LATEST ADDITIONS

Like many <I>Stereophile</I> readers, I read with great interest, and a certain amount of incredulity, Jason Victor Serinus's rather gushing <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/ces2009/worlds_finest_headphones">CES report</A> on the Sennheiser HD800 headphones. Now, I have a lot of respect for JVS's opinions&#151;we share an appreciation of opera and other vocal music, and we're both great fans of Fritz Wunderlich&#151;but, reading his report, part of me was intrigued and another part was thinking "Come on, Jason, these are just headphones, what's the big deal?"

Stephen Mejias <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/ssi2009/best_music_of_show/">reported a couple of days ago</A> on the excellent sound being made in the room featuring DeVore Fidelity's Gibbon Nine speakers, driven by a Leben integrated amplifier. I was equally impressed when I auditioned a Curtis Mayfield live album in this all-analog room, played on the Clearaudio Champion Wood turntable fitted with a Clearaudio Unify arm with a carbon-fiber armtube and an EMT JSD5 MC phono vcartidge.

Component supports take a variety of forms: squishy, rubbery things; hard, pointed things; ball bearings (loose or constrained); air or liquid bladders, etc. The Spike component supports, imported by Divergent Technologies, were a new one for me: they use magnetic levitation. Now, I'm familiar with platforms using this principle, but these are individual component feet, each with opposed magnetic components. A box of these "Spikes" contains four such feet, and the price for the total is CN$200. I was surprised that magnets could be made strong enough in this small size to be able to support equipment of substantial weight&#151;hich they apparently can.

I <i>adored</i> the sound in the small Son-Or-Filtronique room with the Audio Research VSi60 integrated amplifier, Audio Research CD8 disc player ($10,000), Verity Audio Finn loudspeakers ($6000/pair CAN), and Shunyata cables. Adored it.

Son-Or-Filtronique's Dany Poulin stands with the Verity Audio Finn. Paired with the Audio Research VSi60 integrated amplifier and CD 8 disc player, the Finns, which are rated at 91dB efficiency and use a rear-firing woofer, were making some <i>gorgeous</i> sounds.

No, it's not the fact that the Sheraton Centre bar is not absolutely teeming with people. They're in the exhibitors' rooms, listening to music.

Is it just my perception, or do people who are looking through bins of LPs have a kind of happy excitement about them? The vinyl-buying folks at SSI sure seemed to be a really happy lot. Selecting CDs seems to be a much more matter-or-fact endeavor. And I can't imagine anyone getting too excited about the act of buying a new hard drive for their music server.