LATEST ADDITIONS

YG Acoustics' very fine-sounding midrange unit contributed to the lovely sound on YG Acoustics' Ascent loudspeaker ($19,800/pair). Easier to drive than the Colorado company's larger models, it uses the same drivers as in the Carmel and Hailey loudspeakers, but with a new waveguide on the tweeter.

Alma Music & Audio has recently gone bi-coastal, adding Alma East in Sterling, VA to its flagship Alma West store in San Diego. In one of their several rooms at the show, the dealership showcased Boenicke Audio's W8 SE loudspeaker in Walnut finish ($16,500/pair). I've always been intrigued by these unique solid-wood speakers, whose internal chambers are carved out by a CNC machine.

You can always count on the amazing Steven Norber to come up with something intriguing. In this case, it was the brand new Dhyana two-way quasi line-array loudspeaker ($19,500/pair). With a 30mm tweeter and four 152.4mm woofers, the speaker claims a frequency range of 28Hz–23kHz, a nominal impedance of 8 ohms, and a sensitivity of 88.5dB.

This year, Sunil Merchant's Sunny's Components occupied a single room at T.H.E. Show in which to turn the spotlight on CH Precision's less expensive but hardly bargain basement 1 series. CH Precision's powerhouse line-up, shown below without the optional power supplies that can beef up performance, consisted of the CH Precision M1.1 stereo amplifier ($54,000), L1 stereo preamplifier ($34,500), P1 phono stage ($31,000 and up), C1.2 D/A processor ($36,000 and up) with 16× upsampling, and D1.5 SACD/CD/MQA transport/player ($41,000 and up).

When I bumped into long-time industry member Alan Kafton of Audio Excellence/The Cable Cooker, he urged to check out a new loudspeaker company, Songer Audio of Portland, OR, on the third floor. It seems I missed the company when its founder, former software engineer Ken Songer, premiered his speakers at last year's Pacific Audio Fest outside Seattle.

Scott Walker Audio united with Soulution and Von Schweikert Audio to present the show premiere of the new active Von Schweikert VR-55 MkII SE loudspeaker in fabulous McLaren Volcano Orange finish ($85,000/pair). The latest successor to the original VR-55, which was designed by the late Albert Von Schweikert and released in 2014, this 3-wayspeaker with beryllium- and ceramic-diaphragm drivers contains significant crossover improvements and technology trickled down from Von Schweikert Audio's top Ultra model.

Synergistic Research had the opportunity to display its magic in the first of five rooms sponsored by Scott Walker Audio. There were at least six new Synergistic Research products in the room: the Network Router UEF ($2995), UEF Ethernet and USB Performance Enhancers ($295), Master Fuses ($595 each), Galileo Active Ground Block MkII ($7995), Master Tuning Modules for use, I believe, with cables ($425/each), and, on static display, Active Ground Block SX ($2995). Add in at least Synergistic Research power conditioning products, headed by the Synergistic Research Galileo PowerCell SX ($27,995); six acoustic room treatment products; four racks and shelves, headed by the Synergistic Research Tranquility Rack ($24,995); another grounding product; and six different cables, the most expensive of which was the SRX Interconnect ($12,995, presumably for the pair). Add that all up, and you had quite the Synergistic Research lineup.