Hoping you can help me, audiophile siblings. The culmination of SD's vinyl oddysey had me mentally compiling my list of 'all time' best vinyl front-ends, which took me back to 2002 and the Stereophile show at the Hilton in New York.
I was actually in New York on my honeymoon (but that's another story), however I got a day pass for the show while THE BOSS went window shopping down in one of the hip neighbourhoods way downtown. Anyway, apart from meeting one of my favourite audio journalists, J-10, in person one of the high-points of the show for me, and which as far as I can tell was not picked up in any of the online show coverage, was a vinyl-based system playing in a very small room near the back of the hotel on the right hand side (looking from the street). If memory serves it was on one of the upper floors. Not exactly prime real estate and therefore almost certainly not a big name. It was definitely not a deck I recognized or I probably would have remembered it.
Anyway, all I can remember is the following:
- The room was unbelievably small and very crowded
- The speakers were tall asymmetrical planars but not, as I recall, Apogees
- I think the tt in question was quite large and featured lots of shiny metal (my mental picture suggests something like a V.Y.G.E.R?)
- When I was there they were playing an a capella Irish-sounding male vocalist singing something like 'What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor' or 'Danny Boy'
- The sound was fantastic.
I have scoured the show coverage on the internet but just can't find any mention of this room which was certainly not among the 'biggies'. Can anyone who was there help me out?