According to the company: "Whatever your musical taste, uncover all the power and emotion your music, movie and gaming collection has to offer with Focal’s elegant and compact desktop 2.0 active loudspeaker system. Based on 33-years of acoustic research and over a dozen patents, Focal has created the ideal powered desktop loudspeaker system that will delight your senses while delivering years of dependable service. Hear exactly what you’ve been missing; experience just how good desktop music can sound."
[This Sweepstakes is now closed.]
We have to ask ourselves: Can all hi-fi shows be as efficiently run, popular, successful, and downright fun as the Munich High End Show? Is it possible to cultivate, here in the United States, that combination of heartfelt enthusiasm, relaxed atmosphere, and healthy balance of substance and style?
Silicon Valleybased Velodyne was founded in 1983 to develop a range of subwoofers that used servo-control to reduce non-linear distortion to vanishingly small levels. They succeeded in this goal to the extent that Velodyne is now perhaps the best-known subwoofer company in the US, currently employing 65 people. At the 1994 Winter CES, Velodyne launched the subject of this review: the DF-661 ($1800$2600/pair), their first full-range loudspeaker (the "DF" stands for "Distortion-Free").
The three-way DF-661 was designed from the ground up to continue the Velodyne tradition of ultra-low distortion. "We had developed the technology and resources to attack distortion elsewhere in the audio chain," wrote company President David Hall, "and started with the premise that, by definition...distortion in loudspeakers is wrong." (His italics.) "We went to the laboratory for a solution, with the living room as the ultimate goal." Velodyne calls this attention to technological detail "The Silicon Valley approach to sound."
You know what's funny about this job? You travel half way around the world and then talk to people you know well. Fang is one of those people. I'm thinking I should go to China one of these days and talk to him again.
Anyway, HiFiMAN had a couple of cool dynamic IEMs that were a good listen. Check it out.
Ed. Note: I've posted my show impressions for Stereophile, you can read them here.
“I hope that’s all I need.” After buying a replacement tweeter for my Usher S-520s, I asked Stan Tracht, US representative for Usher, a pair of questions.
“Will I need to solder anything?”
“No soldering needed,” Stan advised.
“Do I need to buy a second tweeter to ensure the speakers match?”
The Boston Acoustics A40 loudspeaker ($150/pair) has become "legendary" (ie, it's stayed around for a while), probably because a pair of them images as well as Rogers LS3/5As. Unfortunately, it is no match for the LS3/5A in terms of smooth midrange response. Of course, at $150/pair, it shouldn't be.
I was originally going to do a review comparing the Spectrum 108A ($200/pair) and the Boston Acoustics A40. On first listen, I was mightily impressed by the A40. But after Stereophile's Larry Archibald schlepped me out a pair of the 108As, I didn't much want to listen to the A40s.
On Sunday, May 19, at 1:30pm, Stereophile readers are invited to attend a very special recording concert. Over the last six years, my quartet, Attention Screen has released three CDs of improvised collaborative jazz on the Stereophile Recordings label. This particular concert will be unique in a number of ways. First, rather than playing grand piano, I'll be performing on the magnificent Ralph and Alice Greenlaw Memorial pipe organ at The Community Church of Douglaston, 39-50 Douglaston Parkway, in New York City's borough of Queens. Second, we will be featuring our newest member, trumpeter Liam Sillery, whose fourth CD, Phenomenology, was awarded five stars by Downbeat magazine in 2010. Finally, rather than performing improvised jazz, we will be playing nine newly composed jazz and classical works by the four individual members of Attention Screen. The pieces are designed to demonstrate the broad range of textures and colors the Greenlaw organ is capable of as well as spotlighting Liam Sillery's unique trumpet phrasing style.