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Good grief – Cowon's Plenue P1 has an ARM based Cortex A9 computer on-board, running on Linux. And it played 384kHz sample rate digital – I half expected smoke to come out of the headphone socket. Having just received a press release in our editorial in-box for a new Astell&Kern player, an AK380 with dual-32bit DACs (actually, most DACs have 32-bit minimum internal resolution, see Enjoy the Music.com's review of the AK380 here) and a price of £3000 – yes, really – there seems to be some sort of portable techno war going on in Korea, both companies being Korean. You can read about the amazing Cowon on page 15. It eats digital for lunch. Whilst reviewing Tannoy's new XT 8F loudspeakers I heard that they had been sold by their previous investment company owners, who probably turned a nice profit since Tannoy are an attractive purchase, and have been bought by an acquisitional offshoot of German pro audio manufacturer, Behringer. What Behringer get is a large factory in Coatbridge, Glasgow and an almost unique name with a long and illustrious history. I hope they will continue with Tannoy's wonderful Prestige Series that must surely be just about unique. I see this product in the same vein as Bentley or Harley Davidson; both were once seen as anachronistic and beyond hope in a modern world, and both are now thriving in a way few thought possible. Happily, Tannoy never gave up on the Dual-Concentric and you can read about their lovely new XT 8F – a loudspeaker with cojones – on page 58. Yes – it's a busy hi-fi world out there. I hope you like the bit of it we bring you in here, our latest issue.
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