DS Audio goes mono…
Did our eyes deceive us, or did DS Audio bring six new cartridges to Munich? Well – yes and no. What they brought was horizontally reading, true-mono versions of all their existing models – a welcome addition to a cartridge line that is becoming a fixture in the high-end, with more and more end-users and many more electronics manufacturers starting to offer energiser/optical reading inputs for their phono-stages.
Also on the DS Audio stand, the ES-002, a new and more affordable version of their record centring weight. Swapping from tungsten to brass for the body of the weight, plus a few other refinements has allowed the company to drop the price from €6,000 for the original ES-001 to €3,500 for the new, (black finish aside) outwardly almost identical version. How many eccentric records do you need to make the Eccentricity Detection Stabiliser (to give it its full name) a worthwhile purchase? Far fewer than you used to!
Avantgarde Acoustic Twin Sub
Avantgarde introduced a new, compact sub-woofer, the Twin Sub. Based on a tall, narrow but deep footprint, the active unit is derived from the twin driver, long-port topology employed in the Mezzo hybrid horn, although in this instance, the two 12” drivers fire downwards, spaced from the floor by the unit’s feet. Claimed bandwidth is 18-350Hz but as with all subs, the real question comes in terms of scale rather than numbers. Intended to partner, singly or in pairs, with any of the Avantgarde speakers, the real interest here lies in the Twin Sub’s ability to offer a significant increase in bottom end weight and scale to the Mezzo, or a far more compact footprint for the Trio G3 where users don’t have the space (or taste) for Space Horns. At €25,000 each, the Twin Sub is far from cheap, but quality bass never is. Aesthetically it’s a return to the Trio’s earliest days, the speaker’s first iteration being offered with two or four active bass boxes. A studied assessment will have to await a home visit, as every time we returned to the Avantgarde room it was too packed for any sort of serious listening. Suffice to say, it’s a visit we’re looking forward to!
Telos Audio Power and Grounding Products
As noted elsewhere in the Trends and Tendencies piece https://gy8.eu/blog/vienna-viability/, Telos AC power supply and grounding solutions are making steady progress in the market, these impressive units appearing in more and more systems. Although the majority of users are relying on the Monster series (the Monster Power Station, two-box Tai-Chi Edition and Grounding Monster) the company produces a range of far more affordable products, employing the same advanced and patented technologies in more manageable but barely less capable packages. Munich saw the introduction of heavily updated and reimagined versions of their popular mid-priced products, including the GNR v5.1 active grounding unit.
Now dubbed the Foundation Series, the Foundation Power unit and Foundation Ground unit are built into similar, machined aluminium, glass topped chassis to their bigger and more expensive brethren. With roughly half the footprint and half the height of the Monster Power Station (eight outlets and a 32Amp capacity), the Foundation Power offers five outlets and a 20Amp capacity, with a PowerCon connector to allow the addition of a mechanically similar extension block, if you need more sockets. Internally it offers the same PFC smoothing and sophisticated, targeted RFI filtering as the Monster, but at $15,000 it’s a whole lot more affordable as well as considerably easier to accommodate. Price will be $12,000 and both Foundation units should be available in July.
