Goldmund makes hi-fi in a class of its own. Not only is the equipment indisputably of the highest quality, but the Swiss company repeatedly excels with a finish and price that is unrivalled in the world.
The latest addition is the Telos 2800 power amplifier. With a 12 mm thick aluminium cabinet and a weight of 59 kg, we are visually in the super heavyweight class.
The output power is rated at 365 W in 8 ohms and 450 W in 4 ohms. This is a fairly high power output, but not unheard of. And the harmonic distortion, which is rated at 1% at full power, has actually been surpassed by more humble amplifiers.
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But the Swiss ultra-high end specialists are in no doubt about where they want to go – and how much it should cost. The company’s website explains how the amplifier is built around a 3.2 kilowatt toroidal transformer and a 109,600 uF capacitor bank. And of course, the capacitors are customised with Goldmund’s name branding.
These things come at a price, and a Telos 2800 costs 155,000 Swiss francs, equivalent to approximately EUR 123,000. And since it’s a mono amplifier, you need two for stereo. Do the maths if you plan to use it in your Dolby Atmos home cinema…
In this light, the massive McIntosh MC2.1KW we wrote about yesterday seems almost cheap. It costs just about a quarter of the Telos 2800.
Since the Goldmund Telos 2800 is a pure power amplifier, you’ll also need a matching preamplifier. Here, the Goldmund Mimesis Signature seems like an obvious – and relatively economical – choice.
If you don’t want to compromise at all, we should mention for the record that Goldmund has an even more extreme amplifier in its programme, the Telos 8800. But it’s not nearly as inexpensive.
More info: Goldmund