Tier L · Artisan (mandate)
Favours one-person workshops and family-run makers over the big groups.
One certified system per brief. Costs appear only as signed percentages against each tier’s (unpublished) baseline; absolute prices are not shown.
The certified system
| Slot | Component |
|---|---|
| Turntable | Vertere DG-X Sabre Lite Pack |
| Tonearm | Vertere Groove Runner X |
| Cartridge | van den Hul The Frog |
| Phono stage | Naim NVC TT MM/MC |
| Preamplifier | NVA P50SA MKII |
| Power amplifier | NVA S300 Stereo (Artisan) |
| Loudspeakers | ProAc Tablette 10 Signature |
| Subwoofer | Bowers & Wilkins DB4S |
| Whole-system cost vs tier baseline | +3.1% |
Amplification: preamplifier and power amplifier — an outcome of the search, not a requirement.
How the money is shaped
How the budget is shaped here — each share is the portion of the whole build this brief aims at that position. A position marked free is left to find its own level.
| Position | Share of build |
|---|---|
| Cartridge | 15.6% |
| Tonearm | 4.0% |
| Turntable | 21.5% |
| Phono stage | 17.0% |
| Loudspeakers | 23.6% |
| Preamplifier | 7.5% |
| Power amplifier | 10.8% |
Why there is a subwoofer
A subwoofer is fitted. Below this loudspeaker’s natural reach there is real musical content — organ pedal notes, synth bass, the lowest drum weight — and the coverage arithmetic says a dedicated bass cabinet genuinely extends the system rather than doubling what the loudspeaker already does.