The Happening – The Haycock Hotel Mystery – Chapter One: Poirot and Watson Investigate
High-end audio checked in at the Haycock Manor Hotel, the perfect setting for an Agatha Christie mystery, where the Hificlube team played Poirot and Watson.
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Over the weekend of 17–18 October 2026, the Haycock Manor Hotel, a historic coaching inn in the village of Wansford beside the River Nene, welcomed celebrated audio designers and audiophiles from around the world at Ricardo Franassovici's invitation.
The Hificlube team was also warmly invited to The Happening, organised by Absolute Sounds, where we could hear some of the world’s finest audio equipment as part of a vast program featuring live music, encounters with manufacturers, interviews, debates, and even an Eastern inspired ‘sound bath’ with a Portuguese touch.
In the role of Poirot JVH investigates the vanishing music system mystery at The Happening by Absolute Sounds
Queens Among the Commoners
The Haycock Manor Hotel is a beautiful 16th-century coaching inn in the beautifully preserved village of Wansford, welcoming travellers since Shakespearean times. Its guests have included the future Queen Victoria, who stayed overnight in 1834, and, in the 20th century, Freddie Mercury, also a Queen in his own right.
Ricardo Franassovici decided that an establishment accustomed to hosting royalty was the place to welcome the aristocracy of high-end audio and a few commoners like us.
St Mary's Church, Wansford
The Haycock Hotel Pateo
The Haycock felt straight out of an Agatha Christie novel. Casting ourselves as Hercule Poirot and Watson, Pedro and I set out to solve the mystery of the vanished sound systems that brought long-gone musicians back to life. Only a magician like Ricardo Franassovici could pull off such a trick (read Chapter Two: Ricardo Live). A magician who deals in music systems, not hi-fi systems, as he so pledges.
Dan D'Agostino Relentless Preamplifier
The Usual Suspects
Suspects lurked in every room: amplifiers of considerable power and glory; turntables of intricate simplicity, tracing spirals of music; loudspeakers that took your breath away, with prices that could stop your heart yet warm it, and some more affordable equipment to ease your frustration at not being able to afford a D’Agostino Relentless.
Dan D'Agostino Relentless 1600 Mono Amplifiers
The guest list also included many people of interest, or rather, very interesting people: Dan and Petra D’Agostino, Dave Gordon, Irv Gross, Ole Møller, David Steven, John DeVore, Mark Döhmann, Pascal Mauroux, Motofumi Hirata, and Bob McConnell. Any one of them might have been an ‘accomplice’ in this spectacular vanishing act. When the music played, where did the audio systems go?
It was the best Hifishow I have ever attended. When the music played, where did the audio systems go?
Ricardo Franassovici
The Founding Father
Ricardo founded Absolute Sounds in 1978. I hope this was just a rehearsal for the 50th-anniversary celebrations in 2028, because it was the best Hifishow I have ever attended. And God only knows I have attended quite a few during my 40-year career as a scribbler and globetrotter!
The Happening was small enough to cover thoroughly as a reporter and with plenty of audio equipment to enjoy to my heart’s content as an audiophile. And finally, I had time to listen as a music lover, not just sit and go, as I did at CES in Munich and now in Vienna and Warsaw.
At ‘The Happening,’ I finally had time to listen as a music lover, not just sit and go, as I did at CES in Munich and now in Vienna and Warsaw.
Ricardo has spent his life bringing musicians’ intentions and engineers’ ambitions together in the same room, making the systems disappear so only the music remains. That alone makes him the prime suspect in all that happened there. And he got away with it. Gloriously!
To complicate the plot, he made systems disappear in five different rooms. In the Kingscliffe room, though, it was not the system that disappeared; it was the stress. The plot thickened even further when he brought several brands together in each room, each carefully matched and installed by Absolute Sounds.
So we also had to investigate whether the whole was greater than the sum of its parts and whether the engineers’ ambitions honoured the musicians’ intentions as Ricardo intended.
Garden Lounge - Metaxas Tourbillon
Wansford, Garden Lounge, Manor Two, Barnaby, Newton, and Kingscliffe: six names to remember as this report unfolds. Fresh listening sessions were scheduled every half-hour, with combinations as varied as Nagra/Franco Serblin in Wansford, D’Agostino/Wilson in Manor Two, Trafomatic/DeVore in Barnaby, and Constellation/Magico in Newton. In the Garden Lounge, the lineup included Metaxas/Zikra Audio/Devore and DarTZeel. In Kingscliffe, the music shared a room with Kasia’s gongs and boutique products.
Garden Lounge - Zikra Audio 211 Nano
Fresh Blood and Blue Blood
I found some fresh blood amidst all that blue blood, with several products announced as UK premières: the Magico S7 2026, Franco Serblin Accordo Unica, Constellation Performance 2, Audio Research D-80 and LS-2, Oladra Sentia and Presence servers, Reed SF optical cartridge, and Trafomatic Elysian valve monoblocks.
Newton Room - Constellation Performance Two - Magico S7 26
Nagra-Franco Serblin system
Then came the surprise of the darTZeel MHD-12NB loudspeakers, along with the first international public presentation of the Nagra AMP II-S, using the first production units. Among the late additions, Copland brought its CLA450 hybrid integrated amplifier and MCA25 MM/MC phono stage. We’ll get back to all of them in later chapters.
Garden Lounge - Zikra Audio 211 Nano-DarTZeel MHD-12NB
Not everything was available to be heard, though. The Audio Research D-80 and LS-2, for example, were on static display, as were the two new Copland products. And the mighty Dan D’Agostino Relentless mono amplifiers. Some equipment could be auditioned; other pieces could be inspected up close, with the chance to speak with the people who designed them.
Audio Research S200
Copland - New CLA 450 (in the middle)
Copland MCA 25 Phono Stage
Let us see whether we can do ‘The Happening’ justice, because there was live music too. On Saturday, the Dust Me Down Blues Band drew on its blues roots, with excursions into funk and gospel. Sunday brought Palestinian oud player Nizar Rohana into musical conversation with Dutch double bassist Tony Overwater: a collaboration dating back to 2013, bringing Middle Eastern musical traditions together with jazz.
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Nagra’s Matthieu Latour was tasked with recording both performances. Which he did. As he did at the Montreux Festival's last concert of Quincy Jones and Miles Davis, shortly before he died. These were indeed his famous last trumpet blows, although the recording quality is so high that you can hear Miles is tired and far from his prime. Quincy seems to hold back the band to give Miles time to breathe.
With a well-curated system, you become a witness to glorious musical events you can return to anytime. At home.
And Nagra gives us that ‘you are there’ feeling. You become a witness to glorious musical events you can return to anytime, in the comfort of your home. That’s the beauty of having a well-curated system like the ones Absolute Sounds demonstrated at the Haycock Manor Hotel.
Pascal Petit CEO of Nagra keeps the legend alive
Nagra has also recorded most of Hollywood's soundtracks in recent decades, and the Harry Potter soundtrack on LP was breathtaking in its dynamics. Did you know that in Polish, the mother language of Stefan Kudelski’s the man who invented the portable recorder, Nagra means ‘I will record’?
Audio critics interview by Kasia Richter
The Investigator Gets Investigated
Kasia Richter decided to interview the hi-fi critics on board, bringing together Alan Sircom (Hi-Fi +), Ken Kessler (Hi-Fi News), and Jacob Heilbrunn (The Absolute Sound) to discuss their experience reviewing audio equipment. In this particular mystery, I found myself under investigation too, as Kasia Richter graciously put me on the exclusive list.
Audio critics interview by Kasia Richter
Better Late than Never
In front of a well-seasoned audiophile audience, I confessed that I became an international audio critic after unanimously winning Hi-Fi News's Test Disc 1 writing competition in March 1986. Ken Kessler, sitting beside me, had served on that jury, and I took the opportunity to thank him 40 years later. Better late than never. So yes, Ken was partly responsible for letting me fool around in the hi-fi world for too long. Saravah, Ken!
Alan Sircom of Hi-Fi+ also chaired debates on high-end audio's history, its future beyond the baby-boomer generation, and the European identity. Audiophiles held him hostage long after the doors were closed and the lights were off because he was such an effective mediator; people wouldn’t let him go, Kasia told us.
Records to Take Home
Between listening sessions, we still had time to browse records with specialists Ted Carroll, Jack Lambert, Graham Price, and Peter Spencer, whose selections spanned rock, blues, jazz, and classical music. Almost everything was on vinyl, which — confession time again — I love listening to but rarely use in my reviews, largely for practical reasons.
The Happening - Jack Renner, the vinyl legend lives
Sound therapy with gongs
Gongs (and music) Can Improve Your Health
To round things off, how about a gong bath led by Ricardo’s wife, Kasia?
Kasia Richter, a psychologist and founder of the Wellbeing Strategist, offered a break from the listening sessions with 30-minute sound baths featuring gongs and singing bowls.
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Pedro tried it in a large room with a high ceiling and wooden beams, alongside six other ‘patients’, and described it as an exquisite state of semi-consciousness that left him feeling better all day. Food for thought: Is sound the solution to all mankind’s malaises? Ricardo and Kasia swear by it.
Universe Gong, Saturn frequency tuned
Among her instruments is a 95 cm Universe Gong, handmade by Portuguese craftsman Miguel Lourenço in Telhadela, in Portugal's Aveiro region. The metal is heated and hammered by hand, its shape and surface tension determining its acoustic behaviour.
Universe Symphonic Gong
One of the gongs, Kasia explained to me, is tuned to the frequency of Saturn, while the Symphonic Gong sounded more expansive and harmonically richer.
Kingscliffe room: a system comprising an Oladra server, Copland CSA100 amplification, Franco Serblin Accordo Goldberg loudspeakers, and Transparent cables,
In the smaller Kingscliffe room, the individual sessions shared the program with a system comprising an Oladra server, Copland CSA100 amplification, Franco Serblin Accordo Goldberg loudspeakers, and Transparent cables, along with assorted gongs and boutique products.
From electronic circuits to vibrating metal, there were many ways to set the air in motion and the mind at ease.
For audiophiles, it was also a chance to follow the decay down to its last breath. Proof of what sound can do for our well-being. Who would have thought that listening to a gong’s vibration die away could make you feel better? Or, as George Michael put it in ‘Careless Whisper’: When the music dies, something in your eyes. Only this time it is not sadness but happiness.
From Stage to Sofa at Home
Now, tell me that didn't add up to a thoroughly satisfying audiophile weekend: hearing live music and discovering new and old recordings across five exceptional systems. From instrument to microphone, from record to loudspeakers, there was plenty to hear — and plenty to explore.
Manor Two room - Wilson Audio XVX - D'Agostino Momentum Z monoblocks - Z and Audio Research Reference 160 M MkII
Of course, we'll get back to all this in detail, but I wonder how I can convey so much information to our readers. Come along to Wansford with Hificlube and let us find out together. It was all for a good cause, too: the £5 admission fee went to Cancer Research UK.
Soon on Hificlube.net:
The Happening – The Haycock Hotel Mystery
Chapter Two: Ricardo Live