LATEST ADDITIONS

Waiting for an opportunity to photograph recordist Todd Garfinkle, of M•A Recordings, was no small task: Just one hour into the New York show on Friday, his exhibit was jammed with eager music buyers, and I had to wait several (enjoyable) minutes before the crowd thinned enough that he could take a break.

As Art mentioned below, traffic was heavy in the Liberty Trading room. When I visited, I had the good fortune of browsing vinyl titles alongside this happy attendee.

"Ha!" she exclaimed. "I was just talking about this record the other day!"

She bought it and several other choice titles, convincing me that I was in the presence of someone with great taste in music.

My first attempt to enter the room at the NY Audio & AV Show where Liberty Trading was selling vinyl and CDs proved fruitless: There were simply too many people lined up to buy records (which included a number of recent Mobile Fidelity LP titles). Nabil Akhrass, seen here behind the counter, would surely question my use of the words too many.

Robin Wyatt of Robyatt Audio did something that hadn't been done at a major audio show in decades: He demonstrated with a pair of Quad ESL loudspeakers—creating, in the process, the sort of sound that led my weak and easily led brain to conclude that I was hearing the best sound of the show within my first hour of attendance. The ESLs, which had been restored by Quad expert Wayne Picquet (also in "Listening" columns passim), were driven by a pair of Miyajima OTL 2010 amplifiers ($10,000 each), which provide 22Wpc when used as monoblocks with their defeatable feedback circuits enabled. Wiring was by Tel Wire. The preamp was a one-off custom unit by fellow upstate New Yorker Charles King, and the sound, apart from the fact that the Quads made a little too much bass (!) for the squarish room, was glorious.

This beautiful Stellavox tape deck, restored by Charles King, was used in the Robyatt exhibit to play recordings provided by the Tape Project. It sounded wonderful.

Robyatt's Robin Wyatt shows off what may be the world's only vacuum-tube wristwatch. (Has Ken Kessler seen this?)

Robert Stein of Ultra Systems (and of the innovative retail outlet The Cable Company) introduced an accessory called the WA Quantum Chip. Available in different sizes, ranging in price from $7.50 to $65 each, the German-made WA Chip is a removable sticker that contains an impregnated film, which is reportedly subjected to a special treatment. Sized for everything from fuses to cell phones to speakers, WA Chips are claimed to increase component efficiency and current flow, for audibly enhanced performance.