Saturday
Reson loudspeakers from India has a Supravox 8 inch diver in their 2.rethm loudspeaker (€11,000). It is a back-loaded horn, three-meter wave with dual separately tuned ports. Sensitivity is 104dB/W/m sensitivity with a 4-ohm load.
Continuing our high-sensitivity loudspeaker theme is the SAP model J-2001 (€18,000 without VAT) with horn-loaded tweeter and midrange unit. Here is a 99dB/W/m loudspeaker made in Italy.
Also by SAP is their new Relaxa feet (no price set). These are the first photos ever seen of their award winning Relaxa 1 equipment stand. So what makes these so special? Well... a special magnet structure insures the equipment truly floats as it loads these special feet. This new system includes an LP-shaped disc that securely holds the three magnet supports. Something very interesting is happening with SAP.
Manger's Swing loudspeaker (€5,000) uses their own specially designed driver capable of reaching 40kHz and goes down to 150Hz. They have a new subwoofer in separate cabinet (€2,200).
The LUA model Sonata tubed stereo integrated amplifier.
Audio Note now offers new piano lacquered finishes within their loudspeaker design. Seen here is their Level 5 AN-E/SEC silver loudspeaker ($24,000) that uses cobalt magnetic structure, 100% high-purity silver wire internally (including the voice coil and crossover components). Being of the "no detail too small" variety of company, Audio Note carefully matches each pair of loudspeakers to a vanishing low 0.1dB.
The Art Audio Jota single-ended triode tube amplifier was used to good effect
were the AV (Alesa Vaic) 525 output tube. The 525 (€500 each) uses lab-grade (hard) glass while the pate is nickel coated graphite. The tube is
said to be comparable to the 211, yet not a direct replacement for the 211. The same concept can be found in the new
AV 300B (€200 each).
Please see our review of the Art Audio
PX-25 SE stereo amplifier and also
Gill Signature amplifier.
Another familiar sight was seen as the Manley Labs Steelhead phonostage made its presence felt here in Frankfurt. See our full review by
clicking here.
Chord had their CPM 300 stereo integrated amplifier.
Dynavox had the very interesting tubed CD-Player (€1,490) that uses a GZ34 for power rectification and two EL34 tubes (one per channel). To its right is the DynaWatt 2A3SE sine-ended stereo amplifier (€4,990). It has very large paper in oil capacitors for the power supply, a 1930's RGN2004 tube for rectification, two 1930's Vallvo W4080 tubes, then two Sovtec 2A3 tubes. Yes, these old tubes come with the unit at the stated price, though an old single plate Fivre would be oh-la-la. A built-in plate curve meter is also included.
The audiophysic model Avant (€8,000 in standard finish, €9,000 in special wood finishes) is a 4 ohm, 89dB/W/m design capable of producing frequencies from 28Hz to 40kHz. Solid aluminum feet with integrated spikes insure stability of the highly inert and rigid cabinet. High quality gold plated WBT loudspeaker terminals on the cabinet's rear allow for bi-amplifying/bi-wiring.
audiophysic's top-of-the-line Kronos (€40,000) features a custom coax driver with a Scan-Speak tweeter with Vifa midrange
driver (see image below). The side of the cabinet holds two midbass driver and four 18cm long-throw woofers (one per cabinet side midbass, two per side woofers).
Mission's new Palastro loudspeaker (£20,000) uses a multi-way ABR bass loading technique. Four 200mm air-dried Nomex drivers with 40mm voice coils produce the lowermost frequencies. The critical midrange is covered by two 165mm hemp cone drivers while the uppermost frequencies are produced by a 28m viscous laminated ring, ferrofluid-cooled tweeter. Overall frequency response is 25Hz to 48kHz with 95dB/W/ sensitivity at 6 ohms (3.2 ohm minimum).
Audio Aero had the Acapella Violin loudspeakers being driven by the Capitole Power Amp (€8,500). Four EL34 per channel in
their TRAC triode/pentode to produce 50 watts per channel.
Also in the Audio Aero room was their Capitole 24-bit/192kHz CD Player 24/192 MK.II (€7,500). It has both digital inputs and outputs, plus analog output. Inputs are BNC, S/PDIF, AES/EBU, AT+T, and TOSlink.
If you could see through the crowd of people, there are thousands of records for sale.
Click here for Sunday's
coverage.
High-Performance Audio Reviews
