LATEST ADDITIONS

I can't help wondering: how did the mainstream audio press, cheered Dynaco and Marantz and McIntosh and Quad for switching to transistors a couple of generations ago, greet the first tube-revival products from Audio Research and the like? What was the reaction when moving-coil cartridge technology, considered all but dead by the early 1970s, became the perfectionist hi-fi norm just a few years later? And what would the same people make of the fact that a high-mass, transcription-length pickup arm—with interchangeable pickup heads, no less—is one of the most recommendable phono products of 2008? The mind boggles.

T.H.E. Show, aka <A HREF="http://theshowlasvegas.com/2009/">The Home Entertainment Show</A>, has put out a welcome mat for members of "authentic Audiophile Societies throughout the globe."1 Scheduled for January 9&#150;11, 2009, in Las Vegas, the same dates as the Consumer Electronics Show down the road, T.H.E. Show has for the first time offered members of audiophile societies paid access to over 100 anticipated active-display suites in both the St. Tropez and Alexis Park hotels.

"Up for another?" asked the e-mail.

After a year spent exploring the best that can be obtained from minimonitor loudspeakers, I embarked on what will be an equally long examination of what floorstanding towers have to offer. I began with the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/1207sonus">Sonus Faber Cremona Elipsa</A> ($20,800/pair) in December 2007, followed in 2008 by: in February, the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/208kef">KEF Reference 207/2</A> ($20,000/pair); in April, the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/408psb">PSB Synchrony One</A> ($4500/pair); and in May, the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/508mag">Magico V3</A> ($25,000/pair). For this review, I've been listening to a speaker aimed at those with shallower pockets than are required even for the PSB: the Avalon NP Evolution 2.0, which costs just $1995/pair.

In the waning days of 2007, I delivered some small audio doohickey to John Atkinson one weekend afternoon. "Come down to the listening room," he said. "I want you to hear something."

"Where do you want 'em?" Doug'n'David (of <I>Stereophile</I>'s shipping and receiving, not your favorite morning drive-time talk radio co-hosts) had just wrestled over 500 lbs of cocooned Wilson WITT loudspeakers onto the floor of my garage. Like the Thiel CS7s I had parted with just a few weeks earlier, the WITTs came packed in solid, heavy wooden crates. The pained expressions on Doug'n'David's faces indicated that it was time for me to start reviewing minimonitors! The unpacking went more smoothly than I expected, but this is clearly a pair of loudspeakers that demand to be delivered, uncrated, and set up by a dealer.

We all know it's impossible to reproduce live music. An obvious statement, no doubt, and one that holds every audiophile hostage to the never-ending search. As a musician, I find the situation especially frustrating. The constant reminder of live <I>vs</I> reproduced makes living with an audio system a serious compromise, regardless of price or quality. About three and a half years ago, however, I reviewed a product which I felt, and still feel, offers the first real glimpse of that impossible dream: the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/506">B&amp;W 801 Matrix Monitor</A> (footnote 1). Although it wasn't perfect, I found this speaker provided more musical honesty than anything I had heard before. In this respect, it established a new standard by which others would be judged.