Ljubljana Hi-Fi Show 2010 reportage:

(201010016)

Dear audio friends,

after missing the 2009 Ljubljana Hi-Fi Show, this year I was able to visit the show and hence you can have my photographic reportage. Enjoy!

The greatest new of the show were the new Ktema loudspeakers, from Franco Serblin (founder of Sonus Faber), not yet seen in Italy in a public show.	Also the -integrated- amplifier was from Italy, being the Promiteus? from Absoluta Srl. The source was a Blacknote CDP500.	The back of the Ktema shows the monowiring and many long “holes”.
Also along the two sides there are a few “wave guides” for the two internal woofers.	The frontal two small midranges and the soft dome tweeter are mounted on a independent baffle, that is much “Sonus Faber like”.	On the back angles there are the main “port” for the low frequency output. Sincerely, I was missing the deep bass frequency, even if I must confess that the music played was always of bad quality, so it was difficult to judge.

Intek was showing a McIntosh (including the 301 player) with Dynaudio speaker system and a Creek with Vienna Acoustic speaker system. Hi-Res files played by the Olive server.	Interestingly, this big Naim speaker has also two ribbon tweeters on the top side.
These are the Vienna Acoustic Klimt, if you like modern art...	New from the Slovenian Gallus are the “small” version of their speakers. Together with Rogue tube based amps the sound was not bad, but not so high as the price requested (14kE?).

Mirko Smolic was showing his turntables with the usual Serbian Nat electronics and the big Slovenian Gallus speaker. While the sound of these speaker was much better than what I have listened two years ago (with Prima Luna amps) I still have some problems on the high frequency and in the crossover region. I must admit that all the system was very transparent, but the requested price for these big Gallus (24kE?) seems overrated.
Very nice the multi-motors Smolic turntable with Omega tonearm and Clearaudio cartridge.	The Nat Se-1 monoblocks are always very fascinating!

Mirko Smolic was showing his turntables with the usual Serbian Nat electronics and the big Slovenian Gallus speaker. While the sound of these speaker was much better than what I have listened two years ago (with Prima Luna amps) I still have some problems on the high frequency and in the crossover region. I must admit that all the system was very transparent, but the requested price for these big Gallus (24kE?) seems overrated.

Very nice the multi-motors Smolic turntable with Omega tonearm and Clearaudio cartridge.

The Nat Se-1 monoblocks are always very fascinating!

A new promising Slovenian company: Alto Audio, from Ljubljana. The prototypes included three speakers and two integrated amplifiers. A CD player is on the way.	This AA integrated amp was using four KT88 in a “secret” single ended mode which delivered only 10W and a damping factor of about 4. No feedback is used.
The big ball is a passive subwoofer. The three speakers (monoway, line array and omnidirectional) were all without crossover. The spherical large band has a Japan-made driver.	Sasa Burian, owner of Alto Audio, was testing the 45kg of weight for his integrated amp.

The upstairs rooms:

In the small, but well-sounding Kuzma room, there were electronics from Time de Paravicini (EAR) and ASR.	The new Hex8 from Q.A.T. (Kranj, SLO) is a line array with eight EAD 5cm drives working in the 140-18kHz range (94dB). The introductory price is not so small, being 4.5kE, but the sound was very good. The lowest part was covered by a cheap JWC subwoofer.
I never have listened the Stabi S playing so well! OK, just the three ebony clamps used as big feet cost about 1kE, so we can say that the system playing was more expensive than the Stabi S alone.	Another news: the Kuzma Stogi S 12” unipivot tonearm with the VTA regulation mechanism, sold at about 1kE.

I always reported good sound from the Croatian ALB speakers. This year the designer was showing also a prototype of a good integrated amp.	Very large Sprague capacitors in the PS. EI PCC88 tubes in the input and voltage gain stages, while the output current buffer is done with HexFET from International Rectifiers

The Tom Evans speakes and monoblocks. Each monoblock has 8 EL84 tubes.	Very nice the Tom Evans aluminum-made drivers.
Canyon Audio was showing a Maranz – Leben – Davis system. For me, the sound of the Davis speakers had not a very good tonal balance.	The nice Leben CS660P power amp (push-pull of KT66) was used as an integrated (it has the input potentiometer!).

At the end of the show the day was so nice that we had to go downtown and visit Tromostoje.

Hope to see you the next year!