Shazam. Cowabunga. Hot damn. Whatever your patois of agreeable surprise, if you're a double-crossing 2.1 hifier—high flyer?—you're aware that doing our deed in the high-end two not multi-channel realm has few options particularly in the analog domain. After all, how many preamps can you name which build in a fully adjustable hi/lo-pass filter to properly integrate a subwoofer? No, music not movie preamps are snobs when it comes to subs. At most they give us a second pre-out. Yes that'll shake hands with a sub's low-pass input but it won't subtract bass from the mains in perfectly mirror-imaged fashion for linear phase, reduced excursions so lower distortion and reduced voice-coil heat so less dynamic compression. For all that you're limited to either subs which add a hi-pass out (hello nearly inevitable A/D⇒D/A conversion on plate electronics) or one of the few mostly very costly analog active crossovers à la JL, spl and Wilson. If you prefer something built in to eliminate an extra set of cable, your options until now were just one at least according to my canvassing: Pál Nagy's icOn 4Pro SE. Otherwise built-in meant the digital domain à la Bel Canto, Linn and TotalDAC.
With Aavik's press release of yesterday, we now add their C280/580 Control Amplifiers with optional €4K crossover module to the analog options. That module can apparently double as precision room corrector. Exactly how the latter flies we don't yet know. The press release had no details on selectable filter points, slopes or other tweaky details. When asked, I was bluntly told that theirs was a press release not white paper. So we'll stay tuned until that drops. For now it suffices to know that Audio Group Denmark of the Aavik, Ansuz and Børresen brands just added themselves to the very narrow sector of forward-thinking hifi companies who don't view subwoofers as just bottom feeders for dubious boom boom. At €4'000 their contribution is admittedly a far cry from SublimeAcoustic's $499 K231 but so is the rest of the current analog competition which wants from $3-4.5K. Aavik sit smack in the same frame. Considering their multitasking room-correction feature, we should expect unusually comprehensive adjustment facilities to pay back in exploded functionality. But that's all I've got on the subject just yet; baited breath and all.
Perhaps one more thing? Thinking folks will expect a Børresen subwoofer or two 'round the bend; and/or a statement bass tower to complement their flagship speaker via active filter. For either scenario the foundation is now laid. Whatever the transducer part of this equation will turn out to be, with Børresen's established need for speed—precision, timing, damping and control—we should be in for a treat. Slow woolly bloated bass is for the mammoths, mastodons and dinosaurs one aisle over. With ex Gryphon boss Flemming Rasmussen now part of this design team, who knows just how far they will push their counter proposal? Once more details on the new Control Amplifiers drop, that picture should clarify more. For now we're alerted to the fact that something interesting is coming down this pike…
Aavik's website
