Stereophile.com

Jason Victor Serinus

Sort By: Post Date | Title | Publish Date

Filed Under: News

By: Jason Victor Serinus • Posted: May 09, 2013 • 0 comments

Sony's Yuki Sugiura adjusts the controls in Music Lovers' Reference Room

"Sensational" is an adjective far overplayed in "fine audio" circles (to borrow a phrase that Bob Levi of T.H.E. Show Newport Beach has been using). But I know of no better word to describe the jaw-dropping sound of a dCS/Boulder/Sony set-up at a May 4 demo in the Theater 2 room of Music Lovers Audio, San Francisco. With the assistance of a full complement of Transparent Audio cabling, save for an all-important active USB cable from Synergistic Research, the MacBook Pro/Audirvana-source system, featuring the Sony SS-AR1 speakers that so impressed Kal Rubinson in July 2011 was nothing short of sensational.

For me, the demo began when John R. Quick of Tempo Sales, distributor of digital equipment from UK-based dCS (Data Conversion Systems, Ltd.), ran up to me upon my arrival. Enthusiastically greeting me and my two remarkably well-behaved terrier mixes, Daisy Mae Doven and Leo Gleesun, he declared, "Jason, I have great news for you."

"I can hardly keep hold of the leashes, John," I said, quivering with anticipation. "Tell me, please, before I lose my grip."

"The new Synergistic Research USB Active SE cable blows every other USB cable I've tried out of the water. You've got to hear this thing."

Mercury Living Presence Resounds Again on May 14

Filed Under: News

By: Jason Victor Serinus • Posted: Apr 28, 2013 • 6 comments

Heads up! Not long after the sellout of both Decca Classics' First Collector's Edition box set of 50 Mercury Living Presence CD reissues, and their box set of six 180gm LP reissues, both drawn from the famed Mercury Living Presence catalog, Collector's Edition 2 arrives on May 14. The CD box's 55 titles include two first-CD issue rarities: Antal Dorati's 1953 Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra mono recording of Stravinsky's groundbreaking ballet, The Rite of Spring, and one of the final Mercury Living Presence recordings, John Corigliano's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. The Corigliano recording premiere, performed by pianist Hilde Somer and the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Victor Alessandro, is paired with a close to 17-minute interview with Corigliano, conducted by Paul Hume one year after the concerto's 1968 premiere, and the Paregon to Richard Strauss' Sinfonia Domestica, Op.73.

The New York Show Starts Friday April 12

Filed Under: News, NY Audio Show 2013

By: Jason Victor Serinus • Posted: Apr 07, 2013 • 8 comments

What, another audio show? Yes, barely three weeks after the close of Salon Son et Image in Montreal, and five weeks after AXPONA Chicago, the UK-based Chester Group's New York Audio Show gets underway. Running April 12–14 in the New York Palace Hotel (455 Madison Avenue at 50th Street), the show promises perhaps the largest numbers of seminars and live music events of any current audio show in the US.

There's No Business Without Show Business

Filed Under: As We See It

By: Jason Victor Serinus • Posted: Mar 28, 2013 • Published: Apr 01, 2013 • 0 comments

Cole Porter: An All-Star Tribute (DVD, VAI) includes outtakes of the great Ethel Merman filming for TV, in 1960, a performance of Irving Berlin's "Alexander's Ragtime Band." In take after take, something goes wrong. Each time the director shouts "Cut!," Merman stops in her tracks, almost as if deflating; when the director yells "Action!" she starts from the top, fresh as new, the model showbiz professional.

A Visit to Chicago's Audio Consultants

Filed Under: News

By: Jason Victor Serinus • Posted: Mar 17, 2013 • 14 comments

Alan (left) and Simon (right) Zreczny of Audio Consultants

When a retailer entitles his two-day open house, "Innovations in High Fidelity," it's essential that his staff know their stuff. For Audio Consultants, there was no question. With four stores in the greater Chicago area, Audio Consultants is, save perhaps for Magnolia, the largest as well as longest established audio dealer in the region.

Audio Consultants was also the only Chicago area high-end store to abstain from exhibiting at Axpona Chicago. When asked why, Simon Zreczny, who runs the store with his son, Alan, replied, "I don't like to be at shows. I don't enjoy doing them. I'm happiest with my customers. I attend 50 live concerts a year, and I always see my customers next to me."

Montreal's Salon Son & Image Starts Friday

Filed Under: News, SSI 2013

By: Jason Victor Serinus • Posted: Mar 17, 2013 • 2 comments

Visitors to Montreal's annual Salon Son et Image (SSI) high performance audio show will notice some changes when the three-day event opens to the public on Friday March 22 in its customary location, Hotel Hilton Bonaventure. For starters, instead of the approximately 100 exhibit rooms encountered in 2011, and the approximately 85 last year, visitors will discover 70, including two dedicated to home theater, as well as 370 brands.

Linn of Oakland

Filed Under: AXPONA 2013

By: Jason Victor Serinus • Posted: Mar 15, 2013 • 3 comments

Linn Audio Loudspeakers (not be confused with Linn Products of Scotland) knocked a major $20,000 off the price of their Athenaeum speaker system (normally $80,000/pair) for AXPONA goers. Unfortunately, their associated components—Bryston 4BST power amplifier ($4000), Linn Audio SET Tube Amp ($500), Linn Audio active crossover/preamp unit ($6000), Linn Audio cabling, and unidentified CD source—rendered Diana Krall's voice far too bright and ringing on the bi-amped loudspeakers. Compensation came in the form of a wonderful clarity to her piano and an impressively wide soundstage.

Can You Hear Me?

Filed Under: AXPONA 2013

By: Jason Victor Serinus • Posted: Mar 15, 2013 • 0 comments

The boys from Illinois in the Sonic Hemisphere room were in high sales mode, as in talk loud over the music. Playing their larger Fidelity One 3-way loudspeakers ($5750/pair) with an Oppo CD player, Nottingham turntable, K&K phono preamp, Carey pre-amp, and Clayton Audio amp—models and prices not supplied - the sound was a little shouty, and distant at lower volumes. Offered a "female vocal"—don't you love that term, "female vocal"?—it's as generic as an offer of "red wine" without the vintage—I enjoyed the nice midrange on a track by jazz artist Anne Bisson. The bass boomed, but not to the extent it boomed in some rooms. Not auditioned was the 2-way Fidelity Monitor ($1925/pair).

Lighting Strikes Audio Electronics by Cary

Filed Under: AXPONA 2013

By: Jason Victor Serinus • Posted: Mar 15, 2013 • 0 comments

In a room shared with Audiogon, Cary Audio constructed a system of lower cost Audio Electronics brand equipment designed and hand built in Apex, North Carolina. With circuit designs less complex than those in traditional Cary Audio components, the line's four components utilize no global feedback, and their audio stages are predominantly class-A designs. New to the line is the Lightning USB 24/192 DAC ($1295). Utilizing asynchronous USB technology from Gordon Rankin of Wavelength, the Lightning is set to strike the market around April 1.

Sony, Hegel, and Friends

Filed Under: AXPONA 2013

By: Jason Victor Serinus • Posted: Mar 15, 2013 • 1 comments

In the room set up by Holm Audio of Woodridge, IL, Sony SS-AR1 loudspeakers ($27,000/pair) dominated a system in which Nordost Odin cabling—Odin power cord ($15,999/2.5m), interconnects ($19,999/2m) and speaker cable ($25,999/2m)—transmitted signals from a Rega RP6 turntable ($1990 with Rega Exact cartridge), Hegel HD25 32-bit DAC ($2500), Manley Chinook phono preamp ($2250), Hegel CDP2A ($2650), Hegel P20 preamplifier ($2900), and Hegel H20 amplifier ($5750). On Randy Crawford's CD, We'll Fly Away, the sound was very smooth and non-fatiguing, but lacked sparkle.