Magenta Audio is owned and operated by Michael Kirkham and Peter Foster. Peter just happens to be a Doctor in the area of laser physics. Mike doesn’t have anywhere near the brains, largely because his head is jammed packed with every song that was ever released in the 70’s.
Our company has never been simply about “box moving” it is about creating the most musical audio systems available today. Over the years we have had the luxury of hearing an extraordinary amount of equipment. We have conversed, and indeed worked alongside a number of manufacturers and know a thing or two about music, hifi and goose bumps .
Our Loudspeakers of choice are manufactured by Shahinian Acoustics and Zu Audio. Both US based companies using unconventional designs that actually work. When you hear these speakers driven and set up correctly, you understand there is something very special going on. Their ability to reproduce timbre, scale, dynamics and hence convey the human emotion in music is amazing.
Mike Kirkham
An obsessive collector and listener of music. Mike’s CD and record collection spans two rooms. If the house ever caught on fire, he would grab his Nick Drake Vinyl boxed set, his wife and the 2 dogs (in that order)
Mike was born in 1967 and has been working in the Hifi industry in Australia and the UK since he was nineteen. In the “in between” moments, Mike has worked as a musician (OK the term “worked” is used loosely) and spent many hours in stinking tour buses (OK Vans) with various bands and other unsavory types. Indeed, on numerous occasions, Mike has been unsavory himself.
In 2005, he set up The Electric Room; a Pro Audio retail website, mainly so he could buy cheap gear for his own studio and also because his mother in law thought he should have a ‘real job”. Much to his dismay and, after a truck load of hard work, the Electric Room was a successful business and taught him a great deal about the importance of listening to people and treating them with respect. Many of his two hundred thousand regular customers are now his closest friends.
In 2008 Mike returned his energies back to his true passion and obsession- “Hi fidelity”, setting up Magenta Audio in a tiny little shop in a tiny little town in the Adelaide Hills. Recently Mike has moved the business to Stirling (a not so little town in the Adelaide Hills).
Over the years he has observed that many “audiophiles” end up on an expensive merry-go-round, simply because they are chasing something that their system’s will not do properly; and that’s “play music”. Many just get the wrong advice in the first place, or end up with poorly set up, poorly configured systems. Many rely too heavily on technical specifications which have nothing to do with how a system reproduces the fundamental ingredients of music.
Anyway; i could tell you how amazing our systems sound until I’m blue in the face, but until you hear what we are able to achieve, I don’t expect you to believe me. So please come in, bring your favorite tracks and spend some time with us.
