RMAF 2010

Craig Oxford and William Carpenter, CEO of Consensus Biotechnology and Consensus Biolabs of Little Rock, happily introduced me to the successors to Pipe Dreams loudspeakers, the HighEmotion Audio Pyra Bella 7 monitors ($6000/pair), Bella Basso 28 subs ($4000/pair, with 2 pairs in use), and Passare XOL crossover ($3000). (I did not audition the second system with the HighEmotion Audio Festune Bass Module). The HighEmotion speakers, which employ "a substantial amount of new technology", are the result of years of research into brain imagining technology, and "the emotional responses to music, auditory system function, physics, and electrical engineering."

The company has been working with scientists to understand neurochemical reactions to different source material. "We've discovered a threshold of authenticity which you must exceed to evoke a limbic response," I was told.

Using the striking Verastarr Audio SSA-644 6-channel power amp ($6000); VTL TL 5.5 Signature preamplifier; Atma-Sphere M-60 MkIII tube monoblocks; and Verastarr Grand Illusion Signature power cords, Nemesis X speaker cables, and Grand Illusion Signature RCA interconnects, the system was very impressive. The fullness of sound on Reference Recordings' classic rendition of Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances was as full as the percussion on Chesky's Marta Gomez debut disc was crisp, deep, and quick. I'd love to hear this system in a larger room. A most auspicious show debut.