And now something very, very different.  Ladies and gentlemen, something completely different.  In this room, I spent an hour and a half.  I enjoyed myself like no where else at this show.  This is undoubtedly and without any competition the "Best Sound" at the Show.

In this room, we find Canadian Hansen Audio THE PRINCE V2 speakers, Italian Angstrom Research Electronics Reference 2 Pre-Amp, Reference Class A tube mono blocks, plus Canadian CD player EMM Labs model CDSA SE, and the turntable was the Giradischi HORO WJE68.

I've heard of Hansen Audio earlier (I've seen their advertisements in Stereophile), whereas for Angstrom Audio I have never heard of them before.  At the helm of Hansen is Lars Hansen, the former head of the Dahlquist group.  Hansen offers a total of six speakers (from the smallest model THE ELIXIR to the biggest THE GRAND MASTER), plus THE WIZARD Centre speaker and THE DRAGONSLAYER Subwoofer.  The company has a great slogan which reads "Desired by Many, Owned by Few". And today, two weeks after the Milan Show, I still have the sound of this room in my ear, that magic, and that melody which occurred in this room.  It should be mentioned that during the entire time that I was listening, it was the turntable that was being played, they did not turn on the EMM Labs CD player.

There were a lot of great speakers at this show, but this Hansen speaker stands out among the rest due to its quality.  How to describe it?  Uh, I don't know!  This was the only speaker at the show which I couldn't peel myself away from.  This was the only speaker that made my pulse rise faster, the only speaker which pumped me up with adrenaline, the only speaker which made all the hairs on my body jump into the air.

Shows are all alike.  Visitors enter and exit from a room.  Obviously, every so often, some visitor - for a short time stands right in front (left or right, it does not matter) of the speaker.  In every room at this show one would hear when someone stood right in front of a speaker, you would clearly hear the degrading of the sound, you would clearly hear that one channel is not playing as well as it did earlier.  Obviously, even in the room with the Hansen speakers, visitors would every so often stand in front of one of the speakers - but what happened then?  You couldn't hear the degrading of the sound when listening with Hansen, you would not "feel" that somebody with their body is standing in front of the speakers.

This is a speaker with exact perfect tone (timber), while at the same time there is some unbelievable chemistry and magic.

Furthermore, my dear readers . . . After hearing this room, my brain had no more desire, strength or motivation to listen to other speakers.  Yes, after THE PRINCE V2, I listened to about 20 more speakers in vain. There were good speakers (big Focal Utopia, big Wilson, big Magico speakers...).  However, nothing sounded good after listening to the Hansen.  If I had known, I would have left Hansen until the end. Everything else sounds silly after listening to these speakers.  I could also describe the sounds of the other speakers that I listened to, but there would be no point.   Finally, it would be a sin not to finish this report with the Hansen THE PRINCE V2. They truthfully have the sound of your dreams ... 

AUDIO PULS
Marko Pecotic
Editor-in-Chief