"Can this really be digital?"
Ideon push the boundaries of digital design to the point where you question everything you thought you knew about the recorded arts
Ideon at Winters Audio
DEMONSTRATIONS AND BUYING
It's summer 2023, and Ideon arrives at Winters Audio. And this event brings with it a strange sense of the new – even though at first it doesn't seem new. But as we listened, adjusted our expectations and listened again, we realised we had crossed the rubicon of the hitherto untapped potential of digital design.
Ideon products are a technical tour-de-force combined with brilliant build quality. And as an ownership proposition, they are bulletproof and come with a seven year warranty.
Featured Products
Inteligent Digital
It's just as much about what's not there. as what is.
Simplicity Where it Counts
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Most of the Ideon components wear nothing much more than a simple standby switch. No fancy displays and all the unnecessary processing hardware and software that goes with it.
Where'Analoge' Really Matters
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Switch mode supplies flood everything with noise on power lines, ground returns and even the ether. It makes no sense to have that anywhere near a good audiophile component – hence linear supplies are always used.
Low Resonance, No EMI
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Ideon casework is carefully designed to minimise structural resonance and Electro Magnetic Interference (EMI). No point in all that careful design if it's slapped into a cheap case.
No Need for Hair Shirt Looks
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Ideon believe people like simple design. Why have something bare bones or over-the-top that doesn't fit in with the rest of your system aesthetics?
The Ideon Team
Munich 2023
A happy Ideon team posing for a snap at the 2023 Munich High End Show. Second from left is chief designer Vassilis Tounas and on the right is CEO George Ligerakis.
The Winters Audio Experience
Ones and Zeros
Here's our listening impressions of Ideon equipment – because everything sounds different. First you realise there is a smoothness here that's actually a huge reduction in hash, edginess and a strange sort of leading-edge brightness that should never be there. The next thing that hits you, as you turn things up a smidge (compensating for the massive drop in grain), is the dynamic range – rich slabs of power and changes in scale that you never imagined possible outside the concert hall. Then there's real detail and transparency here too, as you see further into your recordings than you ever did before. And Ideon has what we call 'playability' – our favourite albums give us that emotional lift that we hanker after and things like old jazz tracks or mainstream pop come through with a sparkle that you just don't normally get.
Zeros and ones... go figure.