LATEST ADDITIONS

I was as impressed as <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/fsi2008/040408muon/">Robert Deutsch had been</A> with KEF's $140k/pair Muons, and enjoyed a couple of tracks from the late Joe Zawinul's <I>Faces & Places</I> CD, Musical Fidelity's new 750k Supercharger monoblocks driving the speakers to satisfyingly high levels. Except there was no CD playing. It turned out I was listening to a 320kbps AAC file on an iPod sitting in the Wadia dock you can see in the photo. This takes an I<SUP>2</SUP>S digital output from a late-generation iPod and KEF were using the S/PDIF datastream to drive the digital input of the Musical Fidelity CD player at the top of the equipment stack. Given how much <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/features/308mp3cd/">ink I have spilled recently</A> on the dangers of lossy-compressed file formats, my face must have been as red as the room’s illumination had been at the time.

Not too long after I got my first audio magazine job in 1976, I reported on the founding of a new speaker company, Harbeth, featuring the designs from ex-BBC engineer Dudley Harwood, who had pioneered the use of polypropylene as a cone material. Dudley is long since retired but I have followed his company's progress with interest since it was acquired by Alan Shaw, and the little <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/standloudspeakers/1293harbeth/">Harbeth HL-P3ES2</A> has long been a favorite of mine. Harbeth's Canadian distributor, Planet Sound, was demonstrating the larger Super HL5 speakers (around $5000/pair), the next step up from the Compact 7ES-3 that has been a favorite of both John Marks and Sam Tellig in <I>Stereophile</I>'s pages. The sound with Audio Research electronics (CD3 Mk.3 player, LS26 preamp, and Ref.110 power amplifier) suffered a bit from a rather boomy room acoustic, but Ella Fitzgerald dueting with Louis Armstrong worked her magic.

It is to be expected at Shows that cost-no-object systems will sound great. But it is also a joy to listen to modest systems that over-achieve. In one of the two rooms sponsored by Bluebird Music, a pair of Neat Motive 2 tower speakers (CDN $2195/paor) made sweet sounds driven by the Exposure 2010S integrated amplifier that had so impressed Art Dudley in <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/integratedamps/1105exposure/">November 2005</A> and the English company's matching 2010S CD player. System price with Chord Company Chameleon Silver Plus interconnect and Carnival 2 speaker cable was a very affordable CDN $5274. I listened to my recording of Hyperion Knight playing the three Gershwin <I>Preludes</I> and was impressed by the balance of performance on offer.

The idea of mating a dynamic woofer to a ribbon midrange/tweeter is appealing on paper. Such a "hybrid" loudspeaker would have the many advantages of a dipole ribbon transducer, yet be more practical and affordable than full-range ribbon designs. Among the ribbon's great strengths is its narrow vertical dispersion (reducing the ceiling and floor reflections), contributing to the ribbon driver's well-deserved reputation for transparency, terrific soundstaging, transient zip, and excellent resolution of detail. By adding a dynamic woofer to a ribbon midrange/tweeter, the system cost can be contained compared to a full-range design.

"Cinema&mdash;musique&mdash;beaux-arts." That's what it says on Mario Boisvert's business card. His Montreal store, Le Ren Art Bleu, sells LPs, CDs, original art, and Blu-ray discs. How is that for diversification? He had some of each at FSI&mdash;with just about the lowest priced I've seen for Blu-ray discs.

After seeing $140,000 speakers, it's always good to encounter products that really are affordable by almost any standard. I expect these $250/pair Scandyna Micropod SE speakers to say "Take Me To Your Leader," and I'd like to have a pair if only because they're just so cute. No idea of the sound, but they have an impeccable pedigree, with links to the legendary B&W Nautilus.

GamuT makes electronics as well as speakers, and they introduced a new model at the show. The Si100 is a $120Wpc integrated, similar in design&mdash;and, they claim, sound&mdash;to their $11,000 Di150, but priced at $6200. (I was going to say "only," but, of course, $6200 is still a good bit of change for most people.)