Impressive new ”look” from Gamut.

The extremely advanced and exclusive Pluto 10A turntable from Holland.

KR Audio's KRON amplifiers, AudiaZ and Raven were delivering the goods in terms of absolutely wondeful music among the best at the show.

Kron / AudiaZ / Raven are (at least as regards Kron and AudiaZ) well known “usual suspects”. We run the risk of repeating ourselves, but quite remarkably we cannot actually remember ever hearing the Kron amps in a bad sounding room, not even an indifferent one. We have by now heard them with at least 10 different speaker families. Does this mean anything? Who is to say? We have heard the fine AudiaZ speakers before but this was the first time with the Kron amplifiers and it played very satisfyingly. Also LPs played on the German Raven turntable through the British Tron RIAA stage came over with power and delicacy.

A real joy and we had to leave sooner than we really wanted. Delicate, powerful and not fatiguing at all.

 

LP cleaners in all the colors of the rainbow.

The Krell Evolution Series Two Mono preamps.

The exiting Firebird speaker from French Haliaetus Technologies.

Ralf Ballmann of Behold with the new room correction module and measurement software designed to fit right into their APU768 preamp.

Behold managed to woo us again since we first met them a few years back [Clement is quite happy and fortunate, I'm told with an entire Behold setup!]. The sheer quality of their products both in terms of techniques applied and the professional quality of the build is likely to make your mouth water if you are at all sensitive to these non auditory qualities.

This year Ralf Ballmann showed a new product called the ADP192 crossover/room-correction card. Designed to fit snugly into their  APU768 digital preamp, it is a DSP based device which can be programmed as a flexible crossover and it was being shown with its room correction software. It is not anywhere near the new Lyngdorf RoomPerfect room correction, but we can assure you that correction makes a real and worthwhile difference.

In terms of overall sound we liked the behold room the best of all this year. The loudspeakers used were the big Ascendos which (dare we say) sounded better with “behold” than in Ascendo’s own room.

We have a difficult relationship with many tweaks but must mention that whether caused by general madness or something more odious, both we and the behold staff were convinced that Frank Tchang’s  Acoustic Resonators made real and positive differences in the way the system played. I am sorely afraid of loosing all respect of at least part of the reading audience but deluded or not, that was what was perceived in Munich. More about this at another occasion I’m afraid.

Actually we spent far too much time just listening to music on this wonderful system. We just couldn’t resist returning here when we were a bit tired from the mass of input and relax with beautiful music. Whether it was solo piano (we rediscover our Nojima CDs from Reference Recordings – wonderful stuff), Sergio Mendes with the 100 drums and some saucy ladies, large classical works or solid rock – it played it all. What an utter pleasure.

Obviously we all have things that move us and the music we experienced while listening in the Behold room approached such effortlessness, dynamics and size (we refer to the sound not the system) that we at times were moved close to tears. A grand experience!


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