SSI 2011

The title "Ask the Editors" suggests one-way communication: people in the audience ask questions, and, guru-like, Stereophile writers answer these questions. In fact, communication at these events goes in both directions. For example, at the 2011 "Ask the Editors" session on Saturday, one of the attendees mentioned that he was really impressed with the demo of a speaker made by Live Audio, a company based in Quebec.

I made a point of visiting this room after the session, and was similarly impressed. The speaker ($6800/pair, no model number in the printed literature that I could find) uses two 12" powered (370W) woofers, and an 8" full-range driver with an Alnico magnet. The drivers are all mounted in an open-baffle (dipole) configuration. The soundstage presented by the Live Audio speakers was quite spacious, without the specificity of imaging within the soundstage that you get with unipolar speakers, but very listenable. Here's the picture of the speaker with designer Sylvain Turcotte.