GT Audioworks, Pass Laboratories, Lampizator, Small Green Computer, and Magnan
GT Audioworks presented their Reference 3 Planar Ribbon Speakers ($49,000/pair), which debuted in January 2021.
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Acora Acoustics, Transrotor, Audio Research, and Cardas [UPDATED]
In the third floor Eisenhower room, Valerio Cora brought his Acora Acoustics SRC-2 Loudspeakers ($37,000/pair) joined to the Transrotor Massimo turntable ($16,800) equipped with the Transrotor SME tonearm ($4300), the Dynavector DRT XV-1t cartridge ($9450). The Massimo was also equipped with a secondary arm, the Charisma Musiko ($2500) armed (as it were) with the Charisma Signature One cartridge ($3800).
The Eikon Audio Room
Gayle Sanders, founder of MartinLogan, brought Bethel Connecticut–based Eikon Audio’s line of loudspeakers and electronics to Capital Audiofest’s Lincoln room, the gear arranged into two systems.
Capital Audiofest 2021 Kicks Off
Capital Audiofest 2021 kicked off this morning with a heady air of excitement coursing through the sold-out host venue, the Twinbrook Hilton in Rockville, Maryland.
Sonnet Morpheus D/A processor
Playlists embody who we are. We use musical affinities to understand (or at least categorize) others, not only as evidence of their aesthetic discernment but also of their emotional and political affiliations, which amount to an entire worldview. In other words, the database of favorite music that we carry around in our brains is no laughing matter. So, one of the most unexpectedand rewardingthings that can happen in music fandom is a complete and sudden inversion of one's beliefs. Which brings me to the perennially touchy subject of Steely Dan, a band that cleaves the ranks of listeners like a gold-plated katana.
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Gramophone Dreams #54: DS Audio DS003 optical cartridge & EMIA, Lundahl, Koetsu, Sculpture A step-up transformers
In the household I grew up in, telling a lie was a death-penalty offenseworse than murder or leaving crumbs on the kitchen counter. So, believe me when I tell you that way more than a year ago, Musical Surroundings' Garth Leerer sent me DS Audio's lowest priced optical cartridge, the DS-E1 ($2750 with energizer/equalizer, footnote 1). He said, "You need to know about this." Then every few months he would write and politely inquire how I was liking it. Each time I would write back saying, "I'm sorry Garth, I haven't tried it yet, but I'll install it right after deadline."
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Ayre Acoustics EX-8 2.0 Integrated Hub D/A integrated amplifier
In New York City, everything comes at a premium: Housing, groceries, transportation, walking space, living space, sanity spaceconsider our cubbyhole apartments and tenement buildings. Even "air rights" are for sale in NYC, including rights to the air over my beloved Katz's Delicatessen in the Lower East Side. The square footage of my downtown apartment is less than a quarter of the space of my North Carolina home. (Brownstones? Only above 72nd Street.) But, as the song says, "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere." What did Frank Sinatra know, anyway? He was from Hoboken!
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Listening Deeply
Take a walk at night. Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears.Pauline Oliveros, Sonic Meditations
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The one activity that distinguishes audiophiles from other music lovers is our practice of sitting in solitude and listening closely to music reproduced on a finely tuned playback system.
PSB Synchrony T600 loudspeaker
Exactly five years ago as I write these words, I reviewed an elegant-looking and elegant-sounding tower loudspeaker from Canadian manufacturer PSB: the Imagine T3. Priced at $7498/pair before it was discontinued, the T3 combined three woofers, each housed in its own vented subenclosure, with a 5.25" midrange unit mounted above a 1" tweeter.
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Re-Tales #14: Reinventing the audio boutique
As I noted in previous Re-Tales columns, audio dealerships that stick to outmoded models after the world has changed may find themselves in danger of extinction. Such conflict between old and new has been with us since the beginning of time, or at least since the internet became ubiquitous. But the pandemic and its economic stresses and stimuli have accelerated the pace of change. So, how are dealers, um, dealing?
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