Art Dudley

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Orange Men and Green Amps on Boxes
SSI 2011
Art Dudley  |  Apr 07, 2011  |  2 comments
Let’s get right to it: The Coup de Foudre system comprising DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/96 loudspeakers ($12,000/pair), Leben CS300XS integrated amplifier ($3795) and RS30EQ phono preamp ($2795), Hommage T2 phono transformer ($4995), EMT TSD-15 phono cartridge ($1800), Brinkmann Bardo I turntable with Origin Live Encounter arm ($7990 and $2000, respectively), and Box Furniture 3S3 stand ($2300) was nothing less than wonderful: easily in the show’s Top Five, and quite possibly the best of the bunch. The star was the latest pre-production iteration of the O/96, a 96dB sensitive (geddit?) loudspeaker that uses a 10" paper-cone woofer and a 1" silk-dome tweeter in a wide-faced (geddit?) box with a birch-ply baffle and MDF everything else. Their presentation was solid, substantial, rich, and colorful, with great touch, timing, and, above all, dynamics. Flesh and blood? The system was like a day at the butcher shop—but everyone was smiling, and there were no straw boaters.
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Homeland Security
SSI 2011
Art Dudley  |  Apr 07, 2011  |  0 comments
I was never happier to be an audiophile than when my train stopped at the US/Canada border on my way home. The customs officers who boarded our train were quite serious-minded, and as I waited in my seat I heard them grill other passengers regarding the precise nature of the Canadian goods they harbored. When it came my turn, a surly-something man in a black uniform examined my Customs Declaration, saw that I was bringing some new LPs into the US, and broke into a friendly smile: “What vinyl did you get?” We chatted amiably for a moment about old Quads and Garrard 301s before he went on to crack other skulls than mine. (Just kidding. In fact ours was the rare train—in my experience, at least—from which no passengers needed to be removed for lack of a passport.)
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Around the (Voxativ) Horn
SSI 2011
Art Dudley  |  Apr 06, 2011  |  0 comments
My reputation preceded me: Everywhere I went, people who knew me stopped and asked, “Have you heard the new Lowther yet?” The speaker in question was actually a Lowther-alike from the German firm Voxativ, named the Ampeggio ($29,750/pair), and as I told everyone who asked—unsmugly, I hope—I’ve had a loaner pair in my house since mid-March.
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Delphi to Paris in one minute
SSI 2011
Art Dudley  |  Apr 06, 2011  |  0 comments
Hop hop hop! Who is Richard the bunny visiting today? It’s the Oracle Audio Technologies room, where veteran designer Jacques Riendeau introduced a relatively affordable new turntable called the Paris. Available in a variety of configurations—and colors—the fully-loaded version of the Oracle Paris offers an acrylic-and-aluminum platter (plus Delrin record clamp), a sophisticated suspension system, a new Oracle-designed carbon-fiber tonearm, and an Oracle MC cartridge—all for $3150 without the cartridge or $5000 with. I was impressed with the Paris samples on display, and Jacques Riendeau has promised that a review sample will follow in short order.
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Muse News
SSI 2011
Art Dudley  |  Apr 06, 2011  |  2 comments
The first time I heard a PHY driver was in an enclosure designed and made by Ocellia Audio, 15-odd years ago. During the years since then, Ocellia head Samuel Furon has continued to refine his complex, intentionally thin-walled designs, and the line has expanded to include some new models. The latest of these is the Calliope.21 Signature ($14,000 as shown, with configurations of this model starting at $9900), which was demonstrated at SSI with an Ocellia Quero integrated amp ($14,000), prototype Ocellia Quero phono preamp (price TBD), and a vintage Platine Verdier turntable with EMT 997 tonearm and Ocellia-modified Denon 103 cartridge.
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Musical Verity
SSI 2011
Art Dudley  |  Apr 06, 2011  |  0 comments
Verity Audio’s entry-level Finn ($6495/pair) was an intriguing beast: a 91 dB sensitive loudspeaker that sounded open, authoritative, and smooth—the latter quality more so than the dearer Verity Sarastro II, which sounded overly sibilant in another room. (But the good Lord knows that might have been caused by something else in the chain, so do keep these comments in perspective.) Music was supplied by digital files on a MacBook Pro (running Amarra playback software), addressing the digital inputs of a Musical Fidelity M6CD CD player ($2499), while the controller was Musical Fidelity’s new M1 CliC ($1999). Power was supplied by another new Musical Fidelity product, their M6500 integrated amplifier ($6995): a seemingly sweet-sounding 500Wpc monster that’s dual-mono from A through Z.
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Gunmetal glory from Raysonic
SSI 2011
Art Dudley  |  Apr 06, 2011  |  1 comments
I’m not familiar with Raysonic, but their system sounded excellent: a large-scale presentation with good color and texture, elements of which may have been owing to the impressive-looking Raysonic Reference 26 mono tube amplifiers ($16,500/pair in Canadian funds). Each 180Wpc amp contains 12 Russian-made 7591AEH output tetrodes, configured for true balanced operation. (We were told that the loudspeakers, which bore the name Revolver, aren’t commercially affiliated with Raysonic.)
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Gradient's Revolution
SSI 2011
Art Dudley  |  Apr 06, 2011  |  0 comments
While visiting Gradient’s North American distributor, Simplifi, I listened to the current version of their classic Revolution loudspeaker ($7995), which had been favorably reviewed in Stereophile back in 1995. Earlier in the show I’d been impressed with the uncanny spatial realism in the MBL room; the interestingly shaped, dipolar Gradient Revolution was at least its equal in that regard. On one record, singer Willie Nelson was right damn there, and when someone in his band started giving hell to a tambourine, the effect was almost nerve-rattlingly real. What a cool speaker!
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Music’s other Jorma
SSI 2011
Art Dudley  |  Apr 06, 2011  |  0 comments
On my last day at the show I got to meet the founder and chief designer of Gradient, Jorma Salmi: a trim, quietly intense man with a boyish mop of hair. I introduced myself and complimented the originality of his designs; Dr. Salmi looked at me over the tops of his steel-rimmed glasses, smiled kindly, and said, “A little strange, aren’t they?” A moment later he quoted Becket, saying that, in his next design, he would “fail better.” What a cool guy!
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Style and set with no frizzies
SSI 2011
Art Dudley  |  Apr 06, 2011  |  0 comments
This was the first SSI without Nizar Akhrass, who passed away just weeks after the 2010 show. His distribution company, Liberty Audio (May Audio in the US) was in full force nonetheless, now headed by Nizar’s daughter, Julia—who’s expecting her first child in May—and son, Nabil. Liberty’s stalwart brands were all there, including Audes (whose Naum Dorkhman demonstrated a striking new full-range floorstander), Roksan, Target, GutWire, and Harmonix. Veteran audio salesman Michael Tang was on hand to represent the Japanese accessory specialists Orb Audio (they of the nifty DF-03 Disc Flattener, which promises to do what its name suggests). Among Mike’s newest products was the Orb Sakura Static Charge Neutralizer ($299), intended to neutralize unwanted charges more effectively than Robert Shapiro and Johnnie Cochran put together.
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