LATEST ADDITIONS

I had been impressed by the Prince V2 speakers from Hansen Audio, when Wes Phillips <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/408hansen/">reviewed it</A> for <I>Stereophile</I> a few months back. (Mikey Fremer has written a follow-up for our forthcoming March 2009 issue.) But the 2009 CES was my first chance to hear the Canadian manufacturer's top-line King V2 speaker ($89,000/pair). Powered by CAT amplification, with Stealth cables, the LP of Louis Armstrong's classic performance of "St. James Infirmary" produced a big sweep of sound, with superbly natural tonalities and extended lows, though you could also hear that Hansen's Wes Bender had played this LP a few too many times over the decades!

Wes Phillips gave me the tip. "You must check out the Sonicweld room. Their active Pulserod system uses the DEQX digital crossover." So I checked it out. Comprising two 4'-tall Pulserod towers and two Subpulse subwoofers, the system costs $110,000 but includes all amplification&#151;three 200W class-D ICE modules for the upper-range drivers in each tower and a1.1kW class-D amp for each 15" subwoofer&#151;the crossover module, cables, and even a remote control.

The name "Loiminchay" comes from a line of high-end pens, I am told, and the prices of the superbly finished Loiminchay speakers are also high-end, the three-way Chagall pictured here coming in at $48,500/pair. But combining a 30mm diamond tweeter with ceramic-cone midrange and LF units in two multi-layer Birch-ply enclosures with a concrete plinth, the Chagall produced smooth, extended sound driven by a Bel Canto class-D power amp and a Nagra CD player.

CES is traditionally where new brands come to find US distribution, and the room next to <I>Stereophile</I>'s at the Venetian featured some well-finished and good-sounding speakers from Croatian company Audio Epilog, which they shared with Czech tube amp manufacturer KR. (Dig those humongous tubes!) The two-way Cocoa2 should sell for between $7000/pair and $8000/pair when it reaches these shores.

Zu Audio goes its own way when it comes to speaker design goals, emphasizing sensitivity and dynamic range. The Utah company's new Essence ($5000/pair) covers almost the entire audioband with a single 10" drive-unit, augmenting this unit's output from the central "whizzer cone" in the top octave with a ribbon supertweeter. Sensitivity is claimed to be in the high 90s! The enclosure is constructed from Baltic birch ply with an outer MDF cladding, and the internal wiring is, of course, Zu's own cable, with cold-forged, solder-less connections to the Cardas binding posts.

"Do you have a low-cost amplifier that <I>Stereophile</I> hasn't reviewed that you'd like people to know about?" I asked VTL's glamorous <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/607vtlfeat">Bea Lam</A>. With a grace and surety usually reserved for Vannah White, the incomparable Ms. Lam glided over to the diminutive VTL ST-85 Performance Amplifier ($2750).

Soundstring designer Leonard Miller, whose eight years in business has garnered a host of positive reviews and product awards, manufactures reasonably priced cables that boast a progressive geometric, multi-gauge/multi-conductor design. Rather than 75 models at 95 different price points, the company has one line, of cables, all of comparable quality, all manufactured in Connecticut. The power cables and speaker cables have three conductors each, the equivalent of 10.5 gauge copper. Interconnects have eight individual conductors, the equivalent of composite 22 gauge. A specific geometric progression promotes signal transmission in the fastest way possible, creating the fastest path for each frequency, thereby allowing components to function optimally with less effort. Soundstring's Tricor Maxial Speaker cables cost $425 for a 6' pair, and the power cord costs $450. Soundstring's HDMI, DVI, and USB cables were used to record Jim Merod's jazz albums, one of which I will soon sample. (Thanks, Jim. The proof is in the pudding, so they say). A line of digital cables is in development.