Welcome to Vertex AQ

For those not familiar with Vertex AQ, we had better introduce ourselves. Vertex AQ is a small company based in the heart of Wales, in Great Britain. We specialise in the production of the highest quality hi-fi infrastructure components with a wide range of audio cables, digital cables, mains leads, mains conditioners and hi-fi supports. The technology incorporated into these items is extensive. However, the real key to the success of our products is the unified way the whole range is designed. You see, we don't design these items as stand-alone hi-fi accessories (just trying to make one set of interconnects sound better than the next say). No, the design approach is firmly focussed on the system as a whole.

Why? Primarily, to significantly reduce Radio Frequency Interference (RFI), and microphony; serious problems in any hi-fi system. By removing such debilitating effects you remove very significant limitations - and the sound quality improvements are incredible. Most system's performance is severely limited by RFI and microphony, and all the time you disregard these issues you just cannot get past major performance limitations, regardless of the electronics and speakers you use. In fact, often the more complex and powerful a system is, the more crippling these limitations become.

How? We use technology largely brought in from the aerospace industry. To deal with microphony we use the principles behind ultrasonic scanning techniques. And to deal with RFI we use various noise filtering and suppression processes, including some of the techniques used for aircraft radar absorbent coatings.

But the most important thing of all with Vertex AQ is the very extensive and detailed strategy we have developed that deals with how a system interacts with itself and its environment, what RFI and microphony are doing, and how to use all our products to correctly control these issues. We call this the 'Systematic Approach'. But by its nature this is a pretty in-depth topic, so we've written a book about it (see below).

So, whatever you are thinking of upgrading with your system, please do it in a structured way. Don't think of hi-fi cables as a separate entity, an afterthought, that good mains conditioners aren't necessary, or that decent hi-fi racks are just optional. It's these things that set the working environment for your system, and if they are not of sufficient quality they will ultimately become the limiting factor.

Instead, may we suggest you do 3 things. Firstly, contact a Vertex AQ dealer and have a good discussion about your system and Vertex. Secondly, ask him to send you the Vertex Systematic Approach book. When you get the book please read it, study it even; we believe you will find it very interesting and enlightening. Then thirdly, get to have an extensive listening test of some Vertex products. We think you'll be very glad you did.