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SSI 2012

Naim does computer audio

Robert Deutsch Mar 23, 2012

Analog stalwart Naim is now heavily into computer audio; new at SSI 2012 was their NDS streamer/DAC, which is to start shipping in May. This is their reference-level network player, which does all the things you expect a product like this to do, including Internet radio. The price of $13,000 does not include a power supply. In true Naim fashion, the NDS offers a choice of three power supplies, which range in price from $3k to $10k.

SSI 2012

Upmarket Atoll

Robert Deutsch Mar 23, 2012

Atoll is a French company that I think of as offering affordably-priced equipment, and I suppose that's still where most of their market is, but they've also moved upmarket with the new CD400 CD player ($6800), IN400 integrated amp ($6000), PR400 preamp ($5600), and AM400 ($4000). (If there was a prize for the most sensible model names given to audio products, I would nominate Atoll for these new offerings.) The product literature is in French only, but the technical language of audio to a large extent transcends borders. I was amused by part of the description of the AM400, which said that it was "Amplificateur bridgeable en bloc mono." I doubt if you'd find "bridgeable" in your Larousse French dictionary.

SSI 2012

Sennheiser's Duo Cinema

Robert Deutsch Mar 23, 2012

I know that Sennheiser has an ever-expanding line of wireless headphones, and I've seen these at CES. Something I haven't seen before, was a package labeled Duo Cinema. This is a kit that includes two sets of HDR 170 wireless headphones and a base unit, for $599.95. These are intended to be used for home theater; the base unit can accommodate two more sets of headphones. The Duo Cinema package is available only in Canadaso no wonder I didn't see it at CES. It's shown here by Nadine Girard- Business Director, Retail Strategy of Sennheiser Canada.

SSI 2012

Kronos from Sonor-Filtronique

Robert Deutsch Mar 23, 2012

Sonor-Filtronique is a Montreal dealer whose product lines are some of the most prestigious available, including Audio Research, Ayre, Boulder, Sonus Faber, and VPI. They had samples from all these at SSI 2012, but the once that caught my eye was a turntable: the Kronos, a $30,000 high-tech wonder, designed in Quebec by Louis Desjardin, in collaboration with Fidelio Audio. Its major design claim to fame is the secondary platter (below the one that the record is placed on), which rotates in the opposite direction, an approach that is said to cancel unwanted vibrations. The unit on demo had an SME tonearm mounted.

SSI 2012

Dr. Feickert's Turntable

Robert Deutsch Mar 23, 2012

Another high-end turntable that impressed me was the Dr. Feickert Analogue Firebird. This is a new model, with new bearing, new platter, new motors (three of them), and all kinds of other refinements. The price is a relatively-affordableby ultra high end turntable standards$12,995. The tonearm mounted was a Dr. Feickert Analogue DFA 12.0, the number in the model name referring to the length in inches. The turntable can accommodate two tonearms, of various lengths.

SSI 2012

Michel Plante

Robert Deutsch Mar 23, 2012

Michel Plante, President of SSI, can usually been seen rushing around, dealing with one crisis or another. He somehow injured himself the day before the show's opening (he doesn't know how) to the point that he was on crutches, but this hardly seems to have slowed him down. He took in stridewell, so to speakjibes about "break a leg" not meant to be taken literally.

SSI 2012

Claudia L'Ecuyer hands me my badge

Robert Deutsch Mar 23, 2012

The female staff members of Salon Son & Image are easily recognizable by the blue wigs they wear. I don't know whose idea this representsMichel Plante or Sarah Tremblay would be my guessbut it's a great way of signalling that the show is going to be FUN. The charming Claudia L'Ecuyer (pictured) prepared my badge. In the background, getting his badge is Jim Griffin of Griffin Audio, Canadian distributor of ProAc loudspeakers.

Stephen Mejias

Neneh Cherry and The Thing: The Cherry Thing

Stephen Mejias Mar 23, 2012

I’m in a daze. My mind is officially, seriously blown.

Nothing, seriously nothing, could have prepared me for the news that Neneh Cherry&#151Neneh “Raw Like Sushi” Cherry&#151is heading a new project with the powerhouse free jazz trio of Mats Gustafsson (saxophone), Ingebrigt Haker Flaten (bass), and Paal Nilssen-Love (drums).

Ariel Bitran

Now on Newsstands: Stereophile, Vol.35 No.4

Ariel Bitran Mar 22, 2012

It has been a strange winter. Now approaching what is formally known as spring, I’m not sure if we ever even made it out of autumn! Forty-five degrees Fahrenheit in the middle of February in New York City? What in the hell is going on?

Similar to how the seasons from 2011 to 2012 have melded together into the longest autumn, the shipping out of each issue of Stereophile becomes a blur as well. As I discussed in my last on newsstands March article, we are never really sure what month we are living in here at the Stereophile office, much less the month of the issue we are working on, except for when we are compiling April Issue. We always know when we’re working on the April.

Why’s that?

Interviews

What's His Naim? Julian Vereker

Ken Kessler Mar 22, 2012

Editor's Introduction: One of the big industry stories of 1985 was the split, both personal and commercial, between the British Linn and Naim companies. Led by Ivor Tiefenbrun and Julian Vereker (footnote 1) respectively, both companies had started up in the early 1970s. Both men held similar views, both about the fat-cat complacency of British designers (which had led to a grievous sound-quality slump in the mid '70s), and about the system rethinking necessary for what some writers, unaware of the rigors of thought required by followers of that spiritual descendant of Fowler, William Safire, would term a "quantum leap" forward in sound reproduction.