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Audio Spectrum Hifi has a vast range of loudspeakers divided into the Excellence, Reference and Home Theater Series.








Crystal Audio from Southern Greece too designs and builds dynamic loudspeakers.




Sonus Aeterna specializes in 2-way hornspeakers. They showed two models, the Dedalos V with Soulution electronics from Switzerland and the smaller Kydon with valve gear from their friends at TruLife Audio.




The Dedalos V combines a 16" woofer with an elliptical horn that converts into a quad-vented alignment below 100Hz with a 2-inch TAD TD4001 loaded into a spherical horn which can be moved foreward and back for time alignment and rotated in/out to optimize soundstage width. The horns are constructed from a double-wall mix of Kevlar and Carbon fiber. This model and its smaller sibling are both rated as being 101dB efficient.


At the left are Cyrill Hammer, owner of Spemot AG and the Soulution brand, and Constantinou Costas of Sonus Aeterna.



The Kydon sports a single-piece monocoque box construction, elliptical 12" bass horn and 1-inch compression tweeter. On Friday, this speaker sounded bedeviled by all manner of apparent lobing, beaming and comb-filtering effects. Those proved mysteriously absent the next day when Mr. Costas had replaced the CD player to remind us that assigning cause/effect relations during brief auditions is impossible. Moving the speakers out rather farther from the wall than shown and eliminating the closer row of chairs altogether arrived at a very promising sound. The bigger model had already taken to the Soulution ultra-wide bandwidth transistor gear in a big way. Having some time to kill on Sunday however, I spent a full hour with the Dedalos V. With Mr. Costas' kind permission who was happy with the changes we had effected on his smaller system, we again experimented with speaker placement to have these models better play the room and minimize certain compression effects from the rear wall. This too proved beneficial. Based on these show impressions, I believe that Sonus Aeterna has really done their home work on the Dedalos V and authored a very mature hornspeaker.



SPL Audio named after Stavros Pitiakoudis offers both loudspeakers and tube electronics - and quite a few of either. As they explain it on their website, the company began in 1985 with audio-related research in an anechoic chamber in Germany. Their Greek operations commenced in 1993 and today they work "in a 700sqm shop with high-quality facilities for research, manufacturing, and technical support. We provide services related to commercial audio & video systems, organization of sound installations, acoustics and lighting, prototype R&D, production and manufacture of loudspeakers, installation of audio and visual systems. We also maintain a department for digital applications and technical support for all of the above."






Greek Tandem equipment racks could be seen in a number of exhibits as here with Ayre and Magico.


After caressing ears and shocking wallets with his 6C45 input, 300B driver, 833 output 150-watt SET monos with 1800 volts on the rails at the Munich HighEnd Show, Velissarios Georgiadis, calculator in hand—and routinely also his cherished 1959 Telecaster— has worked hard since to reduce costs of these TruLife Audio tube amplifiers without compromising sonics.


The new HotRod Series is the result. It also includes an all-new preamp circuit based on two Russian 6C30 double triodes and an EZ80 rectifier. Based on the export prices he quoted, the tall new—internal triple decker—chassis for the monos and simplified enclosure for the preamp should make these models radically more affordable. Naturally, by the time importers and retailers get into the act, all bets will be off. Like others, Velissarios is sick of this particular business model. And also like others, he doesn't have any real solutions. Going factory-direct for this type of product simply isn't one.




Of course his customary battle-ship approach remains in place for those who can afford it. The smaller Sonus Aeterna system had his 211 monos and the mighty Essence preamp with its twin outboard power supplies.



Having now heard the German Cessaro horns with Allnic Audio Labs and Zanden Audio amplifiers, I can categorically say that these Grecian amps play in a different league altogether. Luxury markets like Hong Kong and Russia should seriously investigate this company. With two generations of in-house transformer expertise under their belts and exclusively direct-coupled circuits—all interstage transformers, no capacitors in the signal path—TruLife Audio is arguably the premier ultra-fi audio purveyor of Greece at this time. I much preferred the sound their new amps made with Cessaro to how Burmester mated up with the big Acapella horns in the gargantuan exhibit by import house Orpheus.


At right, designer Velissarios behind his beefy 833 transmitter tube.


Tsakiridis Devices is another valve audio firm from Greece that dates back to 1987 and specializes in affordable electronics. Prior to the show, their UK importer solicited us for a review. Writer Chris Redmond on staff is scheduled to do the honors so I expect that in the new year, we'll have a formal performance report on one of their amplifiers.


Tubes and horns. Do we detect a Greek appetite for such exotica? Manolis Proestakis' Tune Audio Anima was another Greek 3-way hornspeaker [€24,000/pr] that combines an epoxy-resin Tractrix horn with a Titanium/Neodymium 1" compression tweeter, a Baltic Ply Tractrix midrange horn with a 5-inch driver and a downfiring exponential bass horn with a 15-incher. 1st-order crossovers hover at 250Hz and 1,500Hz respectively. The nominal impedance is 8 ohms, minimum impedance 6.2. There are output adjustments for the mid and high-frequency units and system sensitivity is given as a very high 110dB. With Hørning Hybrid's 22-watt Sati SET running 52B triodes, this really was a very promising debut despite a small room and nearfield listener accommodations.


Ypsilon had their 40-watt SET100 power amplifier on static display. This version runs a GM-70 in a 3-stage circuit. And with this 'Y' entry, we now conclude the Grecian audio maker introductions of this report.