LATEST ADDITIONS

"That's a familiar sound," I thought as I entered the 5th-floor suite shared by YG Acoustics and Krell. It was the classic Show dem record from the early 1980s, <I>James Newton Howard & Friends</I> on Sheffield Lab. The speakers were the YG Anat Reference II Studios ($70,000/system), which differ from the Anat Reference II Professional reviewed by Wes Phillips <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/yg_acoustics_anat_referenc… year ago</A> in not having the powered subwoofer modules. The room was problematic at low frequencies&#151;either there was an upper-bass suckout or there was too much upper bass&#151;and YG's Dick Diamond had spent long hours optimizing the sound on set-up day, but the effort was obviously worth it.

As you will see from the forthcoming May issue of Stereophile, modern horn speakers don't suffer from the colorations and idiosyncrasies that plagued the genre in earlier decades. Such was the case in the room shared by Aaudio Imports and Sanibel, FL retailer Lee Island Audio. The German Acapella High Violoncello II speakers ($80,500/pair) with their ionic tweeters, driven by Einstein The Turntable's Choice phono preamp ($9,800), Einstein The Tube Mk.2 balanced line stage ($18,400), and a pair of Einstein The Final Cut tubed OTL monoblocks ($34,900/pair), connected with Stage III interconnects, speaker cables, and AC power cords, produced a seamless soundstage and a smoothly coherent tonal picture. With the LP of Rickie Lee Jones singing "Chuck E's in Love," played on a Galibier Stevio turntable ($15,000) fitted with a Triplanar Mk.VII tonearm and a Dynavector XV1s phono cartridge ($5250), the sound was one of the best I heard at Axpona. I have asked Aaudio Imports' Brian Ackerman for review samples of the Acapella speakers.

At the other end of the large room shared by Definitive Electronics and Michael Chafee Enterprises from the Genelec-based surround system that Jason <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/axpona2010/chafee_surround/">blogged about</A>, renowned mastering engineer Bob Katz was playing 24-bit/96kHz files handpicked from his portfolio. Speakers were the superb Revel Ultima Salon2s driven by a solid-state Balanced Audio Technology power amp, hooked up with Nordost cabling.

In <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/now_on_newsstands_stereophile… March 2010 issue</a>, Steve Guttenberg offered an excellent As We See It, detailing his newly rekindled relationship with vinyl playback. Over at CNET, Steve is known as <a href="http://news.cnet.com/audiophiliac/">the Audiophiliac</a>, discussing a wide range of news, events, and ideas, all in the worlds of music and hi-fi. Now the Audiophiliac and his colleagues at the 404 Podcast present the Audiophillie Awards: They’re asking recording engineers and hobbyists of all levels to submit their best work, with the chance to win some fun prizes.

"Reference Audio on a Budget" was the tagline for the exhibit from Darren and Bonnie Censullo's Avatar Acoustics of Fayetteville, GA. Most important, the room featured two world premieres. First was a product you're sure to hear more about, the Axis Voicebox S loudspeaker ($3000/pair). A 5 ohm, 83dB sensitive model with a frequency response of 45Hz–20kHz ±3dB, this little baby was paired with Abbingdon Music Research's AMR AM 777 60Wpc hybrid integrated amplifier ($4500), AMR CD-777 player ($4500), Dr. Feickert Analogue Woodpecker turntable ($4995) with DFA 10.5 tonearm ($1000), AMR PH-77 phono preamp ($11,995, and soon to be reviewed by Michael Fremer)), and DFA premium tonearm cable ($600). Throw in $11,265 worth of cabling and power distribution from Acoustic System International and Avatar Acoustics, including the world premier of the Avatar Acoustics Mach 4 Power Distributor ($1800 with power cable), and $10,240 worth of Acoustic System International Resonators, and your hypothetical budget would top $50,000.

I was familiar with the $4000/pair Penaudio Charisma speakers in the May Audio room, but the well-finished and equally well-sounding electronics driving them were from an English company I had never heard of, Chapter Electronics. Making its US debut at Axpona, Chapter, I was told, features designs from Duncan Shrimpton, an engineer who used to work for Chord. The Sonnet S CD player ($9000) is a top-loading design with a volume control to allow direct connection to an amplifier and both S/PDIF and USB inputs for streaming audio from other sources. The matching Pr&#233;cis 250S integrated amplifier ($11,995) offers 250Wpc into 8 ohms from a class-D output stage. The illuminated knobs on both products can be dimmed or even have their colors changed.

Jason already blogged about the sound from the <A HREF=" http://blog.stereophile.com/axpona2010/classic_cary/">big rig</A> in the Cary Audio room, which was being run by Florida retailer Let There Be Sound. I had enjoyed the sound of Ry Cooder's classic <I>Jazz</I> from LP in that room Saturday night after the Show closed, as well as a CD-R of songs from the Who's <I>Tommy</I>, burned from an acetate of the master by Mikey Fremer using his awesome Continuum record player. But Sunday morning, LTBS's Oswaldo Martinez was playing Rebecca Pidgeon's classic "Spanish Harlem" from CD on a system featuring the 5Wpc Cary Exciter integrated amplifier driving these beautifully finished single-driver bookshelf speakers, the Sur. Pidgeon's voice sounded smooth and natural, the double-bass accompaniment evenly balanced and more extended in the lows than I was anticipating, though when a Showgoer asked for The Doors' "Waiting for the Sun" to be played, the electric guitar sounded a little peaky in the mid-treble. To be priced at $2000/pair, the Sur features a port-loaded, full-range Fostex drive-unit and will only be available from LTBS.