Impressive Sound from Benchmark and Laufer Teknik

William Duncan (right), who lives relatively close to me in Sammamish, WA, has been after me for a while to hear Laufer Teknik Product's new offerings. Finally, the opportunity arrived at AXPONA. Sharing the room with John Siau of Benchmark Audio (left), Duncan and Laufer Teknik Products showed The Note ($32,500/pair), a line array speaker designed by Mark Porzilli of Melos vacuum-tube electronics fame. The price includes a SB 3000 subwoofer ($1010 each).

Laufer Teknik claims that the speaker has 360° dispersion up to 10kHz and 180° dispersion above that—when I walked around the speaker, sound was loudest in the front-firing direction—50 to 100 times less distortion and up to 200 times the dynamic range "of a typical D'Appolito design," and the ability to work in a "really large room." The Note has no crossover above the subwoofer, stands 87" tall, is a mere 2" wide and 2.5" deep, and weighs only 40lb.

The Note received signal through the introductory version of the company's Liquid Cables ($8500/8' pair). Each cable contains 27,000 wires. The company's introductory Elephant memory player ($12,500) joined Benchmark Media's AHB2 power amps ($3299 each), DAC3 B D/A processor ($1799), and interconnects. With the aid of a forthcoming DEQX HDP4 processor ($TBD) that's due in the fall, the system sounded super on a 16/44.1 file of the famed rendition of Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, recorded by Eiji Oue and the Minnesota Orchestra for Reference Recordings. Sound was extremely well-integrated and controlled, and the bass memorable.

COMMENTS
Herb Reichert's picture

but only when it's r e a l l y skinny.

The Note line-array speakers were one of the highlights of my travels.

herb

otaku's picture

I agree with Herb. I heard the Notes at the NY show a few years ago and thought they were the best thing there.

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