Concert fidelity amps

I heard the amps and pre-amp while at Steve Hoffman's home in S.CA. I was auditioning his ESP Bodhran SE speakers (a pair of which I eventually bought and still own)The amps and pre amp sounded fantastic in this sytem and it is probably a fairly good testimonial that Steve uses them.

He was using a very basic digital front (sony sacd) end for the audition and as I am very familiar with the speakers now I can say that the CF gear was contributing consideraly to the excellent sound I heard from a variety of recordings.

They are wonderful to look at as well with a very high standard of fit and finish.
I bet they would sound great with a wide variety of speakers as long as the speakers are up to the task.

I am running these amps along with the linestage and the sound is the best I've had (or frankly ever heard). Hard to pick an area of special merit because they just sound more musical and utterlt envolving so the details are less on my mind. They have replaced an FM Acoustics amp of twice the cost and before that Goldmund electronics that were in the $50 K range and there is just NO comparison thse are a breakthrough product.

Interestingly the comments pertain to the amps run in conventional fashion- ther is a free upgrade that I stumbled upon that raises the sonic level to a degree and in a way I would have thought impossible in and audio system- all areas are vastly improves by this uprade but the addition of a preaiously unavailable FLOW of the notes combined with graeter detail AND greater organicity. So as to avoid soundindg completely daft let me explain that omost componenets inside the amp are on a metal supprt that attatches to the SIDES of the unit while nothing touches the bottom plate. When placed conventionaly and feet are under the bottom plate no great amount of energy is drained from the internal components but when placed on it's end and grounded by footers the mechanical energy has a route away from the internal components and the sound is HUGELY improved upon- in fact the increment is even greATER THAN that envolved in changing to this fine amps in the first place.

Hi Jeff4598,

There must be something special with the amps and linestage to be in the class of the "big boys"...

May i ask what speakers were they coupled to and what is the rest of the set-up...cabling, etc...

Interested in these and will take a listen at CES...

TIA

Well it sounds like we are dealing with some of the same products and manufacturers as I have the older sound apllication conditioners(one each for preamp, trnsport and DAC) and have fm acoustic interconnects, digital cable and a couple of the older AC wires- the newer ones are not yet available so I have temporised with K-S ac(MUCH MUCH better than the MACS-you can have my old MAC's way outclassed for years).

My speakers are long out of production Artemis EOS-I'm told the Ventures are the way to go but cannot afford for now.

My DAC is the Weiss media- have not cross auditioned others but dealer I have come to trust says he can find no better-the transport is key- it's an esoteric(i think UX-1)that has been modified electriclay by Great Northern Sound-Esoteric makes impeccable mechanical devices but uses rather ordinary electronic parts-these are all replaced with high quality caps ect. and it is just awesome! Mike Salminski's cornerstones and stand is crucial to isolation.

The sound would not be the same if i did not de-stat the system (most crucialy the speaker drivers using my trusty Mapleshade static gun.

I am running the CF 080 LS/X with a Burmester 911 MK3 amp into Venture CR-8 Signature speakers. I used to have a pair of Artemis EOS (loved them!) but without the big base enclosure. I am also using Steve @ Great Northern Sound Company, but he is modding a Wadia S7i for me to a Statement S7i.