A few months ago, my friend Joel Durand asked me to visit because he was "working on something new that he wanted me to hear". As a happy owner of the Durand Talea I, Talea II and Telos models, I was naturally intrigued. The new project was a tonearm; an attempt to integrate knowledge gained from prior experience into a new state of the art design. The performance of the initial prototype was encouraging enough for me to immediately place an order.
Over the course of the past few months, I've heard the development with multiple cartridges in Joel's system, at Mike Lavigne's and in my own home. Last weekend, I auditioned the final product at Joel's and was pleasantly surprised at the performance gap between the final production model and the last beta version I had previously heard.
The new model will be called The Tosca. I'll spare you the audiophile descriptive nonsense. This is flat-out the best tonearm I've ever heard. I'm practically giddy with anticipation.
If you are attending AXPONA this month, stop by Jonathan's room to listen in a system including the NVS turntable and Ortofon Century cartridge with Evolution Acoustics speakers and DartZeel electronics. Sorry, no pics available prior to formal introduction. Pricing to be announced at the show.
Over the course of the past few months, I've heard the development with multiple cartridges in Joel's system, at Mike Lavigne's and in my own home. Last weekend, I auditioned the final product at Joel's and was pleasantly surprised at the performance gap between the final production model and the last beta version I had previously heard.
The new model will be called The Tosca. I'll spare you the audiophile descriptive nonsense. This is flat-out the best tonearm I've ever heard. I'm practically giddy with anticipation.
If you are attending AXPONA this month, stop by Jonathan's room to listen in a system including the NVS turntable and Ortofon Century cartridge with Evolution Acoustics speakers and DartZeel electronics. Sorry, no pics available prior to formal introduction. Pricing to be announced at the show.
