Audiophilepure

https://pt.audio/2025/10/10/vimberg-tonda-d-addendum-review/

After spending a weekend listening anything from Beethoven’s 7^th symphony (with Ivan Fischer at the podium) all the way to the new Tron Ares OST by Nine Inch Nails, to Kuijken playing The Four Seasons on an obscure cello da spalla instrument, to Marcelle Meyer resurrecting Rameau, I came to the conclusion that my Vimbergs were even better than what I have already raved about.

Thing is, modern speakers evolved hand in hand with modern amplifiers and as watts became easier to come by speaker designs, they morphed into insensitive beasts, hard to tame by single ended triode tube amps. Not the TIDAL Audio and Vimberg designs.

It is not just a matter of sensitivity. The Vimberg Tonda D declares a sensitivity of 90dB/1m, which is neither very high nor very low, and on paper it’s about right and similar to what other manufacturers declare, give or take. It has to do with impedance, port tuning, crossover order, complexity and of course the type of drivers.

I won’t go into further technical details, I trust my ears and the humble GM70 monos make gorgeous music with the Vimberg Tonda D. Mids are lush and the highs are velvety. Voices sound human, strings vibrate and cymbals tickle my senses. The surprising part is that I barely miss anything from the lower registers, and this is comparing 23W to a few hundred. 

https://www.hifinews.com/content/arcam-sa45-streaming-amplifier

The SA45’s digital stage performs admirably overall, sounding focused and detailed if not quite hitting the precise, airy highs of dedicated solutions. Black Sabbath’s riff-filled ‘Symptom Of The Universe’ from the album Sabotage [Rhino/Warner; 96kHz/24-bit] sounded a little more cohesive and revealing in the high frequencies played via a Matrix Audio Element X2 Pure streamer [HFN Dec ’23] into the SA45’s balanced XLR input. Using that source to stream Kari Bremnes’ ‘A Lover In Berlin’ [Norwegian Mood, Kirkelig Kulturverksted; CD res] found the amp combining a detailed, textured depiction of the upright bass with a feather-light delivery of her vocals.

Thanks to this ‘best of both worlds’ performance, I struggled to find any music that would trip up Arcam’s flagship. Eric Clapton’s ‘Goin’ Down Slow’ [Pilgrim, Reprise Records; CD res] sounded clean and crisp, with rattlesnake-like percussion flitting behind keyboards, guitar, and Slowhand’s understated vocals. This track may straddle blues and easy listening, but the SA45 made every second a pleasure.