Gold Sound 's Blog Page |
We are now a dealer for Focal, one of Europe's most highly regarded speaker lines. We now have on display the 705V & 706V, both strongly recommended by ABSOLUTE SOUND, as well as the 714V tower & the 807W bookshelf. All are made in France & have natural wood veneers.
Gold Sound is the first dealer in Colorado with the $1599 807W, which has a gorgeous black lacquer finish, as well as the 826W & 836W. All feature Focal's famous W woofers with 20 times the rigidity of paper or Kevlar. These patented woofers were first featured in Focal's state of the art Grande Utopias, currently $190,000 / pair.
We stock Cambridge, including the DAC Magic for only $429. "Ergonomically brilliant; glorious sound, well-defined bass, exquisitely extended highs & natural midrange; astonishing measured performance; has killed DACs selling for 2 & 3 times the money." Exceptional value, in same class as $1,000 models, STEREOPHILE 11/11.
We just received the DAC Magic plus, which adds a better DAC, plus a headphone jack & volume control, so it can be used as a digital headphone amp or preamp, switching between RCA, optical & USB [computer, Ipod, etc.] inputs.
10/11 STEREOPHILE recommends over 50 of our products. Wharfedale 10.1 bookshelf speakers, on sale at $299/pair, are featured on the cover of Stereophile's Annual equipment Directory. These speakers & the recommended Marantz CD5004 CD player & Marantz PM5004 integrated amp are an ideal budget audiophile system, on sale here for $999. You can add a European-made Pro-ject turntable for $299, or $399 with a phono preamp & USB output. Both include Ortofon cartridges & dust covers.
The 7/14/11 Denver Post South Hub section has a full page about Gold sound, including three color photos. The article on page 6L is titled "Quality Sound is Music to the Ears."
STEREOPHILE & ABSOLUTE SOUND rank the best audio values with over 100 recommendations for equipment we carry, including Benz, Clearaudio, Grado, Kimber Kable, Marantz, Ortofon, Parasound Halo, Pro-ject, PS Audio, Quad, Rega, REL, Rogue, Roksan, Sumiko, Teac, Thorens, Vincent, VPI & more.
Though electronics sales are down nationally, sales at Gold Sound remain strong. Our sales have been up every month in 2011 by over 10% over the same month last year. We have more customers than many much larger stores that heavily advertise. Thanks to your support, we stay very busy. Here's some recent customer comments.
"At last, I've found a real store."
"Gold Sound is the only store to buy from."
"You're real friendly and consumer-oriented."
"Other high end stores just want to take my money & won't speak to me afterwards. You are always helpful."
"Every other store won't give me the time of day. You actually help people."
"I've never heard sound so clear."
"Am I glad we found you. We bought this
today & will be back to buy more."
"You're the first person I've spoken to who
understands in your heart & brain what I need.
Why did I waste my time at other places?"
"It's great to find a high-end store without
the attitude. You're very knowledgeable."
"I've gone to many other stores, but only buy here, since you have the sound & values."
"You're the only place in Colorado with a good
selection of stereo & home theater equipment."
"You're a smaller shop & more focussed on
customer satisfaction than any big box store."
"I went from Fort Collins to Denver to Colorado Springs visiting every audio shop. I was so impressed with the Wharfedale Opus speakers that I bought two pairs. There's no speaker for this kind of money that can beat them."
"They are very experienced & knowledgeable in audio, not like some short timer at a box store. They took their time to determine what would work best for me & didn't seem driven to getting the largest sale they could. I'm very happy with my purchase & how it has worked. I highly recommend Gold Sound."
The 3/11 STEREOPHILE recommends three of our new products, the new $445 Rega RP1 turntable, the $299/pair Wharfedale 10.1 bookshelf speakers, plus the new $1699 Thorens TD309 turntable. Gold Sound is the only Denver area dealer for Wharfedale speakers & Thorens turntables. The Thorens TD309 has already won awards for "European Turntable of the Year" & Top new turntable at January 2011 CES.
ABSOLUTE SOUND, 2/11, page 54, said "Gold Sound simply had too many turntables to even begin to judge them. VPI Classic, Rega P3, Thorens TD158, Pro-Ject Debut III - the list is seemingly endless. Gold Sound premiered the Thorens TD309. It sure looked awesome & offered further testament to the boom in vinyl." In 2009 & 2010 STEREOPHILE reported on our products. No other Colorado store has received this attention, three years in a row.
Roksan chose Gold Sound as its sole dealer in the Rocky Mountain states. For 25 years, Roksan has made quality amplifiers, CD players, speakers & more, all in England. The Roksan Kandy K2 integrated amp is highly recommended by Stereophile & is rated in the same class as $6000 amps. The K2 amp has over 125 watts, 8 ohms, over 200 watts, 4 ohms, 7 inputs, including a phono stage, remote control, headphone jack, massive toroidal transformer & a 5 year warranty. The K2 integrated amp's remote control runs the matching K2 CD player. The K2 Amp & CD are $1599 each.
The K2 CD player has optical, coax & XLR digital outputs, plus analog outputs. The CD, amplifier & TR5 speakers have won European magazine's group tests & received many rave reviews. The speakers are under 15" high & include a ribbon tweeter. They're one of the best bookshelf speakers I've heard at any price. Cost is $1599 per pair with real rosewood veneer.
For 35 years, customers looking for the best values in new & used home stereo equipment, home theater & pro audio have come to Gold Sound. Over 239,000 people have seen our website. Customers include people in all 50 states & about 50 nations, plus many government & corporate customers, including NASA, Disney, Lockheed & Boeing.
At the 2010 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, listeners regularly exclaimed, "Your $6000 system sounds better than others for $20,000." We had the U.S. premier of the Thorens 309, European turntable of the Year, the Ortofon Vivo blue moving coil cartridge, the Oki-Noki record cleaning machine & more. Our speakers were the Wharfedale Opus 2-3.
We displayed two Vincent integrated amps, the all-tube V60, ABSOLUTE SOUND's Integrated Amp of the Year & the hybrid 236MkII, which is highly recommended by ABSOLUTE SOUND & STEREOPHILE. ABSOLUTE SOUND's GUIDE to HIGH END AUDIO recommends four Vincent amps, the most of any amp manufacturer. Vincent amps & CD players, like the C60, all have wonderful tube imaging, a warm, musical sound & are outstanding values.
Gold Sound is Denver's exclusive Vincent & Thorens dealer. For over 100 years, Thorens has handcrafted superb European turntables. We display the TD309, TD240-2, TD170-1 & TD158 models. All include pre-installed cartridges & excellent tonearms. The TD240-2, TD170-1 & TD158 are fully automatic, both for tonearm start & tonearm return. The TD240-2 & TD170-1 have three speeds, 33/45/78 rpm, a rare & desirable feature. The TD309 is our best sounding & newest Thorens turntable. The TD240-2 has an attractive natural wood base.
All Thorens have electronic speed control; unlike many turntables, you don't have to change the drive belt to a different pulley. All our Thorens turntables have solid wood or MDF bases. This helps the sound, appearance & durability. Thorens is one of handful of world audio companies that has had the honor of a full-sized book devoted to their history. Thorens began in Switzerland in 1883. In 1966 Thorens moved to Germany. Thorens turntables over 50 year old, like the TD124, originally $99 in 1957, now sell for one to two thousand dollars.
In January 2010 Stereophile, page 32, Michael Fremer has two paragraphs on Gold Sound's 2009 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest display, including the premiere of the Ortofon Cadenza cartridge & the Parasound phono stage. There's a good photo of our VPI Classic turntable. Gold Sound is the only Colorado dealer to earn a Stereophile show review, or any 2009 or 2010 press, in either the magazine or blog.
Stereophile's on line report of the 2009 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest has a photo of our room. "Wonderful sounding. Great highs, excellent midrange, ear opening depth & three dimensionality. The sound was sensational enough to live for." The website Dagogo.com gave a favorable review to the Wharfedale Opus 2.2 they heard in our display room.
We had a world premier of a top of the line Wharfedale speaker & the U.S. premier of a state of the art, moving coil Ortofon cartridge. Richard Schram, CEO & founder of Parasound, plus John Curl, Parasound's chief engineer, were at our room with Parasound's JC-1 monoblock power amps & JC-2 preamp, both A rated in 10/09 STEREOPHILE & highly recommended in 10/09 Absolute Sound.
We showed the new VPI Classic turntable, winner of ABSOLUTE SOUND's 2009 Golden Ear Award & HI-FI+ "TURNTABLE OF THE YEAR," & is the only turntable earning a place on HOME ENTERTAINMENT'S top ten list of all audio equipment for 2010. This is the best turntable we've ever displayed. ABSOLUTE SOUND editor Harry Pierson said the $2500 VPI Classic holds its own against the $150,000 Clearaudio Statement.
We had the U.S. premier of Ortofon's $2380 moving coil Cadenza Black cartridge with a boron cantilever & shibata stylus. This cartridge played through Ortofon's $949 Verto step-up transformer, which is Stereophile recommended.
We had the world premier of the Wharfedale Airedale Neo, their top-of-the-line $20,000 floor-standing speakers. We showed the new Opus towers. These speakers sound magnificent: deep & wide imaging, beautifully extended bass & silky smooth midrange & high end from 3" & 1" silk domes, plus two 8" carbon-fiber cast frame woofers. The appearance is gorgeous with gloss lacquer finished rosewood veneer on a curved, well-braced 76 pound cabinet with a 1.3" thick baffle. Customers quickly bought our show demo pair & other Wharfedale Opus speakers.
Though electronics sales are down nationally, sales at Gold Sound remain strong. Our sales have been up every month in 2011 by over 10% over the same month last year. We have more customers than many much larger stores that heavily advertise. Thanks to your support, we stay very busy. Here's some recent customer comments.
"At last, I've found a real store."
"Gold Sound is the only store to buy from."
"You're real friendly and consumer-oriented."
"I've never heard sound so clear."
"Am I glad we found you. We bought this
today & will be back to buy more."
"You're the first person I've spoken to who
understands in your heart & brain what I need.
Why did I waste my time at other places?"
"It's great to find a high-end store without
the attitude. You're very knowledgeable."
"I've gone to many other stores, but only buy here, since you have the sound & values."
"You're the only place in Colorado with a good
selection of stereo & home theater equipment."
"You're a smaller shop & more focussed on
customer satisfaction than any big box store."
"I went from Fort Collins to Denver to Colorado Springs visiting every audio shop. I was so impressed with the Wharfedale Opus speakers that I bought two pairs. There's no speaker for this kind of money that can beat them."
"They are very experienced & knowledgeable in audio, not like some short timer at a box store. They took their time to determine what would work best for me & didn't seem driven to getting the largest sale they could. I'm very happy with my purchase & how it has worked. I highly recommend Gold Sound." Today, all big box stores & many so-called high end stores mainly sell big screen TVs. We care about sound. While others only carry the most advertised brands, we specialize in equipment with better sound & superior value. Unlike big box stores, here you'll find twelve new turntables on display [most made in Europe, including models with built-in preamp & USB output]; five European designed speaker brands; U.S. made tube amps, plus many affordable preamps, power amps & integrated amps.
Customers have chosen Quad speakers after comparing them with more expensive models from B&W, Boston, Canton, Dali, Dynaudio, Focal, JBL, KEF, Klipsch, Paradigm, PSB, Sonus Faber, Spendor, Thiele & many more. Every time, customers have preferred the sound & appearance of Quad speakers. One of our recent Quad customers is the owner of a competing audio store, who decided that the Quad ESL is the best speaker for his own personal use. Customer comments on the Quads include:
"Deeper bass; more three dimensional imaging"
"Sounds as good as my B&W speakers for five
times more."
"A piano just sounds more like a piano."
"It's just a nicer speaker."
We display Rega's Apollo & Saturn CD players. STEREOPHILE & ABSOLUTE SOUND rate the Apollo as the best at anywhere near its price. Many more expensive CD players don't match the Rega's sound. The Saturn is A-rated, the same as $30,000 CD players. Both are specially priced until the end of March with the trade-in of any CD or DVD plater, working or not. The Rega Saturn, normally $2395, is now $1796. The Apollo, normally $995, is now $849.
In October, 2008, we introduced to Denver VPI, Vibrapod & the Stereo Stone Base. VPI is the most famous American-made turntable & highly rated by STEREOPHILE & ABSOLUTE SOUND. The Scoutmaster is a tremendous value & available with pre-installed Grado or Dynavector cartridges. Vibrapod's round rubber feet help absorb unwanted vibrations. They'll improve the sound of CD players, amps & turntables.
Our Stereo Stone Base is a 1.2" thick, 30 pound custom machined granite slab with vibration absorbing feet. The stones look beautiful & improve the sound of turntables, amps & CD players. The imaging, coherence, clarity & detail all improved. Using two European turntables, from 25 to 250hz, we measured over 10db reduction of acoustic feedback. At many frequencies, there was a 15db reduction. Stereophile Magazine called Moscode's room the best sounding at the RMAF. Their display used a Stereo Stone, which is shown on Stereophile's website.
We are now a PS Audio dealer. Customers soon purchased the Premier Power Plant, their best power supply; Digi-links, a Digital to Analog Converter, XLR cables & power cables. All make an immediate, noticeable sonic improvement. ABSOLUTE SOUND gave PRODUCT OF THE YEAR awards to every PS Audio power supply. They protect against lightning, over & under voltage, plus improve a system's sound.
After hearing our Quad 22L speakers, people asked the price. I replied "Eighteen [meaning $1800]." Several times people asked "Eighteen thousand?", since they sounded better than many more expensive systems. We were the only dealer at this show with surround & stereo systems under $1000, plus five more systems under $5000.
At the Denver Vintage Voltage Expo, Gold Sound had two audio seminars. "Build Your Own Speakers" showed how to save money & get better sound by building your own speakers, especially Gold Sound kits using Pro JBL drivers. "Totally Tubular" demonstrated classic & current tube electronics. Gold Sound has new Quad, Vincent & Rogue Audio tube electronics.
Ron 1/28/12
Visitors since Jan 2001
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