I felt like I was in candy store.
Everything looked colourful, mouthwatering, and sugary… the sound was also drawing me into the sweet spot for an extended listening session. Another room of horn delights was having it’s way with me at High End in Munich. This time it was Tune Audio who was demoing the premier of the gorgeous three-way, horn-loaded Avaton loudspeaker with giant Elysium 250 TL-based mono blocs that looked like old-time gum vending machines by Trafomatic Audio supplying the go juice. A Rockna WaveDream Transport/Network player was feeding the Lara preamplifier ones and zeroes. Fat, and beautiful Skogrand cables snaked everywhere.
Not only was this one of the prettiest rooms in Munich, it was one of the most musically satisfying ones. I hadn’t previously spent time with any of the components in this signal path, but that did nothing to dispel my awe, and respect for what was being achieved sonically in this set up. There was a sky’s worth of air, and space around upper-register piano notes, cymbals, and high-hat snaps. The midrange was textured, and stringed instruments in particular were fleshed out with weight, and sinew to every chord, and fret being worked.
The lowest octaves (down to 32 Hz) had depth, tautness, and real meat on the bones without ever feeling like it was running out of steam, and since the Elysium mono blocs were outputting 70 watts of Class-A power into the 105dB-efficient Avatons (easy eight-ohm load too), this was not a bass-light horn speaker, especially considering the 18″ woofer nested inside the main pillar of the speaker. TuneAudio claims a flat frequency response into the 30s with crossovers happening at 120 HZ and 1100 HZ.
Not an easy system to shoehorn into my apartment to be sure, but I’d be happy to make an exception about speaker size for reviews if TuneAudio ever felt like shipping a pair my way.
–Rafe Arnott
