In honor of the 225th anniversary of Mozart's death at the age of 35, Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, and the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation have together issued a whopping 24-lb box of recordings and commentary called Mozart 225. Billed as the most complete and authoritative edition of Mozart recordings ever assembled, the $480 box, in an edition limited to 15,000 copies worldwide, includes 200 CDs with 240 hours of music.
For the longest time, I've found the label "hobby" inadequate to describe the audiophile goal of better sound reproduction. Yes, for some, the mechanics of the High End have become an end in themselvesa way to tinker and tweak, build and rebuild in classic hobby fashion. But for many others, specifically earbud listeners, folks with whole-house systems, and those who'd rather push a button on a remote and sit back or dance rather than roll tubes or tinker, the descriptor hobby falls woefully short.
I got to the LVCC just in time. The journalist registration line in the second floor pressroom was virtually non-existent . . . until I finished. By then, 20 more journalists had lined up behind me.
Inveterate news junkies of the world, your way out has come. For at least one good hour of your otherwise doom-laden day, you have a reason to turn off Fox or CNN and drift on feathery clouds to a far sweeter place. Your exit has been most graciously supplied by pianist Stephen Houghhe of Stephen Hough's Dream Albumwhose latest recorded achievement may well be hailed as the most engaging, charming, and delightful recording of the year... or even the decade.
Could a year have passed since I spent a particularly memorable month reviewing the top-line, two-piece Esoteric Grandioso C1X preamplifier? As hard as it may be to realize that time has moved so fast during these strangely elongated years of pandemic isolation, revisiting Esoteric components in 11 Trading Company's room at AXPONA 2022 was like reuniting with an old friend. There was a lovely grace to this Esoteric system's presentationan ease and flowthat set it apart from many of the other systems encountered at the show.
Even as I was admiring some of the handsomest audio gear I'd ever set eyes on, my thoughts kept returning to equipment of a very different sort.
Flash back maybe 40 years to my one-bedroom apartment on Elgin Park in San Francisco during the period when I was whistling for my supper and performing Puccini's "O mio babbino caro" in the Emmy-nominated Peanuts cartoon, "She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown." Cue the constant din of an elevated four-lane freeway, since demolished as a blight on humankind, which I tried to pretend was the sound of water in the accompaniment to one of Schubert's many "water and fish" songs.
At AXPONA 2022, I eagerly headed to the Esoteric exhibit, where I spoke with Keith Haas, national sales manager of 11 Trading Company, Esoteric's US distributor. When I learned of the forthcoming Grandioso M1X monoblock ($35,500 each), the culmination of a complete revision of the company's top-selling M1 monoblock (now discontinued), I worked with Haas and Editor Jim Austin and set up a review.
Ever since the Tokyo Electro Acoustic Company (TEAC) founded its Esoteric division, in 1987, Esoteric's slogan has been "state of the art." Given Esoteric's impressive displays at audio shows, which reflect a consistency of ownership, staff, and philosophy of engineering, design, and manufacturing, I have longed to evaluate one of their hand-assembled models in my reference system. Any brand named Esoteric, and whose top line of products is named Grandioso, had better make superior products.
In celebration of Esoteric’s 35th anniversary, the company’s Shota Terai offered a sneak preview of the Grandioso T1, the first turntable in Esoteric's long history. Due to be finalized soon, the T1 employs the company's "patent-registered unique contact-free Esoteric MagneDrive System that inductively synchronizes the rotations of a magnetic driver and platter, realizing a quiet and silky-smooth rotation at an extraordinarily accurate rotation speed."
Esoteric unveiled the handsome C-03X stereo linestage preamplifier ($13,500). A fully balanced dual-mono design, it boasts a low-impedance, fast-response power circuit comprised of three transformers. So new that it was only available in static display at CES, it will soon be accompanied by an MM/MC-compatible phono module.