February 21, 2012 by Michael

CES 2012 – Kondo Audio Note

I thought that this year this room finally kicked.

Last year the turntable sounded kind of weird and not as a person might expect. This year there wasn’t any such problem.

I remember thinking that “If I was these guys, I would be very happy with the sound”. It sounded just like I always expected Kondo to sound, albeit at shows [starting at least as far back as the San Tropet the year when Kondosan passed away] they have been trying loser speaker after loser speaker and then prototype speaker and prototype speaker until now, finally, I got to hear them sound good at a show.

I am of the opinion that the better a system is, the longer it takes to understand its strengths and weaknesses – so I can only begin to try and describe a little of the ‘house sound’ here [as an example, I think most of you could go into Best Buy and listen to the systems they have there and start listing all their problems. They are so horrible that they are extremely easy to describe. Conversely, pick up a Stradivarius in a pawn shop and start playing it, it might take one years to find its particular strengths and flaws].

Kondo and Audio Note U.K. do share, still, a basic sonic profile – ANUK having more energy and excitement, Kondo being more relaxed and stately. There is also some overlap between Zanden and Kondo – Kondo having, I think, more harmonic resolution, a little more separation, Zanden adding a little more forceful flow to the music.

The Kondo speakers