Darren Censullo of Avatar Acoustics introduced a new reference loudspeaker from Rosso Fiorentino of Italy. The Sienna loudspeakers ($24,995) are full range, 3-way, 5 driver, sealed- box floorstanders. It is finished beautifully in the Italian way, with a pair of 8” aluminum cone woofers in a separate sealed enclosure. It has a 6 1/2” paper cone midrange driver (ScanSpeak Revelator), a 1 1/8” silk dome tweeter with 1” ribbon, Murato ultrasonic generator, driven by an AMR AM-77 integrated amp ($9,995) and an AMR CD-77.1 CD player ($10,995). A beautiful sounding Dr. Feickert Analogue Blackbird turntable ($7,495) and Dr.Feickert DFA 10.5 tonearm ($1k with table) with Lyra Kleos cartridge made up the analogue front end. The acoustic room treatment, equipment rack, and cables were all by Acoustic Systems International. Darren Censullo has always managed to put up a wonderful sounding room, and it was no different this time. It was detailed, very dynamic and very coherent from top to bottom with very nice bass articulation.

 

I remembered when I did a CES show report two years ago when the Eggleston Works Andra III ($24,900) was introduced. The Andra III produced beautiful sound as I remembered and this time it sounded even better. The Andra III was driven beautifully by a pair of Boulder 1050 mono amps ($42k) and a Boulder 1021 CD player ($24k). The Cardas Clear cables were used throughout the system. The system sounded excellent; it was very open, transparent with lots of detail and had nice weight and body.

 

Hans-Ole Vitus from Vitus Audio set up a great sounding room. It featured a Masterpiece Series, two-box MP-P201 Phone Preamp ($60k) and two-box L201 linestage ($69k). The Wilson Audio Sasha ($26,900) sounded impressive, open, very dynamic and natural. It was driven by the Vitus SS-101 stereo amp ($40k). Vinyl was spinning on a Dr. Feickert Woodpecker turntable ($5k) with a Kuzma 4 point tonearm ($6,500) and the Transfiguration Orpheus cartridge ($5k). This system produced stunning sound. CD playback came from Vitus’ SCD-101 CD player and reproduced the sound beautifully.

 

The only thing I was familiar with in this room were the Krell electronics, but more importantly this room sounded outstanding. It was fast and very transparent with lots of detail and coherency from top to bottom. Very impressive. Let’s start with the U.S debut of the Surrountec Monolog 3-way active loudspeakers ($130k). Surrountec is a German company which specializes in uncompromising active high precision studio monitors and audiophile active loudspeaker systems. The Monolog reference loudspeakers are a 3-way active system that is mechanically time-aligned using all Accuton drivers (30mm diamond tweeter, 2 x 8” ceramic midrange and 2 x 11” ceramic sandwich subwoofer drivers). All drivers are fine-tuned specifically for Surrountec. ZenSati cables were used for internal wiring throughout the speakers. Zensati premiered their #1 Gold cables. Mark Johanson the founder of the ZenSati has developed a range of breakthrough world-class audio cables that’s remarkable for their speed and crystal clear signal transport. Only the finest materials were used in construction; silver, gold, rhodium, Teflon, and many other costly materials. For cable termination, Furutec of Japan was selected for their exceptional conductivity, build quality and sublime fit and finish.

 

Leif Olofsson of Marten debuted the Coltrane 2 loudspeakers ($95k) and the M.Amp 600W mono amps ($45k/pair).The Coltrane 2 is a three-way four driver floorstander that features a newly developed carbon fiber laminate cabinet which claims to reduce resonances to near zero. The Coltrane 2 is 40% larger than the original Coltrane and is as versatile, extremely powerful, delivering even better resolution and transparency. The Coltrane 2 employs two newly developed 11” ceramic sandwich woofers, a 7” ceramic midrange driver and a 1” diamond tweeter, all created in partnership with Accuton. There are three levels of bass adjustment to help it integrate better in your listening room. The M. amp was born in search for perfection, a joint venture between Leif Olofsson of Marten and Patrik Bostrom, inventor of the revolutionary new linearization technology called AMS (Adaptive Modulation Servo) and founder of design house Anaview AB in Sweden. Marten states that the M.Amp is an inverting globally self oscillating class-D stage. This class-D stage is a load independent wide bandwidth (-3db @ 120 kHzz ) a first order modulator, switching at 600kHzz, with a constant loop gain of 30db all the way to the switching frequency. The result is a true delay line, which displays very wide bandwidth and fast transient response. The EMM Labs pre2 reference preamp ($15k) and the EMM Labs XDSI reference CD/SACD player ($25k) were used and all cables were by Jorma Design with Prime and Origo cables. So, how did it sound? Simply put, it was outstanding, highly detailed, very transparent and musical at the same time.

I was greatly impressed by the sound of The LARS TYPE 2 mono amps ($60k) from Sweden. The LARS TYPE 2 is their newest amplifier with twice the power of the original The LARS TYPE 1. It produces glorious 36Wpc with 300B XLS tubes or, optionally, with a 300B for 16Wpc and it has selectable output impedance for optimum interface between amplifier and speaker. The LARS TYPE 2 powered the Marten Coltrane 2 loudspeakers ($95k) and BAT REX preamplifier ($20k), and dCS Paganini 4 box digital playback. Lastly, it utilized Grand Prix Audio Monaco 5 equipment rack and amp stands. All cables were Nordost’s the Odin. The system sounded beautifully open, very transparent and had nice string tones when listening to Mozart’s string quartets.

 

I’ve saved the best for the last. The Audio Note Kondo system was truly remarkable. The Audio Note Kondo featured the legendary Ongaku integrated amplifier ($70k) and newest and most affordable Kondo amplifier, the Overture integrated amplifier ($30k), a 32 Watt design based on EL-34 tubes. Silver foil coupling capacitors are adopted in both driver and output stages and newly developed CCB circuit which guarantees signals purity and stops signals from flowing through the biasing trim pot which drastically increased tonal quality. The G-70 preamplifier ($30k) driving the 2-way field coil loudspeakers ($50K) and used an Esoteric CD player as digital playback. Unfortunately, the KSL-DAC ($30k) was damaged during transit. Finally, all-silver Kondo cables were used to connect the components. The sound was simply amazing; it didn’t matter whether we were using the Ongaku or the Overture integrated amplifier. The tonality was so correct everything sounded real. It was like listening to live music. Listening to classical music was an amazing experience. It rendered the Beethoven piano trios and the Elgars Cello Concerto with remarkable naturalness. The sound was pure, transparent and touched me in an emotional way. Each part of each system is hand built; Audio Note Kondo are astonishingly meticulous, leaving no stone unturned.