LATEST ADDITIONS

At one end of the 11th floor sat the large, imposing Galibier Design Suite. It was dominated by several eye-catching products: Daedalus Audio loudspeakers, which replaced the scheduled and, from distant memory, fine Green Mountain Audio Calypso HD speakers ($14,900/pair) because the Daedalus babies were able to put out enough bass to fill the room; and Adona Master Reference stands (price not supplied) which supported the Galibier Design Stelvio-II turntable ($27,500) with its Durand Taiea tonearm ($7900) and Dynavector XV1s cartridge ($5250), and Atma-sphere MP-1 preamp ($15,000) and M-60 amplifiers ($13/600/pair). Equally important were Marigo Labs' VXi Mystery Feet ($779/set of 3), Analog 1 interconnects ($2000/pair), and Analog 1 SC speaker cable ($2000/pair).

Making its debut was a platter that screamed for Michael Fremer: Kodo's The Beat MagDrive turntable ($24,000). Alas, the widely lamented "where is Michael Fremer" was starring in an opera entitled <I>Home Remodeling Can't be Accomplished with Remote Control</I>, and was back in New York.

Sam Laufer of Laufer Teknik was showing the German Physiks HRS-120 loudspeaker in high gloss finish ($33,500/pair). Helping this omnidirectional design sing were Abis Shuhgetsu monoblock amps (price to be determined), The Memory Player source and preamp ($22,500), Paul Kaplan cabling including speaker cables ($1995), Halcyonics Active Isolation Platform ($11,500), five LessLoss BlackBodys ($959 each), and the wonderful <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/rmaf2010/stein_music_harmonizers_and_magic_… Music Harmonizers</A> (two A and two B units plus 12 stones for $4900) with their new matching stands (price not supplied). You can see one of the Stein Music Harmonizers, aka that little black box with the blue light that doesn't have to be on for the box to be working, peeking out from behind the loudspeaker.

Craig Oxford and William Carpenter, CEO of Consensus Biotechnology and Consensus Biolabs of Little Rock, happily introduced me to the successors to Pipe Dreams loudspeakers, the HighEmotion Audio Pyra Bella 7 monitors ($6000/pair), Bella Basso 28 subs ($4000/pair, with 2 pairs in use), and Passare XOL crossover ($3000). (I did not audition the second system with the HighEmotion Audio Festune Bass Module). The HighEmotion speakers, which employ "a substantial amount of new technology", are the result of years of research into brain imagining technology, and "the emotional responses to music, auditory system function, physics, and electrical engineering."

I was delighted to discover that AudioPrism, originators of the infamous green pen (aka the AudioPrism CD Stoplight), is still in business. For newbies who do not know about the green pen, Collett and those who reviewed it shook skeptics to the core when they declared that painting the edge of CDs with the green pen lowered digital edge and improved data retrieval. The backlash was tremendous. Then Krell began bathing its CD tray in green light, some people found that green-tinted CD-Rs and then black discs sounded better, CD mats with green undersides made a demonstrable improvement in sound, and the skepticism was transferred to the next tweak on the horizon.

Acoustic Sounds’ Chad Kassem provided a wonderful demo of some of his fine <a href="http://www.aporecords.com/FLASHindex.cfm">Analogue Productions</a> releases, including Jimmy Lee Robinson’s <i>All My Life</i> and Elvis’ <i>24 Karat Hits</i>&#151all sounding absolutely <i>seductive</i> and <i>enveloping</i> with an extremely liquid and relaxed sound&#151through a system featuring a Clearaudio Concept turntable ($1400), which Kassem was particularly fond of&#151“for the price, this ‘table is hard to beat”&#151and Sony’s SS-AR1 loudspeakers, seen here.

Dynaudio’s Mike Manousselis pulled me into his room with the familiar sounds of the XX. On display here were T+A’s more affordable R-Series components, less flashy than the V-Series, but no less elegant: G1260 R turntable ($3250 with tonearm; $3600 with arm and cartridge; $4300 with built-in phono), PA1260 R integrated amplifier ($5000), CD1260 R CD player ($3800), and MP1260 R DAC streaming client ($4200, providing internet radio, two USB inputs, and wired or wireless streaming abilities).