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Parisian chaos has a tendency to affect all things, even audio shows. It’s hard to believe but this city hosts two annual exhibits which, get this, may take place on the same day or just one month removed. This year the schedule had the first one in early October, the second over the first days of November. More and more distributors boycott these shows to indicate their final dismissal of the madness that is organizing two small-scale regional shows in the same place at the same time. Who can blame ‘em? Regardless, here are a few impressions on certain exhibits of interest.

Atoll electronics partnered with Thierry Comte's Athom loudspeakers to present its two new ST-100 and ST-200 streamers. These are gapless and can also be used as wifi radio receivers. They sport 3 USB inputs (2 x 16/44, 1 x 24/96), 1 x coaxial (24/192) and 1 x Toslink. The ST-100 features the Burr-Brown PCM1796 chip, the ST-200 goes for the PCM1792...

... The cherry on the cake is that Atoll’s streamers are not just digital to add two analogue inputs and even a headphone socket on the front. Voltage gain occurs in pure class A and the analogue volume control can be bypassed. Remote apps should be available soon.

Esoteric showed with Focal’s Utopia Maestros and an ambitious digital front-end of P/D-02 with their rubidium G-0rb master clock...

... The P-02 and D-02 implement a new transmission protocol, Esoteric’s latest thinking on the original ES-LINK3 format that operates up to 48-bit/176.4kHz for broadband PCM using two XLR cables...

... The association with Focal speakers created a highly resolved liquid sound without any harshness. My existing interest in the new G-02 word clock kept growing!

Newcomer JoSound seen in these pages just weeks ago as part of our Swiss HighEnd 2012 coverage probably is the sole audio manufacturer based in the Channel Islands. And they’re apparently fiercely unafraid of elevated pricing and Voxativ’s widebander which in this particular subwoofer combo exemplifies their current top effort.


The JoSound designs are created in Jersey whilst the gorgeous solid Bamboo cabinetry is made in England’s Swindon. The overall sonic performance resulted in the liquid natural sound which is typical for quality widebanders but here it was reinforced by stunning ease in full-range extension and bass quality.


Even more liquid sound came by way of teaming a Nola bookshelf speaker with the Lars II monaural 300B amps from Sweden’s Engström & Engström. In my opinion this became one of the two most engaging performances of the Paris 2012 exhibitions.


The Micro Grand Reference Series II is a stand-mounted speaker with the same driver technology and concept as the floorstanding Baby Grand Reference and Metro Grand Reference models. The driver complement consists of two magnesium woofers, one open-baffle Alnico midrange and one open baffle true ribbon tweeter in what’s dubbed a 3½-way Unison™ crossover design.


The 110mm cast-frame tri-laminate midrange cone with Alnico magnet operates as a dipole to eliminate enclosure colorations. The equally open-backed ribbon tweeter enjoys the same freedom. The Lars Type 2 amplifier represents the ultimate statement by designers Lars & Timo Engström.


This was my first encounter with these 300B monos and I was staggered by their soundstage and seamless liquidity. Without doubt this made for my best ever experience with a 300B amplification component!


This year Kapraudio added two new brands to its portfolio, BMC from Germany and Vivid Audio from South Africa...

... Their show presence thus was a mix of Legacy Focus SE and Vivid G2 speakers with Coda and BMC electronics including the new CS2 integrated I reviewed a while back...

... The main source were the BMC digital separates which sounded terrific considering their asking price.

Marantz' new Consolette is a beautiful iPod/iPhone dock speaker. The front panel and controls are fashioned from metal and the rear from genuine old-fashioned Walnut...

... This dock operates with full digital signal processing and can also be used as wireless music streamer and Internet radio receiver. The sound was very impressive and far superior to B&W’s Zeppelin equivalent. At close to €1.000, the price too was a cut above.

Nagra again showed with Mårten Design speakers to demo their new Jazz preamplifier which is on pending review with Srajan. Like the PL-P and PL-L precursors, the Jazz is a valve unit. But beyond this commonality the entire circuitry has been redesigned to improve all performance parameters and achieve new heights in accuracy and stability. Noise was lowered so much as to render the PL-P’s previous battery supply utterly unnecessary. The Jazz hence runs with the new high-performance external CAM II linear supply.

An Italian confrontation of sorts had Sonus faber showing their new Venere speakers and ex-boss Franco Serblin his new models. AudioQuartet’s Venere demo suggested attractive entry-level promise.


My second-favorite show performance took place in the Swissonor room. I am not an LP aficionado and it is rare that I’m impressed with any DIY stuff organised around old Thorens or similar vintage units. That admitted, I must recognise when things are done with such a level of accuracy that the magic side of vinyl becomes extremely delightful...

...Particularly impressive were the B.A.C.H. 12 speakers (bass adjustable coaxial horn with 12” woofer). This is Swissonor's flagship and consists of a 2-way coaxial/coplanar loudspeaker with Tractrix horn featuring fine adjustment in the low end and discretely adjustable mids and highs. All electronics except for the CD player were in-house developments such as a modified Thorens TD 124, specific tone arms, cables and modular tube amplification.


TAD this year established their first French point of sale and Eric Massé of Audio Prestige Vintage kicked off this market introduction with the new Evolution One floorstander and compact CR1 stand-mounts. Electronics were by TAD for amplification plus MSB D/A converters and an Aurender S10 audio server. As in Munich it was quite difficult to find any flaw in the TAD demo - except perhaps for such excessive perfection.

Tecsart distribution had a full demo room this year with many desirable items. The speakers were their usual Fischer & Fischer towers. The most impressive ingredients were the Alef amplifier and Angstrom Research preamplifier...

...Obviously here Armando Fontana deals in cost-no-object machines and the valve preamplifier appeared to be state of the art. The Reference One is the smallest Angstrom Research preamp but already a clearly first-class unit. The circuit is completely dual mono and the basic premise is the use of valves for both the direct signal path and power supply...

...The machine is completely handmade, its circuit wired up suspended using high-quality selected components. The valves for voltage gain are two 6SN7 GT with two 6DJ8 buffers for low output impedance. Tecsart also introduced a new 4-box digital combo made by Lector plus EAT’s Forte turntable.

The new Meitner MA-2 CD player showed with the Gryphon Diablo integrated amp and Tidal Contriva Diacera speakers...

... The MA-2 can stream DSD via USB and specific in-house technology provides for 2 x DSD upsampling of all PCM data with a high-purity master clock.


The French Trinnov company introduced its new Amethyst ‘preamplifier’ in a stereo setup around KEF’s Blade plus an atypical 2-way active system consisting of Triangle Magellan Duetto bookshelf speakers and two Paradigm Sub 12. The neat Amethyst hides a genuine cluster of technologies: 11 possible sources including phono, 24/192 file-network rendering, AD/DA converters, word clock I/O, an acoustic measurement and optimisation system with phase correction and loudspeaker remapping...

,
... 4 simultaneous outputs, mono and stereo bass management, 2-way active x-overs and networked remote control from an iPad or automation system. As usual the Trinnov demo was handled with very high professional standards and this new flagship Swiss army knife of a preamp seems definitely promising.

The small YG Acoustics Carmels played with Italian Norma electronics. The overall sound was quite accurate with a great quality of timbre.


French cable manufacturer Viard Audio introduced their new flagship Platinum HD which would appear to push the limits: separate transmission lines for bass and treble each benefiting from conductors most suited to the frequencies transmitted, hot-swappable biwire terminations with contact springs of copper and beryllium, star-quad wiring with powerful shielding all at an obvious cost where the speaker cable alone sells for a princely €7.500.


There you have it, my small looking glass at our second domestic show with two favorites: the Nola/Engström demo and the Swissonor exhibit. And now I’ll keep dreaming of fraternité, egalité and all that Jazz to perhaps next year welcome one single undivided big audio event in Paris. Enough already with this double trouble. Let's unify!