We were starting to walk on our own two feet by now. The HiFi press had gotten a taste of us and we were exporting. The Campion had even reached the pages of the Strait Times in Singapore. The first Campions’ were made in a bed room in shared house. We were now in our own (if sublet from some friends) unit, in a malt smelling distance of what was then the Guinness brewery in Park Royal and we were manufacturing.
1996 was also the year we entered the stage proper at the exhibitions. The perennial Bristol HiFi show, normally held in February, was memorable for being our first escapade into a world where Rickie Lee Jones ruled the sound of the corridors. A phone call on the morning the show to the organisers had secured us a last minute show suite and the car was loaded up. On arrival, we begged and borrowed bits and pieces to get us going and by the time the queues were forming outside of the show venue, we were all switched on. It may be ‘La vie en rose’ but we certainly felt a sense of community amongst the Audio-crafters back then. We were starting to make friends and they were helping us find our feet. Rivalry on the shop shelves seemed to be far from most people’s minds.
If Bristol was the warm up, come the new season we were back at, what was at the time, the biggest of them all, the Heathrow HiFi show. we had now teamed up with some new found friends and, as the Americans would say, leveraged each others products on show. The show was organised by HiFi News, then part of IPC Media and the worlds’ best regarded Audio publication. This meant the press were certainly about and the HiFi News lot were impressed.
Transparency is to a high order…a liquid f low of musical delight.
Roll on 1997