Anyone heard Cello?

Hi all,

I'm a interested in this make as I've never heard any of it and it appears to be commanding huge price tags. So how good is Cello, do their £25k amps live up to expectations and are the speakers worth it?

Cheers, Tim

 

Never heard them, but the Cello Palette is often spoken of in reverential terms, especially by the likes of Bob Ludwig..
Wasn't it originally a Levinson thing?

 

Indeed, Mr. Levinson has designed the Cello stuff.

 

Mark Levinson set up Cello about 20 years ago after he was forced out of his own company (alledgedly). He left Cello about six years ago. The kit was stratospherically priced and to be honest, the stuff I heard many moons ago seemed good, but not outstanding.

Possible exceptions were the Stradivari Master loudspeakers, built using top spec Dynaudio drive units. Awesome scale and dynamics. Some of the Cello loudspeakers are excellent value now used, but the Palette still costs a fortune (despite it being overhauled by modern EQ's), and the amps seem hard to justify these days performance wise. It really was a case I am told of needing a full Cello system to gain most of the benefits. Even today, that's still a scary prospect.