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HP’s<br />
WORKSHOP<br />
The Hansen Audio<br />
KING Loudspeaker<br />
System, Version 2<br />
Part One: A Sneak Preview<br />
What I was not expecting when these rather formidable<br />
looking speakers of Lars Hansen arrived was for them<br />
to be decisively better than either the Burmester B-100s<br />
or the Marten Coltrane, although not at a price approaching that of<br />
the Nola Grand References, with which they have more than a few<br />
characteristics in common. That is, they will set you back 60 grand<br />
for the pair and have been designed with the emerging audio “luxury”<br />
market in mind (that same market, I might add, now so dominated<br />
by Wilson loudspeakers). And I am not quite sure, given my populist<br />
upbringing in the mountains of North Carolina how I feel about<br />
the more general “luxury” market, that dominated by Bentleys,<br />
Rolexes, and other examples of what Thorstein Veblen would call<br />
“conspicuous consumption.”<br />
And, after intensive listening sessions, compressed into less time<br />
than I’d have liked, I am convinced that THE KINGs (such a modest<br />
and humble name) are the superior of (the Nolas excluded) virtually<br />
every enclosure-type speaker with which I’ve had experience. I cannot<br />
directly compare these with the Nolas because I have positioned,<br />
against the designer’s true wish, THE KINGs in Room 2, which is far<br />
December 2006 The Absolute Sound 117<br />
PHOTO BY HANSEN AUDIO, WES BENDER
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