NY Audio & AV 2012

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NY Audio & AV 2012
More sightings
Art Dudley  |  Apr 16, 2012  |  0 comments
Seen outside one of Innovative Audio's demonstration rooms (L–): Luke Manley and Bea Lam of VTL, Peter McGrath of Wilson Audio, and Elliot Fishkin, proprietor of Innovative Audio.
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NY Audio & AV 2012
Sightings #3: Checking out the Bricasti DAC
John Atkinson  |  Apr 16, 2012  |  First Published: Apr 18, 2012  |  0 comments
Audio Shows give industry professionals the chance to check out products they have read about in magazines. Here, Wilson's Peter McGrath (right) talks to Bricasti's Brian Zolner (The "Bri" in Bricasti) about the latter's M1 D/A processor that so impressed me in the February issue. Feeding data to the M1 was Rega's super- sexy Apollo CD player, which Sam Tellig will be reviewing in the July issue of Stereophile.
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NY Audio & AV 2012
So This is Where People Get the Stereotype From…
Ariel Bitran  |  Apr 16, 2012  |  First Published: Apr 18, 2012  |  3 comments
The relaxed and crystal-clear sound of the Legacy Whisper XDs tempted my entire CD collection, but I knew what I really wanted to hear: Phish’s Lawn Boy. Both Page McConnel’s and Trey Anastasio’s nuanced phrasing and John Fishman’s tasteful drumming would shimmer in the clean layout projected by these speakers. Legacy’s Bill Duddleston put on my CD. An audiophile in front of me turns around...
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NY Audio & AV 2012
Towering Legacies
Art Dudley  |  Apr 16, 2012  |  1 comments
A Legacy Audio Whisper XD loudspeaker ($20,500–$22,500/pair, depending on finish) stands next to a life-size picture of a Legacy Audio Whisper XD loudspeaker. One of these has eight drivers, dual 500-watt ICE subwoofer amplifiers, and a 24-bit room-correction processor. The other does not.
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NY Audio & AV 2012
Lesson Learned from Lighton
Ariel Bitran  |  Apr 15, 2012  |  First Published: Apr 17, 2012  |  0 comments
On Day 1 of the New York Audio & AV show, I let the exhibitors play their demo tracks in hopes to hear some cool, new music, but I just ended up hearing Stevie Ray Vaughan, Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries or ZZ Top’s “La Grange” over and over and over again, so on Day 2, I brought my own records.
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NY Audio & AV 2012
Lighton up
Art Dudley  |  Apr 15, 2012  |  1 comments
Furniture designer Robert Lighton used the New York Audio and AV show to debut his first audio product, the RL10 loudspeaker ($20,000/pair), offering a solid wood enclosure (even the rear-firing reflex port is turned from solid wood), 1” fabric-dome tweeter, 10” paper-cone woofer, and a sensitivity rating of 95dB. Selections from Lighton’s impressive collection of jazz LPs—one Roland Kirk number in particular—sounded tactile and convincing through his speakers and an 8Wpc Audio Note Meishu Silver Signature integrated amp with phono section ($18,850), Audio Note AN S8 phono transformer ($10,800), and Audio Note TT3.5 Reference three-motor turntable ($39,600), the latter using a Sogon-wired Audio Note tonearm ($13,156) and Yamamoto Y-03s cartridge ($1200).
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NY Audio & AV 2012
Compact Reference TAD
Art Dudley  |  Apr 15, 2012  |  2 comments
The TAD CR1 (for Compact Reference) loudspeaker ($37,000/pair) was demonstrated with Viola amplification and a digital front end comprising the Weiss Man301 server ($9000) and Weiss Medea+ D-to-A converter ($19,000). The CR1, which has been on the market for a little over three years, has a rated sensitivity of 86dB and uses the same type of CST coincident driver as featured in the company's flagship Reference One loudspeaker. The TAD had satisfying bass extension for such a relatively small enclosure, but the system was being played way too loud for my comfort, so I can't offer a more nuanced appraisal. JA, however, was very impressed when he reviewed the CR1 last January.
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NY Audio & AV 2012
Voilà Viola
Art Dudley  |  Apr 15, 2012  |  0 comments
The Viola electronics on display included their four-chassis, dual-mono Solo preamplifier ($45,000) and Bravo II stereo amp ($59,000). The latter is supplied in two chassis, and provides 700Wpc channel into 4 ohms: the nominal impedance of the TAD CR1s. DAC was the highly regarded Bricasti M1.
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NY Audio & AV 2012
Well Rounded Sound
Stephen Mejias  |  Apr 15, 2012  |  First Published: Apr 17, 2012  |  0 comments
And here’s Well Rounded Sound’s designer, Jerry Cmehil, holding a couple of his company’s smaller offerings—in his right hand, a little Yorkie ($249/pair), and in his right hand, a Jack Terrier 2 ($299/pair). These speakers are identical in size, but the Jack Terrier is slightly more sensitive (88dB vs the Yorkie’s 87dB rating) and has a larger specified frequency range (100Hz–24kHz vs 100Hz–21kHz).
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NY Audio & AV 2012
What to do with those Pringles cans
Art Dudley  |  Apr 15, 2012  |  0 comments
Well Rounded Sound, a US company that specializes in high quality desktop loudspeakers, exhibited a number of eye-catching models, including their new Corgi ($799/pair), which is scheduled to begin production in July.
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NY Audio & AV 2012
M•A Recordings in NY
Art Dudley  |  Apr 14, 2012  |  0 comments
Waiting for an opportunity to photograph recordist Todd Garfinkle, of M•A Recordings, was no small task: Just one hour into the New York show on Friday, his exhibit was jammed with eager music buyers, and I had to wait several (enjoyable) minutes before the crowd thinned enough that he could take a break.
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NY Audio & AV 2012
Cat Stevens: Tea for the Tillerman
Stephen Mejias  |  Apr 14, 2012  |  First Published: Apr 16, 2012  |  0 comments
As Art mentioned below, traffic was heavy in the Liberty Trading room. When I visited, I had the good fortune of browsing vinyl titles alongside this happy attendee.

"Ha!" she exclaimed. "I was just talking about this record the other day!"

She bought it and several other choice titles, convincing me that I was in the presence of someone with great taste in music.

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NY Audio & AV 2012
Liberty Trading
Art Dudley  |  Apr 14, 2012  |  0 comments
My first attempt to enter the room at the NY Audio & AV Show where Liberty Trading was selling vinyl and CDs proved fruitless: There were simply too many people lined up to buy records (which included a number of recent Mobile Fidelity LP titles). Nabil Akhrass, seen here behind the counter, would surely question my use of the words too many.
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NY Audio & AV 2012
Sexiest System of the Show
Stephen Mejias  |  Apr 14, 2012  |  First Published: Apr 16, 2012  |  0 comments
Art's already mentioned the glorious sound of the Robyatt Audio room, so with this picture I tried to capture a bit of the system's overall look and feel. This was, to my eyes, the sexiest system of the show. The only thing missing was the pinup girl. The sound was just as easy on the ears: When "Sing, Sing, Sing" came to the end, everyone in the room clapped and cheered.
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NY Audio & AV 2012
Sweet merciful Quad
Art Dudley  |  Apr 14, 2012  |  0 comments
Robin Wyatt of Robyatt Audio did something that hadn't been done at a major audio show in decades: He demonstrated with a pair of Quad ESL loudspeakers—creating, in the process, the sort of sound that led my weak and easily led brain to conclude that I was hearing the best sound of the show within my first hour of attendance. The ESLs, which had been restored by Quad expert Wayne Picquet (also in "Listening" columns passim), were driven by a pair of Miyajima OTL 2010 amplifiers ($10,000 each), which provide 22Wpc when used as monoblocks with their defeatable feedback circuits enabled. Wiring was by Tel Wire. The preamp was a one-off custom unit by fellow upstate New Yorker Charles King, and the sound, apart from the fact that the Quads made a little too much bass (!) for the squarish room, was glorious.
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