June 1998

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

The sons of Nautilus (or, B&W is back with a vengeance)

At every show you hope to come across a musical experience that just makes you say, "Ahhh! Isn't that good!" And when it happens, you know that the show has not been a waste of time and effort. For me, this happened in the B&W room.

I won't make a secret of the fact that I have had great respect for B&W speakers for many years. However, lately I haven't really been able to get terribly excited about their offerings. This was even the case with the exceedingly sculptural Nautilus. It seemed somehow anonymous to me, even when played using eight Threshold or Krell amps to drive them. Not that I had the money to buy them (and the amplifiers), but if the funds had been available, I still wouldn't have considered them. Well, something very beautiful has come out of the Nautilus anyway: a new series of speakers called the Nautilus 800 Series. These new speakers are hot because the world premiere was originally supposed to be at HI-FI '98 in Los Angeles.

I will concentrate mainly on the two largest models in the Nautilus 800 Series: the 801 and the 802. However, much of the technology can also be found in the smaller floorstanding 803 and 804, as well as the bookshelf 805 and the two home-theater center-channel speakers, the HTM1 and HTM2. The Nautilus 801 is priced at 25000 DM per pair, and the 802 at 18000 DM (approximately $14,170 and $10,200 USD respectively).

B&W has essentially taken much of the technology developed for the Nautilus and repackaged it using the well-known matrix technology. The furniture-quality cabinets are made of bent 35mm (approx. 1.4") multi-ply wood. On top we find a construction quite reminiscent of the Nautilus, but shorter and fatter. These are actually the same inverted horns (transmission lines is more correct) that we know from before. By using a rather round chamber behind the speaker unit, B&W has been able to shorten the tube sticking out of the back.

New speaker drivers abound. A paper-with-Kevlar coating is used for the 801's 15" woofer, and in the 802, two 8" units of a similar composition do service. The most special unit, and I'm willing to bet also an important reason the speaker sounds as lovely as it does, is the midrange unit. The fact that it's made from Kevlar is not unique; after all, B&W has been using Kevlar for years. The really interesting and different thing about this driver is the surround—the suspension that holds the outer edge of the cone to the chassis. What about it? It's not there! The driver has no surround.

Can this work? Well yes, it not only works, it works very well. Actually, the edge of the cone is supported against a rim with some sort of damping material, having resonance qualities very similar to the cone itself. But there is no hard connection. You could slip a blade between the cone and what you think is the rim of the unit. Mind you, this is not a suggestion. The real importance lies in the fact that when resonances travel across the cone, which they inevitably will as the cone is excited by the voice coil, they are not reflected back as "echoes" from the surround the way they are in other speaker drivers. If you now wonder how on earth B&W attaches the unit, it's quite simple. They mount it on a pin from behind and even use a sort of cone-shaped structure to give the magnet a more aerodynamic shape. Very clever.

The sound? Well, Ulf Soldan, who is the product manager for B&W in Germany, gave us ample opportunity to evaluate the speakers with music ranging from clarinet concertos to blues grooves and even a grand-prix race for effect. The sound was right. Bass was deep, and considering the rooms, many of which had real problems with standing waves, tight and tuneful. The treble did all it was supposed to do in a way that only drew attention to itself by not doing anything wrong and seemingly everything right. This leaves us with the midrange. I personally feel that B&W's original thinking in this area is responsible for what I think is the greatness of these speakers: so little smearing (if any), such sweetness and still no obvious colorations. The midrange was simply a pleasure to listen to. Have you ever listened to speakers that were impressive in almost every specific parameter? Well, the sons of the Nautilus are speakers that seem to do everything right.

With an efficiency of 91dB, it should be possible for mere mortals to get away with using something less than the monster Krell amps used for the demonstration. Nonetheless, or perhaps because of this, it was quite possible to make the lights dim along with the music. At no time did I experience any sonic discomfort though.

If you are going to HI-FI '98 in LA, you really should go and give the new Nautilus-Series speakers a listen. I hope to give them a closer listen soon.

German Physiks Tie Break

If any one speaker catered to the BIG appetite, it was the Tie Break from German Physiks. German Physiks' speakers are all characterized by the use of the "Dicks Dipole Driver," or DDD. Let's just say that it will look familiar to those who have seen the big Ohm speakers with the Walsh driver, a vertical and quite tall cone driven from one end by a voice coil. It all looks a bit like a bucket, and the proper name for one of these thingees is a "bending wave converter." How does it work? The voice coil excites the cone (tries to make it move), but due to the long shape of the cone, it does not move in and out but rather "bends"—that is, deforms in a bending wave. This wave travels up the cone provoking 360-degree radiation of sound in the process. This is very different from the way a normal cone produces sound by "pushing" air.

The big difference with the Walsh driver lies in the further development that German Physiks has put into the concept. Their DDD is a piece of high technology, made from titanium. It radiates from 150Hz upwards and in this provides seamless reproduction though the essential midrange and into the treble.

A number of (fairly normal-sized) German Physiks speakers have been on the market for several years. Their total loudness was limited by the 87dB efficiency of the DDD. Holger Müller, the president of German Physiks, got so tired of hearing that his speakers could not play loudly enough that he decided to do something about it. And believe me, something was done. He went about building the biggest speaker of the show—one of the biggest I have ever been confronted with.

First, German Physiks mounted four bending wave converters on an arm which can be moved in and out using a remote control. The purpose of this to allow the listener to adjust phase and radiation to the room and the position in which the speaker is installed. Furthermore, the system consists of two bass cabinets: one with eight 6.5" upper-bass drivers and another one with four 12" low-bass drivers. The two bass cabinets can be individually positioned, and the whole bundle is placed on a platform, which at the exhibition was of 5cm aluminum, but which can be supplied in granite. All this leads to a total weight of 1.1 to 1.3 tons—not for the faint of heart or those with a normal living room. Once you have put down the platform, the speaker is not easily moved. The bass cabinets, on the other hand, can be swung around, providing room and positioning adjustment by just using one hand. Smooth! The whole speaker is run through an electronic crossover and three stereo amps, which at the show were provided by Accuphase.

Did Holger Müller succeed in his aim? Few systems in my experience have had the ability to follow the dynamics of music with such an apparent lack of effort. These speakers are able to re-create a full symphony orchestra in all its glory. When playing the piece "Drum Bogie" with Arne Domnerus and Friends (from Jazz at the Pawnshop), where the drummer is let loose for a moment, the sound really felt like the musicians were right there in front of me. Delicate, majestic, you name it—the Tie Break has it. The only "but..." I can think of is the fact that the 360-degree radiation pattern will, depending perhaps on instruments and type of music, throw a soundstage that is too large for some listeners' tastes.

Well, what can I say? I think the Tie Break is the speaker for a BIG sonic appetite. By the way, the guy standing next to the speaker in the picture is over 1 meter 90 (6'2") tall. The Tie Break is quite an experience, and I would not have missed it.

Kron "Vacuum Transistor" amplifier

I have been playing with tube amplifiers for 20 years now. Mine are perhaps not the most "politically correct," but they have given me much joy and my wife has often said that she thought they were the best part of whatever combination of equipment was playing at the time.

Many fine tube amps were shown at the Show, and several of them will be mentioned elsewhere in this report, but the Kron exhibit really caught my attention, for two reasons: The sound was just adorable, and because I am a bit of a technology freak, I just could not resist a really new twist in the tube market.

Dr. Ricardo Kron and his wife became well known on the international tube scene when they took over the Tesla Works in Prague in the Czech Republic. During a co-operation with Alesi Vaic, which has now ended, the Krons worked on renewing the technology of the tubes themselves. This resulted in dramatically improved versions of some well-known tubes.

But more was to come. Last year I read with interest about a prototype amp based on a new device called the "vacuum transistor." The people who listened to the amp were very impressed. And the siren song which drew me into the Kron exhibit was the sound of the production version of the Vacuum Transistor amplifier. Dr. Kron and his colleagues are producing another even larger device called the "vacuum transducer," and a pre-production model of this device was present. Well, there is not a lot of hard information available, but according to Dr. Kron: "The Vacuum Transistor and the Vacuum Transducer are particular thermoionic tube devices with an extremely high vacuum, cooled in a special, black aluminium heat-sink container. These devices work not only in voltage, but in current and can achieve output power and quality sound reproduction unobtainable by any other current system." The cooling systems are seriously hefty, as you can see from the pictures. The amp looks more like a motorcycle engine than anything else.

Kron amps were driving a pair of speakers developed in Belgium by a company called Venture. I must admit that I had never heard of these speakers before, but together with the dcs Elgar DAC and the Kron Vacuum Transistor amps, the speakers made the most beautiful music. It was all that you could wish for: refined, dynamic, and with a fine sense of air around instruments and performers. I really won't be quite happy until I have had chance to listen over a few days at home.

It seems that we really are faced with new technology that overcomes many of the inherent weaknesses of tubes (i.e., the low output if you run them as single-ended triode devices). The vacuum transistor and vacuum transducer should be able to bring single-ended triode happiness to many audiophiles who own less-efficient loudspeakers.

If only I could have listened a bit more.

TacT Millennium

I almost missed this one. I read about the developments at the small engineering company Toccata Technology in Denmark last year, and of course I was familiar with the not-too-successful PWM (pulse-width modulation) amplifiers that Sony brought out in the '70s. (Does this date me?) I had heard some noise about those amps, but nothing to rave about. Well I'm raving now.

After moseying about for three days I was getting a bit tired and I had promised my wife that I would be home that night, so I had more than three hours of driving ahead of me. Every time I passed room 171 where TacT was residing, the door was closed and a demonstration was underway. I kept thinking Oh well, next time, and suddenly it was 10 minutes before closing time. As I started making my way towards the exit, I passed room 171 and, lo and behold, the door was open. So I snuck in.

In the fairly dark room, three chaps were sitting on a sofa. Behind them, another four or five people were standing. In front of them all was a small table with a lamp and an open amplifier. On the other side of the table was Peter Lyngdorf—the head of TacT, Dali, and NAD (well at least he owns the largest part of the shares). He was quietly explaining all about the TacT Millennium.

Since I knew most of what he was saying, I was eager for him to put on some music, but let me just give reiterate the main points.

The TacT Millennium ($9800 USD) is not an amplifier in the common sense of the word. It accepts a digital input stream coming straight from a CD transport or other digital source (yes, it could just as easily be DAD or DSD at any bit rate). It converts the digital words into a series of pulses of varying width. There is no actual analog amplification taking place, just a modulation of the output voltage. There is no feedback, and, would you believe, there is no need for a DAC. The signal is modulated at a frequency of 384kHz, and TacT put a 12dB filter at the output. The Millennium is efficient, running at over 96% efficiency. When did you last check how much electricity your class-A amp was radiating as heat? In fact, the return wave of energy created by most speakers is used to refill the capacitors in the output. Very clever. Of course, you can use remote control with the Millennium, but the large ring around the front display is a classy and smooth-running volume control. Neat.

After telling about all these things, Peter put on a CD. My mouth fell open, and I had to sit down. I lost all power of speech. This couldn't be true. How easily do extravagant expressions of enthusiasm become commonplace? If you have already used all superlatives, what do you when you come across something that is not just a little bit better?

In my case, I just sat there looking stupid while I enjoyed music so fluid, so light, so immediate that it somehow defied the idea of being reproduced. Here comes the old war horse: It sounded much more like live music than anything else I had heard at the Show, or anywhere else for that matter. Nothing is excluded from this enthusiasm, not tube or solid-state amps—nor for that matter expensive digital front-ends.

The Dali Grand Diva speakers in use are most certainly very nice, but I am certain that it was not any magic of theirs that provoked my reaction. Neither was it the CD player used, since it was a lowly NAD costing a couple of hundred dollars, which only claim to fame was that a connection of the clock signal from the Millennium had been led back via cable and an extra connector which had been added. This is, of course, good practice, going a long way to relieve jitter problems. And not for one moment will I blame it on the rack on which the equipment was placed. It had to be the Millennium.

If you would ask me what I think (I'd tell you even if you didn't), I'd say that the Millennium heralds new times. I expect not waves, but a regular Tsunami to hit not just the high end, but the whole audio industry.

I have to stop here. I have to get out and find some money because I hear the Millennium call.

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