RMAF 2014: GamuT Audio and Pear Audio Analogue Run the … No, That’s Too Easy

Danish company GamuT Audio brought a little bit of Denmark with them to the show, with their blue-skied backdrop and a live recording of the Danish blues act Shades of Blue. 2014’s been a good year for GamuT; early in the year, the former subsidiary of Kvist Industries became an independent company, and they’re celebrating with an absolute explosion of new products.

The most visually arresting is the RS Superior line of speakers. Like the original S-Series, the inner structure of these speakers is still based on Finnish birch engineered wood. Now, however, the outer skin consists of five thin layers of ash wood. The internal networks, damping, and drivers have also been revamped and upgraded. I was more than a little in love with the RS5’s ($32,000) clean visual appeal, particularly the combination of blonde birch and the metal grills.

So new that it’s not yet named was GamuT’s DAC. This was still in the prototype stage, but production is planned for December, and it will likely retail in the realm of $12,000. Also demoing for the first time ever were the Signature power cords ($2,500/each) and prototype leather-covered Reference speaker cables (likely retailing around $14k).

Preamplification came from the less-brand-new, but no less exciting, D3i Dual Mono preamplifier ($8,000). This solid state preamp features a dual Mos-fet hybrid in- and output buffer and a separate power supply for each channel. It makes a good visual match with the M250i mono power amps ($13,000 each). The rest of the power cords were also from GamuT. Pear Audio Analogue provided the analog source, their gorgeous Kid Howard turntable from the new Pear Blue line ($2,850).

While I was visiting this room, I mainly listened to a digital recording from Shades of Blue. This was a live recording, and it definitely sounded it! The noises from the crowd during the performance were particularly well-expressed, the sound stage well-defined and the band alive. At one point, I thought that there was some kind of hum going on in the system, a ground loop or somesuch — only to realize that what I was hearing was actually a hum from the PA system in the recording. I thought the impact, clarity, and decay on the snare drum and cymbals was particularly impressive.

Independence seems to be treating GamuT well.