SSI 2010

The smaller room operated by Montreal retailer Son-or-Filtronique was a little on the small side for the bass perfomance of the Sonus Faber speakers, driven by a pair of Ayre's mighty MX-R monoblocks, the midrange and highs were sweet and musical -sounding, whether the source was the MacBook seen in the photo driving the Ayre QB-9 USB DAC or the acrylic-plattered Bauer dps turntable that Art Dudley favorably reviewed in the Show (April) issue of Stereophile.

Acrylic platters are much misunderstood, Ayre's Steve Silberman explained to me. Acrylic offers a good match to the vinyl LP's mechanical impedance, meaning that vibrations within the LP are transmitted into the platter rather than being reflected back to the stylus. But if you couple the acrylic platter to a metal bearing assembly, the result is the typical "acrylic sound." By contrast, the Bauer dps turntable uses a similar material for the bearing housing, reducing coloration by providing a more direct path to ground for vibrations within the platter.