High-End Audio
High End Hi-Fi Designers & Installers
Independent High-End Hi-Fi Specialists Since 1998
Custom Controls are independent designers and installers of high-end hi-fi systems, with no manufacturer targets or tie-ins to compromise a recommendation. We are Steinway Lyngdorf Room Perfect Certified installers, and authorised dealers for Magico, Soulution and Lumin, among other reference-grade brands. We have been designing and installing premium audio systems for homes, cinemas and dedicated listening rooms since 1998, across London, Cheshire, Surrey, Dubai and the French Alps.
Design
Calibration
Installation
Integration
Multi-Room
We Are Not a Hi-Fi Shop
We are designers and installers, not retailers with sales targets to hit. That difference matters: every recommendation we make is based on what suits your room, your listening habits and your existing collection — not on which brand we need to move that quarter. We have specified and installed systems from Magico, Sonus Faber, Steinway Lyngdorf, Soulution, McIntosh, Bluesound, NAD, Lumin and Bowers & Wilkins, often combining brands within the same system where that combination genuinely serves the client better than a single-brand solution would.
Steinway Lyngdorf Room Perfect Certified
We hold certified installer training in the Steinway Lyngdorf system — proprietary digital processing, active bass management, room correction and calibration protocols. Steinway Lyngdorf systems combine hand-built loudspeakers with integrated digital signal processing and active subwoofer integration. The Room Perfect system uses speaker placement, room geometry and listening position to create a calibrated, phase-coherent listening environment. Every installation is profiled, measured and tuned to the specific room acoustics. Read our full Steinway Lyngdorf page →
Brands We Specify
Magico. Sealed-enclosure loudspeakers built around beryllium tweeter platforms and Nano-Tec driver cone construction, engineered specifically to remove coloration rather than add character to the signal passing through them. Every cabinet is CNC-machined from aircraft-grade aluminium rather than assembled from wood panels, eliminating the cabinet resonance that colours the sound of most conventional speaker enclosures before a single note reaches the room. It is our reference recommendation for clients who want the recording itself, not the speaker reproducing it, to be what they actually hear. Read our complete guide to Magico loudspeakers →
Sonus Faber. Where Magico pursues absolute neutrality, Sonus Faber pursues the opposite design philosophy deliberately and unapologetically — hand-built, lute-shaped cabinets in wood and leather, tuned the way a violin maker tunes an instrument body, for warmth and musical engagement rather than clinical accuracy. From the flagship four-tower Suprema system through to Il Cremonese Ex3me and the more accessible Sonetto range, every model shares the same “Natural Sound” philosophy. Our recommendation for clients who want a system that sounds genuinely alive rather than simply correct. Read our complete guide to Sonus Faber loudspeakers →
Soulution. Swiss electronics built to the same zero-compromise philosophy as Magico — extremely low distortion, ultra-wide bandwidth, and current delivery that stays effortless as speaker loads get harder, even into the demanding, dynamically complex impedance curves that the very best sealed-enclosure loudspeakers can present. We pair Soulution with Magico on our most ambitious two-channel systems, where neither the source nor the amplification is permitted to add anything of its own to what the speakers ultimately reproduce.
McIntosh. American hand-built amplification, in production since 1949 and instantly recognisable by its blue-meter faceplate. We are authorised McIntosh dealers. McIntosh’s signature autoformer output stage decouples the amplifier from the speaker’s raw impedance curve, delivering full, specified power cleanly regardless of how demanding a load the speakers present — precisely the quality that makes it our standard pairing for Sonus Faber’s Reference and Homage collections, where the two brands’ shared design heritage produces a genuinely complementary result rather than a merely compatible one.
Steinway Lyngdorf. Hand-built loudspeakers with integrated digital signal processing and Room Perfect calibration — the right choice where a fully integrated, self-correcting system matters as much as outright performance, and where a client wants reference-level sound without needing to think about room acoustics as a separate problem to solve. Read our full Steinway Lyngdorf page →
Bluesound & NAD. Multi-room streaming and amplification that scales elegantly from a single room to a whole property, with the audio pedigree of the NAD engineering team behind every component. Our recommendation for clients who want genuinely serious sound quality across several rooms without the complexity, or the cost, of a fully bespoke installation in every one of them. Read more about Bluesound & NAD →
Lumin. Dedicated network streaming transports, built specifically to deliver music data with the lowest possible jitter and noise floor ahead of D/A conversion, rather than treating streaming as an afterthought bolted onto a conventional source component. Our standard streaming recommendation on systems where the source needs to match the resolving power of everything downstream of it.
Design & Installation
All high-end audio systems begin with design — equipment selection, placement, acoustic treatment and system integration. We work with architects, interior designers and contractors from the planning stage through commissioning. For existing spaces, we measure the room, analyse the acoustics and design a system that works within the constraints of the space. For new builds, we advise on room geometry, speaker placement, cable routing and acoustic treatment during the construction phase.
Commissioning & Calibration
Installation quality and commissioning determine how well a high-end audio system performs. We use professional acoustic measurement tools, spectrum analysers and listening assessment to commission every system to standard. Steinway Lyngdorf systems include automated Room Perfect calibration. Bluesound systems are configured and tested for wireless coverage, lip-sync and audio quality across multiple zones. All installations are handed over with training and documentation.
Integration with Your Wider Smart Home
A dedicated hi-fi system does not need to sit in isolation from the rest of your home. Where a client wants it, we integrate high-end audio sources into the same Crestron control system that manages the rest of the property — source selection and playback from the same touchpanel or keypad used throughout the house, streaming from Roon or a centralised music library shared across every room, while the reproduction itself remains entirely dedicated, reference-grade electronics with no compromise introduced by the wider system. Equally, we design and install purist, fully standalone two-channel systems for clients who want a listening room with no automation involved at all. Read more about our whole-house audio systems →