This review page is supported in part by the sponsors whose ad banners are displayed below

Though the professional photos should have given it away, I was still struck by the 31cm height. Even cannus longus like tall Staxes won't hit shiny chrome bottom. No need to retract slide-out stems or shorten expandable headbands. What photos cannot properly show is the quality of the paint. The delivered unit in white looked and felt like top quality porcelain rising coolly but expensively from that heavy base.

With audio-technica ATH 'El Raffinato' W5000 in the hard-hat work zone


With the 22mm-stem buttons there was instant law and order on the desktop even with long cables. Very pleasing if you're cursed with Teutonic conditioning. Of course we specifically picked the small French part of Switzerland to live in, not the far bigger German bits up north. Like the Italians, the French know how to live. But some order is vital. That's why Italians love to marry Germans. The bus arrives on time. That nicely combines functionality and hedonism for a best of both worlds. Like Switzerland's canton of Vaud. Like the CanCans.


Very Teutonically correct and industrious was that non-slip rubber mat. But like the best Scandinavian designs, it also was out of sight. It won't mar what it stands on, it won't mar cosmetics. Slick and sticky both at once.

Nearly fully extended Audez'e LCD-2 | next to iMac with ALO Audio T brace at left, Sieveking Omega at right

Even my far girthier than normal ALO Audio chain-mail cable on my favorite Audez'e orthos slinked around the green and yellow buttons just fine. All tied up and no place to go until the next listening session. Good dog.


Not my Burson headphone DAC whose 6mm aluminum panels make for a mini fortress but many DACs and headphone amps of less material overkill often appreciate being mass loaded to stop their resonant top panels from ringing. Parking the CanCans atop like a klutz would be good medicine then. While on parking, the shiny chromy footer had me flash on Harley Davidson and the weekend bike porn outside a bar in Calabasas/California when decked-out cruisers were parked one next to the other for half a mile. Admirers walked up and down this aisle getting ideas for their next bolt-on aftermarket job whilst strategically overlooking the Japanese crotch rockets in their plastic fairings. Wanting to get down with the footer to find out what it was, I asked. "The silver finish is actually aluminum but polished pristinely by a company that specializes in Harley Davidson and classic car chrome & metal details. We tested whether we should coat it but chrome didn’t give us the right glow (a bit too much 'blue' and therefore too hard) and we even lacquered it clear but that just took away some of the shine. So now it’s untreated and beautiful."


If that sounds luxurious, it sure looks it. And if you don't take your gramma too serious—the Klutzes clearly don't—then fluff rhymes with luv. And that was exactly my reaction when I peeled out this object d'art from its professional carton. Luff at first sight. I don't remember the name of the South-of-the-border hit man movie but fondly remember a line: Are you a Mexican or Mexican't? The CanCans don't know can't. They're can twice over. Expensive? You bet. But so are Caran d'Ache pens. They don't write any better than a cheap Bic. Of course otherwise there's no comparison.

With beyerdynamic T1 and wide ALO Audio chain-mail cable

From the various stops I've made along cannery row—headphone storage by way of ALO Audio's T, repurposed Ikea kitchen hooks suspended from a towel rack behind my iMac, a garden center Buddha head too wide to be easy and too coarse to be kind to ear cushions, Sieveking's very slick steam-curved woodie without cord provision—none compared to the Klutz. Stylish, lavish, perfectly functional, substantial and particularly with the Art Deco buttons also whimsical to escape the corporate B&O board room, I think the Klutz is the hammer. If the chair turns out anything like it, audiophiles might for once allocate serious funds also to what they sit in...

Klutz Design website
 
Enlarge!