Cabasse introduced their brand new column speaker. Assembled in Cabasse studios located in Plouzané, France, the Murano Alto is a compact column speaker offering big sound. The vitality and the generosity of the association of the medium-tweeter coaxial driver from our masterpiece system l'Océan, to the two woofers with honeycomb membranes, make it possible to peruse through all genres of music procuring intense delight to listeners everywhere.
We live in strange times when people often throw away old stuff to buy something new, not always better. Everything gets replaced faster and faster, sometimes just for the sake of making small changes in our lives. Not surprisingly, some people are not taking part in this process anymore. Instead, they started looking for true quality in products that have been manufactured long ago. The only trouble is, these things are not easy to find.
British monitors gained an exceptional appreciation in the audiophile world. Many manufacturers of such sets have rich and interesting history, often intertwined with famous recording studios. Even today, in the offer of PMC or ATC there is a sharp line dividing the consumer and professional segment. Obviously, every manufacturer dealing with professional equipment likes to boast about it everywhere, but it is also fair to say that many British companies have the right to do so. Among many institutions, one has become the real breeding ground of speaker talents - the British Broadcasting Corporation. Boxes originally developed for the BBC have 'that something' - the sound which is difficult to replicate even today. Most of the engineers have abandoned the old way of building the speakers, but a few companies are still faithful to those proven solutions. Graham Audio is one of them.
Companies making audio equipment can be divided into those big ones, which produce relatively considerable amounts of generally likeable equipment and smaller ones - usually very specialized workshops whose products are often more original, distinctive and individual. Those smaller factories are the ones who create advanced amplifiers in individualized enclosures, speakers using extraordinary drivers or turntables shaped like works of art. Inventions like that are made for the music enthusiasts and connoisseurs. They are not mass-produced in giant factories. These items are made for those who generally appreciate such a sophisticated equipment, and sometimes they are personalized just for one client, who ordered speakers in a specific colour or with some modifications applied just in this one instance. Eryk S Concept is one of these manufacturers. Here, every device is unconventional, and almost every element of an amplifier or speaker deserves our attention. Is the new Red King Premium going to sound as well as it looks?
Whenever I hear about the possibility of reviewing Xavian speakers, I'm already enthusiastic. These speakers are designed to stand out from the mass-produced crowd, but this is not the end of the story. As almost every review begins with the company's history, this time I'll skip the story about a charismatic audiophile who moved to Czech Republic from Italy for his wife, hired talented carpenters and so on... One can just visit Xavian's official website or take a closer look at its products to realize that we have some seriously specialized activity here. In Xavian's speakers there is no cheap plastic, gimcrack, drivers for half a dollar or wood-like veneer that comes out of the printer. Roberto Barletta doesn't design the speakers that will work with any cheap receiver, and the tuning of each new model takes several years on average. Perhaps that is why every new product and every major change in Xavian's catalogue is a big deal. The introduction of Perla and Orfeo monitor speakers was just such a step change. Now new boxes joined the family.
Audiovector is a company which doesn't need an extra philosophy - what it already has is enough to tell the story. And the story was mainly created by one man - Ole Kliffoth. He is responsible for most of the solutions Audiovector uses in its speakers, including five foundations of corporate technology - ADC (Active Direct Concept), IUC (Individual Upgrade Concept), LCC (Low Compression Concept), SEC (Soundstage Enhancement Concept) and NES (No Energy Storage). In conjunction with other features, they have one job - to make the sound faster, more direct and more dynamic. Audiovector's products are easy to recognize because of the curved side walls, metal panels with drivers and various, sometimes very bold, finishing versions.
For most people, an amplifier or speaker is an object like everything else, but for music lovers they mean a whole lot more. What's important is not only how audio equipment looks or sounds, but also who designed it, how and where it's made, what is the philosophy behind it. The name Audiothlon may not say much to most audiophiles, but some will surely know Equilibrium and Enerr. These are the two brands owned by Audiothlon, much like Audiolab and Luxman are owned by IAG. Equilibrium makes hi-end speakers and a variety of cables, and Enerr's specialty is everything related to power - distributors, conditioners and of course power cables. They are all made in the same factory located in Zielona Góra in Poland. Since we were the first journalists licensed to get inside with our cameras, we took quite a lot of pictures and tried to get the best understanding of how all these products are made.
Audio Video Show in Warsaw is the second biggest hi-fi show in Europe, and this year it just got bigger. Some say it's not much smaller than High End in Munich now and we are not surprised. The event was able to grow so much thanks to the new venue. In recent years the show was held in three hotels in Warsaw, but even four or five hotels wouldn't provide the necessary room for 135 exhibitors and more than 10,000 visitors we had this year, so the organizer of the show replaced one of the hotels with... The Polish National Stadium. Not the football pitch of course, but rather 60 VIP rooms and many, many stands located on the corridors. For the first time in history, the Audio Video Show included a special headphone zone with more than 50 brands showing their products and allowing visitors to listen to every one of them, much like the CanJam, but to us - even more interesting.
Next summer Yamaha is brining the next generation of NS-5000 loudspeakers. Yamaha has explored in the past few years various possibilities for implementation of new technologies and materials, that would make a key elements in the making of the next generation of the speakers. Primal goal was the natural sound that inherits all the best attributes from the legendary NS-30 and NS-20 speakers released back in the 1968. Yamaha wants to bring a balanced sound across the entire bandwidth and overwhelming low distortion. Photos by Yamaha.