May 2019 | Newsletter No. 2

Award at Axpona 2019
New Cable Range

Best Sound in Show at Axpona 2019

We would like to thank everyone who came to see us at the Axpona show in Chicago earlier this month. Larry Borden, of our US distributor Distinctive Stereo LLC did all the hard work and produced an exceptionally good sound with our new Emperor preamplifier and Emperor power amplifier, driving a pair of Borderland Mk IVs. Our music source was a Mystique V3 from Mojo Audio.

Jonathan Valin, one of the senior reviewers for  The Absolute Sound, was at the show reporting on loudspeakers at $20,000 and up. He was so impressed when he heard our Borderland Mk IV loudspeakers that he gave them his Best in Show award. In his show report he wrote:

“Driven by the company's own Emperor electronics, German Physiks’ $37,250 Borderlands loudspeaker, with omnidirectional DDD driver (crossing over to a down-firing 12” cone at 190Hz) in an elaborately braced hexagonal cabinet, sounded very open and quite delicate without any thinness or vaporousness. Closer to realistic than most of the other stuff I heard in Chicago, the Borderland was excellent on a Louis Armstrong CD. Excellent all around (so to speak)!”

You can read Jonathan’s full show report here.

We especially liked his comment, “Closer to realistic than most of the other stuff I heard in Chicago”, as our objective with all German Physiks designs is to produce a sound that is as close as possible to the original.

This award is also indirectly a pat on the back for the electronics, as the Borderlands would not have sounded as good as they did if our Emperor preamplifier and Emperor power amplifier, and the Mojo Audio server had not been doing such a good job.

Out thanks to Jonathan and to The Absolute Sound, who are always very generous with their support.

We are pleased so say that on their first US outing, the Emperor electronics worked flawlessly. During set-up we had to switch them on and off several times. On every occasion they started up and shut down without any nasty clicks or pops, even when we managed to pull the power cables out by accident.

All the controls worked positively and smoothly. The preamplifier volume control has a reassuringly smooth feel and you can just hear the relays in the control network switching as the volume is adjusted. A neat feature is that when you press the preamplifier mute button on the front panel or remote control, rather than sharply cutting the sound off, the volume level is ramped down and then the unit is muted. Similarly when you unmute, the volume is smoothly ramped up from zero, rather than jumping back to where it was.

The power amplifier has three gain settings and each one has a slightly different voicing.  This gives a useful range of adjustment that allows some compensation for tonal imbalances in the system. During the setup we tried all three settings, but in the end we decided to go with the neutral setting. That is probably a compliment to how well Larry Borden had managed to tune the room with the acoustic treatments he brought to the show.

Both units have ground lift controls on the front panel, so it is very quick and easy to find the combination of settings on the units that produce the lowest noise.

For more information on our show system please click on the image below.

New PION cable range

Axpona was also the first time to try out our new PION NF3 power cable at a show. You may be thinking who needs yet another cable when there are already so many on the market. The PION power cable is a little bit different. It has been designed in collaboration with the same specialist cable engineer with whom we worked on the original PION power cables that we made about 10 years ago. It is made in Germany by one of the biggest cable companies, which ensures a consistently high quality of manufacture and that it conforms to demanding safety standards.

Each conductor is made up of a single, solid, insulated iron strand, with six insulated solid copper stands tightly wound around it. This has the effect of increasing the inductance at high frequencies and thus provides a degree of noise attenuation.

We tried it with the Emperor stereo power amplifier. With the good quality power cable we were initially using, we had a well balanced sound, with good imaging and pretty good bass. Switching to the PION power cable produced a cleaner and tighter bass, with improved dynamics. The German magazine Audio reviewed the PION NF3 cable earlier this year and was impressed enough to give it their Golden Ear award.

The PION power cables are available now fitted with either US type 3-pin, or Schuko 2-pin plus earth plugs. The standard length is 2 metres, but custom lengths are available. Please consult your dealer or distributor for details.

We will be uploading more information about the PION power cable to our web site shortly. Later in the year we will release PION loudspeaker and interconnect cables.

Until next time…

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If we can be of help with anything at all, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us here. You can find your national distributor here.

Holger Mueller | German Physiks