CES 2013: B.M.C. Audio

B.M.C. stands for “Balanced Music Concept”, and B.M.C. Audio is the company that’s making some pretty, and pretty interesting, waves these days. Heard of them?

I’ve met Carlos Candeias at a few audio shows, now, but I think my first brush was at AXPONA in 2011. Since that first meeting, I’ve been rather impressed with the blizzard of ideas Carlos has about how audio components ought to work and the innovations he’s had to come up with to make those ideas real. Peter Breuninger of Media Partner A/V Showrooms has a great video of Carlos walking through his technology which he took at RMAF last year, and I recommend lending an ear for the full discussion — in order to catch it from the horse’s mouth, as it were.

The big news here at CES is the introduction of two new products. The first is the M2 Mono Power Amplifier: “The M2 delivers 200 watts into 8 Ohms, and 380 watts into 4 Ohms with a frequency response of 1Hz – 200kHz (@1W). A fully regulated power supply with a massive 2-kW toroidal transformer and balanced current capacitors contribute background silence and rock-solid stability.” It also has a damn fine look to it, too. The chunky knobs and porthole-sized dial are brilliant, and the overall aesthetic is embarrassingly good. Hey, look — you plunk down $15,980 for a pair of these guys, you have every right to expect them to look the part. Happily, they do.

Sound came courtesy of the big B.M.C. Arcadia loudspeakers ($36,300/pair). Frequency numbers aren’t published, but we do know that the speakers are 91dB, with a nominal impedance of 4ohms, and the ceramic (!) cabinets are just covered in drivers. An 11″ woofer is mounted on either side of a given cabinet. The front-firing D’Appolito array is mirrored on the rear; all the upper frequencies are handled by the pair of Air Motion Transformers. This is an impressive speaker, with a distinct Art Deco flair. Carlos tells me that there are plans in the works for both a larger, and a smaller, entry into the Arcadia lineup.

Last bit — the PureDAC. This $1,600 unit marks a new price-point for B.M.C, and is the first in a series of products that target entry-level audiophiles. More on those soon. The PureDAC, meanwhile, is almost here and will feature all of the proprietary B.M.C. Audio technologies like DIGM, LEF, and Current Injection (see the video, above, for the explanation). A fully-balanced preamp, the “PureDAC also boasts a high-resolution asynchronous USB interface, digital AES/EBU, Toslink and coaxial inputs, balanced analog outputs, RCA output jacks, and a special B.M.C. link for connecting directly to a B.M.C. amplifier.” It also sports a dual-output (phono plug and balanced) headphone amp with a separate volume control.