Announcing Some Hot Audio News from California and Serbia:

(26/10/07)

Dear audiophile friends,

today I'm proud to announce you what two hi-end manufactors are just releasing.

Vulcanic Magma from Serbia

NAT is doing a new top amplifier, based on an exotic but very powerfull tube. This will be probably the most powerful Single Ended ever done, since it has 170 W (just like twenty 300B!). Do you consider to be a good price 1500 E for a 300B SE? Then its cost of about 30.000E should be considered good...

Unfortunately I had not the opportunity to listen this new super-amp, but Mirko Smolic (importer for Slovenija) told me that it can compare with a more than six time costing exclusive amp from VAVAC. If I will have more info I will post it here.

From Adagio to Crescendo: AZ sp.s grow!

What follow are only some pictures, not made by me, of a new product, so I can't really say nothing on how it sounds. In any case, I'm a fan of the Acoustic Zen speakers (I have the AZ Adagio) and when Robert Lee told me about a big brother of the Adagio you can just imagine my curiosity. So, here follow the pictures of the Crescendo (another nice italian name!), which Robert sent me from a very hot -burning!- California.

The CRESCENDO sp.s are a 3-way trasmission-line system with a “head”similar to the Adagio (but with a horn-loaded ribbon tweeter instead of the circular ribbon one) and a new “foot” which includes a subwoofer made with two 8” ceramic-coated paper woofers. The membrane should be similar to those of the 6½” Adagio woofers, while the bass-midrange woofers used here in D'Appolito configuration have a 5” membrane in paper and Lithen-Magnism alloy. Sounds interesting?! Of course all the woofers are “under-hung” (short coil in a long magnetic field) and the 8” declared performance includes a Xmax of +/-8mm!

The third-order xover cut the sub-woofer at 250 Hz, while the tweeter is cut at 2.5 kHz. Frequency responce is 20~30,000 Hz. (+/-3 dB), while sensitivity is 86dB and impedance is declared at 6 Ohm.

As usual, the AZ sp.s are finished in a really wonderful laquered wooden!

With a suggested reatil price of 12.000 US$ I believe that Avalon, Kharma, Wilson... (listed in strictly alphabetical order) should be aware of a new unwanted competitor!