High End Society 2003 Show Frankfurt Germany

Thursday Page 1

  Clearaudio's new Syncro (€790) is a power supply for turntables that employ synchronous motor (not just Clearaudio turntables). The front LCD displays voltage and speed while small holes in the faceplate allow for fine-tuning the speed for your turntable.

Clearaudio's new value-priced Emotion turntable includes their Satisfaction 9-inch tonearm ($900) and heralds yet another completely new design with maintenance-free bearing and decoupled motor. The tonearm is made from aluminum alloy with high precision Swiss bearing. Their new Melody MC cartridge ($800) is a new coil design where the cantilever is shortened over their normal designs. It is a medium weight cartridge and shows a new avenue as Clearaudio will soon launch a new series of shortened cantilever cartridges.

Emission Labs' tubes seen here (from left to right) are the 300B-XLS (€230), 320B-XLS (€230), 520B V3 (€304) and 520B-V2 (€304) triode output tubes. The 300B-XLS is a direct plug in for normal 300B circuitry, though it can be operated at higher power to produce 17 watts. The 320 is basically the same yet with higher filament current. The 520B, while not a direct plug in for the 300B, has a regular (V3 version) and high filament version (V2). Total output is a very high 27 watts for the 520 series. Emission Labs also offers mesh plate 2A3 tubes (€202) and Type 45 mesh (€202). They have no plans to offer a mesh plate 300B tube at this time.

Naturally there were quite a few vinyl record dealers at the show as here in Germany analog has a relatively large following among music lovers.

Audio Desk Systeme GLASS lathe (€460) was being used to good effect. See our recent review of this product by clicking here.

Audio Desk Systeme was also showcasing their cleaning system specifically designed for CDs (€1,124). A disc is placed in the top compartment and then the user closes the lid. Simply pressing one button starts the disc spinning as a special cleaning fluid bathes the disc. The fluid is not filtered, therefore it needs to be changed after approximately 200 CDs or two month's time.

The Silenzio (€120) is an adjustable hum/noise filter with high/medium/and low settings. Notice how it uses the Eichmann RCA plugs. See our RCA end connector shootout by clicking here.

Lehmann Audio is aware of the importance a good power supply makes to the music reproduction of their gear. Therefore their PWX (front) is the upgraded supply for the Lehmann Audio Black Cube ($600). The power supply to the rear is for their top of the line Silver Cube phono stage ($2,500).

Looking quite nice is the Infinity Kappa 200 monitor loudspeaker (€500) with lovely wood cabinet. This rear ported, deep cabinet design features a 1-inch dome tweeter and 6.5-inch midrange/woofer driver. This model supports bi-wire/-amplification with an overall frequency response from 50Hz to 27kHz.

In the Reimyo room was their WE300B ($20,000) stereo amplifier and CDP-777 ($15,000) top loading CD player. The amplifier utilizes the 310A tube for driver and 5R4 tube for rectification. All transformers, wire, and nearly 95% of the electronics are custom made to Reimyo's specifications. The CD player features both single ended (RCA) and balanced (XLR) analog plus coax and BNC digital outputs.

Linn was proudly showing their Kisto pre-amplifier/processor (£8,000, on top) and Unidisk (£6,500,bottom). The Unidisk, as first seen worldwide on the Enjoy the Music.com™ Industry News page, is quite an impressive piece indeed as it plays SACD, DVD-Audio, CD, and many other digital disc formats.

Naturally Linn had their longstanding and critically acclaimed LP12 with Ekos tonearm and Akiva cartridge on display.

Continuing the turntable theme... In the Germany-based magazine Stereoplay room was the Thorens Reference turntable with immense platter and wood tonearm mounting. Also within the room was an original Sony CDP-101 (world's first consumer CD player) McIntosh MR78 FM tuner, and Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck.

Acapella had their over six foot high red Triolon Excalibur hornspeakers (€94,000) and gleaming sun colored LaCampanella (€12,400) that has four woofers and one hypesphaeric (horn loaded) midrange/tweeter.

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