Founded by owner and designer Stavros Danos in 2010, a new and exciting high end audio brand emerged - from Cyprus no less. Bursting with new ideas and the confidence to throw out the audio designers rule book, Stavros fairly quickly started producing very large, very radical and amazingly high performing audio products. The first model was the Collatio, as huge single ended OTL power amplifier using 32 x 6c19p tubes on the output. Measuring 455mm wide X 590mm deep X 480mm high and 120 kilos, it certainly got noticed. Next Stavros decided he had to have a SOTA source to test his new creations in the factory. No other DAC was up to the task, so he designed his own, the Kassandra MK1. an R2R ladder DAC with tube output stage.
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Shortly after the Kassandra Mk1, the Concero 65 MK1 Monoblock power amplifier followed. Again, size and weight restrictions were ignored, rather that means nothing if it gets in the way of ultimate sonic performance. The Concero 65 uses the classic but not widely known 813 tube, originally designed by RCA for radiomast operations. This high voltage, high heat dissipation tube outformed all other power tube Aries Cerat tried, and thus became a widely used tube in the Aries Cerat amplifier range. Amplication and DAC designs started, Stavros returned to a life long passion of his own, to design the ultimate horn speaker. Many thousands of hours were already spent on this project, and finally it culminated in the Symphonia, a 3 way design, with ribbon tweeter, compression driver midrange, and tractrix flare bass horn unit. This single chassis speaker stands 130cm high and is fairly compact as far as horn speakers are concerned. Weighing in at 170 kilos and 101db efficiency, the dynamic and realism of the Symphonia is something to behold, really a superb integration of drivers and topologies unheard of before from in-production horn speakers. Fast forward to 2021, Aries Cerat has a full compliment of pre-amplifiers, power amplifiers and phono stages using the best tube topologies. All full class A these models recently were joined by two new circotron tube input Moss-Fet output monoblock power amplifiers, 5 further DAC models, (all R2R and using tubes on the output stage), and the Symphonia Horn speaker. Added to this there is also the epic cost no object Legend series of DAC, Preamplifier and Power Amplifier. You may ask what is next? Anything is possible, so watch this space…. Julian
