New Technology Reviews!.: Teufel

Teufel sign up Raumfeld for streaming products

<img src="http://cdn.mos.techradar.com//classifications/home-entertainment/hi-fi-and-audio/headphones/images/teufel_headphone_detail-200-200.jpg"> German audio company Teufel has bought Raumfeld GmbH – and will begin to sell streaming products under its banner. Raumfeld has established itself as a streaming product specialist, and Teufel is keen to leverage the brand. Thorsten Reuber, Executive Director of Teufel, explains the company's motivation: "The demands of the market have changed drastically in recent years. "Digital audio formats are becoming increasingly popular amongst customers, creating entirely new listening habits, which Raumfeld has engaged impressively. "In turn, this has affected the consumer electronics market. It is our intention to work with Raumfeld's technological know-how to set new standards by combining the advantages of digital audio formats and network technologies with the reputed quality of Teufel's sound systems." Spirit of innovation The Raumfeld team joined up with their Teufel colleagues in November and have apparently "brought their expertise and innovative spirit to Teufel's development and product design departments." Which will presumably come as a bit of a blow to Teufel's development and product design departments who probably felt they had expertise and innovative spirit of their own.

Teufel sign up Raumfeld for streaming products

German audio company Teufel has bought Raumfeld GmbH – and will begin to sell streaming products under its banner. Raumfeld has established ...

Teufel attacks hi-fi market with new UK website

<img src="http://cdn.mos.techradar.com//Review%20images/TechRadar/Home%20Entertainment/teufel-200-200.jpg"> Teufel has launched a UK-specific retail website for the first time. The German hi-fi company's unique selling point is that, like Dell in the computing market, its products are only available direct from its website. But until now, there was one centralised website for all European markets. This has now changed, as <a href="http://www.teufelaudio.co.uk/">Teufel has launched a UK specific website</A> which has all prices in lovely pounds sterling as well as offering other UK-centric features. Teufel says that by cutting out the middlemen in the retail sector and buying direct, you could save up to 60 per cent compared to buying big-brand hi-fi products from traditional retailers. "With Teufel you get better quality at the same price," Teufel's Florian Szigat told TechRadar. "We have the best price-to-quality ratio and this is the crucial point. Customers get good service and native language support and they get the chance to listen to the speakers in their home where they're meant to be played and if they keep them they get a 12-year warranty on any speaker. "We get a lot of requests from German and international companies saying 'we like your products and we'd like to sell them in our stores' and we ask them 'what margin would you want?' and they say 30 per cent, 40 per cent, 60 per cent, and we say we can't do this because our margins are not that high. "Our high end speakers would cost maybe twice the price through a traditional retailer." <img alt="teufel uk website" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/Review%20images/TechRadar/Home%20Entertainment/teufel-420-90.jpg" width="420"></IMG> Because Teufel aren't stocked in any stores, it allows customers an eight-week home trial in order to evaluate the products. "We cut out the middle man by selling directly and this saves for the customer the margin that the middle man would take," said Szigat, "we either take this saving and pass it on to the customer to offer them the product at a far better rate or we take it, put it into development and offer them a far better product at the same rate. "This is the advantage. The obvious disadvantage is that we're not to be found in the stores so you cannot touch the product yourself or listen to it before you buy it. And this is what we try to cope with by granting all customers an eight week right of return. "You are granted two weeks anyway by law but we grant them an extra six weeks to set the product up at home where it's going to be used, which might have a heavy effect on how it sounds compared to how it would sound in the store, and at any time in the eight weeks customers can pack it up again, call us and we'll collect the product and give you your money back."

Teufel attacks hi-fi market with new UK website

Teufel has launched a UK-specific retail website for the first time. The German hi-fi company's unique selling point is that, like Dell ...

Review: Teufel T500

<img src="http://cdn.mos.techradar.com//Review%20images/Hi-Fi%20Choice/HFC%20340/HFC340.teufel.t500-200-200.jpg"> Teufel is by far the best-known exponent of direct-sell loudspeakers and has been steadily raising its profile in the UK over the last couple of years with great models such as its <a href="http://www.techradar.com/reviews/audio-visual/hi-fi-and-audio/hi-fi-and-av-speakers/teufel-columa-900-592112/review">Columa 900 5.1 surround sound speaker system</A> and <a href="http://www.techradar.com/reviews/audio-visual/hi-fi-and-audio/hi-fi-and-av-speakers/teufel-ultima-800-695642/review">Ultima 800</A>. The big difference between Teufel and other brands is that it's not available from hi-fi dealers, cutting out the middleman, which means lower selling prices. So, to an extent, you have to take its qualities on trust. But you do get a generous eight-week trial period, during which the speakers can be returned for a refund if you find you can't get along with them. An additional confidence builder is the astonishing 12-year guarantee period. Yes, that's right, 12 years! Conventional design The T500 is one of the latest from Teufel, a classic three-way floorstander, which, thanks to its distribution model, sells for a very attractive price. This pitches Teufel into direct competition with some of the more popular mainstream brands, including Monitor Audio and Wharfedale. Although essentially conventional in design, there are some noteworthy features, which are not quite by the numbers. The drive unit complement includes a 28mm fabric-dome tweeter, two 170mm bass drivers and a similar size midrange unit, the size chosen to provide the compact footprint and svelte lines that ensures the speaker will not be intrusive in most rooms. The bass drivers use Kevlar mesh diaphragms, with long-throw suspensions, while the midrange unit has a sandwich pulp cone. Bi-wiring or (even) bi-amping are both supported. Finally, the tall, slender reflex-loaded enclosure is fitted with a cleverly integrated platform base. Sturdy A lot of effort has gone into optimising dispersion and minimising phase error, as well as improving time alignment at the point where the tweeter takes over the reins, which is the reason for the stepped-baffle and the deeply recessed tweeter dome. But even leaving this to one side, the T500 is impressively constructed, the sturdy woodwork being made from 18mm MDF with a dark vinyl-wrap wood-effect finish. The price doesn't allow for a real wood finish. More impressive than build quality is the T500's high-value rating, which is largely attributable to the fact that the speakers are sold direct to the end user. The T500 is ready to accept spikes or isolation pads. These don't come in the box as standard, but isolation pads are available optionally, costing around £25 for a set, and you can get spikes from various third-party sources. Don't economise on this: the tall, narrow form factor places stability at a premium. Deep and powerful This is a high-value package, with a grown up performance, but – and inevitably there is a but – there's more quantity here than quality. The T500 is well made and presented, and the bass is moderately deep and powerful, but it is also uneven. The polar response from the tweeter is odd: you need to line up fairly accurately with the tweeter's main axis to achieve a smooth, well-extended response, and something similar happens in the low and middle frequency range too. In this case, the effect has little to do with the listening axis, but the bass and mid-band are similarly uneven, a little wooden and lumpy if you will. If this sounds like damming criticism, it must be seen in the context of value. There's no questioning that the Teufel offers good value for money, and with some care over details such as spikes, as well as room positioning, you can achieve a good working balance. Audiophile perspective There's no denying that you get a real bang for your buck here, and the ability to audition the speakers in your home for a long period. But we never felt completely comfortable with this speaker, which seems to have been designed more by the numbers, rather than real inspiration. There's nothing objectionable about the sound, but it is more workmanlike than inspired. Of course, if funds are limited, there are bound to be trade-offs, but from the audiophile perspective we would gladly sacrifice a little of the bass extension for greater overall refinement. Related Links <UL>

Review: Teufel T500

Teufel is by far the best-known exponent of direct-sell loudspeakers and has been steadily raising its profile in the UK over the last coupl...