To judge from the $6400 Mimesis 8, Goldmund walks its own way when it comes to power amplifier design. High-end solid-state amplifiers from US companies like Krell, Mark Levinson, Threshold, and the Jeff Rowland Design Group marry massive power supplies to large numbers of output devices (these often heavily biased to run in class-A), built on chassis of such nonmagnetic materials as aluminum. By contrast, the Mimesis 8 has a magnetic (steel) chassis, and uses a relatively modest power supply, that for each channel based on two main 4700µF reservoir capacitors. The 8 offers just two pairs per channel of complementary output MOSFETs (Hitachi K134/J49). These carry a modest bias current of around 80mA total.

I’ve quickly and deeply fallen in love with Sharon Van Etten’s album, Tramp, to be released by Jagjaguwar on February 7th. My review is scheduled to appear in our March issue, but I’ll tell you now that this is an album worth owning and playing again and again.

On Thursday, November 17, Sound By Singer celebrated the grand opening of their new showroom with an evening of music and product demonstrations.

One of the most important sopranos of the early music movement—truly one of the great singers of our time—has died. Montserrat Figueras, who together with her husband, viola da gamba master Jordi Savall (left in photo), revivified vast amounts of Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque repertoire, succumbed to cancer at age 69.

Diagnosed over a year ago, Figueras continued to record and perform through August. She died at her home in Bellaterra, Spain, with her husband and children Arianna and Ferran at her side.