[CES 07] New British Brand for High End Debuts in North America
January 10th, 2007 — By Robert HarleyAMR Not Scared to Use ’80s Technology
Jan 10 - Abbington Music Research (AMR), a relatively new company on the scene made its US debut in US distributor Avatar Acoustics’ exhibit. The London-based company was founded by a German designer.
The CD-77 CD player ($8500, available now) has some interesting design elements, including the use of a late-1980’s digital-to-analog converter (the venerable Philips TDA-1541), which the designer believes sounds better than today’s DACs. In addition, the unit offers the user many filtering/up-sampling options, including the ability to run with no digital or analog output filter. The unit is massive (93 pounds), uses a tubed output stage, custom transport mechanism, and features no power-supply regulation. The top-loading unit is beautifully built, and sounded quite good driving the Karan Acoustics electronics (KA L preamp and KA M1200 monoblock power amps) and Acoustic System International Tango loudspeakers ($13,500/pr).
