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On the topic as to who was first with two counter-rotating turntable platters, my history teacher seems to think it was 47lab.


Not that it matters. Creating demonstrable results—and better than similar competition—is the real crux. That is, if you're in business to do business.


Martin Gateley pointed me at the new ppfff speakers—yes, that's their formal brand name—which rely on the same Enviée wideband driver as his soundkaos Wave 40. And Joachim Gerhard's Suesskind Puls. The Puls I didn't get to see because both man and speaker had moved offsite to yet another venue and were nowhere to be found in the Bfly booth as announced. This pianissimo to fortissimo room was hosted by the affable French gents of Absolué Creations whose upscale cable loom we'd already met in the Auris/Boenicke system.



Crammed into a counter-intuitively small space given their size, these German Acapella horns apparently gave a most brilliant showing of themselves as reader Kostas reported to me over breakfast in my hotel. It was his favorite room of the Marriott show. Mine was the Audiopax/Rethm pairing. He'd heard that too and conceded that it was stunning on vocals but felt it slightly handicapped on his big symphonic works.

Unlike in years past, Albedo Audio had vacated the static display concept on the ground floor to brave the big upstairs world of active demos with all the risks and DJing this entails. Now I had a chance to hear designer Massimo Costa's big 3-way floorstanders run off massive Italian valve amps. This confirmed it once again. When it comes to Thiele & Partners aka Accuton drivers, Albedo might be my favorite brand. I'm still sad to have let their smaller review loaners go back to Italy. At the end of the day of course there are only so many pairs a reviewer can own before the question on where to store them all can no longer be answered. That said, if I divested myself of one really big tower in standby in my entry hall, I'd be very tempted to reacquaint myself with the small pair in the foreground below. That was one shocking performer most ideally driven by my 60wpc Crayon Audio CFA-1.2.

Scalloped-surface slanted baffles; Helmholz-resonator fitted transmission lines; a metal sub-chamber for the woofers and much more go into these Albedo flagships. Their petit two-ways are all my space would require slightly augmented below 40Hz with my Zu Submission subwoofer. But for those with the requisite space and cashish, this big Albedo would be a speaker I'd personally consider before equivalent offerings from Kharma and Mårten Design.

Does the world need a €50'000/pr mini monitor? Kim Tranholm Nørgaard of Danish firm Ambitious Audio Design was most affirmatively affirmative. Sleek as sin and with a proprietary mid/woofer he couldn't talk about without having to off me later, I did concede that the seamless appearance was a marvel of industrial design and manufacturing chops. But I seriously begged to differ on the, ahem... fiscal positioning. That was my good deed for the day.


Anssi Hyvönen of Amphion—there's an Amphion les Bains on the French side of Lake Geneva just past Evian that ought to make him an honourary citizen—had one of his passive radiator-equipped pro monitors on display as well as some of his home models. This underlines his message that soon there won't be a distinction between speakers for these two markets.

Anssi was also showing concept models of omni-polar speakers with full d'Appolito arrays on all four faces. Amphion are about practical solutions for the real world, not vanity projects for the 1-percenters.

Antelope Audio were showing this new 10M atomic clock styled and sized to complete the Zodiac Platinum DAC with its outboard Voltikus supply. I asked their man on what sonic advances to expect. He admitted that on simple material it might be difficult to make out whilst things would get rather more pronounced on complex stuff where the precision clocking has the edge on separation and the complete recreation of recorded space. This 3-some would cost you roughly $10'000. Hey, this is the high end, not pro audio.