our range of music "sources" is also comprehensive. Hi-fi streaming has gradually taken over CD players (although we still offer CD players and dedicated CD transports which can be connected directly to a DAC). Streaming music didn't used to be taken very seriously in the hi-fi community back in the days of mp3s and highly compressed audio viles, but with the advent of better content available online, using a hi-fi streamer is now a serious option as a music source and can even sound better than a CD player if you play and collect high res audio files.
The popularity of turntables for playing vinyl has also massively increased in past years (beyond that of CD players) but please note that your hi-fi amplifier must have a "Turntable" (or sometimes labelled as a "Phono") input to be able to play vinyl on your turntable, as the output level from most turntables is lower than that of other music "sources". If your amplifier doesn't have this input (or even if it does), we recommend using a high quality turntable pre-amp, referred to in hi-fi circles as a phono stage. We also sell a full range of replacement phono cartridges and other turntable essentials to get the best sound from your vinyl.
If you would like further advice, please call or e-mail us or visit our Birmingham showroom and one of our hi-fi experts can assist you. Don't forget to browse our full range of speakers and our Audio Affair exclusive offers as well.