High End 2006 

"Diva" is one of the gorgeous models from British brand Avid.

The Swedish Statement says everything.

"The Swedish Statement"
Is the name and quite a statement it is. Five Swedish companies have
come together to show off what Sweden can offer in the very high end
of audiophilia. That is quite a bit.

Mike Bladelius who became known when designing electronics for
Threshold is behind the electronics in the shape of the Gondul Level 3
CD, SACD, DVD-Audio player which also acts as pre-amplifier for the
system since it has a number of inputs as well the awesome Beofwulf
mono amps and the bass amp driving the woofer towers described below
using a DSP module for room-correction in the bass.

The speakers used in the statement are the big Coltrane Supreme from
Marten Design. The drive unit complement is something to talk about: 6
x 10 inch bass units, 4 x 7 inch upper bass drivers, one 7 inch lower
midrange unit one 2 inch diamond midrange and one diamond tweeter.
All of them come from German Accuton (in Europe Thiel & Partner) That's
how to do it.

The 2 bass towers each hold 6 bass units driven by their own amp. The
2 main towers hold 4 bass units, the lower midrange and the diamond
midrange and tweeter units. The cabinets are made of carbon-fiber
laminate and are superbly finished in wood. These are large speakers
that do benefit from a somewhat larger room than was available in
Munich.

Cabling in Rolls class from Jorma Koski which is a further development
of all that he has produced until now cost a (raised eyebrows) cool
71,800 US$. This includes all power-cabling, interconnects and
speaker cables.

We have seen beautiful turntables from Robert Grubstad before but his
"Nordic Concept, Artist Signature" turntable is something else.
Equipped with not one but two arms; one is
air bearing and the other employing a bearing involving Kevlar and
magnets. Suddenly the estimated $18,000 US seems like a best buy.

Finally a stand from Woo design obviously involving quite a bit of
work to produce.

Often visiting exhibitors at exhibitions is as much about estimating
the possible results as much as the actual sound achieved under what
is rarely even approaching perfect conditions. The Swedish Statement
is definitely worthy the name.

The room certainly limited the results achieved but we kept on
listening quite a bit longer than we had planned putting on piece
after piece. We really think that under better conditions were are
looking at one of the best system on offer in the world. We would
just love to spend some more time with it. Lets see! If I sell my
wife and mortgage the house.......

The Dali Ikon Phantom in-wall speaker presented by Mona Nielsen from Dali.

Even flat-earth icons like Naim makes totally integrates systems like this DVD receiver.

For over 120000€ Naim replay chain which actually sounded very good (It would have been more than a pity if it did not.)

The prototype of Gryphon’s new ”Mirage” super preamp.

The Great Eye from Cabasse.

Densen's Tomas Sillesen who is known to say that ”Life is Too Short for Boring HiFi”, does not look bored at all but actually pretty happy with the new models.

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