Displaying items by tag: review - StereoLife Magazine

The French are very progressive. Not only do they want to be first in everything, but they often are. It seems that the concept of usual economy is sometimes limited in this country. If it wasn't true, they probably wouldn't build the famous TGV train or the Millau Viaduct. Travel with ordinary train or a bus would be much cheaper after all, and instead of a giant overpass you could easily build a road leading down and then up the valley. The French definitely can go crazy. From time to time they put aside the standard thinking and do something that others see later in admiration. No wonder that many companies producing hi-fi equipment have built their power in France. Especially speakers manufacturers. Triangle is one of three largest producers of speakers in France. Founded in the early 80's, it first came up with some unusually shaped speakers, but many people criticized the company for a lack of technical innovation in the drivers.

People behind Audel Art Loudspeakers say that their main goal is to involve more people in high quality audio and in a way show them that listening to the music can bring even more fun than they thought. However, Italians don’t do this by organizing social campaigns, but through the creation of original looking speaker and electronics that can be used almost anywhere. Each model is a little piece of art and thus has to be different than the electronics standing next to the TV set or a home cinema receiver. Speakers are hand-made by highly skilled craftsmen. This should draw the attention of customers who appreciate high-quality materials and objects with a heart. All of the speaker cabinets are made of glued laminated birch wood elements, shaped by computer-controlled machines. Boxes put together this way are much stiffer than similar structures made of MDF panels. Cabinets are finished with natural wax polish. And I have to say, it looks wonderful.

Hegel products are minimalistic, but also full of innovative solutions. Their design is always very well thought out. The company was not established by marketing experts, instead Hegel was formed by a group of friends. One of them created the scheme of an amplifier, which pretty much eliminated all the shortcomings of traditional circuitries. In his opinion the major problem is the feedback - the main reason of the sound distortion. He also took into consideration that getting rid of any feedback in fact makes an amplifier weaker and more floaty in terms of sound. The man we are talking about is Bent Holter. His idea turned out to be not bad at all, because he managed to achieve high output power and less distortion at the same time. At some point a big telecommunication company - Telenor - became interested in his project. They paid for further development of this technology in exchange for shares of Holter's new company and what we know today as Hegel was born.