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I admit that I didn't get what the Fink Team of Essen, Germany was all about until I met the man himself, Karl-Heinz Fink, who is well known within the industry for designing many important loudspeakers marketed by other companies. Fink, who also owns the Epos loudspeaker brand, began his own engineering company 40 years ago. Then, about seven years ago, the late and revered Ken Ishiwata of Marantz asked him to build a big speaker for Marantz. Out of that came the Borg, a two-way system with an AMT tweeter that was launched five years ago. The Borg Episode 2 (30,000/pair), which is marketed…
Welcome to the first GoldenEar loudspeaker completely redesigned by AudioQuest since the cable company bought the speaker company. Re-envisioned and realized by a US/Canadian team headed by Garth Powell, the T66 ($6900/pair in black or $7200/pair in red) will hopefully become available in either August or September. It contains a folded-ribbon AMT tweeter, two MVPP, cast-basket, passive midrange drivers, and two active long-throw, DSP-controlled oval subwoofers powered by 1200W class-D amplifiers. Passive quadratic planar radiators are located on each side of the speaker. It goes without…
Although I never managed to meet Daniel Weiss over two days of trying—his son, Joschka Weiss (above), even took me to the company's booth to show me the discrete analog operational amplifier used in the new Weiss Helios DAC ($18,000) and introduce me to his dad, who was elsewhere—I was mighty impressed by what I heard.
Through a system, assembled by WOD Audio, that consisted entirely of unfamiliar components—an Ypsilon CD transport feeding the Weiss Helios DAC, Alieno amps, and ultra-limited-edition speakers from Cessaro—a CD of Eva Cassidy singing "I Know You By Heart" possessed…
The folks at Gryphon Audio Designs of Denmark sure are smart cookies. Rather than overloading the public, industry, and press with a ton of words about their new Diablo 333 integrated amplifier ($23,000), they posted an extremely detailed "TECHNICAL TALK" sheet in the front area of their deep glass-entranced showcase.
For readers who can't easily click on the jpeg above and read the fine print, the Diablo 333, which comes in at a low-price point for anything but bargain-priced Gryphon, is a dual-mono, class-A integrated with no global negative feedback. The amplifier is…
There was a "the only way to appreciate this book is to ditch its cover" discovery to be had in the dCS room, but it required reading between the lines. For me, the system was akin to revisiting close and trusted friends: the superb dCS Vivaldi Apex digital playback system ($91,500 without the transport), which has graced the cover of Stereophile and, in my educated opinion, deserves a Product of the Year award; the Wilson Audio Alexia V loudspeaker ($69,500/pair base price), another cover story product that continues to bless me with its riches; Dan D'Agostino Master Systems Momentum M400…
I was dashing past hundreds of exhibits in the four huge ground-floor exhibit halls of the MOC when Lab 12's exhibit caught my eye. On the recommendation of Herb Reichert, my audiophile buddy, Scott, bought the Lab 12 tube preamp shown above with Stratos Vichos, Lab 12's owner and designer, and forever sings its praises.
My initial intention was to simply snap a photo for Scott. But then I learned about the Naya ($TBD, probably around 3500–4000), Lab 12's forthcoming Hypex class-D power amplifier with built-in DAC and phonostage (above). Named for Vichos's oldest daughter, the…
"We always wanted a distribution bar," Stromtank CEO Wolfgang Meletzky explained as he held the device with Annett Dehmel, Stromtank Managing Director. "So, we developed the SEQ 5 (approx. $4000, if I read my scribble correctly), which contains custom-made outlets with special rhodium-plated pure copper contacts." (Furutech GTX-D-NFC receptacles are available as an option.) The AC inlet, which can receive up to 2000W of 120V power and 2800W of 230V power, includes Nano Crystal Formular contacts and a 6.3 × 32mm Slo-Blo fuse.
The SEQ 5 is claimed to contain top-quality wire and components…
Meridian's just launched, visually stunning DSP9 digital active loudspeaker (60,000/pair in black, 65,000/pair in a choice of automotive finishes) is a definite rival to SteinMusic for the Munich High-End 2023 Best Looker of Show Award. With all electronics built-in—each drive unit contains its own amplifier—and controlled by phone or tablet, the speaker includes DSP intended to eliminate all room variables.
Bass was absolutely tight on a remastered version of Phil Collins "I Don't Care Anymore" from 1983, and depth and space came to the fore in Anette Askvik's "Liberty."…
UK-based Chord is poised to release the new Ultima Integrated (8500) in September or October. Chord's first new integrated amplifier in some time, it incorporates elements of the company's Ultima P3 preamp and Ultima 6 power amp and utilizes Chord's latest dual feed-forward error correction, said to reduce the noise floor by at least 10dB. A fully balanced class-AB design, the Ultima Integrated will output 125Wpc into 8 ohms at the least and, one would expect, even more bliss.
AV RoomService's Norman Varney is committed to addressing smaller and smaller vibrations that can affect system performance ways in far less subtle than one might wish. The latest additions to his roster, shown in this admittedly less than sexy photo, includes two chassis lid damping devices. The first, a constrained layer stainless-steel damping strip that attaches internally to a chassis lid, should be affixed at an angle so that it will affect more modes. There are two models: a 12" × 2" strip ($35) or the larger 12" × 24" version ($65).
Norm also has a big black external chassis…