Here is brief report of our visit to Top Audio Milan last week.

Avantgarde Acoustic were demonstrating a Trio with Double Basshorn system together with their new XA series Power Amplifier.

Due to current parts shortages, the XA power amplifiers won’t go into full production until towards the end of this year.

They will be worth the wait however, judging by both the sound and their specifications. The amp will be full class A up to 7 watts, which is easily sufficient for all of Avantgarde’s Horn Speakers. Where more power is required for other speakers they will automatically switch to class AB and provide up to 150 watts per channel. Enough to easily drive just about any speaker on the planet with room to spare. This great flexibility will be one of the hallmarks of the new XA series.

The pre-amplifier was a prototype of their battery powered pre-amp which will also be part of the XA series.

In a room of about 60 square meters, they were achieving excellent results, with a wide range of music. A lot of large scale classical works, Rock, Jazz and World music, with all the life and vibrancy you expect from Avantgarde.

The Trio Horns were in a beautiful light bronze colour.

Audio Note had two rooms at the show. One to demonstrate their “affordable” system, the other, their “cost no object” system. Audio Note always amaze me at how much room filling life-like sound they manage to squeeze from their simple looking two way speakers. As is usually the case in Audio you would probably be very satisfied with the “Affordable” system, until you heard the ultimate Audio Note system which sported the top of the range famous Gaku-On mono block amplifiers with 211 tubes.

Audio Note have done more than simply continue the Kondo era legacy. Although a Kondo-San era Audio Note amplifier may seem the holy grail for many audiophiles, Audio Note’s Mario Binner confided in me that they have several customers who have switched from the Kondo version of one of their amps to the newer Audio Note UK equivalent. Obviously, the quality of passive parts and other factors do improve over time and I’m sure Kondo himself would be proud of the current Audio Note range of amplifiers.

 

KEF Blade We have been waiting with bated breath for the Blade for a few years. First shown as a concept back in 2009, we experienced it at the Bristol HiFi show in the UK and were very impressed. At that time a carbon fibre body was used and the crossover filter was in very large separate box on the floor. It sounded fantastic; but KEF were either teasing us when they told us it was purely a concept to test what was possible, or they weren’t sure themselves if it could ever become a reality. Well today it has. It is being launched right now to coincide with KEF’s 50th anniversary. Expect some glowing reviews from magazines and web-sites though-out the world.

Here is KEF’s Italian distributor demonstrating the Blade in Milan and looking appropriately excited by the event:

The Blade is designed as a virtual point source. In other words all the music seems to be emanating from the same place, despite multiple drivers being used. This was achieved by having two woofers symmetrically placed on each side of the speaker with each pair occupying the same acoustic space, as well as the placement of the main uni-Q array mid-range/tweeter driver and the shape of the enclosure. KEF finally settled on a fibre glass composite construction for the enclosure. A number of visitors were enthusiastically feeling and taping it to experience the complete absence of any vibration while music was playing. Quite an achievement.

Julia Davidson from KEF’s engineering team was responsible for the shape of the enclosure. Of course there are very “sound reasons” for choosing this particular shape.

The feminine influence is particularly apparent though and is likely to appeal equally to the ladies. The pair shown at the Milan show are in silver finish. The standard finishes are glossy white or black with a very wide range of additional colors available on request.

Hide your Amplifier and CD player, etc. in an AV cabinet from Spectral and you would have a system elegant enough to grace any home.

 

Fujitsu-Ten Eclipse is another High-Tech speaker with an acoustically inert rounded enclosure. In the case of the Eclipse the inert enclosure is achieved using a synthetic marble. The point source coherency is achieved by a single large band driver.

Their latest 712z MKII in a very sexy glossy black enclosure was being demonstrated.

A large subwoofer was placed in the middle of the room. It wasn’t connected though and didn’t need to be as the Eclipse was generating sufficient bass by itself.

Hideto Watanabe of Fujitsu-Ten showed me a cross section of one of their smaller speakers to show how these unique speakers are designed:

Finally, I was surprised to hear how good they were sounding with just a small rack of simple, relatively inexpensive electronics from Cyrus.

Music First were showing off their new “Baby Reference” passive magnetic. It uses exactly the same transformer as in their “Reference” model, except instead of remote volume control there is a 24 position stepped attenuator. As a consequence the “Baby Reference” comes in at around half the price of the “Reference”. For anyone looking for the ultimate passive pre-amplifier, this must be the solution. The pure sound obtained from passives, with their freedom from the mains, would be a fine choice for anyone who’s looking for a preamplifier that doesn’t add any qualities of its own.

 

Sound of the Valve Now to some extreme audio and for that in Italy we can always turn our attention to “The Sound Of The Valve”. Not a very Italian name, I know. They are a dealer for Scheu Turntables; but at this show they were showing off their own new Air Bearing Rosewood Reference Turntable with Linear tracking arm. This involves two surge tanks an air pump and filter. The Sound was simply gorgeous. Effortless and liquid, through NEAT speakers with their own “Sound Of The Valve” amplifiers (which were obviously not solid state).

A few hard whacks on the plinth with a solid object yielded no disturbance to the record playback whatsoever. Very impressive!

Ensemble A more down to earth, though still beautiful sounding turntable was an original Voyd 3 motor deck in the Ensemble room. This one is very close to my heart as I have owned a Voyd myself since 1988. The entire system was sounding very transparent and lifelike without any hint of aggression. To assemble entire systems ensuring that all parts work well together, including the accessories is, of course, the Ensemble approach.