February 29, Hannes Frick of WLM announced himself for a half-day social call to pick up his La Scala and Sonata review loaners and get Sasa and Misha of Trafomatic Audio a well-deserved break from a 3-day intensive in Sülz/Austria where their team had cracked the whip on new models for HighEnd 2009 in Munich.

Although I ordered these gents to look like they were having fun, my German must have gotten rusty. Nobody obeyed.
Coming down the pike in a few months to round out WLM's new valve electronics line is the Linea remote-controlled 2 x 6N1P-EV preamplifier; the Gamma USB DAC; the Phonata phono stage in MM or MC flavors; the amplifier version of the Sonata integrated with input transformers; and a yet-to-be-christened entry-level 2-model WLM speaker range.


The tower version of that 5" (130mm) two-way with Visaton drivers will get a quite different plinth than the prototype shows below. "This 5-incher has sensational figures and qualities I didn't believe at first. The paper unit has very high SPL stability and with our downfiring port, extends surprisingly low. In the price range we're targeting, this should become a real overachiever. Alas, we need to seriously squeeze our margins to hit the magic number."


"As you might have heard, CES was a complete bust. If we had 300 people through our exhibit, we were lucky. Still, WLM signed a new distributor for Hong Kong who felt we had the best sound at the show. It honestly was the best sound WLM has ever made at any such event. Sasa's Sonata really was magic on our La Scalas."


Sasa was exited about the new Sonata stereo amp. "The input transformers make a real difference over the integrated Hannes had in Vegas. Wait until you hear it in Munich. Hannes also wants monoblocks. Those will run 6 x EL34 per side and be real special. Plus, we're toying with the idea of an EL84 mini integrated for his two new 5-inch models. Let's just say that between now and Munich, we'll be crazy busy." Does it not seem the audio horoscope has WLM Acoustics in its ascendent at the moment? Cheers to this Austrian-Serbian collaboration!