darTZeel NHB-458 (£150k pair)

摘要

Having acquired an enviable reputation despite producing less than a half-dozen products in under two decades, one might say that darTZeel errs on the side of caution. This is a truly Swiss trait, as are manufacturing standards so high that the company even commissions its own screws to hold the products together. It may seem presumptuous, then, to mention a brand so young and non-prolific as darTZeel in the same sentence as Krell, Threshold, Mark Levinson and D'Agostino (the latter is new, but the pedigree long). And yet it is certainly a contender in the heavyweight solid-state arena. Before approaching this assault on the state of the art, we spoke with founder Herve Deletraz both to learn how it represents the pinnacle of what the brand has been trying to achieve, and to discover why he feels darTZeel audio products differ from the competition.