LATEST ADDITIONS

Last summer, John Atkinson and I were playing a jazz gig poolside at my local club, and during a break we began discussing equipment. As JA adjusted his microphones and I became increasingly nervous about the running, jumping kids splashing chlorinated water on his <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/hirezplayers/461">Nagra digital recorder</A>, he asked me if I'd like to review the Z1 loudspeaker from BG Corp. "It's an interesting little bookshelf speaker featuring a ribbon tweeter." Hmm&mdash;an affordable bookshelf speaker matching a ribbon tweeter to a dynamic woofer? <I>Very</I> interesting. "Sounds good," said I, and resumed my ivory duties.

At the extreme high end&mdash;Halcro, VTL, Boulder, etc.&mdash;reviewers gush about a lack of character. If you're paying $20,000, you want a preamplifier or power amp to disappear. At those price points we also want extreme, unfatiguing resolution, and noise that's well below what most people would consider audible. But at those prices, an <I>absence</I> of character is definitely something most people aspire to.

The good news: Domestic audio has survived its first half century and continues to live above ground. The bad news: At an age when most hobbies can enjoy the luxury of splintering into smaller factions that hate each other with impunity, ours isn't big enough. There are too few audiophiles on Earth to indulge that kind of specialization, let alone support the very different magazines that would ensue&mdash;so we'll never get to enjoy such promising titles as <I>Liberal Tube Lover</I> (not that I didn't try), <I>The Elderly Skeptic</I>, or, of particular interest, <I>Cable Hating for People Who are Barely Audiophiles in the First Place</I>.

Gazing at the prototypes of Peter Bizlewicz’s forthcoming Panorama loudspeakers, I couldn’t help wondering if our beloved canine Baci Brown would either attack them as hostile intruders or try to mount them in a futile assertion of alpha dominance. Yes, not only the closest thing to alien invaders so far encountered at the show, but also visually hilarious, these speakers demanded a listen.

Those are the words that came to me as I began listening to the diminutive set-up in the room sponsored by Acoustic Sounds. As Eric Bibb & Needed Time made beautiful music on their Opus 3 LP, <I>Good Stuff</I>, I gazed at a pair of Manley Labs Snapper Monoblocks ($4250) and Stirling Broadcast LS3/5a V2 Speakers ($1695/pair) sitting on Target Audio MR 28 Speaker stands ($299), as well as a Silver Circle Audio Pure Power One 5.0 power transformer ($5000 with Vesuvius power cord). Interconnects, power cords, and loudspeaker cables were also from Silver Circle Audio.

It's hardly news to see <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/tubepoweramps/606moscode/">Moscode’s 401HR</A> 200Wpc hybrid amplifier ($4995, factory-direct price until January 1) heaped with praise. But let me tell you, after walking in and out of countless rooms powered by single-ended triode amplification that got some things right while they pretended others simply didn’t exist, encountering Moscode’s full-range sound was tantamount to setting foot on terra firma. Mated with Joseph Audio RM33LE speakers ($10,500/pair) and Cardas Golden Reference cabling, the configuration had me smiling. Three cheers to the show attendee who played the song about pay phones by the Hunger Mountain Boys.

Given the firepower and reputation of a system comprised of the Kharma Midi Exquisite Mk.II speakers, MBL 1621a/1611e digital front-end, MBL 6010D preamp, MBL 9008a power amps (total cost $184,420), plus Kharma Enigma Cables ($8000/1st meter pair), I figured I had finally entered the right room in which to risk auditioning Ivan Fischer’s new recording of Mahler’s Symphony 2, the "Resurrection" (SACD, Channel Classics). Indeed, at the start of the glorious vocal section that ends the symphony, the MBLs' euphonic signature captured the violins with wonderful delicacy. Soprano, alto, and chorus too sounded wonderful, the soprano especially radiant. Given that the system’s sweetness was delivered with an enrapturing sense of air and depth, the sound swept me away. Gorgeous, simply gorgeous.