John Atkinson

...was how SSI organizer Michel Plante had billed our "Ask the Editors" session, and (from left to right), Stephen Mejias, Robert Deutsch, and Art Dudley joined me in an animated discussion. Topics covered included the vinyl revivial, whether there is still a role for paper magazines in an Internet world, how does someone become a reviewer, and will Blu-ray be a viable medium for high-quality music.

From time to time in this column, I have alluded to what appears to be a loss of direction in high-end audio. It's not that the state of the audio art has stopped advancing; the technology is improving in many ways, as is obvious every time we listen to a new preamplifier or cartridge or loudspeaker that has better this, that, or the other thing than anything which has come before. The problem is that these improvements don't really seem to be getting us anywhere. And I believe the reason for this is that the audio community no longer agrees about where audio is supposed to be going in the first place.

Audience was demming their tiny ClairAudient 1+1 bipolar speaker ($1800/pair, available this month), driving them with their 400W Wavepower monoblocks $18,000/pair including Au24 SE PowerChords) via Au24 cables. Front end was a Bryston BDP-1 media player and BDA-1 DAC, and Audience’s Adept Response aR6-TS conditioners cleaned up the AC. As you might expect from such small speakers using two full-range drivers, the stereo imaging from this system was superbly stable and exquisitely well-defined, though double basses did sounded more like cellos, there only being so much low-frequency energy you can extract from 3" drive-units, even when loaded with passive radiators.

The Audio Alternative's big room on the ninth floor was one in which I spent more time than I had intended, such was the spacious sweep of sound produced by the Vandersteen Model 7 speakers ($50,000/pair with premium M7 crossovers) driven by Audio Research Reference 250 monoblock amplifiers ($25,990/pair). A CD of Joe Williams singing a vocal version of Miles Davis's "All Blues," recorded 20 years ago with the then-groundbreaking Colossus digital system kept me in my seat. The source components were supported on one of Harmonic Resolution Systems' excellent racks, BTW.