Inside Box Number One
<i>Inside Box Number One: Sumiko’s new <a href="http://www.sumikoaudio.net/okki_nokki/idx_products.htm">Okki Nokki</a> record cleaning machine ($549)!</i>
LATEST ADDITIONS
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The Post-Show Blues
<i>Photo: John Atkinson</i>
Now On Newsstands: Stereophile, Vol.33 No.11
The November 2010 issue of <i>Stereophile</i> is now on newsstands. Immediately after shipping the issue to press, we had to redirect our focus to shipping the <i>2011 Stereophile Buyer’s Guide</i>. And almost immediately after shipping the <i>Buyer’s Guide</i>, we had to redirect our focus to shipping the December 2010. While the December issue was in its very final stages, we had to fly to Denver to cover the outstanding <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/rmaf2010/">Rocky Mountain Audio Fest</a>. It’s been a whirlwind and I can honestly say that I hardly remember <i>working</i> on the November issue.
Can your ears always be trusted?
One of the most-frequently given answers to last week's Vote! was a variation on "trust your ears." But can your ears <i>always</i> be trusted?
RMAF 2010 Surpasses Expectations
Photo: John Atkinson
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t's one thing to know that you're attending what has quickly grown into the largest annual high-end show in the United States. It's something else entirely to try to take in even a third of the 180 exhibits that were spread over the width, breadth and height of the Denver Marriott Tech Center.
RMAF 2010 drew such a huge rush of attendees on the first day (October 15) as to cause at least one overly packed elevator to spend what seemed like a minute in limbo, considering whether it should dare try to ascend. When it finally determined to go up rather than crash down, it moved in fits and starts, and shuddered each time it reached a floor. I think more than one of its occupants took a vow then and there to finally lose some weight. Stereophile ran out of their new-at-the-Show November issue by the end of the second day, and when a member of the Colorado Audio Society donated his collection of back issues to us on Sunday (see the photo), they were all gone within minutes.
Show exhibits extended to eight packed floors, and down into the. . .
Synergistic's Black ART
When I reported in our report from the 2009 RMAF that I perceived a degradation when Ted Denney of cable manufacturer Synergistic Research removed his tiny ART devices from the room, it triggered a debate that raged not just in the comments following that report but also in our website forum right up to today. The fact is that these small metal bowls are too small to have a significant effect on the acoustics of a room at frequencies below 10kHz or so, yet they seem to improve the accuracy and stability of stereo imaging and even tighten up the sounds of bass instruments. It is a mystery, therefore, how these devices can work. I have conjectured that perhaps they have an effect on the listener’s state of mind rather than the acoustics, but if so, then I don’t comprehend how that effect can be both repeatable and demonstrable. Whatever they doif they do anything, that istherefore, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I went into my final room at the 2010 RMAF, the Synergistic room.
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Jeffrey Catalano’s High Water Sound
Jeffrey Catalano’s High Water Sound provided my very favorite musical experience of the 2010 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. Along one wall of the room, there were stacks and stacks of vinyl records, an obvious sign of something good about to happen.
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Tidal's "We Build Emotions" Touch My Own
Some of my happiest sonic experiences at RMAF arrived in the last two rooms I visited: the Tidal Audio/Argento Audio Cables/dCS showcase put together by Doug White of The Voice That Is (Newton Square, PA), and the Simon Yorke/CAT/Synergistic/Lansche exhibit assembled by Tim Nguyen of <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/rmaf2010/tone_of_music_sings/">Tone of Music</A> (San Francisco, CA).
Dynaudio - Wadia - Octave
Perhaps the best sound I heard at RMAF was in the large room on the mezzanine shared by Dynaudio, XLO, and Wadia. The Dynaudio Confidence C4s ($20,900/pair), which I first <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/794/">reviewed in March 2003</A>, were sounding as good as I remember them sounding in my own room, perhaps even better. The rest of the system was obviously high-class: a Wadia 971 CD transport ($17,950) fed Wadia's Series 9 Decoding computer ($33,450, comprising the 931 controller and dual-mono 922 DACs), which in turn fed Octave MRE130 tubed monoblocks from Germany ($16,000/pair) sitting on Grand Prix amp stands. Cabling was all by XLO. The 130W Octave amplifiers use two pairs of KT88s in push-pull and the wideband output transformer has a single tap. The amp can also use 6550s or EL34s, and an accessory "black box" increases the B+ storage capacity.
Revel & Mark Levinson
One of my two best sounds at RMAF was from Revel's Ultima Salon2 speakers ($22,000/pair), which have been favorites of mine since <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/608revel">Larry Greenhill's review</A> appeared in the June 2008 issue of <I>Stereophile</I>. At RMAF, the Revels were being driven by Mark Levinson No.53 monoblocks ($25,000/pair), which in turn were being fed straight from the variable output of a Mark Levinson No.512 SACD player ($15,000). Cabling was all-Transparent. The superbly stable soundstaging extended beyond the physical positions of the speakers, the tonal balance was one of the most neutral I heard at the Show, and the bass was both extended and defined. I would have stayed listening for longer, but the Show only had 30 minutes more to run and I had two more rooms to visit.