Athens 2013: B&W, Classe

By Dr. Panagiotis Karavitis It is yesterdays news the fact that B&W bought the Canadian Classe’ Audio and since then the two companies work side by side, trying to create the perfect speaker- electronics match. Here in Athens, the local importer (Audio Veterans) proposed the second from bottom 800 series, 804 Diamond speaker with Classe's CP 800 pre-amp with internal asynchronous USB DAC, CA-M 600 power amps (that’s 600 watt/8 Ohm monos doubling at an amazing 1200 watts/ 4 Ohm), Rotel RCD 1570 (Rotel also part of the B&W group), Supra cables, power distributor and Solid Steel rack.

In order to achieve 1200 watts/ 4 Ohms Classe’ implements an active, microprocessor controlled cooling system which keeps the optimal temperature constant no matter what the load is. A bit of an overkill if you ask me, these amps could easily handle the way bigger 800 D’s or just about any other speaker existing.

Sound wise, I think that the B&W group is actually very close (if not there) in providing one of the easiest solutions to pure Hi-End nirvana. You simply cannot go wrong with a speaker-amp combo like this. Listening to “Dark Eyes” (with Yamamoto on the piano, Kagawa on the bass and Osumi playing the drums) through the internal USB DAC I was forcing myself to find some sort of a slight imperfection with no success. This could be your ticket for guaranteed sonic pleasure.