Herb Reichert

My personal selection for Stereophile's 2018 Product of the Year was the super-resolving, highly-involving TAD Micro Evolution One loudspeaker ($12,495/pair). I heard it first at a MoFi demonstration at an audio show. Wherein I repeated the words "wow" and "my god" over and over. Think goosebumps and awe. But I never thought, or imagined, how much more fleshed out and expansive the ME1s could sound with another octave of energy at the bottom. This year, in the second Tenacious Audio room, the $27,995/pair TAD Evolution E1TX-K loudspeakers produced a much larger and more forceful energy field—with an enhanced octave to octave tonal balance. The E1TX-K's dual 7" woofers and CST coaxial mid-tweeter array delivered an extremely beguiling transparency.

Ever since Magnepan's Wendell Diller married this beautiful former Soviet spy (aka Agent G), he's been doing everything on the down low, hush-hush, totally covert. (Though I must say he does look good in dark glasses.)

This year at AXPONA he has a secret room, at the end of an obscure hall, with no signage. Agent G watches the door from a distance, and you must knock the secret knock to enter.

The new (world premiere) Laufer Teknik The Note loudspeakers ($29,950/pair) are very hard to photograph because they are very thin line arrays comprised of 48 little metal drivers each in a 87"-tall, 2.5" deep, 2"-wide aluminum enclosure that's heated—it is warm to the touch. They disappeared into space while I listened. Their soundstage went out through the wall behind them while the $1600 SVS SP-4000 subwoofer pushed tight bass down through the floor to the basement. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor rattled the walls, but I couldn't "see" the speakers. Think: Skinny speakers make giant sound.

In front of the room sponsored by GoldenEar Technology and PrimaLuna USA, I saw tube maven Kevin Deal (above)—the latter company's Primary Dude—displaying the insides of a PrimaLuna amplifier. PR man extraordinaire Anthony Chiarella was sitting next to him saying, "Its built like a Fabergé egg." Which indeed it was.