To the great surprise of not that many people at all, at Home Entertainment 2003, as at the two immediately previous shows, the room featuring loudspeakers by Joseph Audio was voted by showgoer ballot "Best Sound of Show" (see September 2003, p.62). I'm not going to pick a fight over that. Not only was the sound very, very good; the entire vibe was confidently relaxed, while at the same time being purposeful in a manner businesslike yet friendly.
When some people record music, they make an effort to record the ambient sound of the hall or other performing space along with it. On the other side of the coin, some engineers work to capture only the sounds of the performers, so the recordings they make sound comparatively dry. And, of course, there are engineers who don't make an effort one way or the other, and whose work contains whatever hall sound does or does not come their way by accident.
It was 20 years ago that I appeared on one of the UK's equivalents of NBC's <I>Today</I> show to comment on the launch of CD. I wanted to talk about digital technology, but my host was more interested in the medium's lack of surface noise, which he demonstrated by showing that a disc smeared with butter and marmalade—this was breakfast television, remember—would play without skipping. (Actually, it wouldn't play; after the jammy CD was loaded, the program cut to a pretaped segment in which the player had a pristine disc inside it.)
Thoughts of power, domination, and audio road-rage enter one's mind when contemplating Musical Fidelity's SUV-like, limited-edition, 20th-anniversary offerings (footnote 1). (Only 75 sets of kWPs and kWs will be made.) The gleaming, brushed-aluminum, two-box, oversized, overweight Tri-Vista kWP preamp is fortress-like—the "kWP" looks as if chiseled into the faceplate by grimy, sweaty hands. Each of its boxes weighs almost 56 lbs. The unit's milled-aluminum remote control, the size of a Volkswagen Microbus and looking like something Fred Flintstone might wield, must weigh over 5 lbs. The kWP outputs more juice than many power amps: 55V, with 20 amps of peak-peak instantaneous current!
The responses to last week's question revealed that a lot of you received your first audio system or component as a gift. Reader Chad Tally wants to know if you have ever purchased audio components or systems for someone else as a gift? If so, what did you give?
I don't know Gram Slee from Gram Parsons, or which House he was in at Harry Potter's Hogwarts School, but let me tell you: If you'd just been listening to a bunch of budget phono preamps, as I had, then came upon the GSP Audio Era Gold Mk.V, you'd think someone had switched out not just the phono preamp but your entire system. You might think you were listening to a different pressing or a different cartridge. How can this be?
Simaudio, Ltd. has proudly introduced its MOON limited edition (LE) series audio components, a "reference level" music system which consists of the MOON Nova LE CD player and MOON i-5 LE dual-mono integrated amplifier (75Wpc/8 ohms). The company will produce only 250 units of each model per year. They feature polished chrome accents, thick brushed-and-anodized silver faceplates, and custom two-meter Cardas power cords. The MOON Nova LE CD player is priced at $3500; the MOON i-5 integrated amplifier is $3200.
The name Joe D'Appolito is synonymous with high-performance loudspeakers. Many manufacturers use D'Appolito techniques, but Snell Acoustics has the advantage of employing the famed designer himself as chief engineer. The company will soon begin delivering its Series 7 loudspeakers, which debuted at the 2004 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
To kick off his three-loudspeaker survey from the January 2004 issue, Art Dudley sets up the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/loudspeakerreviews/104meadowlark">Meadowlark Audio Swift loudspeaker</A> in his room and notes, "You look at something like the Meadowlark Swift and you think, <I>How can they sell this for only $1195/pair?</I>"
Flat-screen TVs were clearly the winners at the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES), but bubbling under the surface at the trade show were signs that creating home networks using media servers to manage both audio and video content libraries will also soon hit the big time.