Like so many rooms at the Hilton, Wyred 4 Sound was battling an unsympathetic acoustic, which made the otherwise excellent Paradigm Signature S8 v3 speakers ($7999/pair) sound bass-heavy. But driven by an almost all-Wyred 4 Sound systemMS-1 music server ($1999), DAC-2 DSDse ($2499), mAMP monoblocks ($1798/pair), with all Wyred 4 Sound cables, and PS Audio P5 AC conditioner ($3495)the sound of DSD files from Cookie Marenco Blue Coast Records sounded excellent. One thing I did notice that the sweet spot was very small, the sound being rather diffuse and lacking transparency until I moved into the front-row center seat.
YG Acoustics’ Sonja 1.2 passive loudspeakers ($72,800/pair), which is basically the Sonja 1.3 that JA will be reviewing in the July issue, with one less woofer, sounded gorgeous in a not-so-modest $250,000 system. Sharing the honors were Tenor Audio’s 1755 stereo amplifier (Cn$55,000) and Line1/Power 1 preamplifier (Cn$75,000), Luxman’s DA-06 DAC ($6000), and $34,700 worth of Kubala Sosna Elation cabling and Sextet Power Distribution box.
In only its third year, T.H.E. Show Newport Beach has already become the largest consumer high-end/high-performance/fine-audio show in the United States. Running May 31June 2 in the Hilton and Atrium Hotels, directly across the street from southern California's surprisingly low-key Orange County/John Wayne airport, the booked-to-the-max show promises 140 active exhibit rooms, an estimated 450 manufacturers from around the globe, and enough ancillary events to rival a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey three-ring circus.
“An honest sound; clarity without detail being thrust forward at the listener,” read my notes from this room at the Hilton, which featured the superb-sounding TAD Evolution One speakers ($29,800/pair) that Kal Rubinson reviews in the July 2013 issue of Stereophile. Both Eva Cassidy singing “Fields of Gold” and the Sir Charles MacKerras’s “Living Stereo” recording of Sibelius’s Finlandia (the latter one of the first classical recordings I owned more than 50 years ago) were well-served by this system, which included Zesto’s Andros PS1 tube phono stage ($4300) that Michael Fremer liked so much when he reviewed it in his March 2013 “Analog Corner” column, Zesto’s new Leto tubed line stage ($7500), and A VAC Phi 200 power amplifier ($9990), all hooked up with WyWires wires. Turntable was the Merrill-Williams ($7200) fitted with a Triplanar arm ($6000) and a Dynavector XX2 Mk.II cartridge ($1985).