LEAK RETURNS!

Line Magnetic Australia, which imports and distributes Line Magnetic valve power amplifiers in Australia, has announced that it is now also the sole Australian distributor for Elrog valves, which are made in Germany by Deutsche Elektronenröhren Manufaktur GmbH.

“These bespoke, handcrafted vacuum tubes are regarded as among the best—if not the best—in the world of production valves today”, said Campbell Nunn, CEO of Line Magnetic Australia. “We think that the Elrog products will complement any suitable tube amplifier to provide an outstanding upgrade, including all the amplifiers in the Line Magnetic range.”

Elrog valves were originally made by Elrog Elektronenröhren GmbH & Co KG, but when the company registered for insolvency in 2016, its intellectual and other assets, including production machinery, were acquired by Deutsche Elektronenröhren Manufaktur GmbH (DEM), a company owned by valve amplifier designer and manufacturer Thomas Mayer, famous for his VinylSavor 300B valve amplifiers. Although DEM is headquartered in the German city of Lindau, all Elrog valves are currently manufactured in Hagenow, located in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, in Germany. “All are entirely hand-made by highly skilled and passionate people,” says Mayer.

Since acquiring Elrog, Mayer has re-designed all the valves, engineering significant upgrades that he says improve their sound quality and increase their long-term reliability. He’s also extended the original Elrog portfolio of just three valve types (211, 845 and 300B) to ten.

Nunn told Australian Hi-Fi Magazine that he will be supporting all Elrog valve pairs with a full 12-month replacement warranty. “In other words, if you purchase a pair of tubes and one of the pair fails within 12 months, you will receive a replacement pair,” he said. “We think this is the best tube warranty available on the planet at the moment.”

For more information, contact Line Magnetic Australia at https://line-magnetic.com.au

Forty years ago Leak was one of the most famous names in hi-fi. It even had a full manufacturing facility here in Australia. Founded in 1934 by Harold Leak it was sold to the Rank Organisation in 1969, which subsequently ceased using the brand name.

Leak is now back, as a brand of IAG (which also owns Quad, Wharfedale, Mission, Audiolab and Castle Acoustics), and its first ‘new’ product under IAG ownership is the Leak Stereo 130, which looks uncannily similar to the Leak Stereo 30 released in 1963, which claimed to be the world’s first commercially available all-transistor amplifier. Of course the similarities cease at the exterior… the internals are all cutting-edge 21st century technology, and those retro bass and treble tone controls can be bypassed at the press of a button.

The Leak Stereo 130 has a Class-A/B output stage that’s rated with a power output of 45-watts per channel into 8 and 65-watts per channel into 8 . The signal-to-noise ratio is claimed to be in excess of 108dB (A-weighted). The new amplifier has both analogue and digital inputs.

Ichikawa Jewel Company, the Japanese manufacturer behind Jelco, which has been manufacturing phono cartridges, tonearms and turntable accessories for just on 100 years, has closed its doors. President and CEO of Ichikawa, Takako Ichikawa, attributed this to a combination of the Covid-19 pandemic and the difficulty of maintaining the company’s engineering tools. “The novel corona virus pandemic continues to have a significant impact on our production lines, and so I have decided to terminate our business effective immediately,” wrote Ichikawa. “For the past few years, the business has endured a decline in labour productivity due to health issues arising from our aging skilled engineers.

There are two line-level analogue inputs and a moving-magnet phono input. The digital inputs comprise one USB (B-type) input and two SPDIF inputs, one optical, one coaxial, plus Bluetooth (A2DP, AptX, SBC). The USB input supports PCM formats up to 32-bit/384kHz PCM and also DSD256. THe SPDIF inputs support PCM from 44.1kHz up to 192kHz (16/24-bit). Digital-to-analogue conversion is via an ESS Sabre32 Reference ES9018K2M DAC that features ESS’s 32-bit HyperStream architecture and Time Domain Jitter Eliminator. The headphone output is said to be connected to a dedicated headphone amplifier stage with current-feedback and a high slew rate.

The Leak Stereo 130 is available either with the retro walnut enclosure, as pictured, or with a more modern-looking aluminium chassis. It’s available now in Australia for $1,999.99 from Leak’s Australian distributor Audio Visual Revolution (AVR). The company has also released a matching CD transport, the Leak CDT, which sells for $1,399.99.

Contact AVR on (02) 9521 4844 or at www.avrevolution.com.au

Furthermore, due to our obsolete mechanical equipment, performing maintenance on them has become difficult. I would like to thank everyone for their warm support that was extended to us throughout the years.” Turntable manufacturers that use Jelco tonearms, such as Luxman, will no doubt be affected by Jelco’s closure.

For more information about available stock, contact Jelco’s long-term Australian distributor, Decibel Hi-Fi, on (07) 3344 5756 or at www.decibelhifi.com.au

B&W has introduced Signature versions of its best-selling standmount and floor-standing models, the 705 Signature and the 702 Signature. The most noticeable difference—other than the classy signature badges on the rear panel—are the cabinets, which come in a new finish for B&W, a Datuk Gloss ebony-coloured wood created by specialist Italian wood company Alpi that not only looks fantastic, with no two models sharing the same grain pattern or figuring, but also is guaranteed to be sustainably-sourced. Bowers & Wilkins further improves the look by applying nine coats of finish, including multiple final lacquers, to create a deep, lustrous appearance. Other cosmetic differences include bright metal trim rings around the bass and midrange cones plus silver-finished tweeter grilles.

Internally, the new 705 Signature and 702 Signature models have upgraded crossover designs and higher-quality components than the original models, including bypass capacitors sourced from Mundorf, and, in the case of the 702, a much higher-rated capacitor for the low-pass section of the crossover.

The high-frequency drivers on both models use B&W’s unique ‘Tweeter on Top’ configuration, and the 25mm tweeter is the company’s famous dual-section carbon dome, where the front portion is a 30-micron aluminium dome that has been stiffened by physical vapour deposition coating of carbon, while the second section is a 300-micron carbon ring bonded to the inner face—a process that increases dome stiffness, reduces distortion and moves the first break-up point up to 47kHz.

The 702 Signature has B&W’s dedicated 150mm midrange FST drive unit whose FEA-optimised aluminium chassis is enhanced with the addition of a tuned mass damper on the front face of the chassis for cleaner midrange. Bass is delivered by three 165mm Aerofoil-profile Continuum cones similar to those used in B&W’s 800 Series. They have a layered structure where two outer layers of woven composite sandwich an inner core of EPS. This construction technique avoids the abrupt transition from pistonic to break-up mode behaviour that usually impairs the openness and neutrality of conventional drive units.

“In tandem with the immense benefits both models enjoy as a result of their Tweeter-on-Top configuration, these upgrades improve the already-remarkable resolution, openness and spatial

Famous Norwegian manufacturer Electrocompaniet has released two new fully-balanced integrated amplifiers, the ECI 6 MkII and the ECI 6 DX MkII. The two models are identical except that the DX version includes a streamer module that adds WiFi connectivity, Gigabit Ethernet, a USB-A connection for external storage plus USB-B, and permits control of all via iOS or Android devices. retrieval on offer, lending them an even-more polished, refined and involving sound,” said John Martin, Director of Sales at Bowers & Wilkins Australia. “Like our previous Signature releases, these two special Signature versions of our highly regarded 702 S2 and 705 S2 are destined to become classics. Whether you buy them for their next-level performance or their exotic finish—or both—you’ll be buying something that is unique, exclusive and timeless, and that you will enjoy for many years to come.” The five-driver, three-way floorstanding B&W 702 Signature retails for $8,500 per pair, and the two-driver, two-way standmount

B&W 705 Signature retails for $4,999 per pair.

For more information, contact B&W Australia on (02) 9196 8990 or at www.bowerswilkins.com/en-au

Both new models have four analogue inputs, one of which is balanced. The others are all line-level unbalanced inputs. “The new ECI 6 MkII is based on Electrocompaniet’s very successful ECI 5 MkII,” said Philippe Luder, of Audio Dynamics, which distributes Electrocompaniet in Australia. “It has an even-better power supply and the output stage runs with only moderate amounts of negative feedback, delivering a sound that’s carefully balanced between good bass extension and control, a detailed open midrange and a warm, detailed top. The ECI 6 MkII also has a more sophisticated preamplifier section built from discrete circuits running in Class-A with zero feedback. All these changes mean the ECI 6 MkII’s sound is far more dynamic than that of the ECI 5 MkII and the new model is now also capable of driving and controlling a far wider range of speakers.”

Electrompaniet rates the power output of both new models at 125-watts per channel into 8 , 200-watts per channel into 4 and 370-watts into 2 . The output stage has an extended bandwidth (1Hz to 150kHz), extremely low noise (–135dB) and low distortion (0.003%) according to the specification sheet. It also has a very low output impedance, resulting in a very high damping factor of 350 at 1kHz.

Unlike many manufacturers, Electrocompaniet doesn’t lock you out if you buy the analogue version and later have a change of heart: its ECI 6 MkII can be easily upgraded to an ECI 6 DX MkII. Available now, the Electrocompaniet ECI 6 MkII retails for $9,500.

For more information, contact Audio Dynamics on (03) 9882 0372 or visit www.audiodynamics.com.au