SSI 2014

Nordost provided the lanyards for the all badges (attendees, exhibitors, and press), with the Nordost name prominently displayed, and to the casual observer it might have seemed that everyone at SSI 2014 worked for Nordost! Not so, but Nordost cables were in a number of systems, and Nordost did brisk business at their booth selling cables and other accessories at a show discount.

The revision of the Sasha to Mark II status involves a number of improvements, the cumulative effect of which, according to Peter McGrath, is quite significant. The Sasha II has the same midrange and woofer as the original Sasha, but the tweeter is all new—a convex rather than a concave dome as used previously. The tweeter and midrange baffle materials are different from those in the original Sasha, and the effect is a 34% reduction in resonant modes. The mechanism allowing the mid/tweeter module to be tilted, to "focus" the sound, has been revised so that the focusing can be more precise.

Evolution Audio's Saxe Brickenden was equally pleased with his award—even though his name on the award statuette was mis-spelled. "I've seen my name mis-spelled so many ways over the years that I'm used to it."

The lovely and talented Sophie De Cruz. What a voice this woman has!

I have found that, under show conditions, some of the sweetest sounds often come from the smallest systems; so it was in the room sponsored by distributor VMAX, where a Hegel H80 integrated amplifier with onboard D/A and five digital inputs, including USB ($2000) drove a lovely pair of Triangle 30th Anniversary Comete loudspeakers ($1800/pair), with a Hegel CDP-2A CD player ($2600) used as a transport.

In one of three rooms sponsored by the dealer Acoustique Technologies, Marten Getz 2 loudspeakers ($23,000/pair) were driven by a pair of Manley 250 "Neo-Classic Design" mono amplifiers ($13,750/pair), in turn driven by a Manley "Neo-Classic Design" 300B preamplifier ($6500) and fed by a Feickert Woodpecker turntable/tonearm combination ($6090) with Dynavector XX2 cartridge ($2150).

Manley tube electronics—the same 300B preamplifier plus a pair of Snapper amps—were used in another Acoustique Technologies room, where they drove a pair of Nola Metro Grand Reference III loudspeakers ($30,900), with the Meitner MA-1 D/A converter ($7000) as a source. I'm sorry to say the Nolas proved impossible to photograph in the back-lit but otherwise dark and very crowded room. And the excessive volume level—and consequently harsh trebles—discouraged me from lingering.