New music and technology: August 2022
Here's what's new in music and technology this month
Vitus Audio SIA-030 Mk.1 Integrated Amplifier
$60,000
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This Vitus amp is a beautiful behemoth
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Are the Danes as good at hi-fi as they are at pastries? You bet! Hans-Ole Vitus played drums in bands as a young man before discovering the intoxicating world of hi-fi and obsessively researching and developing until his own company—Vitus Audio—emerged early in the new millennium.
The world quickly developed a craving for the superb products of his Denmark-based outfit and no wonder. Vitus has a reputation for gear that’s perfect in every way and designed to last a lifetime
Vitus has now found a distributor in New Zealand in the Muriwai-based Parmenter Sound, and the first product off the block is the SIA-030, an outstanding integrated amplifier that’s a genuine behemoth at 63kg.
A real powerhouse at 200 watts per channel and a flabbergasting frequency response up to 800kHz, Vitus claims unparalleled precision and performance. It’s a looker, too, with exquisite modular design and a number of colour options (pictured is titanium orange) like the icing on a particularly irresistible cake. Reviews have raved about the incredible micro detail and the way "the whole room becomes a sonic hologram", as one pundit put it. Cop a listen and be amazed.
Gauder Akustik Arcona 100 MK2
$17,990
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Gauder Akustik’s Arcona 100 speakers are the bomb
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There are so very many fairly similar-looking floor-standing loudspeakers on the market that the average consumer could be forgiven for thinking that their sound would be much of a muchness. But they would be very, very wrong.
Take these slim beauties, for instance.I’ve had the chance to audition (a piano gloss black) pair of the Arcona 100 MK2 speakers at length, and I’m amazed at their all-round abilities.
Local agent Alex Hastie is an enthusiastic ambassador for Gauder Akustik, and now I understand why. Handcrafted in Renningen, Germany by Dr Roland Gauder and his dedicated team, Gauder Akustik is one of the most acclaimed brands in audiophile circles.
The Arcona range is at the "entry-level" end of Gauder Akustik’s speaker range, but they offer a genuine taste of the company’s engineering and design genius and a sonic signature that matched with the right componentry will surprise and delight.
Trade secrets abound in the rarefied world of hi-fi, but the result of Gauder’s clever thinking is a speaker with phenomenally smooth crossovers (they call it a "symmetrical, ultra-sloping crossover), holographic projection ("high-resolution Accuton ceramic tweeter")
and bass to die for: tight bass with just the right tonal inflections and perfect timing.
And if you’ve got an amp powerful enough to drive it, there’s a special metal
jumper you can insert to further extend the bass frequencies. Stunning.
Davone Meander Wireless Speaker
$6995
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If you don’t have the space for a traditional hi-fi rig or a multi-room wireless set-up appeals, but you desperately want it to look fabulous, then it would be remiss not to consider the wares of French speaker manufacturer Davone.
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Davone’s Meander active speakers are shapely beauties
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Yet another stunning product from those dashing Danes, Davone’s top-echelon model is the Meander—a single box wireless/Bluetooth speaker with an onboard 200-watt amp.
Obviously, its form factor is utterly unique, in which a roll of either walnut or oak is wrapped around the amps and drive units and placed on a pedestal. So, it looks good, but what about the rest?
The Meander has already received its share of rave reviews from respected hi-fi publications, and now local importer Stephen Segue at Soul To Sole Audio has brought it to our fair land.
Onboard are all the technological smarts you’d expect from a wireless speaker—near-instant intuitive set-up, compatibility with Google Chromecast, Apple Airplay, as well as all the music streaming services.
There’s room correction software for difficult sonic spaces, and while it’s not a speaker for the dedicated audio buff (or stereo fetishist because it’s mono), it has been praised as an all-in-one active speaker that’s well above the competition.
Vladislav Delay—Isoviha
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Icy and adventurous sonic treats from Scandi act Vladislav Delay
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Sasu Ripatti is an electronic composer from Finland whose music has long been used as a testing ground by adventurous audiophiles. Some of his albums could broadly be called techno or house or electronic dub, but Isoviha takes us on a sonic journey that’s more like watching a deeply mysterious Scandinavian thriller set against the rugged splendour of an endless icy winter. Ripatti loads his music with devilish detail and on a great sound system, the impact can be heady, to say the least.
Kate Bush—Hounds Of Love
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Kate Bush returns after nearly 30 years to dominate the charts |
Who would have thought that the winsome squeaky-voiced singer of ‘Wuthering Heights’ (1978) would suddenly become the most popular artist in the world when her 1985 song ‘Running Up That Hill’ featured on Netflix show Stranger Things?
Take a listen to the album that song is extracted from, the wildly intoxicating yet very odd Hounds Of Love, and it’s obvious that Bush is some kind of musical genius. The second side in particular, with its trippy suite of songs, subtitled ‘The Ninth Wave’, is unparalleled in popular music.
Sadly, its preponderance of low-bit Fairlight synthesiser samples means that the album is no hi-fi delight, but don’t let that keep you from investigating.
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