Hi-Fi News 2000

  Mark Harris was manning the filled to the brim Hi-Fi News Accessories Club where they sell books, valves (that's tubes to you blokes on the other side of the pond), vinyl, kits and much more at wonderful prices.

 

The Tron Type 211 stereo valve amplifier (£9,000). A glorious twelve watts of pure "Class-A" zero feedback is produced by this unit. Other valves in this design consist of the 5U4 for rectification and two small 5842 for the driver stage. All parts are completely hard wired (no circuit boards used) while the top-plate is CNC machine cut.

 

Seen here first: The Jan Allaerts MC2 Formula 1 cartridge (£5,500) uses what they claim are the very latest of materials. A derivative of F1 technology helps make the MC2 Formula 1 their state-of-the-art piece. Output is rated as 150mv with an 850 ohm loading. Frequency response is stated to be from virtually zero to  about 100 kHz! This cartridge is mounted on the Audiocraft tonearm AC400 (£2,650). Their representative said it is basically like a Graham with adjustable dampening, easily settable VTA via a top knob while the arm tube is tapered to assist in reducing resonance.

 

Seen here first: The all new Avantgarde Acoustic Zero hornspeaker ($7,000 USD), their 12" model, is the first of their new series of Zero coaxial hornspeakers. Holger Fromme, President of the company, says that the Zero series are designed for the home theatre enthusiasts or those who lack the space for their larger hornspeakers. The Zero 12 uses a 12" midrange/woofer that employs a large 4" voice coil. The tweeter is centrally located within the bass/midrange driver for time/phase coherence. It also uses the same tweeter as their upper line Uno while the tweeter's centrally-mounted enclosure also acts as a phase plug for the 12" driver. Frequency response is claimed as 32Hz to 20kHz with a >97dB/W/m. A built-in 150 watt amplifier is also part of this package.

 

Ray Kimber of Kimber Cables was happy to announce that they now officially have the patent for the DiAural technology (U.S. Patent #6,115,475). In other news, Kimber has replaced their Select KS-1010 and KS-1020 with their new KS-1011 and KS-1021. These interconnects use twice the amount of conductors as their previous design (price not given). The KS-1030 remains their top-line model and unchanged.

 

Coming from Russ Andrews is their new line conditioner called The Silencer (£40). They have other, larger models priced a bit more of course. The main purpose of the Silencer is to eliminate the noise within the power line. The Silencer should be placed near the same appliances that seem to produce noise within your power lines (washer, dryer, refrigerator, etc). For only £40 they should be worth a go.

 

Pioneer was showing their only available in Japan DVR-1000 recordable DVD unit (¥250,000). This unit only records on DVD-RW media whereas their upcoming newer model, the DVR-2000, will record on both DVD-RW and DVD-R. As an added bonus, the new DVR-2000 allows you to make recordings that are compatible with your pre-existing video player!

 

REL, known for putting some boom in your room, were playing their Stentor III (£2,5000) that includes a single long-throw powerful 10" driver. Using a 3" voice coil and built-in 300 watt rms. amplifier, there was bass a-plenty in the REL room. A 12dB crossover is also included as is adjustment for phase and output volume level. Frequency response is from 14-100 Hz. REL was also showing their new Q400E which is part of their lower line series. Using a 300 mm very long throw woofer and built-in 400 watt amplifier, this unit is said to faithfully reproduce frequencies from 16-106Hz. Both REL subwoofers come in various wood coloured, and black, finishes.

 

In the Tannoy room was their new Dimension TD12 (£6,000/pr). A 12" paper pulp cone with twin roll surround woofer and top-mounted 1" 25-micron titanium dome tweeter give this unit an overall frequency response of 30Hz to 54kHz. Stunning high density 1" Birch ply is used for the enclosure and the finish color is American cherry.

 

Another loudspeaker manufacture, Energy, had their new Veritas 2.3 (£2,495/pr) showing in good form. It uses their own drivers while the cabinet construction is of the interlocking variety to maintain enclosure rigidity. A special magnet structure for the woofer consists of a unique rear-mounted screwed that applies pressure from the rear of the driver to the inside rear of the cabinet. Energy claims this reduces cabinet resonances as well as driver resonant distortions to aid in purer, clearer music reproduction.

 

Mission's new model M73 (£199.90/pr) uses their new driver technology. A microfibre soft dome tweeter and twin glass composite 160mm midrange/bass driver help this unit to deliver room-filling sound. This is a two-way bass reflex floor standing loudspeaker that comes in either Graphite Black or European Beech colour. 

 

Monitor Audio's new Gold Reference 60 (£2,300/pr) is a direct replacement for the studio 60 and is now their flagship loudspeaker in their Gold Reference line. The complete line consist of four units such as their Gold Reference 20 (£1,499/pr), Gold Reference 10 (£799.95) and their centre channel Gold Reference Centre (£599). All models use their C-CAM tweeters that are an aluminum magnesium done and Ferrofluid cooled. All the models are made from 22mm MDF and for visual beauty use mirror image veneers.

 

Seen here first: Showing of their Ninka (£895/pr in black) and photograph above Katan (£600/pr in black) are designed for multi-channel use. These are not to be underestimated as an extremely unique crossover is employed. They can be used with crossover in the signal's path... or without. Because Linn's amplifiers have active crossovers built-in, you can eliminate the additional parts within the crossover for ever purer sound. The Katan is a two-way bookshelf loudspeaker that includes Linn's new wide dispersion dome tweeter. Also at the show is their new Knekt KIVOR system as we covered in our recent CEDIA 2000 show coverage.

 

Click here for Friday's coverage!