Cyrus Audio is celebrating its 30th anniversary by producing a limited edition Anniversary "ultimate hi-fi system". Only 30 will be built, and each will cost £17,000. Its public debut is taking place here at the Bristol Sound and Vision Show.
There are five components in the Anniversary system: the CD XT SE2 CD transport; Stream X2 network music player; DAC XP+ with preamp; two X 300 power amps; and two PSX-R power supplies.
It's the work of the company's technical director Peter Bartlett, who began the project a year ago when he decided to build his own "best ever" hi-fi system using all the knowledge he has accumulated over the last 30 years.
Based on the Zero Feedback design of existing Cyrus X Series components, Bartlett says the Anniversary models were created "after a lot of 2am listening sessions and wine!".
What began as a personal project turned into a decision to create the best hi-fi system possible "if the commercial constraints were removed".
"The process involved adding new components, a software development plan and cleaning and filtering the power supplies," explains Bartlett. "Towards the end of the project, the entire system underwent painstaking retuning to ensure that each component functioned holistically with its stablemates."
Sold as a complete package, the Anniversary system comes bundled with specially produced interconnect cables and a matching Hark II equipment rack. All components are finished in a special high-gloss bronze/black finish, with graphics and lettering in contrasting pearl.
Numerous upgrades and improvements have been made to each of the components. On the CD XT SE2 Cyrus has added new AC and DC power filtering, plus additional motor control stage filtering elements.
The Stream X2 gets power supply filtering and mass loading of the chassis to minimise resonance, while the DAC XP+ gets upgraded power transformers, new power filtering, improved smoothing on the DAC supply, 'short path' analogue input switching stages and an updated XLR output design.
As for the Mono X 300 (above), each of which delivers 300W, the Anniversary edition includes a replacement input buffer op-amp with a higher slew rate and gain bandwidth, for a smoother high-frequency response.
Last, but by no means least, the PSX-R power supply (below) has new AC and DC power filtering which reduces noise across output supply voltages.
Cyrus says it expects to sell around 10 of the Anniversary systems in the UK and the rest abroad, so if you want one, you'd better move fast. We look forward to hearing it in action at the Bristol Show.
Looking further ahead, Cyrus says it will launch a "new product with a twist" in the latter part of 2013. The firm drops a hint by saying it wants "iPod/iPad users to buy into the Cyrus brand". A Cyrus-branded wireless speaker perhaps? Or maybe a dock with built-in DAC? We shall have to wait and see.
