We were so taken with the Leema Antila CD player that we gave it a Best Buy in our 2007 Awards, although at £2500 it might be a touch pricey for some.
So now the company is expanding its hi-fi range with the addition of a more affordable CD player and amplifier. The Leema Stream CD player is £1095, while the matching Pulse amplifier comes in at £1195.
The Stream uses 16 24-bit/192KHz Crystal multi-bit, Delta-Sigma converters, a Philips CD drive and has a coaxial digital output.
Unusually, it only has one control: Leema's L-Drive. This single rotary control handles all the usual functions such as CD tray open and close, play, stop, next and previous track selection and so on.
And to simplify matters even further, it's equipped with LIPS (Leema's Intelligent Protocol System) which enables the CD player to communicate with other Leema products. So, for example, a single press of the L-Drive control will not only select play, but also automatically switch on the amp and select the CD input.
The Pulse amplifier is a slimmed-down version of Leema's upmarket Tucana. It's equipped with remote control, separate moving magnet and moving coil phono inputs and an MP3 player input on the front panel. Power output is 80W RMS into 8 Ohms.
