Kicking off the annual hifi show circuit in Europe, there was the 2016 February event in Germany's Schleswig-Holstein region of Hamburg. It saw the premiere of Voxativ's new 'budget' speaker, the Zoile. Priced at €8'900/pr, "it has a new driver with higher QTS for more bass, a ferrite magnet system and paper cone. It will be available in April and in six colors and six veneers. Bass response is huge due to further developments of our Acoustic Stealth Technology. It has a horn facing down and the design is more modern than our existing systems. T-211 production is sold out so I'll send you one from the next batch." That was Holger Adler from Berlin. He responded to my query when a loaner integrated might drop. It was the assignment we'd shook hands on after he'd picked up the Voxativ 9.87 review system in our digs. His show setup above shows that integrated top left, the Voxativ preamp next to it, Voxativ monos on the floor and a two-piece TotalDAC discrete ladder converter as Holger's preferred front end. Even the cables were Voxativ's own.

Naturally, whenever the subject of 211-based integrateds arises, the coppery spectre of Kondo's legendary Ongaku pops up like a genie from a bottle. Whilst Voxativ do play it upscale, their electronics at least don't breach the heart-stopping Ongaku realm. Their Oshima output iron is Japanese though. As Hørning Hybrid, Ocellia and Rethm have seen fit too, Voxativ mint their own valve gear to accompany their crossover-less widebanders. If you suspect that those ingredients must join hands like peanut butter and jelly or ham with baked beans, you'd be spot on. Solid-state amps may find themselves invited to the hi-eff widebander dance—FirstWatt have some excellent options—but most makers of such speakers particularly in the 100dB-up camp really do prefer tubes. Lesser SET are often noisy and far from the last word in high definition and top resolution. It's logical then that folks like Holger Adler who have brought the requisite engineering talent in house will sooner or later opt to offer their own bottled options. It's not about power or necessarily even exotica status. It's primarily about performance which matches their speakers' ambitions and potential to create guaranteed results. After all, if you're going after Voxativ's €100'000+ Dué flagship, you're likely not keen on playing the costly SET lottery until something deigns to dovetail; eventually. You want your money's worth from day one. Plus, Holger himself needs solid assurances. At both the dealer/distributor and end user level, his speakers must strut their stuff to the max, not limp because some other amp was poorly picked but his speakers blamed. After all, nothing is as powerful a sales prevention agent as bad demos which are based on unfortuitous gear matching. This doesn't imply that Voxativ's integrated will only suit Voxativ speakers. Far from it. It simply promises top sonics and self noise low enough to not be audible even over 106dB microscopes.

Because Voxativ drive is on the menu as well, there's a buffered pre-out for the 9.87 system's active bass input; or any other subwoofer. S/NR lists as 100dB, input sensitivity as a high 520mV, output power as 14wpc. Being class A, power draw is a constant 200W regardless of volume. Dimensions are 47 x 25 x 43cm. Since the black-anodized housing is milled from solid—it starts out at well more than twice that—the 211 still weighs in at a substantial 48kg after its guts are routed out. With its oversized volume and input selector knobs, it perhaps suggests a sports car with enormous tyres. Knowing of Holger's past employ at Daimler/Mercedes Benz where he wrote numerous patents for Diesel combustion engines, big wheels seem fitting. Regardless, all of it spells the business; and most serious business at that. How gewaltig on the old portemonnaie? €13'900 for the base version, €16'900 with upgraded Oshima output transformers, €19'990 with silver-wired OPT. The preamp/driver tubes are 6SN7 and 6SL7 respectively. In the base version, those are sourced from Shuguang. The higher versions get gold-pin Voxativ tubes which are made by a smaller custom supplier in the Far East. The circuit is a mix of point-to-point (power supply and main signal path) and PCB (pre-out buffer and remote).

Screen capture of Holger's computer monitor with a 3D CAD drawing of the T-211 and its actual chassis inserted.