Audio Note Gaku-on

Strange. I "googled it" and got lots of hits. Try leaving out the hyphen. Anyway Audioreview.com I beleive, has what you are looking for. Happy Listening.

I don't speak Japanese, so I can only guess at some translations. There was an Audio Note company founded in Japan by a designer named Kondo. He put out a highly praised, very expensive tube amp called the Ongaku, which means "music" in Japanese.

Some time later, another company was formed in the U.K., called Audio Note U.K. The Japanese company became known as Kondo Audio Note Japan. This Japanese company put out a line of hifi products including the Kondo Gaku-oh (note spelling -- not "Gaku-oN") tube monobloc amp, also favorably reviewed and very expensive.

I could not find any Gaku-on. You might consider Googling the other names. I came up with a comment by reviewer Robert E. Greene ("REG") from TAS in May 1992, excerpted at the web page below:

http://www.regonaudio.com/ongaku.html

As you can see from reading it, he doesn't like it all that much and seems to think its qualities have been overstated by other reviewers. After reading his comment, I conjecture that it may have been a sidebar to a more positive full review by someone else, which would imply that such a full review might have been published in the same issue or alternatively, perhaps earlier in the few preceding issues of TAS. I haven't done that search. Good luck.

There was a long article in Sound Practice regarding this Audio Note Gaku-on.

I believe that Andy Singer of Sound by Singer ran the top Kondo amp in his personal system for a number of years. Send him an e-mail and perhaps he can respond to your question (Andy couldn't be a nicer guy ...).

There was a review in HiFi News (UK) written by Ken Kessler in 1994 or so.

Raquel

I dont know which Andy Singer you are referring to, but the dealer in NY has no interest in audio or music beyond the sound of a ringing cash register.

The Gaku-On amps that I am familiar with are from Audionote (uk) and employ 211 tubes in a parallel single-ended configuration (two output tubes per channel). A local dealer had a pair, and, I believe, one customer owned something like three pairs (two in operation as part of a triamped system) and a third as a spare. These were crazy expensive amps ($250,000 a pair retail). This amp sounds very good, but I actually personally preferred the sound of the Audionote Sogon, which cost about half the price; it has a leaner sound, but a more open top end.

So for $125,000, it's a real bargain?

I suppose that if one could afford either, money is not a factor, only personal preference. This stuff is unbelievably expensive.

Guys, I only wanted to read a review! If you read my post i said i'd like to buy one next time i went to sleep...which is to say, in my dreams.

but thanks for the private emails!

I just want to say that many Japanese super$$$ high end (tube) equipment are overrated, way overrated. We are not talking about normal livelike sound any longer, but a sort of highly refined but "sculpted" and transformed live sound, which doesn't longer sound live to me. But... I might be wrong of course.

Chris