About us
Nytech Audio was reborn in 2013 by Phil Balaam, a former Nytech Audio test engineer. It is our aim to follow the core beliefs of the original company by manufacturing quality HiFi products at affordable prices, achieving excellent musical sound quality by careful design, attention to detail and years of experience.
We build all our new equipment by hand using traditional components with the same loving care that the originals were made but using the improvements (particularly in PCB design and improved reliability) that modern high quality components can offer.
We also believe in making sure that all the original equipment can be used even today rather than being just thrown away and contributing to the already massive pile of scrap electronics polluting the planet and wasting valuable new resources.
At Nytech Audio we believe in good customer service so you won’t find any robots answering the phones, Apps, Chat bots or other modern “customer service” tools that seem to be there to keep the customers at arms length rather than engage with them on a human level.
It is our aim to offer excellent customer and dealer support not only to our new potential customers, but also to owners of original Nytech Audio and Ion Systems equipment and that is why we continue to support and repair the vintage Nytech and Ion systems equipment where we can. Most of this equipment is thirty years old now and still going strong – try saying that for most consumer electronics post year 2000! We regard our vintage equipment as the “entry level” to our range of new equipment which is built to a quality level, not a price!
Nytech Audio is based in Cardiff in South Wales – feel free to contact us about our products or for any information on classic equipment.
Company History
Nytech Audio began its life as Nytronics in the mid 1970s in the small town of Nailsea, about ten miles west of the City of Bristol in the west of England.
The principal product was the CTA252 FM receiver with its unique “calculator” styling which won it a place in the design museum in London for its “distinctiveness and ease of use”. It rapidly gained a reputation for excellent sound quality, especially in the “XD” version released in the late seventies. Sadly though Nytronics reliance on a single product was its eventual downfall and the company went into voluntary liquidation in the late seventies.
The remaining component stocks were purchased by one of the Nytronics Directors, Richard Hay who started building the CTAs again in his garage and further refined the CTA design with a power supply upgrade and the CTA252 XDII was born.
The CTA soon gained a fearsome reputation for sound quality and musical performance which catapulted it into the “elite” of British made HiFI and much respect from music lovers around the world.
Nytech then added a new power amplifier to the catalogue, the CPA602 which when used with the CTA as a preamp pushed the bar even higher.
A Tuner preamp (the CTP102) to compliment the CPA602 was next shortly followed by the CA252 amplifier and CP112 preamp for CPA602 customers who didn’t want an FM tuner (or tone controls).
In the early eighties Nytech Audio joined forces with new Manchester based speaker manufacturer ARC to produce very high end active loudspeaker equipment at a price most serious music lovers could afford with the EXO 102/3 electronic crossover and the highly innovative CXA252 one box “Active” upgrade for a CTA owner with ARC active speakers. Nytech also made “approved” EXO102/3 crossovers for Linn and Naim active capable loudspeakers.
In the late eighties Nytech Audio moved to mid Wales and became Ion Systems with the Obelisk integrated amplifier range and the “Nexus” high end range of Preamplifier, Power amplifiers, active loudspeaker equipment and its first loudspeaker the JC1 designed by one of the Ion directors, John Chapman.
Sadly a disastrous flood in the early nineties crippled Ion Systems and despite the valiant efforts of a Hungarian electronics manufacturer (later to become Heed Audio) who helped keep the Obelisk range going with the “100” range, Ion Systems could not continue and the company broke apart.
However the amps lived on!
With the continued support from Richard Hay. Heed Audio made their own version of the Obelisk amplifier until Richard’s death in 2014 when Heed took on a brilliant young designer who created the “Si” range of amplifiers which are still on sale today and proudly still use the “Obelisk” name (and sound!).
Nytech Audio was reborn in 2013 but almost didn’t happen after we learned of Richard’s death, however Richard’s family asked us to carry on and bring the Nytech name back into the hallowed halls of high end British music reproduction equipment at an affordable price.
So here we are with our new range of equipment which very faithfully reproduces the Nytech “sound” but with new designs which take full advantage of twenty years of advances in electronics technology designed to last for many years and give your music the chance to sound as it should.
A huge “thank you” to all the customers, enthusiasts and everyone in the HiFi industry who have contributed to our return with their honest feedback, encouragement and enthusiasm for what we are trying to do.
After all “it’s about music”.