LATEST ADDITIONS

Veteran phono-preamplifier designer Ron Sutherland has been partial, of late, to battery power. Getting off the grid can produce superb results, as demonstrated by his Hubble phono preamp ($3800), powered by 16 alkaline batteries.

I favorably reviewed the Hubble in the February 2010 issue, and remember loving most everything about it—particularly its drop-dead-quiet backdrops, its solid, weighty bottom end, and its fully fleshed-out instrumental textures. I was less enthused by its somewhat soft, muted high-frequency transients, though of course tastes and associated gear will differ. I need more grit, particularly for rock; you may not.

Acoustat Model Twos have been my reference loudspeakers for almost five years. I remember, on first hearing them in a high-end store in Illinois, how they let the music through in a way new and important to me. I knew I must own them! They seemed, despite their imposing appearance, to step aside when the music came on. The effect was akin to having a door opened onto the performance. One became privy to intimate details captured in recordings which are rarely heard outside the concert hall. Not veils, but flannel sheets were lifted from the sound! If one fussed around enough with placement, the Twos truly disappeared into the soundfield—music came from in front of, to the sides of, between, and behind them as if they weren't there. Focusing them like a fine camera lens on the listening chair created a "sweet spot" which, when I sat therein, raised within me a sense of awe usually associated with things magical. You knew when you entered this space, for it was different from that surrounding it. The musical presentation assumed an almost holographic palpability.

No, we made no typos in the specifications sidebar. The weight of the Wilson Audio Modular Monitor (WAMM) speaker system is enough to make you consult a structural engineer before dropping it on your living room floor—fragile, 300-year old New England frame houses are probably out. And the recent price increase from $32,000 to $35,000 is enough by itself to buy a pair of Quad ESL-63s—which is not a bad speaker system. The WAMM represents an all-out assault on both the state of the art in speaker systems and on the limits to which wealthy audiophiles will go in order to have the best.