Audio Tekne top end gear?

Jonathan,Thanks. I am in Japan and will look him up. His website suggests he is still in Hachioji. I did not know if he was amenable to a visit. I'm going to bet he has something like a Final which has been tweaked within an inch of it's life.

T_bone: No, Imai prefers things that are less commonplace and more creative (^0^). I'm the one who has to be satisfied with a Final (^_^).

Most real craftsmen who love what they do are genuinely concerned about their past creations, and want to make sure that each piece is behaving itself, giving satisfaction to its owner, and being treated well. It's a bit like having lots of children (smile).

I'll guess that you'd enjoy the visit, and Imai-san would appreciate having you bring the 2A3 monoblocks for him to verify.

cheers! jonathan

Recently I heard Audio Tekne on Warsow 2013 Audio Show.
It was first time I have ever seen it, and I was attending several shows in the past 15 years.
In summary: The most liquid, transparent, velvet harmonically rich sound of tht particular show.
I did not like thatarly Luftwaffe look, though.
Fortunately they hire some beautiful hostesses to look at :)
They are transformer coupling obsessed, as source 15 years old Marantz CD was used CD-16, of course transformer coupled (19.000Euro) to pre amp.
I could never believed that that old CDP could sound like that. Later they changed to TT (not Audio Tekne TT), it was first time I have ever heard that switching to TT degraded the sound. I figured it out that TT was not transforer coupled to pre hence degradation. I wish I could afford that ugly gear. Total for speakers with external crossover, preamp, monoblocks, coupling CD transformer was ~200.000 Euro.
But it sounded like that, it was really special.