You have to start somewhere, so Jon Iverson and I started with DLS from Sweden. "Are you guys new?" JI asked.

"No. We've been in the automotive audio business for 10 years. This is our first home audio system,"said David Koniarski, DLS' marketing manager. He pointed to the CD One ($3500) and Amplifier One ($3500), a 100Wpc integrated with a single-ended mosfet output stage.

"I design the loudspeakers," said Mats Andersen, caressing his M66 floorstanding 2.5-way tower ($3000/pair). DLS manufactures its own drivers—in the case of the M66, they are a 28mm fabric dome tweeter and two 6" aluminum midrange/woofers with polypropylene surrounds. "The polyprolene damps the aluminum's tendency to ring," said Andersen.

The system sounded dynamic and balanced, so we reckoned that we were off to a good start.