CES 2014

Alexander Vitus Mogensen was deservedly bright-eyed about his equally handsome AVM-TEC Alluxity Pre One ($9150). Designed with the lifestyle conscious in mind, the Pre One first reached Asia last summer, and is now appearing in the US courtesy of distributor Light Harmonic. Its relay-operated volume control adjusts in 3dB intervals, and then decreases to a still large (in my estimation) 1.5dB as volume increases. It also offers balanced, zero global feedback topology, easily upgradable internal modules, five inputs (RCA and XLR), and two outputs.

AVM-TEC's equally attractive Alluxity Power One amplifier ($12,600), shown in white in the banner behind Alexander, was also set to debut, but when something went amiss in transport, it was replace by a Vitus Audio power amp from Alexander's father, Hans-Ole Vitus. It's a shame, because I was eager to evaluate the sound of a system that also included the eye-catching Light Harmonic Da Vinci DAC and Wilson Audio Sasha loudspeakers. The Power One is a balanced design with no parallel output devices and zero global feedback. It outputs a minimum of 200Wpc into 8 ohms, and close to 400 into 4, and has both RCA and XLR inputs.