Amplified #3 · The Radique Audio Newsletter

Issue #3 · November 2026

Hi Radique Family!

It’s been four months since Issue #2, and we’ve barely sat down since: our three best months ever, our fastest website ever, a familiar face joining the day-to-day team and 30 new videos. Mark has a personal update for you at the end, too. So grab a coffee. Here’s what’s been happening.

🏆 Thank You for Our Three Best Months Ever

August and September are normally two of our quietest months. Summer is cottage season, not hi-fi shopping season. Not this year. August became the best month in Radique’s history, and September and October followed right behind it: our three best months ever, back to back.

We know who made that happen: you, the people who found us, trusted us with your systems and told your friends. We’re still a tiny, home-based business with a long way to go, but every order, review and kind word has been part of the progress. From all of us: thank you.

And it hasn’t slowed down. This past Wednesday, four cassette decks found new homes in a single day, two shipped and two sold: our busiest cassette day ever. The tape revival is real, and Mark’s already planning a video about it.

🍒 Marantz Classics, Dressed in Ottawa Valley Cherry

Few things in hi-fi glow like a 1970s Marantz, and few things make us happier than seeing one dressed in cherry. Our Marantz 2250 is a 50-watt classic with Gyro-Touch tuning, serviced on our bench and backed by our Bumper-to-Bumper Warranty and Perpetual Trade-Back Program. It’s $1,995 CAD in its original metal cabinet, or $2,495 CAD in a genuine cherrywood-veneer cabinet, handcrafted by our master woodworker right here in the Ottawa Valley. Every Marantz 22xx receiver we list, from the 2220 to the 2285B, now comes with that choice.

Our cherry line is growing, too. The WC-22 for those receivers ($495 CAD) now has a little sibling: the WC-10, $445 CAD, for the Marantz 1060, 1070 and 112. Add fresh replacement feet for $39 CAD with a cabinet ($49 CAD on their own). After more muscle? The 100-watt Marantz Model 1200 integrated is in, at $1,895 CAD.

Our cherry cabinets slide on with no modifications, using longer screws through your Marantz’s stock feet, and we’ll install one free by appointment in Kanata. They’re built in genuine Ottawa Valley cherrywood veneer over an MDF core, finished in oil and beeswax. Got a Marantz we don’t make a cabinet for yet? We build custom cases to order, usually in 10 to 14 days. Just ask.

The Model 1200 is what Marantz built when it put its separates into one chassis: the control section of its Model 3300 preamplifier and the power section of its Model 240 amplifier. Ours has been through our Level 2 service. And if you’d like a WC-10 to go with it, a Marantz 1070 integrated amplifier (35 WPC, serviced, $995 CAD) and a Marantz 112 tuner ($445 CAD, or $895 CAD already in a cherry WC-10) are on the shelf now. Shop the cabinets: WC-22 · WC-10 · replacement feet.

🎄 The Stocking Stuffer That Does Triple Duty

Know someone with a gorgeous vintage stereo that has never heard of Spotify? The RA-Twin II, our best-selling product, fixes that in minutes, and it fits in a stocking with room to spare. One slide of its switch picks the job:

• 📱 RX: phone to stereo. Plug it into a spare AUX, Tape or CD input on a vintage receiver or amplifier (or a car stereo’s AUX jack) and stream Spotify, Apple Music or podcasts straight from your phone. Our customers’ favourite.
• 🎧 TX: stereo or TV to Bluetooth headphones. Plug it into your stereo’s or TV’s audio output and listen on wireless headphones. Late-night movies, and nobody gets woken up.
• 🏃 Mobile: no phone needed. Load a microSD card with MP3s and it becomes a tiny music player for the gym, the ski hill or the plane.

Bluetooth 5.4, up to 10 hours per charge over USB-C, a clear online manual in English and French, and a 1-year warranty backed by our team in Ottawa.

“I can’t tell you enough how thrilled I am with this little but mighty product.” — Kevin, Google review

Two more small gifts that punch above their weight. Our Small Spade Adapters ($19 CAD a pair) let banana plugs or thick speaker cable fit the tiny screw terminals on many vintage receivers. And Kimber Kable now ships free anywhere in Canada.

🌍 Every Pin Is One of You: 18 Countries and Counting

Over Thanksgiving weekend we put every place our gear has gone on a map: 18 countries, 12 of Canada’s 13 provinces and territories (Nunavut, we’re saving you a pin!). Our two tour videos visit every one, with music on real recorded instruments and O Canada sung by Mark’s poker crew.

One of the newest pins is our first full system to Aruba, a Pioneer, Sony and NHT setup. And our Customer Gallery shows your systems at home, from across Canada to Japan. Send us a photo of yours!

Each stop shows our own photo of the last piece we shipped there. Watch part 1, the world, and part 2, Canada (en français aussi!). Part 3, the USA, arrives for American Thanksgiving on November 26.

Your system belongs in our Customer Gallery, too: send a photo of your Radique gear at home to sales@radique.com and we’ll add it.

Proof that the good stuff goes fast: this fall a pair of Paradigm Monitor 7 towers sold the night they went up, and a set of Linn Katan stands sold two hours after we relisted them. Next up: an 11-piece collection with Bang & Olufsen Beocenter, Beomaster, Beogram and Beocord pieces, plus Tannoy and B&W, now waiting its turn on our bench. Want to hear the moment one is listed? That’s exactly what First Dibs is for. A bittersweet one for Paradigm fans: La-Donna’s favourite pair, our gorgeous Studio/100 v.2 towers, sold this week, and First Dibs will email you the moment the next pair is listed.

🥇 Missed One? Get First Dibs on the Next One

Ever spotted the perfect receiver on our site, only to find it had already sold? Good news: it probably wasn’t the last one. Vintage gear comes back around more often than you’d think — we’ve sold some models more than 25 times, and plenty more than 10.

That’s why we built First Dibs. Tell us the receiver, turntable or speakers you’re hunting for, and we’ll email you the moment one is listed, so you hear first.

• ✅ Free, with no obligation to buy. Ever.
• ⏳ It never expires. We keep watching until you tell us to stop.
• 👆 One click, your call. Every email has three links: buy it, “not this time, keep watching,” or stop.

Joining takes seconds: on any sold listing, tap Get first dibs. Or email sales@radique.com or call 613-416-9995 and tell us what you’re after.

You’d be in good company: 255 music lovers already have First Dibs on 267 pieces of gear. The most-wanted brands right now? Two Canadian classics, PSB and Paradigm, top the list, followed by Yamaha, Pioneer, Klipsch and Energy.

💳 New: Three Ways to Pay Over Time

Had your eye on a bigger piece? You can now spread the cost right at checkout, and your Bumper-to-Bumper Warranty and Perpetual Trade-Back coverage stay the same however you pay. Our old financing meant filling out an application and waiting for a text link. Now you simply choose Afterpay or Affirm when you check out, get a decision in moments, and your order goes ahead like any other.

• 📅 Afterpay, on orders of $500–$2,000 CAD: four interest-free payments over six weeks, the first one at checkout.
• 📆 Affirm, on orders of $2,000 CAD and up: monthly payments over a term you choose, with the full cost, including any interest, shown before you agree.

“They’re much faster to apply for, virtually instant right in our checkout, and appear to be easier to qualify for than our old financing. I’m really pleased with them.” — Mark

Our customers wasted no time. The first one tried it within hours of launch, and two days later our first pay-over-time sale went through: a Marantz 1152DC in one of our custom cherry cabinets, for a new customer in British Columbia.

🎵 And one more: Cue It Up, our own layaway. Almost everything we sell is one of a kind, so if you spot the piece you’ve been waiting for, you shouldn’t have to watch someone else buy it while you save up. With Cue It Up, on orders of $500 CAD and up:

• Put 20% down and we set the piece aside for you, off sale to everyone else, at today’s price.
• Pay the rest over 6 or 12 months, by Interac e-Transfer or card, and pay it off early any time.
• Once the last payment is in, we ship it or have it ready for pickup.

It isn’t credit, so there’s no application: you pay first, then the piece comes home. There’s one simple layaway fee (6% for 6 months, 12% for 12) and no interest.

Afterpay and Affirm: available to Canadian residents paying in Canadian dollars; approval and terms are set by Afterpay and Affirm. Already on a Humm plan? It carries on with Humm as before. Cue It Up: orders shipping to or picked up in Canada, paid in Canadian dollars; not yet available in Quebec; consignment pieces (marked with a small C) aren’t eligible. Full terms on the Cue It Up page.

✅ Buy With Confidence

🔧 Keep Your Classics Playing

Got PSB Image speakers with a dead or dim tweeter? You’re not alone: it’s one of the most common faults we see, and we’ve fixed many dozens with a more robust Peerless replacement: $59 CAD, or $20 CAD more per tweeter to have us install it while you wait, by appointment.

Something bigger that needs our bench? Book it in before December 6 for the fastest turnaround.

The Peerless fits PSB Image 1B, 2B, 4T, 5T, 8C and 10S speakers, and the Image T55 and C60. It’s a little more efficient than the stock tweeter, so your speakers will sound slightly brighter and more forward; we like the balance it brings to the Image line’s full bass.

Bringing us your own gear? Our Audio Service page explains what we take in, our bench fees (most fall between $45 and $195 CAD), our repair process and the 90-day warranty on our work.

🔊 IsoAcoustics: Now on Our Shelves

In our last issue we told you we’d started working with IsoAcoustics, the fellow Canadian company whose isolation feet and stands let speakers and components perform the way they were designed to, instead of fighting your floor and furniture. Now they’re here, on our shelves and on radique.com. A few favourites:

• GAIA III for floor-standing speakers. The kit comes with a range of thread sizes to fit popular towers from Bowers & Wilkins, Paradigm, PSB, Martin Logan and more.
• The Aperta Sub, which lifts your subwoofer off the floor so less of its bass travels into the rest of the house. Your neighbours, your kids, or whoever’s on the floor below will thank you, and you still get all the low end in the room.

If what you need isn’t on our shelf, we can usually get it in quickly. Just ask, and we’ll help you pick the right size for your gear.

YouTube subscribers: there’s an IsoAcoustics offer hidden in our video Lost Videos #1. Watch it to find out how to claim yours with a comment.

🎬 We’re Back on YouTube

We owe you an honest word about our YouTube channel. Between our last issue in July and this October, we didn’t post a single new video. The reason is a happy one: this has been the busiest stretch in Radique’s history. Every spare hour went into testing, servicing and shipping your gear, and into building out our website and the systems behind it, while the camera sat on the shelf.

Since Thanksgiving weekend, we’ve been making up for it: 30 new videos in five weeks. Here’s where to start:

• The Lost Videos: three shoots we filmed but never finished, finally out. #1 celebrates our 500th subscriber (on Mark’s birthday, no less), #2 is our first-anniversary video, lost for 14 months, and #3 is the day Mark’s business partner turned out to be right about tariffs.
• Audio Tips: quick fixes you can try on your own system tonight, from aiming your tweeters to getting movie dialogue back. Watch Tip #7 to the end for a few seconds of a track from Gregory Charles’s album I Think of You, played by La-Donna on our RA-Mini, with the kind permission of his team.
• Mark vs. La-Donna: short, funny moments from the shop, and the best way to get to know our little team. Start with Mark Annoys La-Donna, Again!, our most-watched new video.

Our videos carry checked English captions, so you can watch with the sound off. Part 3 of our Thanksgiving tours, the USA, arrives for American Thanksgiving on November 26, and an install video for our cherry WC-10 cabinet is in the works. Every video also lives on our Video Hub, sorted by topic.

The channel is now 647 subscribers strong, up from 565 in our last issue. If you haven’t subscribed yet, it’s free, and it genuinely helps a small business like ours get seen.

🎥 You Pick Our Next Video

We have a long list of videos we’re itching to make, but we’d love to make the ones you want to see. So, what should we film next?

• 🔊 A gear demo: a piece you’d love to hear, or two you’d like to hear head to head.
• 📖 A how-to: setting up a turntable, say, or choosing the right speaker cable.
• ❓ A question about vintage audio you’ve always wanted answered.
• 👀 A peek behind the scenes at something in the shop.

Leave your idea in the comments on any of our videos, or email sales@radique.com with “Video idea” in the subject line. If we make your video, we’ll give you a shout-out on camera!

🎁 Win an RA-Mini Amp

Want to win an amp? Our RA-Mini giveaway is still open, and we’ll draw the winner the moment we reach 25 entries. To enter, subscribe to our YouTube channel, then comment “RA-Mini” on any of our recent videos with the finish you’d like: walnut or high-gloss black.

Only 7 entries to go!

The prize is our RA-Mini, a tiny 50-watt Class D amplifier with Bluetooth (regularly $99 CAD).

The fine print: No purchase necessary. Open to anyone 18 or older, where permitted by law. One entry per person. The prize is one RA-Mini amplifier (approximate retail value $99 CAD) in the winner’s choice of finish. Once we reach 25 eligible entries, we’ll draw one winner at random from them, so each entrant’s odds are 1 in 25, and we’ll announce the winner on our channel. Before claiming the prize, the winner must correctly answer a skill-testing question.

⚡ Website Upgrades: A Server of Our Own, and So Much More

The biggest change is one you can’t see. In late September, radique.com moved off a shared server and onto a dedicated server of its own. Then we spent a string of late nights tuning it and trimming every page, and the result is the fastest our site has ever been:

It also copes far better with busy moments than our old shared server ever did. Mark put it to the test with a real order and reported back: “It was so fast I almost bought our $700 CAD Nakamichi by mistake.”

More of you are finding us, too. Nearly 8,000 people visited radique.com in October, almost four times as many as in October 2025. Google searches alone sent over 3,000 of those visits, up from about 1,300 a year earlier.

And that’s just the start. Here’s what else is new since our last issue.

🔍 Easier to find what you’re after

• Gear you can buy comes first. Every shelf and search now lists what’s available before what’s sold. Sold pieces stay visible, because the same models keep coming back, and First Dibs tells you when they do.
• One page per model. When another unit of a model arrives, it joins that model’s page as a new version instead of getting a page of its own.
• New ways to search. Brand search now covers every brand we carry, nearly every receiver and amplifier shows its watts per channel right in the title, and a new Selectable / Universal Voltage filter finds gear you can use overseas.
• Brand pages with a story. Our 38 main brands each have their own page, with the brand’s story and everything we have in stock, and most add tips on what to look for when buying used. Start with Marantz or Paradigm.
• New Arrivals now catches restocks, with a “Back in Stock” badge when a favourite returns.

🛒 Easier to buy

• Interac e-Transfer at checkout for Canadian customers. Your item is held for 12 hours, so send your transfer promptly.
• Free add-on shipping. Cables, banana plugs, Radique Audio electronics, Kimber, IsoAcoustics and used accessories ship free in the same box as a main item.
• Always the right currency. Canadians now always see Canadian dollars, with a one-tap “Switch to CAD” bar if a phone ever shows US prices. US visitors still see USD.
• Chat with Danielle. Our AI receptionist now answers chat on our shop and product pages, day or night. Ask her what’s in stock.
• A better Custom Speaker Cable Builder, with a House OFC wire option and small spade connectors for vintage gear with small binding posts.

🔧 Know exactly what you’re getting

• What our bench does, in detail. Our Service Levels page now covers every kind of component, not just amplifiers. It walks through our bench process step by step, including a second bench test by a different tech on every unit we service and a final test on anything we ship. In Mark’s words: “We’d rather pause or cancel a sale than ship a component that will cause a problem for our customer.”
• Bringing us your own gear? Our Audio Service page now spells out what we take in, our bench fees (most fall between $45 and $195 CAD), our 8-step repair process and the 90-day warranty on our work.
• Every FAQ and policy page, rebuilt in our new plum-and-gold look, with clearer wording. The RA-Twin II manual is now a proper web page, in English and French.

✨ New places to explore

• Videos: every Radique video, in one place.
• Customer Gallery: our customers’ systems at home. Send us a photo of yours and we’ll feature it!
• Reviews: 641 reviews averaging 4.96 stars, plus our community count, now including First Dibs.

The site is still a work in progress, and your suggestions shape what comes next. Spotted something confusing, or wish a feature existed? Tell us at sales@radique.com.

📌 Also New

• The strangest speakers we’ve ever listed: SoundSphere omnidirectional speakers, which hang from the ceiling and fill a big room with 360° sound. Curbside delivery, local pickup or freight within Canada.
• US customers: Lost Videos #3 tells the story of a tariff problem we ran into and what we changed, and our US import duties page is kept up to date.

🛠️ Join Our Team!

Radique has four techs on the bench and counting, and we’re looking for more. If you’re an experienced audio tech with your own tools and parts sources, plus a vehicle to pick up and drop off batches in Kanata, we offer the freedom to work at your own pace, contractor or employee terms, flexible payment and team pricing on gear.

Know someone with golden hands and a soldering iron? Send them our way.

✉️ A Personal Note from Mark

It’s been a few months since Issue #2, and it almost feels like a whole new business. All the heavy lifting on our website and server has changed how we work every day. La-Donna is busier than ever with testing, processing and shipping, our techs are doing an amazing job keeping up, and Sarah has done excellent work supporting our growing business.

So we’re excited to welcome Lachlan to the day-to-day team. He’s been one of our pickup and delivery drivers for over a year, and now he’s helping with processing, testing and shipping. He’s also a champion badminton player and a Level 3 certified pickleball coach. In the Ottawa area and looking for a great coach? Drop us a line!

If you’ve noticed I look different in our recent videos: since coming off insulin, I’ve lost nearly another 50 pounds, about 90 in all. I’m still diabetic, but more or less in remission, at a healthier, steady weight and getting lots of exercise. Want to see “skinny Mark” in action? Watch What Did Mark Do?! to see me dance around the shop dressed all in white, dusting speakers. It’s not my most dignified moment, which is exactly why you should watch it. Thank you for all the kind words. If you’re on a similar journey, just reply to this email. I’m always happy to help.

And as always, thank you for watching, visiting, buying and reviewing. We couldn’t do any of this without you.

Take care,
Mark, La-Donna, Lovina, Sarah, Lachlan, Rosemary & Danielle (Our AI Receptionist)

P.S. Code AMPLIFIED3 gets you RA-Twin IIs at $29 CAD each, up to five, until December 24. Get yours before the stockings are hung.