Jiang was so excited to see me because the Bay Area Audiophile Society's Bob Walters had done everything but swear on the Bible that I would be visiting the room. Thankfully, I made it just in time before show's closing to hear Eficion's small and large models. Jiang, a former chip designer who resides in Redmond, WA and manufactures his speakers in Seattle, is responsible for his speakers' styling, cabinet structure, and driver selection; his partner does the crossover.
As I entered the room, he was playing "I Thought About You" from Cisco's Steve Hoffman-engineered jazz disc Here At Last on the smaller Eficion F200 ($3400). The music and sound were equally lovely, perfect for the last hour of the show. I was hooked.
I hate to use that word "lovely" again, but the smoky flavor that the speaker imparted to Marta Gomez's vocals on her great Chesky CD suited me to a T.
Peigen Jiang has been building speakers for 20 years. You can tell from how clearly and well defined the F200 presents instruments. This is a 2-way vented box, with 8 ohms impedance, 88dB sensitivity, and a frequency range of 38Hz–40kHz. Associated equipment included the BAT VK-5D CD player (approx. $5000), an older BAT 3i preamp ($3000), and BAT VK-250SE power amp ($6700). Two of the cables, manufactured by Choseal in China, were intentionally inexpensive to demonstrate that this speaker is easy on cables. These included the Choseal XLR interconnect ($250) and speaker cable ($350). Much lower in price than those Ray Kimber chose for his own amazing demo (see earlier post) was a Kimber XLR ($200) that connected the CD player to the preamp.
