CES 2006

T+A's Siegfried Amft thinks different. That's obvious from his beautifully designed tube and solid-state products, an observation that cruelly ignores how good they sound. I was happy to see that Amft made it to the show, because I reckoned that meant he had something new and startling to demonstrate. He did: Criterion TCI 2 Active loudspeakers ($25,500/pair), sarcophagi incorporating twin carbon fiber 10" woofers in a selaed enclosure, a 7" specially tuned midrange cone, and a curved electrostatic panel that Amft claims can produce SPLs above 120dB "while maintaining superb membrane travel and distortion characteristics."

The drivers are muscled around by three 350W switch-mode amplifiers and the crossovers are active—and include analog signal processing for bass/room integration.

My Tuatara "Afterburner" track was vivid and raw—which is not a criticism of the speaker's tonal character, but a reflection of the sax-driven jam band nature of the disc, Percussion sounded fast and had tons of snap and the bottom end was tight and punchy, but it was the saxes that shone—that tweeter really does seem special&#151'very special. I've always loved 'stats, but sometimes want more weight than they give me. The problem with many hybrids is that they reveal too much tonal differences between the electrostatic driver and the woofer—perhaps by crossing over to a fast midrange cone at 3500Hz, Amft has avoided this. Only a long audition would say for sure&#151and I hope to get a chance to give the Criterion TCI 2 precisely that.