January 9, 2005 - Part 2

Finland's Penaudio displayed its flagship Serenad loudspeaker priced at $9000 per pair. The cabinet is made from birch laminate over MDF, giving it a distinctive, striated appearance. The sound is precise and yet gentle, especially well suited to classical music, we thought.

Last year Portal Audio showed a prototype of the Paladin fully balanced mono amps that are said to output 200W into 8 ohms. The Paladins are in production now. They sell for $3500 per pair and are available factory-direct.

Gallo Acoustics demonstrated the new TR1 (shown, $425) and TR2 ($700) subwoofers, with 100W RMS and 250W RMS amplifiers respectively. Both are available in black or silver powdercoat finishes to match certain Gallo Nucleus speakers. [www.roundsound.com]

Margules Audio's Orpheus M floorstanding speakers ($3400 per pair) and Orpheus C center-channel speaker ($1840 each) both use ceramic drivers and sounded exceptionally clean and detailed during our demo.

Margules Audio also showed the new 24-bit/192kHz DAC 1.1 priced at $1200. On top of the DAC 1.1 is the ADE-24 ($190), which has been available for many years. It attaches to the analog output of any CD player or DAC and is said to offer improved clarity and separation.

April Music's Stello brand has made quite a splash. The DP200 preamp/DAC and DA220 DAC both received SoundStage! Network Reviewers' Choice nods in 2004, which both followed up with the year-end Best Product Debut award. Now April Music is releasing the Stello SP200 7.1-channel preamp/processor, an audio-only unit (there's no video switching) with bass management for two-channel and digital outputs as well as upsampling for the front channels. The price will be around $3000.