Norwegian labradorite stone when polished gives an intense bluish and greenish shimmer. Electrocompaniet amps used to have front plates of this beautiful ornamental stone. Not any more (since replaced by black acrylic) but there still is a good choice of quality electronics made by Electrocompaniet. And the range is growing. The recent acquisition of another Norwegian company, Dynamic Precision, lead to a new amplifier line: DP (photo above). The line is based on wide bandwidth and direct coupling concept and has some patented circuit design. DP A1C pre amp will be sold in EU for 6000 and the 250-watt DP A1S power amp will cost 12000.      

Another Norwegian company Audiostone was known for its equipment supports which used aforementioned labrador stone as rack material. Being a distributor the company has good ties with some technical talent in other countries. One thing lead to another and its new turntable is on the market (top photo). The stand is integrated and uses marine-grade steel and labrador racks. The turntable bears the name of Pythagoras and is destined as a perfect companion for an unusual tonearm, also named after a Greek geometrician, Thales. A linear tracker with a pivot is made by Mischa Huber of Switzerland.

Audiostone was exhibiting in a soundproof caravan resembling booth along with EMT. Now revived by a long time hi-fi enthusiast Jules Limon, EMT showed the 'all-curve' flexible phono stage JPA 66. Mischa and Jules played mono jazz records on a dedicated system with one of the EMT studio turntables of recent vintage. True mono sound is something you don't often experience at hi-fi shows. And believe me, the sound was quite good.


   

Montegiro is a newcomer to the turntable market. The company started as an OEM operation producing acrylic and metal parts for a number of German audio manufacturers.

At its factory in Florence, Italy, Bluenote manufacturers a full line of hi-fi components which covers everything from cartridges to loudspeakers (it is hard to imagine that Bluenote originally was an audiophile society). The managerial talent of Maurizio Atterini gathered a team of talented designers which aims to cover all the bases for your audiophile delight. Since 2008 Bluenote has started three brand names to differentiate its growing market; Goldenote for top level high end, Bluenote for classic hi-fi and Blacknote for innovative products of digital age. Blacknote DSS 15 and DSS 30 are Linux-based media-players. They're Wi-Fi, LAN and USB-abled and use computer RAM as a solid-state storage for audio files. Maurizio also sees future in a high density 32-bit recordings which may be available for download from some major studios and which his DSS players are ready and capable.