I am walking through Tidal Audio’s new 2000 square metre factory in the small town of Erftstadt just outside Köln, Germany, and it all feels extremely familiar. The sense of purity and clean air, elegant pristine exhibits peppering the large and voluminous stress free spaces, a striking red Ducati 999 race bike glistening at the end of the central gangway, and up ahead when you first enter, a gigantic back-lit portrait of two beautiful silver and black Bugatti Royale loudspeakers.

It’s all familiar then, because in truth not a lot has changed. This is the old factory but ungraded and lifted into a space which is far roomier and more prestigious in feel. It’s a good thing too and I am exhaling a soft calming breath of knowing and content, because what has also remained exactly as it was, is a very honest and laudable clarity of purpose.

Looking around these immaculate spaces, the feeling of disciplined order and clean restrained aesthetic, the occasional homage to something of agonising beauty – a classic Lange & Söhne timepiece, the gracious curves a Ferrari 275 GTB, the famed headlight eyelashes of a Lamborghini Muira –  I recall something poignant from my past.

Teenage years often aren’t an easy time. Within my turbulent adolescence there exists a memory, a chat with an astute psychologist who asked me in a calculating fashion, ‘Richard what makes you happiest ?’ After 19 years of life I’d curiously never actually posed this question to myself but happily that day, it was an easy reply and I immediately retorted “painting, when I paint a new picture”. In those days painting happened to mean oils and acrylics on canvas, but in my early adult life that then turned into making pictures on a computer screen, animation, and CGI graphics for over a decade’s worth of BBC television programmes, pop videos and Hollywood blockbusters.

And this is exactly what I see here all around me in the Tidal factory. There’s no vanity here, no trace evidence of the pursuit of financial ecstasy, or the acquisition of success for success’s sake, but nothing other than that pure almost innate infantile joy of the creative process. The tingling excitement, the wonder, the fascination of making new worlds entirely from the emanations of your own heart. The unfolding, discovery, and validation of the self.

In those teen days nothing was ever more stimulating for me, more engrossing or more able to bring joy into my life than creating art and so it is a psychic process I understand very well and I see it everywhere around me here in Erftstadt, an interminable reflection of pride and love for the craft, the desire to live out the creative process and give birth to beautiful things which can be considered the very best of their kind.

I’m now in the glorious new demonstration room with it’s 3.6m high ceiling and after admiring the various prototypes, curiosities and “objects d’art” which foreshadow in the opening corridors and offices, I can now gloat at the true produce of this factory: quite simply, some of the most beautifully engineered and constructed possessions available, not just in the world of high end audio, but in the world of everything that money can buy, anywhere in fact across the entire consumer retail sector.

To the side walls and toward the back are the new AP1 amplified performance floorstanding speakers complete with their 5 channel state of the art amplifiers inside. We know these well, exactly the same as our set which were the first production pair delivered to the outside world. We think they represent amazing value in the ultra high end marketplace, a powerful statement really against some of the nonsensical pricing trends we have been seeing slowly creep into the hobby. But here the AP1 look tiny, positively dwarfed by the gargantuan La Assoluta and matching bass towers situated immediately behind them, Tidal’s former flagship transducer. And in front of the AP1, set up for us to listen, the beautiful metallic blue Bugattis which we first saw Munich just a month or so ago. And these look even smaller, tiny, really compact against a backdrop of all the other large models present. But make no mistake, they are the very best loudspeaker in this room and by some distance too. I am told that the cabinets alone cost more to produce that an entire pair of AP1, drivers included.

After two hours sitting here with the Royales, my fourth ever encounter, they are most definitely the best loudspeaker I have ever heard in all my days. And this is just with Jorn’s very rudimentary setup with no fancy dataswitch, rack, power conditioner or cable lifters. In point of fact, the US review team from The Absolute Sound were here just one week previous and they concluded exactly the same belief and put it to review. With the Bugatti you are entering into an experience which is difficult to verbalise. From the first track it’s apparent that you are in the presence of something completely different, a shift in the craft, an alteration of perspective, a reframing of the knowledge base, a reassessment of almost every album that you care to play. Everyone who has heard these speakers seems to end up talking about them in this very same language. Even for seasoned reviewers, they do many things to a degree which exists outside your current frame of reference so at first you sit there, a little perplexed, scratching around for the right words, or some new words, trying to unpick and unravel exactly what is going on in front of you.

In Tidal x Bugatti world, everything seems to exist on a point in space beyond the deepest and most penetrating images the best telescopes have produced. Speed, immediacy, dynamic headroom, tactility and the sheer breathtaking realism and palpability of sounds conjured forth into the space before you. On Sir John A Lots “Earle of Salisbury” when you first hear the pin sharp tones of the glockenspiel, you instinctively know the instrument has been laid bare in a new way. It’s sense of piercing clarity and believability is actually quite alarming, the way it just physically punctures the air in the room simply doesn’t sound like it could have transpired by way of an Audio system. When I play Luther Vandross, “For the Sweetness of your Love” as loud as I dare, the feeling of interlocking, of togetherness, tightness and timing is almost overwhelming. I have never heard that track so structurally coherent and so rhythmically complete. There is a feeling of zero processing time, the system is instantaneous. Sounds are not realised and formed, they are just there.

I am here then for around two hours, in a kind of paroxysm of pure pleasure. Instead of testing Tidal’s masterpiece for sonic gymnastics I am just digging deep for some of my most cherished music which I grew up with, Cymande, Chet Baker, Lonnie Liston Smith, obscure electro funk from Man Parrish and Newcleus, jazz funk dance classics from Fonda Rae, Luther Vandross, Brass Construction and Donald Byrd, and more recent electronic trance offerings from DJ Sasha, Marsh and Jody Wisternoff. Some of it is terribly recorded, some of it lacks talent, much of it isn’t real instruments, and almost all of it you would certainly never hear at a Hifi show, but it’s some of my music and I simply can’t get enough of it.

What stays with you the most ? Long after you have stopped pinpointing at all the death-defying audiophile feats, what do the Bugatti’s really leave you with ? There’s an easy answer and it’s something both rare and unique and that is the way they so completely homogenise or rather coagulate the music in front of you. “All of a piece” is the apt expression here. This is the very opposite of the thousand megapixel forensic dissection we seem to hear in so much of today’s “high end”. This system is about music, it is about songs, it’s about melodies. It’s completeness is utterly effortless. And by never being deficient in any area or incorrect in any way, by never calling attention to any weakness or indeed itself, by being the most truthful and most transparent recreator of the source material, all it’s prodigious ability can be utterly forgotten or left to one side.

The Bugatti system reminds me of Charlie Parker’s advice of completely mastering music and the saxophone, and then just forgetting everything you know and just playing. This is what the Royales have done, they are the point where you forget the system and all the things you ever wanted a system to do, you forget the whole hobby, you just press play.

My final thoughts ? It is a damn shame that so few will ever have the chance to own a device such as this and enjoy music in this way. The Bugatti system price is distinctly good value when compared to the upper echelons of high end Audio – most statement loudspeakers from the likes of Magico, YG, Wilson, Kharma cost significantly more before you have even bought any electronics or cables – but it is still a huge amount of money in isolation and out of range for all but the extremely well heeled. Thankfully for mere mortals, we now have the Tidal AP1, the exact same one box, amplified power form factor, and at less than a third of the cost yet far closer sonically than you might imagine at the price and certainly, the very best system we have ever assembled back at the Lotus demo rooms.

We are at L’Osteria, eating pizza for lunch … myself, Jörn and Miriam, and Fraser Robertson my UK partner from Airt Audio. Not because it’s the very best pizza in town, but because it’s close to the factory and a chance to give the quite adorable Floyd, the Tidal family 4-legged friend, a spot of exercise. It is also an opportunity to run through what’s been going on in the wider world of Tidal in the past 6 months and expand upon some of the details and logistical problems of creating the new factory. Since the start of the project, the pandemic happened, not to mention wars in Europe and interest rate turbulence so what we see here today is somewhat downgraded from the original design – the fancy mezzanine offices sadly had to go – and yet the final bill still came in many times more expensive. The local council, Stadt Erftstadt will also apparently still need another 2 years before they can fulfil their obligations and lay a strip of grass across the boundary with the road. Perhaps that is general bureaucracy here in Germany’s most densely populated state of North Rhine Westphalia or maybe the catastrophic floods of 2021 ate too much into the local pot?

Grass verges aside, it is clear that this has been an enormous project and a hugely successful one at that. It paves the way ahead through Tidal’s golden hour, to efficiently accommodate company expansion and the continued flourishing of essentially 3 major arms of operation, Vimberg, Tidal Audio and Tidal x Bugatti. As the last few millilitres of Kölsch is drained from my glass, I cannot help thinking that everyone on this table is very much emotionally aligned and on that same trajectory, investing and expanding, riding this moment, dancing on the glinting surf, Tidal Audio, Airt Audio and Lotus Hifi.

Back at the factory, we are browsing the main production space. The Tidal electronics are manufactured at a different location in Franconia but all the loudspeakers are produced centrally here. This is a very calm and quiet area with only a small number of specialist workers present at any one time. We are admiring the rows of cabinets, the millimetres of thick lacquer, the gorgeous piano wood finishes perfected in places the customer will never even get to see (behind driver assemblies, underneath bottom plates).

This is the same exceptional hand-built craftsmanship we always admire here, the macassar, the new cloud rosewood and the stunning mahoganies, allocated to a smattering of lucky customers all across the globe. Look carefully and you might just see some labelling which tells you which country or which dealer a pair are heading to. Right at the entrance, a dismantled La Assoluta in 6 separate parts entering it’s final phase of production and centre stage, a technician working carefully inside an Akira cabinet. The sense of pride, attention to detail and exacting standards are visible everywhere here for you to see. Jörn shows us the crossover assembly space near the centre, then the prototype Bugatti Royale carved in wood and the inner workings of the new AP1.

The day is nearing it’s final phase and we are in Jörn’s office. There’s a beautiful vintage Triumph motorcycle next to me, some alluring Noctilux-esque automotive portraits on the far wall and some casual electronica playing quietly through a set of the very first ever Tidal Piano loudspeakers. Our attention though is all on Jörn’s computer screen as we are looking through renderings and designs of up-and-coming projects and this is leading into an open discussion amongst all of us to include our thoughts on what might be best for the UK marketplace.

Those upright Pianos with their small cylindrical feet give the first clue though. We can hopefully soon expect a new entry point loudspeaker into the Tidal range. With the Piano G3 now at a fully justified but lofty £59,000, there is certainly room for a more affordable starting point. A Piano then with the same Tidal finish but with a ceramic tweeter maybe and some other measures to reduce production costs whilst not eroding performance or finish in any way. A true Tidal but one that more people can enjoy. This will be great for the UK for sure.

Also looming in the not too distant future is a new passive speaker, beefier and above the best selling Contriva G3. Jörn feels this is needed to plug the wide gap between Contriva and Akira models. This tells us that Tidal are still fully committed to extending and developing the traditional multi-box way of doing things with separate amplifier and passive loudspeakers. But we are certain too that Tidal’s new single box “amplified performance” form factor developed in the Bugatti project and seen now in the AP1 in Tidal form, will also receive continued focus. Without revealing much more, it is clear that there are quite a number of exciting new projects in the mix of things. In future years we will be able to bring you more options and more choice, to suit the demands of any listener and any room.

The warm light is softening, tall shadows are slowly rotating across the gravel car park. It is time to point the Civic Type R to the Autobahn … Aachen, Brussels, and the ocean. My first ever trip to Tidal was way back in 2016. Jörn showed me excitedly that very day a small clay model of a no-holds-barred Bugatti loudspeaker. It was an idea then, nothing more, a curious morsel of passion. Today, 9 years on, that incredible loudspeaker for real sits just 10 metres away from that same clay model in an adjacent room. Preos to Contros, Tidal reference and assoluta Cables, G2 to G3, Impulse to Intra, and now Tidal x Bugatti and AP1, it has been my great pleasure to witness and be a part of so many journeys and place so much of this equipment into people’s homes.

In a sense though, the over riding feeling as I drive away from Erftstadt is one of security and stability. The machine hasn’t really changed one bit, nor has the recipe or the good natured people who continually steer and steady the ship. Jörn and Miriam are Tidal Audio; a simple family run business free from extraneous interference or complexity. They are fundamentally very human and honest people, incredibly serious and proud about what they do. Never once have I ever seen any compromise anywhere in the Tidal tapestry or any unfairness in the way they go about their business; their dedication to the craft, to giving life to beautiful things that are the best they can make them is something utterly unwavering. To live out this much passion for something, and be so successful at it, is a charmed life for sure. Lucky for us as music lovers, we get to benefit from all of that too, and the products simply get better and better every year, not to mention better value too.

Further Reading