New amplifier series from Aavik

Audio Group Denmark is a fairly new name on the hi-fi scene, but clearly one to watch out for.

One of the companies in the group is Aavik, which makes amplifiers at the absolute heavy end of the scale. And they’ve just upped the ambition – and price – level another notch.

It’s doing so with a new amplifier series, called the 880. The series consists of the I-880, which is an integrated amplifier, the C-880 preamplifier, and the P-880, which is a power amplifier.

So far, hard technical data is a bit scarce in the press material, and the 880 series is not yet to be found on the company’s website. However, it appears that the power section should deliver 2 x 200 watts in pure class A. Mind you, “while using no more power than necessary.” How that turns out in practice, we’re rather curious to see, since Class A operation usually means drawing full power all the time.

Of other unconventional technical solutions, the press material from Aavik tells us that analogue room correction is built into the I-880 and C-880 in the form of a filter that should remove frequency spikes in the bass range and “adapt the sound output to the size of the room.” The amps also have an analog-filtered output for the subwoofer.

Aavik is employing something they call “Active Tesla Coils,” in which twisted-pair coils add analog dithering using counterphase signals, which should amplify the music signal and eliminate background noise. According to Aavik.

Otherwise clear is the design language of the new amplifier series. And there’s a well-known reason for that. Flemming Erik Rasmussen is responsible for the aesthetic design of the products, while Michael Børresen is behind the electronics. If the name Flemming Rasmussen sounds familiar, that’s because he is the founder and former owner of Gryphon.

The Aavik I-880 is available now, while the C-880 and P-880 should be ready in January. The price is the same for the three amplifiers: EUR 67,000. Each. Ouch.