Accustic Arts Audio Mono II
Accustic Arts of Lauffen, Germany, was founded in 1997 by Fritz Schunk, who sold the company to Hans-Joachim “Jochen” Voss in 2016. Voss’s professional background had more to do with sweet spreads than sweet sounds—he spent 20 years doing sales and marketing, including with the Ferrero Group, which produces Nutella—but he happened to own some Accustic Arts components, and as a music-loving consumer with a special fondness for rock, had been in touch with Schunk for many years before the company went up for sale.
In an extended Skype conversation with Voss and Sebastian Ruhland, a technician at Accustic Arts, I learned that the 55lb, 300W (into 8 ohms), solid state Mono II ($24,900/pair) was released six years ago but has been unavailable here for much of that time, owing to a lack of distribution: It and the company’s other products have only recently been brought to the US market. Incidentally, the Mono II’s predecessor, the 121lb Amp II stereo amplifier, has been a company staple for almost two decades, while the larger Mono III, a far heavier (132lb) and higherpowered (650W into 8 ohms) mono amplifier, came out in 2016.
According to Voss and Ruhland, Accustic Arts amplifiers are improved over time; the Mono II’s most recent upgrade involved a change to the toroidal transformer core to deal with hum issues that developed in countries with widely fluctuating voltage. “We optimize the product all the time,” Voss said. “For example, we recently upgraded the circuit boards without telling anybody. If we changed the amp’s name with each improvement, it would be Mk. XX by now.” If
