All prices are in German marks unless otherwise noted.
At time of show report, 1 U.S. dollar is worth approximately 2.1 German marks.

Post-Show Report - Part 2
by Robert Jørgensen

Speakers, amplifiers and other assorted goodies

Is this the birth of a new Danish legend? I can’t really tell you yet, but come back in a couple of years. It just might be. Now I didn’t know this company before the show, but I will certainly be telling you more.

Danish Physics was started last year by Don Flanz, whose name might not mean anything to you. He has over 20 years of experience in the large-scale production of loudspeakers, first with Jamo and then with Dali, two of the largest producers of speakers in Denmark. We are talking about real production here -- thousands of speakers.

The first thing that struck me was a more than passing resemblance to the Dali Grand line (this translates to great looks in my book). This is not so strange considering where Flanz is coming from. Looking closer, though, and discussing the design you find out that most other things differ. One thing that really got me was the platform the spiked cabinet is resting on. It also has spikes, but they are retractable via a small thumbwheel, so you can move the speaker around without ruining your wife's parquet floor or tearing up the carpet.

We listened specifically to the 2.5-way Point-Zero 2 together with an integrated amplifier as well as a CD player from Gryphon. In a difficult room, the sound was well balanced and had fine resolution and a very powerful presentation. Bass was firm and deep. What seemed like a subtle stridency in the lower treble went away after going from bi-wiring to single wiring.

Don Flanz stressed his aim to deliver an honest product with true high-end pedigree and more than a passing nod to good value for your money. With distribution in capable hands and already a good number of dealers in the important German market, these speakers will certainly be the subject of some forthcoming reviews. But don’t forget where you read about them first.

The Castle Howard Series 3 seen rightmost in the picture is what I would call a superb English speaker. It is very refreshing to see a company that has been around for quite a long time and has enjoyed and hopefully will continue to enjoy some well-deserved success based on solid engineering.

Castle’s claim to fame has been the use of quarter-wave loading, enabling them to get more than the average amount of bass out of moderately sized speakers. Perhaps I feel a bit related since the first speaker I ever built with my father was a quarter-wave design. Nonetheless, I was not aware of the fact that Castle actually designs and builds their own drive units, something most companies forego. This obviously allows them the ability to tailor the drivers to specific applications.

Beyond this I can say that Castle is obviously still doing something right since the Howard Series 3 played what I would consider real music together with electronics from Electrocompaniet of Norway. For those not playing music in ballrooms and looking for a well-balanced presentation, this is one speaker to hear.

Norway's Hegel makes electronics that don’t need their good looks to turn your head, but then I think I talked about that already a couple of years ago when I met these guys for the first time. They seem to have survived the early difficult times for a new company, have gotten themselves a nice sales manager, Eva Andersen (shown above), and some real representation, which obviously is needed if you want to break into established markets.

This time in Frankfurt I heard Hegel playing their superbly executed CD player and preamp with their new smaller power amp and the Magnepan 1.6 speakers. I must say that it was a fortuitous combination. I have sometimes heard the Magnepans sound a little bit boring, even with very (and I mean VERY) expensive amplification, but this combination had all I wanted sound-wise and looked exceedingly stylish too.

You can build on these Copulare stands (and I’d be tempted to say you could almost build a house). In fact, if I came home with the turntable support seen on the left, I'm sure my wife would ask if it was a chair for a circus elephant. One of the first of the "extreme" German support builders, Georg Brandl has been making these pieces of over-the-top audio furniture for a good many years. Gorgeous stuff, and all models can be made to your explicit wishes.

The support as well as the shelves, which are made from multiple layers of plywood that are then routed so as to be filled, can be filled with dried sand or an even more effective compound of multiple-sized shot. They are heavy and extremely non-resonant, I can assure you.

Auditorium 23 products are usually good for something completely different: analog, valve amps and speakers based on wideband drivers, often from the French manufacturer Phy. The Rondo (shown left) is a very unusual speaker in that not only does it have only one driver, its cabinet is shaped somewhat like a musical instrument and is open to the back and bottom, as well as being of only 3mm-thick plywood. A basic design idea is to utilize energy instead of absorbing and damping it. All of this certainly flies in the face of general loudspeaker design, but it is quite intended.

The superb Danish electronics from GamuT were demonstrated together with the unusual but beautiful Finnish Gradient speakers. After arriving at their room, Ole Lund Christensen and his German distributor were horrified by the acoustics. They were right to be, but being an acoustician, Ole went to work and produced what looked like a tent inside the room and with added absorption on top. This tamed the worst of the room problems, but still left it with more than a bit of flutter echo -- the terrible price of exhibiting in hotel bedrooms.

The GamuT M-200 offers a substantial 200 watts into 8 ohms and is said to be extremely stable. It is built along the same lines as the D-200 stereo amp but with just one channel per chassis and a phenomenal power supply. Playing together with the Gradient speakers, it produced very fine sound. The Gradient speakers are special in that they are dipoles (like most electrostatics and other planar speakers) but use dynamic speaker units. This makes it possible to somewhat "tune out" the room and achieve a very dynamic but natural sound.

Since I reviewed the D-100 for Danish High Fidelity some time ago and have been playing with a GamuT D-200 for a good many months now, a review of this amp might just be forthcoming.

Radical no-feedback single-ended battery-powered electronics and a really different dipole speaker are just some of the things Holfi is about. Or rather, these components form the path to help us audiophiles find musical ecstasy. Peter Holstein has remained faithful to his ideas over the years and is taking relatively extreme measures. All speaker drive units are treated in various ways to increase dynamic ability.

The high-end lifestyle

Many of the products or brands mentioned below have nothing that inherently says "lifestyle" except my feeling that such an amount of effort or flair has been applied to the way they look and feel. They attract not only hard-core audiophiles but perhaps spouses and other people more interested in the way the products fit into an environment than their ultimate audiophile character.

The amplifiers and CD players from BOW made Jeff Fritz’s mouth water. I can only agree. They not only sound great, but they also show build quality to die for (as they say). An interesting point for the tubephiles among us is that BOW’s main technical designer used to design and produce a no-compromise series of tube amps in Denmark years ago.  And yes, the remote control is awesome (as my children are want to say).

TAG McLaren has been receiving a lot of press since they took over Audio Lab, pumping gobs of money into the project. They are turning out a series of very interesting-looking speakers that are not my wife’s cup of tea. But if you’re into modern styling, they certainly combine drama with definite audiophile qualities.

TAG McLaren has also been getting into the home-theater market in a very impressive way. Their new Avant Garde series is a case in point. Besides the usual surround-sound modes, the TAG McLaren separates sport a very sophisticated surround mode derived from a normal stereo signal, which I personally have found to be very acceptable even for music lovers. Notice the sassy sliding lid on top of the DVD player in the picture above right. I could imagine myself playing a bit with these beauties.

But if we talk about lifestyle, I am sure a lot of people are interested in smaller, high-quality, good-looking setups. The much-loathed mini-systems are making their entry into the high end. To be quite honest, why not? Have a look at this TAG McLaren Aphrodite set. Not your usual high-end setup, eh? At around 15000 DM, it better be good though.

Advantage is a name that might not be so well known outside of Europe, but within it is certainly gaining a good reputation. It springs from the mind of Michael Bladelius, who originates from Sweden but spent a good number of years in the US working for quite a while with none other than Nelson Pass of Threshold and Pass Labs fame. A lot of practical experience and substantial amounts of creativity have produced a series of products that have received excellent reviews throughout Europe. These are being complemented by a new, quite stunning series of products, as you can see in the picture right. Technical qualities withstanding, I personally think these products look absolutely and extravagantly cool.

Densen, a Danish company not to be confused with Dennesen, has been making vast progress in the part of the market that demands serious sound quality, good looks and a price that does not necessarily drive you to bankruptcy. Densen products have been quite recognizable with their understated looks and one or two impossible-to-miss humongous metal (often gold) knobs on the front. Releasing a new CD player in this day could seem to be a strange move, but after having worked for several years on the model, Densen has found that it has received fine reviews.

Last year I could not resist the poster with the old ladies declaring that life was just too short for boring hi-fi. This meant that you didn't get a picture of "Mr. Densen," aka Thomas Sillesen, who is a smooth fellow, as you can see. He's almost as smooth as his electronics. Here he presents a new remote control. Quite an investment has been made in order to make this remote respond quickly to commands, useful from funny angles (something that really kills me about many remotes) and very sturdy. Unfortunately, I don’t think he will make it universal, so if you must have it, you have to buy some Densen electronics.

Paulaan speakers are the brainchild of Belgian designer Paul Vander Laenen. They combine transmission-line bass with a very solid marble front. The transmission line sits in a tube behind the marble front, and the speaker is equipped with Scan-Speak drivers. These speakers are more than just pieces of hi-fi furniture, however. Although I would advise Paulaan to perhaps attempt a bit more taming of the hotel room next year, the speakers certainly played so well that I would very much like to hear them under better conditions. I was impressed with the bass of such an elegant speaker.