Ayre's Der Platen Spieler
Ayre's Steve Silberman was excited about the new DPS Ayre turntable. Charlie Hansen had hipped Wes Phillips to the then pending debut of the DPS Ayre back in September.
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The Superiority of Ayre Power
The three phase power supply is pure Ayre. There are three amplifiers, one for each phase. "Essentially, they are mini-MXRs," said Silberman. They are 120 degrees out of phase with one another, and we need to tune each one with a stethoscope to achieve absolute pitch stability. The result?
Rosemarie & Cynthia
The ever-lovely Rosemarie Torcivia and Cynthia Fontaine, running the <I>Stereophile</I> room at the Venetian. They'd appreciate it if someone would bring them a decent sounding stereo to listen to. An ipod even.
T + A Music Player
"This," Quartet Marketing's Stirling Trayle proudly said, "is the T + A Music Player."
On the Other Side of TA
The Music Player has tons of inputs: USB2.0, iPod (with control and display), S/PDIF digital coaxial, TOSlink digital optical, LAN, W-LAn, and RS232 for update and control interface.
Roger's Back!
We were stunned to see Roger Skoff in the Ultralink/XLO room—we thought he'd retired years ago. "I did," he explained, "but I was asked to design some new stuff incorporating new technologies and more advanced versions of our existing designs."
Wadia iTransport
It exists; we saw it for ourselves! Wadia's $349 iTransport can take the digital signal out of an iPod <I>before</I> the DAC, outputting 16-bit/44.1khz resolution for uncompressed files—it doesn't upconvert lower-rez files like MP3s, but it <I>does</I> reformat them to 16/44.1, according to Wadia's John Schaffer.
Wadia iTransport Rear End
The back of the iTransport fully decked out with XLO cabling.
Hot Rod iPod
The new Wadia iTransport detailed above also comes in your choice of hot rod finishes. Well not officially, but they couldn't resist making one for the show.
Synergistic Tubes
We ran into SinglePower Inc.'s Mikhail Rotenberg as he was sprinting down the hall to the Synergistic Research room. "Check these out," he said. "These are a 1932 Tung Argon 4327 and a 1943 722A (323), labeled Centennial, but manufactured by Western Electric."