LATEST ADDITIONS

While Art Dudley was photographing the new VPI Classic 4 turntable, Stereophile illustrator Jeff Wong (right) cornered Michael Fremer and asked him to autograph Michael's mid-1970s stand-up comedy album, I Can Take a Joke.

The combination of Wilson Audio loudspeakers, VTL amplifiers, and Peter McGrath's digital recordings—and setup skills—has provided some of the finest music I've heard at literally every show I've attended in the past several years, and this show was no exception. The Wilson Sasha W/Ps ($27,900/pair) were installed along the long wall of one of Innovative's two rooms at the Waldorf=Astoria, and were driven by the VTL MB450 Series III amplifiers ($18,000/pair) and VTL 7.5 Series III preamp ($20,000), all hooked up with Transparent cables. The sound was colorful, dynamic, and tactile—string bounce was especially fine—on all selections played, especially a high-resolution excerpt from Carmen that McGrath recorded in Miami not long ago, converted to analog with a dCS Puccini DAC ($18,000).

Renowned journalist (and owner of originally Wilson speakers and now Audio Note speakers) Carl Bernstein (left) and reviewer/set-up specialist Michael Trei, seen browsing the 18th floor during the show's first evening.

Audio Shows give industry professionals the chance to check out products they have read about in magazines. Here, Wilson's Peter McGrath (right) talks to Bricasti's Brian Zolner (The "Bri" in Bricasti) about the latter's M1 D/A processor that so impressed me in the February issue. Feeding data to the M1 was Rega's super- sexy Apollo CD player, which Sam Tellig will be reviewing in the July issue of Stereophile.

The relaxed and crystal-clear sound of the Legacy Whisper XDs tempted my entire CD collection, but I knew what I really wanted to hear: Phish’s Lawn Boy. Both Page McConnel’s and Trey Anastasio’s nuanced phrasing and John Fishman’s tasteful drumming would shimmer in the clean layout projected by these speakers. Legacy’s Bill Duddleston put on my CD. An audiophile in front of me turns around...

On Day 1 of the New York Audio & AV show, I let the exhibitors play their demo tracks in hopes to hear some cool, new music, but I just ended up hearing Stevie Ray Vaughan, Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries or ZZ Top’s “La Grange” over and over and over again, so on Day 2, I brought my own records.

Furniture designer Robert Lighton used the New York Audio and AV show to debut his first audio product, the RL10 loudspeaker ($20,000/pair), offering a solid wood enclosure (even the rear-firing reflex port is turned from solid wood), 1” fabric-dome tweeter, 10” paper-cone woofer, and a sensitivity rating of 95dB. Selections from Lighton’s impressive collection of jazz LPs—one Roland Kirk number in particular—sounded tactile and convincing through his speakers and an 8Wpc Audio Note Meishu Silver Signature integrated amp with phono section ($18,850), Audio Note AN S8 phono transformer ($10,800), and Audio Note TT3.5 Reference three-motor turntable ($39,600), the latter using a Sogon-wired Audio Note tonearm ($13,156) and Yamamoto Y-03s cartridge ($1200).