We were listening to Magico's fabulous V3s ($25,000/pair), which John Atkinson will be reviewing in the May issue, when we noticed a large music server. "What's that?"
"You know," Alon Wolf told us. A lot of what you liked about the sound of my music server was the Pacific Microsonics Model Two DAC I was using. But that's no longer manufactured, this is even better and only $5000."
When we wandered into Resolution Audio's room, we hadn't heard about the company for a while and weren't sure what to expect. It didn't matter, nothing could have prepared us for Jeff Kalt.
The Replay Turntable ($3499) is Revolver's re-entry into the turntable market after a lengthy absence. It comes packaged with a Jelco tonearm although the company might eventually supply a top plate that can be drilled for any arm. It has a decoupled suspension—which is not sprung–and a large flat belt driven by an AC motor with an outboard power supply. At 50 lbs, it's no lightweight.
We'd heard of Aurum Acoustics, of course. We read Stereophile and were impressed by Art Dudley's account of his adventures with the Integris 300B Active loudspeakers.
Esoteric unveiled its new X-05 SACD/CD player ($5600), which employs a new VRDS-NEO "VMK-5" drive mechanism that includes a precision machined aluminum turntable and a polycarbonate clamping mechanism. The VMK-5 is said to be extremely rigid and optimized for SACD's high-rotation speeds.
We ran into SinglePower Inc.'s Mikhail Rotenberg as he was sprinting down the hall to the Synergistic Research room. "Check these out," he said. "These are a 1932 Tung Argon 4327 and a 1943 722A (323), labeled Centennial, but manufactured by Western Electric."
It exists; we saw it for ourselves! Wadia's $349 iTransport can take the digital signal out of an iPod before the DAC, outputting 16-bit/44.1khz resolution for uncompressed files—it doesn't upconvert lower-rez files like MP3s, but it does reformat them to 16/44.1, according to Wadia's John Schaffer.
We were stunned to see Roger Skoff in the Ultralink/XLO room—we thought he'd retired years ago. "I did," he explained, "but I was asked to design some new stuff incorporating new technologies and more advanced versions of our existing designs."
The Music Player has tons of inputs: USB2.0, iPod (with control and display), S/PDIF digital coaxial, TOSlink digital optical, LAN, W-LAn, and RS232 for update and control interface.
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