December 1998

The Frankfurt High End '98 Show Report: Amplifiers
by Robert Jørgensen,
European Correspondent

A major trend that has been occurring for some years, so you can't call it new, is that of the "high-ambition" tube amplifiers that keep popping up. In the ShowStoppers report I talked about Dr. Kron's "vacuum transistor" and "vacuum transducer." KR Enterprises continues its offerings of more traditional but updated tubes, like their new single-plate 2A3 that almost certainly will turn up in a number of low-power amplifiers in the coming months.

Esoteric Audio Research and EnVogue

I have known Tim de Paravicini for more than 20 years. In a distant past I imported and distributed EAR amplifiers in Holland, and I have been using a pair of his 509s as my main amps for most of the time since then.

Time moves on though, and de Paravicini has been keeping the 509 amplifiers in production with a somewhat more glamorous look than the ones I have. He has also been showing a number of new designs. As always, he enjoys making something that is different from what most others do at any given time.

This is, of course, not a sign of quality in its own right, but I do appreciate smaller companies with their own identities. And de Paravicini's amplifiers always have identity in spades. Never one to be shy for an opinion, de Paravicini has always gone out of his way to create designs that are quite different from the norm, both in terms of circuitry and visual design. Not all will find EAR products their cup of tea, but EAR amplifiers never fail to excite me.

In Frankfurt the EAR line was being shown by Hans Obel, who, besides running a true high-end establishment in Viersen with quite an emphasis on analog and various high-efficiency speakers, is behind the EnVogue brand of tube amplifiers, turntables and speakers.

One of Obel's wonderful EnVogue turntables was playing into the EAR 834 Deluxe phono stage and then into the new EAR V20 integrated amp. What can I say? This was real full-blooded music reproduction. It did not matter whether it was a large symphony orchestra, a string quartet or Eric Clapton going full blast, I enjoyed the music to the hilt.

The real star of this setup was certainly the new V20. Tim de Paravicini's love for classic cars and large engines is known to many, and I have personally seen his old Daimler in both running condition and almost totally dismantled. This enthusiasm moved him to design an amp along the lines of a large "warm-blooded" engine. So he has gone around and designed an amp using 20 tubes, and just as the cylinders of a V12 (I don't know of any larger "normal" engines) do not have to be individually large, so the individual tubes in this weird and wonderful piece are fairly normal twin-triode 12AX7s, which are used in most places as preamp or driver tubes. Not so in de Paravicini 's V20, where they deliver power. The V20 is just gorgeous, and the sound quality is there to boot. Together with the EnVogue Blowup two-way speakers with their bass-reflex design and quite beautiful Tratrix mid/high-frequency horn, the V20 made extremely enjoyable music.

Furthermore, the EAR 861 was being displayed. This is a push-pull version (well sort of) of the 859 single-ended amp, also based on the EL509 tube. Reports of this will have to wait for another time.

EnVogue has also two series of quite unusual-looking single-ended 300B amps. These are the smaller DaCapo series (which are not small at all) and the larger Solitaire series. Very nice indeed.

Brocksieper

Who or what is Brocksieper? It might not be a very well-known name outside of Germany, but it deserves to be. Stefan Brocksieper is the designer and owner. He produces a line of very fine tube amps. But much more than his large power amps, his headphone amps are well known. I see the question marks in your eyes. Well there really isn't any mystery. They are not marketed under the Brocksieper name in the US, Far East and other places. Worldwide they are known as EarMax. And Max they are. The new version of the EarMax as well as the new PRO version capable of driving lower-impedance headphones should make any lover of beautiful objects (hi-fi or otherwise) take a deep breath. I've been playing with one for some weeks, and even the females in my family have been oohing over this little gem.

Sirius

The Sirius amps from Denmark mean business in a most Sirius way (sorry, I couldn't resist). Ole Lund Christensen, the company president and designer, is quite an old hand in the hi-fi business, having started one of the major Danish hi-fi distributorships in the '70s representing among others KEF and Tannoy. The technical side always had more allure for him than the very commercial, so in the early '80s he separated from the distribution business and started designing and building recording studios -- but not just any studios. Several of his studios have been used by some of the biggest names in the music business and can indeed be found all over the world. But this is another story.

The Sirius amps have developed from that heritage. Built like tanks, they look (and are) solid without going overboard. Unnecessary expense has not been added on purely cosmetic aspects. As I said, this is serious amplification, but without frills or inch-thick faceplates. But where it counts you really get the goods. My feelings are that the Sirius amps provide a lot of what the owners of Krell and Mark Levinson amps are looking for in terms of power, control and finesse but without the same price (and snob factor, unless your visitors don't know their hi-fi).

Sirius has a smaller series for the Scandinavian home market in the form of 100Wpc and 200Wpc stereo units. For the true export markets, a somewhat higher range of models consisting of 100Wpc and 200Wpc stereo units and 400W mono amps really seem to bear comparison to the very best. All of the stereo units are true dual-mono, the only concession being one power cord. Everything is completely separate and very generously sized. A special feature of these amps is the fact that all of the models use a single pair of transistors in the push-pull output stage.

Audio Analogue and AudioNet

Another trend that is strong and which of course might be attributed to the smaller rooms that many Europeans have to live with is the rise of integrated amplifiers. You might have already seen in SoundStage! a review of one of the Audio Analogue integrated amps. These have really taken Europe by storm, receiving accolades just about everywhere they are shown and listened to. Audio Analogue has extended their line from their two original integrated amps, to a preamp and power amp set as well as a new CD player.

The Audio Analogue equipment is being represented in Germany by AudioNet, and these guys have been beavering away at their own even higher-end offerings. The Dali MegaLine speakers I spoke about over in the speaker report were being driven by AudioNet's latest offerings with an expanded power supply for the power amp.

I have heard the Dali speakers before, but it must in all fairness be said that the AudioNet electronics lent them an authority they didn't have in my previous encounter. Poise, power and ease were strong impressions, and together with the quite wacky CD player, which is a top-loading UFO, it is my opinion that the AudioNet electronics would easily hold their own on the international high-end scene.

ASR Emitter

In Germany we find a product which has been developed steadily for 18 years reaching ever-better performance. The ASR Emitter is also a contender for the title of most impressive integrated amplifier made today. Friedrich Schäfer, its designer and the owner of the company, has been developing and refining this series of integrated amps into something you could easily call extreme. If you consider that these amps have a very old pedigree, you will also realize that Friedrich Schäfer is not one to bother too much with passing fads or whether something is in fashion right now or not. Long before the current popularity of heavyweight integrated amps, he pursued a single-minded vision: to create the world's best integrated amp.

Having started out with just one model, the Emitter, Schäfer has over the years added another, so there's now the Emitter I and the Emitter II. The fundamental idea is a set of power stages with an input selector and a relay-driven volume control. Each of these models can be acquired as the base model and be upgraded through a series of external power supplies as well as a component upgrade (making an HD or High Definition model), turning it from something which is just big to something ABSOLUTELY HUMONGOUS. The picture shows the basic Emitter II.

The Emitter II Plus HD in all its glory has two external supplies for the output stages and a battery-based supply for the input stage. Have you ever seen a four-box integrated amp before? Let me tell you that it requires some grunting because it weighs in at over 130kg, about 275 pounds. There are few speakers that can't be driven by this beautiful monster. It delivers 1700Wpc into 1-ohm loads. I stand in awe.

Linear Acoustics

This is really another name for ELAC, which is mentioned in a very positive way over in the speaker report. They have gone and produced a very high-tech tube amp, which is guaranteed to make the purist shiver. It's a fully computer-controlled tube amplifier using EL34s that can run either in pentode or triode mode. It is admittedly drop-dead gorgeous in its chrome clothes, but if that is a bit too expensive, you can get it in black -- and it doesn't look half bad that way either. In the picture you see it together with the really tiny CL310 Little Wonder speakers.

I keep on being intrigued by this design. It uses a CPU to do not just the housekeeping, but also things like keeping tabs on biasing. Unfortunately I must admit that the times I have heard it, the sound was a bit hotter than you normally expect from a tube unit. This time the room was VERY bare and the music was also not quite my cup of tea, so I do feel an urge to listen to it under somewhat closer and hopefully better circumstances.

Many Others

I must mention Cayin, which had so many different models that I lost count of them. There were single-ended and push-pull amps using 300B, 211, FU-29 (tetrode) and 2A3 tubes, and a whole host of others. Build quality is good, and the price: performance ratio seems interesting.

The Sphinx lines (there are several) from Holland not only looked interesting but sounded interesting. The company has a lot going through their association with the extreme Siltech cables.

Thule is another Danish company worth mentioning. Considering that Denmark is a small country, it has managed to be home to a surprisingly large range of equipment manufacturers. Thule's earlier models had a visual design which probably could be described as an acquired taste, but their new looks are positively seductive. I was impressed by the logical way the line is built, offering true balanced operation from CD through preamp to power amp, even in the more affordable models. Small wonder Thule's very active German distributor Audioconcept is doing good business.

The spectacular Walhal power amp made extensive use of stainless steel. It was certainly built to an impressive standard, but only time will reveal how it sounds.

Finally I'm still terribly excited about the TacT Millennium digital amplifier. A short visit with the designers in Copenhagen and an even shorter listen proved to me that I had not been imagining things. This is a very important piece of equipment, and we hope to have some more information for you as soon as production models start rolling off the line. Stay tuned.

My apologies to all the manufacturers whose amps didn't make it into this report. Hopefully next time....

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