Kind of RED

Just came back from a 3 day vacation at the Red Sea with my family.
350 km drive was quite easy.
water is crystal clear and 24 degrees but unfortunately it was about 20 degrees outside so i didn't dare to swim.

a good thing - there is a CD shop in the local mall.
although they bever heard about SACD they had tons of jazz CDs for less than 10$ each. most of them were 7.50$
i cursed few times when i saw there discs which i payed 20$ in local CD store.
so i got myself 14 verves, blue notes and ECMs.
had to buy also 2 boring CDs for "the management" which were priced higher than jazz discs.
after she saw the final bill her eyes became as big as plates "so your discs cost so much money?"

another Red thing was just a night before the vacation:


i was invited to private demo of this gorgeous amp.

it looked great and sounded very good indeed.
it was very hard to make serious auditioning as the room was redicolously big - something like 30m x 15m x 4m - with all surfaces reflective - so it was an acoustical mess.

also the system's elements were unfamiliar to me - some DPA CD player made from 6 boxes and with 100 cables connecting them and Medowlark Heron speakers.

but even in such a huge room high SPLs were not a problem, bass was good indeed and the image was very good.

this amp looks like a steal

 

So errr..... exactly how much of a steal????

 

USA price is 3500$.

our local price is a bit higher because of taxes, vat, shipping costs (35kg ) etc.

EU price should be something around 4,000$ (vat again).

i don't think that there are many other options in this price for the same power (4 KT88's per channell - don't forget) and features (PRE incluses, remote controlled volume).

 

must say it looks gorgeous i'm sure it sounds it too. there is some really good looking (if unknown) hi-fi out there for not much (in the grand scheme of things).
cheers


julian