High Fidelity Belgium 2005

---

  Saturday
Page 1

Cadence's new Okki Okki vinyl record cleaning machine is said to be the most economical vacuum unit in the world, as it is priced at €325 ($350 USD). The record can rotate both clockwise and anti-clockwise. The unit is made in Germany and built for high usage and reliability.

 

In contrast there is Clearaudio's Double Matrix (€2,900) with a pair of wands that each have two cleaning sides to clean both sides of a record at the same time. The record is held by the center and spins both clockwise and anti-clockwise. It, too, is built in Germany. Total cleaning time is under one minute.

 

Another display in the Clearaudio room was their complete tonearm line. One setup had their three linear tracking units while the other were standard tonearms with various tube lengths.

 

Hørning's Sati 845 (€17,000) had their integrated stereo tube amplifier that uses an 845 output tube per channel plus a pair of 6SN7 for preamplification section. Biasing is manual and internals are point-to-point.

 

The Opera Audio Benelux room featured Consonance's 6CA7EH monoblock tube amplifiers (€4,000). A little bird told me their 211/VT4Cmonoblock amplifiers are going to receive a rave review in Enjoy the Music.com^®'s Superior Audio magazine. How do i know this? Because said monoblocks are right now in my main rig and i am at the tube-rolling stages and getting very impressive results with a pair of NOS GE VT4C tubes thanks to Kevin Deal of Upscale Audio.

 

For a mere (€2,100) Consonance has their solid-state system that includes bookshelf/monitor loudspeakers, CD player, and an 80-watt per channel stereo integrated amplifier. Wireless remote control is also included for ease of use.

 

Distributor Technology Distribution carries PrimaLuna, Clearaudio, Cadence, Tabla Rasa furniture, etc. Seen above is the PrimaLuna Two integrated stereo amplifier that uses a pair of KT88s per channel to produce 40 watts/channel. Bottoms up as the build quality is very impressive!

 

Various Final electrostatic loudspeakers were mated to external dynamic driver woofers. Not quite cohesive, but fast highs. Not sure if any panel like Martin Logan or Final could ever achieve cohesive bass to their upper range panels. Magnepan appears to be the only manufacturer achieving such a feat to date.

 

Looking like aeroplane landing lights for tubes, the AqueBlue 845 monoblock tube amplifier (€12,990 each monoblock) is filled with goodies including Electronicon capacitors, Lundahl transformers, ceramic tube sockets, etc. Other tube in this design include a pair of 866A and 6SL7. For checking operation, six backlit analog meters allow for insuring proper parameters.

 

Dutch print magazine Music Emotion had a table with their latest issue (#2) and various digital discs and vinyl for sale.

 

Local store Nutters Audio had a table filled with music from Mobile Fidelity, Reference Recordings, JVC xrcd, Turtle Records, ARL Gold, Stockfish, etc.