24/02/2010 New releases – Week 8.

Tagged under Aktimate, Dusson, Marantz, Musical Fidelity, Olive, Richter, Yamaha
Posted by Len | 2 Comments

It has been a busy couple of weeks at Len Wallis Audio with a number of new products hitting our shelves.

Olive:
Probably the most exciting news is that we are now stocking the Olive range of Music Servers. This brand has been around for a number of years now, but they have just announced two significant changes in Australia.
The first is that the Opus4 Music Server has been reduced in price from $3,799 to $2,999, with a free iTouch thrown in (there is a free apple ap for the Olive.)
The second is that they have announced the impending release of a higher quality server, the Opus 4HD. This unit features a Burr-Brown 1792A 24 bit/192kHz DAC. It even comes pre-loaded with a dozen high-resolution Chesky recordings.
The HD version is due for release late April/early May, but we now have the standard unit on our shelves.

Musical Fidelity:
Certainly one of the most prolific audio designers in the world Antony Michaelson of Musical Fidelity unleashes model after model of successful products. We have just received the AMS-CD – the matching CD player for the fabulous 35 watt Class ‘A’ AMS-35 integrated amplifier. According to their website this is “the finest digital product we have ever made. We have spared no expense or design effort to achieve the maximum possible performance.”
The AMS-CD sells for $14,995.

Yamaha:
Again Yamaha Digital Sound Projectors are not new, but we now have on display their recently released YST-4100. Admittedly this is not set up in an ideal location in our store, but the impact is still excellent.
This remarkable box contains 42 speakers, and 42 digital amplifiers. It is designed for use where using five or seven speakers in a conventional Home Theatre configuration is just not possible, or desirable. Designed to sit below your TV it not only vastly improves the audio performance of your TV, but it also gives a remarkable sense of surround sound.
The YST-4100 sells for $2,499 (which is something of a bargain), and includes a stand alone sub-woofer (and an FM tuner.)

Dusson:
I am confident that not many of you know of this brand – yet. One of the industries most revered names is Mark Levinson, and one of his best sounding amplifiers is Red Rose. Red Rose is manufactured under license in China, and this manufacturer has now released his own brand – Dusson. I had the opportunity to listen to this range a few years ago, but the deal with the intended distributor at that time fell through.
These are beautifully engineered, and more importantly, the performance is excellent – way beyond what you would expect at the relative price points. The hero product is the T6 stereo amp, rated at 100 watts/channel and selling for $1,995. There are not many amps on the market that will hold a candle to this unit at this price.

AktiMate:
There are more iPod docks on the market than you could count – but few can match the quality and flexibility of the AktiMate Maxi. Created in Australia, but using components from British Hi-Fi companies Epos and Creek this product has been a hit in many parts of the world.
This ‘dock’ is much more than a conventional dock. It includes an FM tuner, it will connect to your network (via Wi-Fi or Ethernet) and can stream from your computer. It also has three auxiliary inputs if you wish to connect further sources – CD etc.

Richter:
Richter is well known to many of you – we have been selling this Australian owned and designed product since the mid-eighties. They have had a policy of upgrading current models since this time, and have just released the Mk IV Wizard, Dragon and Merlin.
This range has been a long time coming, which resulted in Richter effectively being off the market for a number of months. Unwilling to release the new range until they were completely satisfied with the performance, Richter found themselves with a large gap between the time that they ran out of the Mk111 models and the release of the new version.
We were privileged to have some input into the design of this series, so awaited their release with bated breath. We were not disappointed.

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