In disclosing the best sound I heard all month we must journey back to Munich where Serbias Trafomatic Audio had teamed up with the Anglo-Swiss operation of soundkaos for a port-a-room in one of the downstairs halls. At the front of the playback chain sat the Lumin S1 ($10000), a server/streamer that comes loaded with its own D/A conversion. This silver machine fed into Trafomatics Reference One preamplifier (€4500) based on E182CC/5687 tubes with IIC core output transformers after which the signal was handed to a pair of Trafomatics single-ended parallel 18wpc Reference 300B monoblocks (€12700/pr) before seeing the light of day via soundkaos Wave 40 loudspeakers (€15550). Those are a 21cm full range driver and Raal ribbon tweeter set into an ovoid hollow body of tone wood. Low-frequency action was augmented by the soundkaos Subwave D12 (€6000). The initial pair of D12 proved too much for the room on the first day and was thereafter dropped back to a single unit. 6moons/industryfeatures/darko2014/1.html
Posted on: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 23:38:09 +0000