LATEST ADDITIONS

San Francisco is just as I remember it: Misty and gray, but smiling nonetheless.

The 2011 California Audio Show, sponsored by Dagogo, is being held Friday through Sunday, July 15 through 17, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, in Burlingame, CA, just minutes away from the San Francisco International Airport.

I arrived moments ago and have settled into my clean, quiet room. Actually, I should say I’ve settled into my fairly quiet room&#151I’m directly across from the Amarra suite and someone’s playing large-scale orchestral music in there. (It sounds pretty good, too!)

I’ll be blogging as fast as I can, so please check back often.

The August 2011 issue of Stereophile is now on newsstands. On the cover, we feature the lovely Voxativ Ampeggio.

Made in Germany and imported by NYC’s newest audio salon, Audioarts (1 Astor Place), the beautiful Ampeggio uses a single proprietary 7" dual-cone driver with a large, convex surround, designed to accommodate a much greater excursion than the typical Lowther driver. The complex cabinet, designed and voiced in collaboration with Schimmel Pianos, incorporates a series of facet boards for optimal radiation resistance and houses a twice-folded horn, nearly 9-feet long from throat to mouth. The Ampeggio offered the usual Lowther traits of transient speed, spatial presence, dramatic ease, and physical impact, but added deep, well-controlled bass and excellent soundstaging. “A high-efficiency, single-driver loudspeaker for which no excuses need be made,” said AD. JA was impressed by the Voxativ’s superbly flat in-room response and genuine 98dB sensitivity.

What? Who said that? Excuse me, sorry, sorry: I’ve been writing “Recommended Components” blurbs for the upcoming October issue.

Never mind that. We’re talking about the August issue. It’s now on newsstands. This is important:

Clearly, more and more people&#151young and old, male and female&#151are choosing to enjoy their favorite music on vinyl, a decidedly old-fashioned format. Every time I walk into a record store, I see more vinyl. And more people. The new record bins are growing, the used record bins are growing, LPs are taking up space previously occupied by CDs, and people are shopping enthusiastically, getting in between me and all that precious vinyl. But why?

A while back, I received an e-mail from The Kid (Stephen Mejias): "I've been listening to and enjoying the Wharfedale 10.1 loudspeakers ($350/pair) for a couple of months. I wrote about them for my March and April issue columns, but they are good enough for a complete review. Are you interested?"

Hmm . . . so The Kid is now assigning me equipment reviews? "Sure, why not?"

The day after the Wharfedales arrived, The Kid sent me another e-mail: "Have you unpacked them yet? They are so pretty!"

That they are, Kid.

Every few years, it seems, Sony offers a statement product. Sometimes they do it to define a new product category—the SCD-1 introduced to the world the SACD/CD player. Sometimes they do it because they can, as with the outstanding ES SS-M9 and ES SS-M9ED loudspeakers, enthusiastically reviewed by John Atkinson in Stereophile in September 1996 and August 2001, respectively. So when I heard that Sony would introduce a special new speaker at a "by invitation only" event at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show last January, my interest was piqued. I've always kicked myself for not buying a pair of ES SS-M9s ($3500) when I could have. The ES SS-M9EDs were even better, said JA—and, at $16,000/pair, a lot more expensive. Now, a decade later, Sony has decided to make another "statement."

In what is sure to be a win-win situation for both manufacturers and consumers, Fine Sounds SpA of Milan, Italy, owner of Sonus Faber, Audio Research Corporation and Wadia Digital, has acquired 100% of Sumiko manufacturing and distribution in Berkeley, CA. In addition to distributing Wadia Digital next month, Sumiko will continue to distribute Sonus Faber loudspeakers, REL subwoofers, Pro-Ject Audio Systems turntables and electronics, SME turntables and tonearms, Sumiko phono cartridges, and Okki Nokki record cleaning machines in North America.

Trumpeter-composer David Weiss calls his quintet Point of Departure, an intriguing but risky move from the get-go. That's the title, after all, of Andrew Hill's 1964 Blue Note masterpiece, one of the most appealingly adventurous sessions in post-bop jazz. In short, Weiss has set the bar high. The startling thing is, he clears it.

The band's new CD, Snuck Out (on the Sunnyside label), is a terrific album, one of my very favorites so far this year. Its melodic lines swirl in catchy cascades without quite settling into melodies. Its free-style rhythms are tethered to a structure of harmony while floating clear of strict chords. The music's tight, loose, catchy, elusive, knotty and limber, all at once. The musicians (in addition to Weiss, J.D. Allen on tenor sax, Nir Felder on guitar, Matt Clohesy on bass, Jamire Williams on drums) are first-rate. The sound, engineered by Paul Cox, is crisp and airy.