LATEST ADDITIONS

The San Diego manufacturer’s affable Robert Lee was showing his new Crescendo loudspeaker ($16,000/pair), which combines a horn-loaded ribbon tweeter with two 5" midrange units and two 8" woofers in a transmission-line enclosure. Driven by Triode TRX-M845 tubed monoblocks, the Crescendos threw a very wide but somewhat unstable stereo image on a 1962 RCA “Living Stereo” Leopold Stokowksi LP, with rather ill-defined low frequencies. I would have thought that perhaps that sonic signature was due to the recording, but the Crescendos sounded cleaner, with better defined low frequencies and accurate, stable stereo imaging in the Red Dragon Audio room, where they were driven by Red Dragon M500 Mk.II monoblocks ($1598/pair) and helped, I understand, by DSP room acoustic correction.

Audio Machina speakers were featured in the Coffman Labs room, driven by Manley New Classic SE/PP300 monoblocks, but my attention was drawn to this superbly finished tube preamp from Coffman, the G1-A ($5495, $5795 with remote), which includes a phono stage and headphone output, and is being produced in a limited edition of 500 units. The rest of the system included Music Hall’s MMF9.1 turntable fitted with a Sumiko Blackbird cartridge, Parasound’s great-sounding Halo CD1 CD player, and an Audience Adept Response power conditioner.

Speaker manufacturer Chapman was demming the T-8 Mk.II ($9995/pair) with the 120Wpc Innamorata solid-state amplifier from a Californian company new to me, Wells Audio. The hefty three-way T-8 (it weighs 100 lbs) combines a 10” polyaminate-fiber cone woofer with a 5.5” midrange unit and a 1” silk-dome tweeter. Frequency response is specified as 28Hz–30kHz, ±3dB, sensitivity as 89dB/W/m, and Chapman claims it specifies all the drivers to within ±.025dB. The Innamorata is heavily biased into class-A and features Jack Bybee’s “Music Rails” to lower its noisefloor.

Audience was demming their tiny ClairAudient 1+1 bipolar speaker ($1800/pair, available this month), driving them with their 400W Wavepower monoblocks $18,000/pair including Au24 SE PowerChords) via Au24 cables. Front end was a Bryston BDP-1 media player and BDA-1 DAC, and Audience’s Adept Response aR6-TS conditioners cleaned up the AC. As you might expect from such small speakers using two full-range drivers, the stereo imaging from this system was superbly stable and exquisitely well-defined, though double basses did sounded more like cellos, there only being so much low-frequency energy you can extract from 3" drive-units, even when loaded with passive radiators.

It was a treat to visit the Red Wine Audio room, which featured Harbeth Super HL5 monitors ($5690/pair) driven by Red Wine’s battery-powered Liliana Renaissance Edition monoblocks ($5995/pair) and Isabella Renaissance Edition 6H30 preamplifier ($3995), and hear Grammy-winning engineer David Reitzas mixing songs from Madonna and Barbra Streisand from his MacBook Pro running Pro Tools.

The first Aaudio Imports room I visited featured the DEQX Room Correction Processor ($4500). I had been gob-smacked at the 2012 RMAF, when I heard how this processor turned a pair of RadioShack PA horns into acceptable hi-fi speakers. However, the correction being demmed at T.H.E. Show was more subtle, mainly involving a firming up of the stereo imaging, as the system was sounding good without correction. (Competing noise from the room across the corridor did make the improvement difficult to hear at first.)

The second Aaudio Imports room I visited featured the German-designed but China-manufactured components from BMC. The Arcadia bipolar speakers ($36,300/pair with external crossovers) were being driven by AMP M2 monoblocks ($15,980/pair), connected with Stage II speaker cables and interconnects. Front-end components included a Hartvig battery-powered Gramophone ($28,400 plus $5400 for battery supply) and BMC’s MMCI current-input phono preamplifier that Michael Fremer raved about in the June 2013 issue ($3890). I have a sample of the MCCI in for a follow-up and provisionally, my reaction echoes Mikey’s