What Makes Audio King Dan D’Agostino’s Latest Amplifier Worth $250,000?
A veteran of the audio scene since 1970, Dan D’Agostino has countless state-of-the-art components to his credit. Following a hostile takeover of his company—Krell Industries—and when most guys would simply have retired, the inventor upped his game, founded Dan D’Agostino Master Audio Systems in 2010 and never looked back.
Why has this year been important to you professionally?
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We built a new manufacturing facility in Cave Creek, Ariz. It was a massive project. Meanwhile, we just launched a new Momentum preamp, with other Momentum and Progression products in development. And we introduced the Relentless amplifier.
Your new Relentless monoblock amp—at 6,000 watts and $250,000 per pair—establishes a new benchmark. What inspired it?
It answered a personal challenge: What amplifier would I build if I could build one without any limits? It was really just the pursuit of perfection—something that was beautiful, super-powerful and the best sounding amp I’ve ever made.
What’s the future of premium audio?
My vision is to make audio accessible, products that are at the leading edge of technology— sonically—but that you can literally talk to or access on any device, without having to hook up multiple components and have wires hanging all over the place. There’s always going to be listeners who are hands-on audiophiles, for instance, those who like to play LPs. We still love vinyl.
Which of your next projects is going to cause a stir?
We want to get a headphone amp on the market. Personal listening with headphones is a great entre?e into high-end audio. I’ve been looking at designing one for a while, and I expect I’ll do it this summer. That’ll be really good fun.
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