LATEST ADDITIONS

As soon as I entered the second Kyomi Audio room and heard a track from Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders' great recording Journey in Satchidananda, I realized that it had been far too long since I'd had the pleasure of listening to Dan Meinwald's eclectic and thankfully outside-the-norm music selections. Meinwald, a longtime member of our industry who has spent a considerable time working for EAR USA, had paired the EAR Acute Classic CD player ($6795), V12 integrated amplifier ($9795), and, in a world premiere, the company's new Phono Box phono preamp ($1895 in black) with a Merrill-Williams 101.3 turntable ($8995) with Helius Omega Standard tonearm ($3695) and Koetsu Rosewood cartridge ($3495). Speakers were Marten Django L ($10,000/pair) and cabling Magnan Silver and Signature.

Retailer, concert pianist, and pedagogue George Vatchnadze, whose shop Kyomi Audio contributed products to at least five rooms at AXPONA, assembled an impressive system distinguished by a wonderful, warm midrange and excellent bass tonality. On vinyl, which is all I heard, the system's strengths came to the fore in the classic RCA Living Stereo recording by Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra of Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije suite, where the depiction of depth and space was superb. "Soundstaging for days," I wrote in my notes, while also praising the system's midrange. I also loved the warm, smiling midrange core and the ability to hear artificially added reverb on Ella Fitzgerald's recording of "Cry Me a River" from Let No Man Write my Epitaph, and the excellent bass tonality on "Use Me" from the MoFi reissue of Bill Withers' Greatest Hits.

MoFi Distribution's Jonathan Derda was demming the Wharfedale Linton, 3-way stand-mounted speakers ($1498/pair with stands) using a neat little Quad Artera Solus integrated amplifier ($1999), both products making their US debuts at AXPONA. He played me "Sympathy for the Devil" from the Stones' Beggars Banquet album on a MoFi StudioDeck+U player ($1499 with MoFi UltraTracker MM cartridge) and a Tim de Paravicini-designed MoFi StudioPhono preamp ($299) and this relatively inexpensive system had this old geezer rocking.

What a difference a change of venue and cabling makes. In the Nagra room at CES, the sound was silvery, glistening, open, and mesmerizing. Here, with smaller Kharma Elegance S7 loudspeakers ($18,000) and mid-priced copper-based Organic Reference cabling that uses a fiber dielectric, the sound was more toned down but no less compelling

An usually synergistic equipment match ruled the 16th floor room sponsored jointly by Jeff Rowland Design Group, Cardas Audio, Grand Prix Audio, and Vivid Audio. Frankly, I don't think I've ever heard Jeff Rowland's equipment produce such mellow and beautiful sound.

If you're after an elegant classic look and a compact form factor, you'd be hard-pressed to do much better than the Luxman NeoClassic series, including the SQ-N150 integrated amplifier ($2795) and the D-N150 CD player ($2595). Both are new, and both are now shipping.

The new (world premiere) Laufer Teknik The Note loudspeakers ($29,950/pair) are very hard to photograph because they are very thin line arrays comprised of 48 little metal drivers each in a 87"-tall, 2.5" deep, 2"-wide aluminum enclosure that's heated—it is warm to the touch. They disappeared into space while I listened. Their soundstage went out through the wall behind them while the $1600 SVS SP-4000 subwoofer pushed tight bass down through the floor to the basement. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor rattled the walls, but I couldn't "see" the speakers. Think: Skinny speakers make giant sound.