Trends Audio, located in Hong Kong, is one of my favorite purveyors of budget minded, nice sounding, mini components. Recently a real market has grown for smaller components that don’t compromise on sonics and are affordable to all.  I had a blast with their PA-10 Tube Headphone and Pre Amplifier and Mini Component Combo. Their product line has been growing, and they now offer speakers, cables, and accessories.

I remember, above all, how much fun I had with their mini components and how easy they were to set up and enjoy. To their credit, Trends has loyal customers through out Asia, North America, and Europe, partly due to a slew of positive reviews and good customer service. I received an email from Trends asking if I would like to receive a sample of their new SA-10 monitor loudspeakers for review. I enthusiastically replied in the affirmative.  The package arrived from Hong Kong a few days later. Such is the world we live in today. Six thousand miles is meaningless.

When I unpacked the SA-10s I was delighted by their appearance, which to me resembled a take on the classic Rogers LS3/5a BBC monitors, but with a smaller footprint. They arrived in what seemed to be a very nice dark cherry finish. The SA-10s are priced at $265 per pair. According to Trends, the SA-10s' basic design principles and features are as follows:

• 1" polymer dome tweeter with neodymium magnet and lightweight for low mass
•  Double Magnet structure for shielding and optimized field strength.
• Front mounted bass port
• Proprietary core inductor used (instead of magnetic-core)
• 5-way binding posts provide a wide array of secure wire-hook up options.
• High efficiency design
• Low loss rubber driver surrounds
• Wide dispersion drivers and tweeters
• Compact design

Trends decided to include their new CQ500 speaker cable as well. The cable is extremely impressive in build quality, and the gold-plated copper banana connectors are absolutely top flight. The conductors, according to Trends, are comprised of “Single Crystallized Copper (OCC), which has been considered one of the state-of-art conductor materials in the world. OCC is actually a special type of high purity Oxygen Free Copper (OFC) in which the whole copper rope is composited by a single copper crystal. There is no "Crystal Boundary" ("Crystal Boundary" reflects and refracts the signal to produce distortion & signal decline) exists between crystals.” There is also a silver-plated copper-braiding shield, and the cable is housed in a rugged and attractive black jacket.  The overall appearance of the cable rivals anything I have had in my system. The price? $110 per 2.5 meter pair. I had to check it twice. Spade lugs are also available for an additional $10.