High End Society 2003 Show Frankfurt Germany

Saturday Page 2

  Analog is so loved in Germany that even Nagra, known for their digital recorders, were happily playing vinyl on the Kuzma Reference turntable with linear tracking tonearm (€12,780).

And here is yet another example of analog in Germany.... Transrotor had their Quintessence (€26,500) three-motor chromed and gold plated metal turntable. Seen here with an SME tonearm, a separate power supply drives the three motors precisely for speed stability.

Seems the China factory keeps things busy, looking amazingly like products from Mr. Mark Levinson's Red Rose, is actually branded the Vincent SP-996 monoblock (€315) amplifier that produces 125 watts. Overall frequency response is 20Hz to 20kHz with a low >95dB signal to noise ratio.

From the great minds of Eichmann are their Topper resonance control devices ($75 for pack of six). It is said they control resonances on loudspeakers, CD players, turntables, amplifiers, etc.

Also seen at the Frankfurt Germany High End Society show is the Shanling tubed CD player.

Vaessen prominently showcased their Nixie tube clock for all to see. Being a lover of tubes, and an avid wristwatch enthusiast, can proudly say i have a very rare Nixie tube wristwatch. Ah yes, so many tubes, so little time.

Marten Design had their Coltrane loudspeaker (€39,500). Please see our Industry News page for more information.

Ampzilla 2000 (€7,600 per pair) monoblock amplifier produces 200 watts at 8 ohm. It features a completely symmetrical design while four loop circuits control the bias.

GumuT's CD-1 CD player (€3,700), C 2 R pre-amplifier (€2,000), and new C 100 MK III stereo amplifier (€3,300) were a 1-2-3-knockout punch. The new stereo amplifier had a third generation circuit board and delivers 100 watts at 8 ohms and truly doubles to 200 watts into a 4 ohm load. All of the new Gamut amplifiers are now in MK III status as technology based on the GamuT S300 design has trickled down to all of their units. Very sturdy WBT loudspeaker terminals appear at the rear as does both single ended (RCA) and balanced (XLR) inputs.

Gradient's Revolution (€4,900) loudspeaker is a bass dipole design with cardioid midrange and tweeter to produce frequencies from 50Hz to 20kHz. This unit presents a 6 ohm load and has a sensitivity of 86dB/W/m. The drivers are two 30cm woofers, 170mm fiberglass midrange and 25mm coaxial aluminum dome tweeter.

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