LATEST ADDITIONS

RMAF 2007
Come Listen, My Friend
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Oct 13, 2007  |  0 comments
The sweet solidity of the violin beckoned me from down the hallway (which is far more than I can say about some of the rooms I visited). I was hardly surprised to discover that I had been lured by Edge Electronics. Paired with the Tyler Acoustics Woodmere II speakers ($8800 base price, 185 lbs each), the Edge System handled silences wonderfully. That may sound like a backhanded compliment, but I mean anything but. Playing the exquisite Elly Ameling singing Schubert to piano accompaniment, there was a stillness, poise, and grace amidst the living flow of her voice that I rarely experience from sound systems. (I experienced something similar one year in the Joule/Elrod room at CES). On display were the new Edge CD player, whose RAM circuitry is said to perform advance error correction, the G8 amp, and G2 preamp (available with optional battery supply). Actually, passive display was not what was intended. Shipping mishaps from the company's new base in Florida had actually destroyed some of the intended components, which were replaced by older versions of Edge's current models, which Steve Norber lifted from his home system a few miles away.
Continue Reading »
RMAF 2007
Rivaling Mass Market Doo-Doo?
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Oct 13, 2007  |  0 comments
Toward the end of Day One, I encountered my Bay Area Audiophile Society buddy Jeff Wilson in the hallway. Jeff, a true music lover and long-time audiophile whose ears I trust, is about to open a showroom with Bob Kehn in Oakland, CA that will feature Magico, VAC, Silversmith, and other top-quality brands.
Continue Reading »
RMAF 2007
Tuning Matters
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Oct 13, 2007  |  0 comments
In a room tuned with the amazing Acoustic System Acoustic Resonators to sound good with the glass window exposed, Darren and Bonnie Censullo of Avatar Acoustics displayed a system distinguished by the kind of openness and air that some people would kill for. Products included the Abbington Music Research AMR CD-77 and AMR AM-77 ($8500 each, both outfitted with NOS tubes), Acoustic System Tango Speaker ($13,500/pair), Current Cable Powercord and interconnects, and a host of Acoustic Resonators. If you look closely, you may see one of the diminutive resonators ($200–$2200) on the rear window. This is one system I hope to revisit if time allows. I’d love to hear some of these products in my own listening room, which is far bigger than the hotel suites into which most systems were shoeboxed.
Continue Reading »
RMAF 2007
The Stuff of Dreams?
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Oct 13, 2007  |  1 comments
Having hosted an AudioKinesis speaker demo at my home for the Bay Area Audiophile Society (BAAS), I feel confident saying that Duke LeJeune is one of the dearest men in the business. Here he demonstrates his new 92dB-sensitivity, 16 ohm impedance, 170 lb Dream Maker ($9000/pair), whose "controlled-pattern, offset bipole configuration" is designed to control the relative level of reverberant energy density in the room. If that sounds like gobbledegook, the vivid presentation of the AudioKinesis/AtmaSphere combo, which was admirably clear in the higher frequencies, whet my appetite for more extended listening in the future.
Continue Reading »
News
MartinLogan's Custom Shop; Hansen's Elixir.
Wes Phillips  |  Oct 13, 2007  |  0 comments
MartinLogan: MartinLogan has launched its Custom Shop application, which will enable consumers to utilize a 3D model and a palette of finishes to configure custom loudspeakers. ML claims that its flagship Summit loudspeaker ($10,995/pair) can be ordered in 400,000 custom combinations. The consumer can chose everything from cabinet finish to the color of the screws on the rear panel, the company claims.
Continue Reading »
News
Label Panic in the Year 2007
Wes Phillips  |  Oct 13, 2007  |  0 comments
In a week in which Radiohead released non-DRM digital files of its new recording, In Rainbows, for whatever price consumers felt obliged to pay, and Madonna and Nine Inch Nails both announced they were going to release their own music without help from record labels, two of the big four labels had drastically different reactions to the new realities of music distribution.
Continue Reading »
RMAF 2007
Luxman Returns to the US
John Atkinson  |  Oct 13, 2007  |  0 comments
Undoubtedly contributing to the excellent sound I heard from the Vivid speakers in the previous story was this neat 30Wpc class-A integrated amplifier, the L-590A II ($9000) from legendary Japanese brand Luxman, shown here sitting on the top of the stack of Weiss gear. On A Higher Note is now distributing Luxman in the US.
Continue Reading »
RMAF 2007
New Distribution for Vivid Speakers
John Atkinson  |  Oct 13, 2007  |  0 comments
We first encountered the South African Vivid speaker, designed by B&W alum Laurence Dickie, at a CES a couple of years ago and was impressed with their clarity, dynamic range capability, and freedom from coloration and distortion. For whatever reason, the brand failed to get a foothold in the US, but it was announced at RMAF that Vivid was now being distributed by On a Higher Note. I sat down in the sweet spot and after listening to a rather nice recording of Aaron Neville singing "Save the Last Dance for Me," Philip O'Hanlon put on a DVD-A he had burned on his PC using the $49 Cirlinca program and was playing back on a Weiss Jason transport and Medea DAC, which On A Higher Note is also now distributing. Now there was a familiar sound—it was the 24/88.2 master of my recording of the slow movement from the Mozart Clarinet Quintet, which I had completely forgotten sending Philip a few years back.
Continue Reading »
RMAF 2007
Balanced Wilsons Honor Frankie
John Atkinson  |  Oct 13, 2007  |  2 comments
I always make a point of seeking out a Wilson dem at Shows, and in the RMAF room run by Denver dealer Audio Unlimited, I encountered not one but two systems featuring Wilson speakers. The smaller system offered WATT/Puppy 8s driven by Balanced Audio Technology's VK53 CD player and $6000 VK55SE integrated amplifier—compared to its predecessor, this now uses 6BH30 input and driver tubes, sitting on tubed current sources—and sounded sweet indeed. But the real reason to visit this room was to hear the mighty MAXX2s driven by BAT's new Rex three-chassis ultimate preamp, VK600SE solid-state monoblocks and the new Paganini three-box SACD player—transport, clock, DAC—from English company dCS. BAT's Geoff Poor put on Frank Sinatra's Nelson Riddle-arranged "What's New," which Geoff feels is the singer's finest performance. Wow! Mr. Sinatra was there in the room with us.
Continue Reading »
RMAF 2007
Usher Dancer Be-718
John Atkinson  |  Oct 13, 2007  |  0 comments
Walking to the Kimber dem, I heard the familiar sounds of the Beatles' "Come Together" coming from the open door of the Usher room. I had to go in. A pair of the Taiwanese manufacturer's Dancer Be-718 two-ways ($2795/pair) was playing the song, fed by the LP release of Love on an Oracle tonearm/turntable fitted with a Zyx Atmos cartridge, which in turn was feeding the Oracle Temple phono stage, Oracle DAC 1000 preamp, and Usher's R.15 amplifiers. Cabling was all JPS Aluminata. Considering the large room, the relatively small Dancers appeared to have no problem filling it with sound. This is a speaker that deserves review coverage in Stereophile, I feel.
Continue Reading »

Pages

X