Germany's Audio Physic showed a new version of
the venerable Virgo loudspeaker. A novel feature of new Virgo is the bass enclosure (shown
to the right), which is actually inserted into the main cabinet. This sub enclosure
contains two active and two passive drivers. By housing these drivers in a different
chamber and isolating that chamber, the company's goal to keep the woofer chamber's
resonances away from the main cabinet is achieved. The price of the new Virgo is 9000 DM
per pair.
Now this is a line conditioner!
Brinkmann, the company that amazed us by producing every component in their extraordinary
show system, displayed the massive Deep Blue -- a 6kW line conditioner that retails for
6000 DM. This was part of the complete Brinkmann system that we recognized as a Standout.
On top of Audio Aero's Capitole 24/192 CD
player the company prominently displayed a quote from Doug Schneider's SoundStage!
review of the unit: "One of the best CD players I've heard. In fact, CD players like
this don't even have me wanting for DVD-A and SACD." While every word Doug wrote was
true, in a way he now regrets them because...
...Audio Aero gave a first glimpse of their
new Prestige A/V player, which is supposed to be available in December. It supports
multichannel SACD, DVD-V, CD, CD-R, CD-RW and CD-V, and it also has Dolby Digital and DTS
decoders built in. Reportedly it will have a volume control, so all you have to do is
connect the player directly to the amplifiers! It's hard to ask for much more. The price
is estimated at $8000 USD, and you can be assured Doug wants it for review.
