Did Diptyque shoehorn their door-sized €50,000/pr Reference 2 loudspeakers into a sound cabin through choice or force majeur? To make the space planning even more problematic, Kora High Fidelity (the one French audio company that even everybody in France seems to love) supplied a pair of their massive TB400, 200-watt Class A amplifiers. Footprint was definitely at a premium. Yet, either way, they all came up smelling (sounding?) of roses, with a notably natural balance and box-less sound, astonishing dynamics and beautifully tonal and spatial separation. Music was delivered with life, energy and scale, despite the limited confines of the small room. CD player, DAC and Pre-amp were all from Kora’s affordable 140 Series, costing between €6,600 and €9,000 a piece. Articulate, bold and vivid, but delicate when necessary, it makes you wonder just what this combination might be capable of in a larger space? Well, hopefully, finally, we’ll be finding out the answer to exactly that question, if plans come together. Meanwhile both Diptyque and Kora deserve far more attention from English-speaking markets than they are currently getting.
Inexplicably exciting…
We always seem to make some peripheral discovery at every show – something cheap, cheerful and far from the audio mainstream that nonetheless makes you think, “That’s exactly what I’ve been looking for, for years!” It could be a contact cleaner, record sleeves or some obscure tool.
This time around, it was a cotton bud… Yes, I know, but this is no ordinary cotton bud. Anybody who cleans equipment sockets with any regularity will know that, when it comes to the internal contacts of RCA or XLR sockets and connectors, finding something small enough to fit inside, but something that also doesn’t leave parts of itself behind, is no easy task.
Well, no more. The irrepressible Suzuki-san from Andante-Largo (of racks and footers fame) also offers a contact enhancer, Super TMD. Along with it he showed us the cotton buds he supplies. Hard, dense, fibrous tips, perfect for cleaning metal surfaces. But more importantly, available in two sizes: standard and a mini size which is perfect for those narrow apertures.
Super TMD is high on the list of “things to try” – but those cotton buds are just as exciting!
The Peak Consult El Diablo Loudspeaker
The rejuvenated Peak Consult brand continues to go from strength to strength, offering a range of beautifully constructed and musically coherent speakers that generate superb, wide-bandwidth results from comparatively compact enclosures. Having just reviewed their latest offering, the El Diablo – a current re-engineering of what was previously their most popular model – we had a pretty good idea of what to expect. But even we were surprised by the versatility on display, the speakers appearing in both a small, 4m by 6m sound cabin and an upstairs room. Peak’s own room featured solid-state electronics from CH Precision along with a complete Chord Cables Music loom, as well as a host of Chord’s ARAY grounding technology – plus other niceties that will await the system write up. The speakers had a solid acrylic surface finish over their wood sandwich carcass, which certainly looked the part.
