SPIN DOCTOR - Swiss precision

In 1928, Swiss engineer and inventor Jean-Léon Reutter created a clock that could run for years without human interaction or any type of external power source. The Atmos Clock required no AC power, batteries, solar panels, or hand-winding. It was able to wind itself by leveraging subtle changes in atmospheric pressure and temperature.

- MICHAEL TREI

The design was so energy efficient that a single degree of temperature change provided enough power for two days of operation; it would take an incredible 60 million Atmos clocks to equal the power demands of a single 15W light bulb. 95 years later, the Atmos Clock is still being manufactured in Switzerland by Jaeger-LeCoultre, but like most high-precision, Swiss-made instruments, it isn't cheap. Prices start around $7500.

Ultrahigh precision combined with wallet-busting price tags has become kind of a hallmark of Swiss design. In this respect, the products from Swiss hi-fi manufacturer CH Precision aren't exceptions. The name is clever; CH is the not-so-obvious international two-letter code for Switzerland; it stands for Confoederatio Helvetica, the original Latin name for the Swiss Confederation. It is also the initials of company founders Florian Cossy and Thierry Heeb, both of whom cut their audio-design teeth at another great Swiss hi-fi manufacturer, Goldmund.

I have long admired minimalism as a design concept for electronics. My treasured John Curl Vendetta SCP-2B phono preamp uses just a handful of parts on two drink-coaster-sized circuit boards. While it maintains a somewhat minimalist design aesthetic, the P1 phono preamplifier ($31,000) is set to challenge that thinking with a chassis truly brimming with parts. To be fair, a lot of that part count is due to the wide range of features the P1 provides; most of those parts aren't in the signal path at a given moment.