More from Frankfurt - The Audioplan Kontrast
Following on from our coverage of Frankfurt, below, we can reveal
that one of the speakers which so impressed Michael is from a small
company called Audioplan. Prior to Frankfurt, we had heard little of
Audioplan, but we are now on a mission to change that!. Audioplan is
a specialist company in the best sense of the word. They make a very
focused line of two way speakers and the Kontrast is the model which
has impressed us most thus far. We'll be posting a full review soon.
For the present, suffice it to say that this speaker combines Quad-like transparency, with the dynamics and presence of a good box
speaker. We know that similar claims have been made ad nauseam in
the past, but in this case there is no hype from the manufacturer,
we are simply reporting what we and those visitors to the shop who
heard the speaker have experienced. Watch out for our full review soon.
Now that we have the website up and running, we are re-directing
our attention to providing you with regular news and views on all
aspects of high fidelity sound and vision.
This week's update features brief news of Michael's visit to the
Frankfurt Hi Fi Show. Frankfurt is Europe's premier show, with a
huge array of visitors from all over the continent. But as with all
shows, Michael's experience was very much a case of "diamonds
in the dirt", with real effort needed to identify the products
of real interest.
Paradoxically, while many rooms featured excessively forward,
fatiguing speakers, Michael did identify a couple of new speaker
lines which offer real promise. More on this in a future update...
The other aspect of the Frankfurt show that really stood out was
the number of rooms which featured analogue, and vinyl specifically,
as their main source. This is refelective of a general upsurge of
interest in the venerable LP record as a source of top quality
music. And its not just a continental phenomenon. Anyone who has
visited the major record shops in Dublin City Centre can't help but
be struck by the increasing number of new releases which are
featuring prominently on vinyl as well as CD. But this is only the
tip of the iceberg as the range of LPs available over the net is
truly astonishing. More on this specifc aspect also in a future
post.
In the meantime, we are continuing the vinyl
theme by posting the first of a new series of analogue
reviews. Check menu on the left for more.
