High-end audio companies take different approaches to staying successful. One way to maintain a market position is to continue improving fundamental designs, offering a little higher sonic performance with each model. The latest products from a company employing this approach will look and operate very much like their first products.
The Krell KPS-20<I>i</I> (KPS stands for "Krell Playback System") is essentially a CD transport and digital processor in one chassis. What make the KPS-20<I>i</I> different from a CD player are the unit's five digital inputs, which allow the KPS-20<I>i</I> to function as a digital/analog converter for external digital sources.
Threshold is one of the longest-surviving high-end audio companies. Founded in the 1970s by <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/1191pass">Nelson Pass</A> and René Besne, it was acquired by a large, publicly traded corporation in 1988. This had both positive and negative results in that Threshold was then able to expand its activities, adding the cost-effective Forté line of products, but energies were drained away from cutting-edge design. Besne left the company in 1991, while Pass resigned in 1992 to pursue other interests. (These blossomed into the Pass Aleph 0 amplifier reviewed by DO in March '95, Vol.18 No.3.)
I am led by the sound of intricate rhythms and interesting textures, and I find myself in the <a href="http://www.audio-occasion.qc.ca/">Audio D'Occasion</a> suite, where Radiohead's <i>Amnesiac</i> is ripping into a pair of Thiel CS3.7 floorstanders, sending the speaker's impressive corrugated drivers into a mad dance. I take a seat.
In the <a href="http://www.brosseau.qc.ca/">Brosseau Audio/Video</a> suite, Linn's Adolfo Cano provided a fascinating demonstration playing back Barb Jungr's "Beautiful Life" from a Linn Recordings sample disc.
I had enthused over the sound being produced by French company Focal's top-line Grande Utopia EMs ($180,000/pair) in our report from the <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/rmaf2008/101408focalbest/">2008 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest</A>, so the first room I went to at the 2009 SSI was the room featuring the exact same pair of Grande Utopias. In Denver they had been driven by Boulder source and amplification components; in Montreal, amplification was all YBA—Passion 1000 monoblocks and Passion preamp—cabling was AudioQuest, and the source was the excellent sounding Esoteric P-01VU transport ($32,000) and D-01VU dual-mono D/A converter ($32,000), clocked by the G-0Rb high-precision master clock ($16,000).
You get used to hearing expensive over-the-top systems at an audio Show, but the real delight is discovering more affordable set-ups that sound better than you expect. Such was the case when I entered the Bluebird Music room, where the Spendor A6 two-way tower speakers were being demmed with Exposure's 3010S integrated amplifier and an Exposure CD player, wired with van den Hul cable. The total system prices was $7500, and, again playing "The Mooche" from <I>Editor's Choice</I>, I was struck by how seamless the presentation was, with natural tonal qualities, well-defined stereo imaging, and good dynamics, if not quite in the same class as the much more expensive system featuring the Avantgarde horns I had heard just before.
The trend toward smaller, less imposing systems is continued at SSI by Verity Audio, showing their gorgeous Parsifal Ovation Monitor ($9000/pair). While <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/ssi2009/simaudio_reaching_for_the_moon/">Si… and Dynaudio</a> were showing what can be achieved at the lower end of the price scale, Verity, Nagra, and dCS put together a room-friendly system made to slay giants.
At the 2008 FSI, the hornloaded Avantgarde speakers from Germany were being demmed in one of the large rooms in the Centre Sheraton's downstairs convention area. At the 2009 SSI, Avantgarde were exhibiting in a conventional hotel room, but the three-way Duo Grossos ($37,500/pair), driven by Avantgarde Model One monoblocks and an Avantgarde Model One preamplifier, with an Audio Aero Prestige SACD player as source and all Nirvana SX cabling, sounded more coherent than I remember from last year's Show. Playing "The Mooche" from the Stereophile <I>Editor's Choice</I> CD, I was struck by how <I>un</I>-hornlike the system sounded: uncolored, sweet, full-range, but with the excellent dynamics I have come to expect from horns. The upper bass was a bit over-generous at first, but adjusting the crossover of the active B231 woofer, which uses two 12" drivers, took care of that.
Lucien Pichette stands with the Avalon Acoustics Aspect ($8500/pair), introduced at <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/ces2009/aspects_of_avalon/">January's CES</a>. Here in Montreal, the Aspects were creating soul-stirring sound in the <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/ssi2009/coup_de_foudre/">Coup de Foudre</a> room.