LATEST ADDITIONS

<i>Inside Box Number One: Sumiko’s new <a href="http://www.sumikoaudio.net/okki_nokki/idx_products.htm">Okki Nokki</a> record cleaning machine ($549)!</i>

<i>Photo: John Atkinson</i>

The November 2010 issue of <i>Stereophile</i> is now on newsstands. Immediately after shipping the issue to press, we had to redirect our focus to shipping the <i>2011 Stereophile Buyer’s Guide</i>. And almost immediately after shipping the <i>Buyer’s Guide</i>, we had to redirect our focus to shipping the December 2010. While the December issue was in its very final stages, we had to fly to Denver to cover the outstanding <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/rmaf2010/">Rocky Mountain Audio Fest</a>. It’s been a whirlwind and I can honestly say that I hardly remember <i>working</i> on the November issue.

t's one thing to know that you're attending what has quickly grown into the largest annual high-end show in the United States. It's something else entirely to try to take in even a third of the 180 exhibits that were spread over the width, breadth and height of the Denver Marriott Tech Center.

RMAF 2010 drew such a huge rush of attendees on the first day (October 15) as to cause at least one overly packed elevator to spend what seemed like a minute in limbo, considering whether it should dare try to ascend. When it finally determined to go up rather than crash down, it moved in fits and starts, and shuddered each time it reached a floor. I think more than one of its occupants took a vow then and there to finally lose some weight. Stereophile ran out of their new-at-the-Show November issue by the end of the second day, and when a member of the Colorado Audio Society donated his collection of back issues to us on Sunday (see the photo), they were all gone within minutes.

Show exhibits extended to eight packed floors, and down into the. . .

Some of my happiest sonic experiences at RMAF arrived in the last two rooms I visited: the Tidal Audio/Argento Audio Cables/dCS showcase put together by Doug White of The Voice That Is (Newton Square, PA), and the Simon Yorke/CAT/Synergistic/Lansche exhibit assembled by Tim Nguyen of <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/rmaf2010/tone_of_music_sings/">Tone of Music</A> (San Francisco, CA).

Perhaps the best sound I heard at RMAF was in the large room on the mezzanine shared by Dynaudio, XLO, and Wadia. The Dynaudio Confidence C4s ($20,900/pair), which I first <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/794/">reviewed in March 2003</A>, were sounding as good as I remember them sounding in my own room, perhaps even better. The rest of the system was obviously high-class: a Wadia 971 CD transport ($17,950) fed Wadia's Series 9 Decoding computer ($33,450, comprising the 931 controller and dual-mono 922 DACs), which in turn fed Octave MRE130 tubed monoblocks from Germany ($16,000/pair) sitting on Grand Prix amp stands. Cabling was all by XLO. The 130W Octave amplifiers use two pairs of KT88s in push-pull and the wideband output transformer has a single tap. The amp can also use 6550s or EL34s, and an accessory "black box" increases the B+ storage capacity.