There are precious few audio brands “out there” that seem to care as much as the guys at GamuT. The speakers are designed to sound “live”. The amps are designed to “sound great”.
This kind of axiomatic approach is really hard to argue with!
Take, for example, one of my favorite loudspeakers currently available in today’s high-end: The GamuT RS7 ($39,000/pair). These speakers are expensive. It’s just a fact. But they’re different, too. Check out the profile — they’re deeeeeeep and narrow. That’s kinda nifty — placed in-room, they present as much smaller than they actually are. The drivers are also different — those mid/woofers actually do have a wooden cup in the cone — dyed to match the rest of the 21-layer cabinet. The RS7 is a 3-way, with a 4Ω nominal impedance (you’re going to want a big amp), and the overall response is expected to run 22Hz to 60kHz. Oh right — those are the top-of-the-line Scanspeak drivers! Gotcha.
There’s an ease and an elegance to the sound coming out of this speaker that totally belies the approach — these are pistonic cones working off of solid state. Yet, the sound has an altogether analog feel to it, but that’s not to say that it’s smooth or veiled. No way. I want to say “good tubes”, whatever that might mean. I want to say “horns”, but that’s not right — there’s no honking or shrieking, there’s just a graceful power all the way up and down the frequency band. I want to say next week’s Lotto numbers, so I can buy this stuff for my very own. Hello, Lotto Fairy?
GamuT electronics bracketed the rack, including the luscious M250i monos ($26k/pair) and the D3i dual mono pre ($8,390). New GamuT wire was strung throughout, including the Reference speaker cable (biwire, starting at $,3990 for 1.5m), the Reference interconnects ( XLR and RCA, $2,990 for 1m), and the Reference Power cable ($4,290 at 2m).
As a source, GamuT USA man-around-town Michael Vamos was spinning LPs on a beautiful Pear Audio Analogue Kid Thomas turntable with a Cornet 2 tonearm ($9,990, with external PSU) carrying an Ortofon Cadenza Black MC cartridge ($2,750) and a Pear Audio Reference Phonostage ($4,495). An Isotek EVO3 Sirius power strip ($995) carried current from the wall. A custom-made NFS SUT also occupied a shelf.
This was a luscious room — the sound, as I’ve mentioned, was easy and refined. The setup was just so clean and open, the invitation was to just sit and linger and spin vinyl all day. To be fair — and with a helpful glass of vino that the boys from GamuT were pouring — that would have been a great day, indeed.
On the way from GamuT, one Lobster chair, with matching Ottoman. I have to do it! The chair is awesome — fantastic looks, and actually has acoustically absorbing material embedded in the headrest (no reflections off the leather!). More to come on that front, I’m sure.
In the meantime, I’ll pine away for the rest of this stuff. Great sound, all around, and one of my favorites at AXPONA this year.
*Apparently, GamuT is not to be pronounced /gah-MOOT/ (as I’d been doing it), but rather, /ɡamət/, as in, “rhymes with dammit”.
The more you know.
