LATEST ADDITIONS

Mark Conti’s MC Audiotech room was dominated by his company’s just-launched, Paul Paddock-designed MC Audiotech Forty-10 2-way loudspeaker ($35,000/pair including crossover). Hidden in the high-frequency spaced array are 10 identical bending wave drivers “of the latest generation,” which cover everything above 100 Hz. In its Folded Cube low-frequency enclosure reside two “industrial type” woofers in a dipole arrangement. The speaker uses a dedicated hybrid external crossover, with low-frequency level/contour controls.

Do VAC tube components possess chameleon-like powers? That's the question I've begun to ask: Each time I encounter their components in different settings, I hear radically different sound. Here, from a system including Nola's towering new Concert Grand Reference Gold 2 loudspeakers ($250,000/pair), an Audio Research REF CD8 CD player, Nordost Odin 2 cabling, and VAC's Statement 450S IQ amplifier ($63,000), Master line stage ($28,000), and VAC DAC MK II ($12,000), the sound was midrange preponderant—not at all what I expected to hear from either VAC electronics or a 275lb open-baffle line-source array design with a claimed frequency range of 18Hz–100kHz, 91dB sensitivity, and 8 ohm impedance. I think the room was simply too shallow in depth, with seats too close, for these speakers to strut their stuff.

For a room too small for Tekton's massive, multi-driver Moab loudspeakers ($4500/pair), Parasound and Tekton were getting surprisingly good sound. The small system lineup was headed by the new Parasound Classic 200 Integrated ($1195), which includes an all-analog signal path, analog bass management with high and low pass outputs, a DAC whose circuitry is, in the company's words, "pulled directly out of the award-wining Halo P-5," and far more goodies than you might expect at this price point.

Haniwa's chief designer, Tetsuo Kubo, surprised me with the sound of his new Clear Focus speakers plus digital phase control system amplifier ($25,000 total). With a much larger cone than in previous versions and an impedance of 1.3 ohms, this loudspeaker sounded totally smooth, with a very strong midrange presence, when mated with their 400Wpc amplifier. Even the bright voice of Luciano Pavarotti was pleasant to listen to, and thrilling as well.

It’s no surprise that the Wilson Audio rooms were buzzing. Both Sheryl Lee Wilson and her late husband Dave’s successor, son Daryl, were on hand to unveil, in passive display, the new Chronosonic XVX loudspeaker ($329,000/pair, seen to Daryl’s right).

Where am I? I thought I was heading to Denver to cover the 16th edition of the three-day Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, but it looks as though I boarded the wrong plane and ended up in Las Vegas.

Like most older teens growing up in the South in the late 1970s, I had two poles of rock and roll heroes: The Allman Brothers Band and ZZ Top on one side, Yes and King Crimson on the other.