While Day 1 at the Venetian was all hustle and bustle, the atmosphere at the Las Vegas Hilton was something different, was almost contemplative. Navigating the Venetian halls was an exercise in agility. I found myself weaving in and out of massive traffic with a skill perhaps common only to a weary New Yorker, making quick and random stops to chat friends and colleagues. But when I arrived at the Hilton, the silence—as we like to say—was palpable.
Musical Fidelity products are now a part of the KEF tradition.
KEF would begin their multi-room demo with their small, but surprisingly room-filling, KHT home theater range and work their way up from there. The stunning KEF Muons would be the great and final attraction of the KEF event, and they were all I was looking forward to, really. However, the highlight of the show turned out to be the brilliant sound of the Reference 201/2 stand-mounted speakers ($6000/pair). I was instantly reminded of the remarkable performance of the much larger Reference 207/2s, which I recently experienced in JA's listening room and which are now gracing our February cover. The music brought forth was captivating, seductive, gorgeous.
The prototype speaker I <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/rmaf2007/101407harbeth/">shamelessly coveted</A> at the 2007 RMAF, the Harbeth 40.1, resurfaced in final form at THE Show’s Alexis Park location. Paired with Resolution Audio’s exceptional-sounding components, it again made my mouth water. Now positioned on new, lower stands (which, in my not-so-humble opinion, look far more attractive, and far less like a funeral casket, when not draped in black cloth), the full-range 40.1 monitors have an immensely detailed, beautifully layered, extremely controlled midrange whose harmonic richness is hard to resist. Toed-in toward the listener, the speakers' high end was equally compelling.
The KEF Muon, dreamed up by idiosyncratic industrial designer, Ross Lovegrove, is unlike any other speaker I know. At $140,000/pair, it should be special. KEF's Marketing Director, Johan Coorg, explained that the Muon started out as an attempt to create the absolute best possible speaker, and evolved into something more—"a work of modern art, like a Henry Moore sculpture."
"It's the finest two-way loudspeaker we've built to date, "said B&W's Chris Smith," as he stood next to the short white tubular Signature Diamond. "We've decided to make it a special edition of just 500 pairs, each pair numbered." I was very interested because the previous two-way model, the John Bowers Silver Signature, was <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/standloudspeakers/272/">very well-reviewed</A> by <I>Stereophile</I> back in 1994 and became John Atkinson’s reference for many years.
"We wanted to do something special to celebrate our 30th anniversary in business," said Dynaudio's Michael Manousselis, "so we created the limited edition—only 1000 will be made—$16,500/pair, three-way, four-driver, floorstanding Sapphire loudspeaker. The Sapphire uses our finest technology in drivers, including the soft-dome Esotar2 tweeter and two 8” Evidence-grade woofers with magnesium-silicate diaphragms. The cabinet is designed to have no parallel surface, with the two-toned cabinet featuring 12 distinct surface planes and twenty-four adjoining lines"
Carat Audio's products are sufficiently new to North America that the only prices available are still in Euros. (They do have distribution.) Designed in France and made in China, the A57 integrated amp (80Wpc, 899 Euros), C57 CD player (649 Euros), and T57 tuner (349 Euros) look like anything but budget products, resembling products from Primare or YBA. An indication of the quality of the design is that the power output of the A57 nearly doubles into 4 ohms (80 into 8 ohms, 150 into 4 ohms)—very unusual at this price level.
Britain's Cambridge Audio is known for its modestly-priced integrated amps and such, but now they've decided to move upmarket by introducing separate preamps and power amps. The Azur 840E ($1499) preamp and Azur 840 power amp (200Wpc,
$2199) are based on top-of-the-line Cambridge Azur 840A integrated amp, with upgraded power supplies and other improvements. Here they are, pictured with Ian McArthur of Audio Plus, the North American importer.