Thursday, May 25, 2006
All prices are quoted in euros unless otherwise noted.
1 €  is approximately 1.28 US dollars at time of report.

Germany's MBL showed a great-looking new CD player, the 1531, which retails for 7770 € and is a top-loading design.

MBL's matching 8011 balanced stereo amplifier outputs 210Wpc into 8 ohms and retails for a matching 7770 €.

Admittedly, Music Line's 700 € POWERIGEL looks a little strange, but it could be quite handy in the right system It's a mains distribution device that has a single cable that plugs into the power outlet, with the rest of the wires protruding out having IEC receptacles on one end for connection to electronics.

Soulution is a new company from Switzerland. The 720 stereo preamplifier sells for 13,900 € and includes a phono stage. Like most statement-level electronics today, the 720 has provisions on its rear panel for single-ended and balanced inputs and outputs.

The term "Fritzian," which, translated, means "massively overbuilt, meticulously constructed, and usually quite expensive," is inspired by Jeff Fritz, who writes "The World's Best Audio System" on Ultra Audio. We felt it applied to Soulution's 710 dual-mono power amplifier that's rated at 120 watts into 8 ohms and 480 watts into 2 ohms and retails for 17,900 €.

From this picture, you'd think that the speaker above is one of those massive coaxial-driver-based floorstanders for which Tannoy is famous. It's only when you see it beside the company's new Prestige Glenair floorstander (9500 € per pair) that you realize the Prestige Autograph Mini (1990 € per pair) is actually a pint-sized stand-mounted minimonitor that features a coaxial driver that you can fit into the palm of you hand (the Glenair's driver measures 15" across). The Autograph Mini is actually a scaled-down replica of the GRF Autograph released 50 years ago.

Electrocompaniet coined a term for the new EMC 2 -- it's a "multiaudio" player. What a multiaudio player does is play all current disc formats -- like a "universal A/V player." This two-channel source retails for 5400 €. Also announced, but not displayed (at least that we could find), is the EMP-1, which is a multichannel "multiaudio" player with six balanced audio outputs and a 1080i HDMI video output. The EMP-1 retails for 6400 €.