LATEST ADDITIONS

George Kaye was showing not one, but two new products: the Moscode 402P!

"Now that's real room lock," I exclaimed, listening to the deep pedal organ notes from John Mark’s recording of James Bustard playing Herbert Howell’s Master Tallis’ Testament, recorded at the Church of St. Stevens in Providence, Rhode Island. Tierry Budge's new loudspeaker, the floorstanding, two-way, Pearlized White, $18,990/pair speaker played the pipe organ pedal chords with thunder and power when driven by the VTL S-400 amplifier and the new dCS digital front-end on one of the Sound By Singer rooms. The speaker's large enclosure holds both an external 12" woofer and an internal 12" driver, which allows Budge to rate the speaker's response down to an impressive 18Hz. Budge claims the internal 12" minimizes group delay, reducing the driver's rise time from its nominal 500ms to 55ms. The tweeter is soft-dome, ring radiator made by Scan Speak.

Krell’s new Krell IPOD Dock (KID) only costs $1200, but offers balanced outputs, signal conditioning with bass and treble adjustments, all digital control lines, diverse outputs (2 balanced, 2 RCA, and S Video) with optical isolation. The auxillary input allows one to attach a Zune or Creative Digital Zen MP3 player. The Krell KID received much attention from press and public alike.

Ian McArthur of Audio Plus, North American distributor of the French Focal speakers, is looking casual and relaxed. And why shouldn’t he be? He's leaning on the Electra 1037 Be ($11,000/pair), which has a review coming out by Michael Fremer, a review that —if this is not telling tales out of school —may have people running to their Focal dealers. The sound of the speakers at the Show (Mikey's actual review samples, so they were well broken-in), with Pathos electronics, was one of those that made me stop as I was walking along the corridor to check out what was playing.