The Hegel H30A power…
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My first stop in the Munich High End venue's huge halls, or Halles, was a treat—and not only because the Hegel folks had a box of Norwegian chocolate hearts to taste. Hegel introduced a couple of new analog components, the Hegel Reference H30A Reference power amplifier and the P30A preamplifier, which supersedes the P30 preamp. Hegel CEO, founder, and lead designer Bent Holter (right) was on-hand along with Anders Ertzeid "VP of This and That" (aka VP Sales and Marketing, left) to share details. The amp and preamp are both analog designs—the A stands for analog.
In celebration of Esoteric’s 35th anniversary, the company’s Shota Terai offered a sneak preview of the Grandioso T1, the first turntable in Esoteric's long history. Due to be finalized soon, the T1 employs the company's "patent-registered unique contact-free Esoteric MagneDrive System that inductively synchronizes the rotations of a magnetic driver and platter, realizing a quiet and silky-smooth rotation at an extraordinarily accurate rotation speed."
The turntable's motor drive unit uses the Grandioso G1X Master Clock to achieve 10MHz Clock Sync capability. The three-piece independent…
New components in Wilson's other eye-candy exhibit may have been limited to the new Nordost QNet 5-port internet switch and QSource Linear Power Supply, but that didn't prevent a miracle from happening. In a room that D'Agostino's Bill McKiegan had warned me rarely delivered good sound, VTL's Siegfried II Series II monoblocks and top-level line TL 7.5 Series III and TP 6.5 Series II preamplifiers, seen here with Nordost’s Dennis Bonotto, sounded extremely musical and inviting.
Is Wilson's Alexx V a miracle worker? Is it because, as VTL's Luke Manley (pictured below) said, "Tubes can be…
Gone are the days of blacks and grays. Thanks in large part to the new face of Wilson Audio, color reigned supreme in Audio Reference Munich's impressive Atrium spread.
It's not that you can't buy a Wilson speaker in traditional Brooks Brothers meets Provo garb. But for those who wish to brighten up the show, Wilson presented its Chronosonic XVX with one of its four new "Season" color highlights (below). Rather than asking the price, I greatly enjoyed what I saw and focused on the music, which in this case was a Schedrin encore, performed by pianist Simon Trpceski and recorded just a few…
Mansour Mamaghani, founder and managing director of Audio Reference Munich (above), quietly commandeered one of the largest showrooms in the MOC's Atrium to present an impressive living color array of components that extended far beyond Wilson, D'Agostino, Perlisten, VTL, Nordost, VPI, and Krell. Although sonics were far from ideal during the press conference—VTL's pairing with Wilson and Nordost fared best—I finally got the lowdown on Krell's forthcoming 160lb. KSA-i400 power amplifier (below; $35,000 in stereo, or $70,000/monoblock pair) from Krell's COO, Walter Schofield. A matching preamp…
Because I'm currently reviewing Octave's Mono SE amplifier ($80,000/pair), I was eager to hear these large tubed monoblocks in a very different context. Nor was I disappointed. Somehow, perhaps because the company's display mitigated slap echo, Octave shone in a room similar to those at Munich High End that consigned many an exhibitor to audiophile hell.
In a system that also included Octave's Jubilee preamp (30,000), a T+A PDT 3100 HV Transport (14,900), T+A SD 3100 HV streamer and DAC (23,400), Thorens TD 124 DD turntable with Ortofon SPU High Output cartridge (10,500), Audio Physic…
I went into a room looking for Lumin's latest components and found a broad range of gear, both classic and modern. The recently relaunched Mission 770 speakers demo'd in this room represent a prime example of heritage speaker revival. Behind this exhibit was International Audio Group (IAG), the company behind Mission and other British brands, such as Wharfedale, Castle, and Quad, as well as Luxman. Peter Comeau, IAG's director of acoustic design, gave me the download on the Mission 770 redux. He mentioned that he and John Atkinson had listened to 770 prototypes in 1978. (JA will be reviewing…
Old-school audiophiles like me cling to our vinyl records and CDs. We spin them on turntables and slide them into transports, which send electric signals through wires to solid state or tubed amplifiers—a string of hardware devices. But, despite our object-attached ways, we're quite aware that we are living in a software-enabled, Bluetooth-connected, Wi-Fi–facilitated world. Even our Milky Way galaxy is wireless; as that pontificator of everything galactic, scientist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, has proclaimed, "We're all connected."
"Connected," though, can mean different things. For some, it…
Thirty-two-year-old Solána Imani Rowe, aka SZA, is my choice for the finest soul singer of 2022 and beyond (beyond, that is, in the negative direction, backward toward 2015, when she broke through), an emotional powerhouse who performs with great depth of fluidity and feeling. SZA rolls from staccato eighth-note hip-hop phrasing to soaring, swinging embellishments within the space of two bars; her gracefulness and generous spirit are enchanting. SZA fully occupies her music, not gliding above it like so many Spotify top-10 stars.
SZA's 2020 hit "Good Days" (24/48 MQA, Top Dawg/…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Two-channel, class-D, integrated amplifier with streaming DAC running BluOS. Inputs: RJ45 (Ethernet); 2 combination mini-TosLink/3.5mm; HDMI eARC; USB. Outputs: One pair 5-way loudspeaker binding posts; one miniplug (3.5mm) unbalanced headphone output; one subwoofer output (RCA). Output power: 80Wpc into 8 ohms (19.05dBW). IHF dynamic power: 220Wpc into 4 ohms (20.4dBW), 130Wpc into 8 ohms (21.1dBW). Amplification technology: HybridDigital class-D based on Hypex UcD modules. Network: Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac, 2.4/5GHz); Ethernet, GigE 1000Mbps. S/N ratio:…