In my last blog report from T.H.E. Show in Las Vegas, I waxed ecstatic about the extraordinary, highly efficient, hand-made washi-paper Feastrex drivers distributed by Joe Cohen's Lotus Group of Northern California. The units are hand-crafted in Japan by Haruhiko Teramoto, who hand-rubs the frame, phase plug, and voice-coils of both his Feastrex D53 III 5" field-coil drivers ($39,000/pair) and D9e II 9" field-coil drivers ($31,500/pair) with traditional urushi lacquer.
The Feastrex drivers are completely organic in every sense. Everything is hand-crafted in a communal effort by multiple masters.
The 5" Feastrex drivers are now available in a gorgeous, unique Urushi cabinet ($19,500). These babies captured every ounce of grace that gifted soprano Kate Royal brought to her debut CD on EMI. Beautiful indeed.
While at T.H.E. Show, the Feastrex 9" drivers were driven by superb Red Rock amplification, at RMAF both the 9" and 5" drivers were powered by either unavailable or not-for-sale, not-yet-priced prototypes. These included the Neumann 444wt preamp, Feastrex 811SE stereo amplifier, Feastrex WE350APP mono amplifiers, Feastrex Modified EMT 980 CD player, and Feastrex Modified Studer A725 CD player. Everything was held together by PranaWire's Avatar speaker cable ($13,000 for 1.5m), Cosmos interconnect ($9450 for 3m RCA), MahaSamadhi power cable ($4600 for 1.5m), Satori power cables ($1795 for 1m and $2545 for 2m), Kensho power cables ($950 for 1m), and Kensho Power supply cables ($1650 for 3m). The good news is that Haruhiko Teramoto's work has a greater chance of making an impact in the US now that Clark Blumenstein of Washington state has become his apprentice, and Joe Cohen has become their ardent champion. May the music continue.
