LATEST ADDITIONS

After having been at the show for some time, I received an email from John Marks, fellow Stereophile scribe, urging me—and Art Dudley, who got the same email—to try to listen to the Bricasti DAC that John Atkinson reviewed in February, which he said was adding five minimum-phase filters, as well as offering an optional asynchronous USB input. As it happened, I read the email just as I was walking by the Bricasti room, and I took this to be a sign that I should follow JM's recommendation.

Rethm, most of whose distinctive loudspeaker designs have been designed and built around full-range Lowther drivers, has now switched to a driver design of their own—which, like Rethm's loudspeakers themselves, are manufactured in India. The Rethm Maarga ($8750/pair) supplements a 6" version of that new driver with an isobaric pair of powered, 6.5" paper-cone woofers.

New at SSI was Rethm's first foray into amplifier design: a 16Wpc single-ended integrated amp called the Gaanam ($7750), built around the Russian 6C33C tube and featuring an outboard power supply, 6922-based preamp stage, and an all-transformer driver stage. Using a Lector CD player and Rethm's own all-silver speaker cable ($1250 for an 8' pair), the combination of Maarga speakers and Gaanam amp sounded spacious, clean, well textured, and very tactile, with fine bass extension and bass color; my impression was that the consistently large crowd of listeners in this room agreed.

The ever-enthusiastic Mike Tang, of Mike Tang Audio, had a system to warm the hearts of anachrophiles: Thorens TD124 with custom tonearm to match the Decca cartridge, Meridian MCD CD player (no modifications), Marantz 7C tube preamp, with the new parts of the system consisting of a Feastrex CV4055 power amp (8W, $5500), and Feastrex NF5 driver ($4500/pair, $7000 installed in a custom cabinet.

Designer, manufacturer, and vintage audio maven Michael Tang brought so many cool things to SSI, I scarcely knew where to begin. The most compelling of all may have been his new Michael Tang Audio APS tonearm ($900), seen here with a vintage Thorens TD 124 turntable and Decca pickup head from his collection, along with his own custom-manufactured hardwood tonearm board. (Yes, I bought one of the latter while I was there.) The reach of the MTA arm may be limited, however: Its distinctive pickup connector is compatible only with obsolete Decca heads. Still...!

"The World's First Audiophile Case for the iPhone 4S/4," said the sign. I was intrigued. What does being an audiophile have to do with the choice of iPhone case? It turns out that this case is claimed to improve the sound of music played back from an iPhone through earphones. A collaboration between a company named Divoti and Gutwire, well-known for their affordably-priced cables, the case is made of pure titanium, with some germanium dots in the back. It sells for $180. I asked how titanium and germanium was supposed to improve sound, and was told that it had something to do with negative ions being generated, counteracting the positive ions that are supposedly generated by electronic devices like an iPhone.

The Rogue Hydra is a 100Wpc amplifier that combines a tube input with a class-D output section (using only the module's MOSFET output, bypassing the rest), with about 2dB of negative feedback. If Rogue is lucky, then this will appeal to both audiophiles that are tube fans and those that are fans of modern digital technology. If they're not lucky, then tube fans will reject it because it includes the evil of digital, and digital fans will reject it because it includes technology that they regard as obsolete. Ultimately, it's the sound that matters—and, according to Rogue's Mark O'Brien, it's an effective combination of the tube sound with the power of solid-state.