Ed Meitner goes analog?

Not really. But the famed digital pioneer and founder of EMM Labs, known especially for his work with DSD/SACD, was showing his prototype optical phono preamp, the Optical Equalizer. Designed solely for use with DS Audio's optical cartridges, it can be described as a marriage between analog and digital. With specific filters for the different DS Audio cartridge models, it's expected in the first quarter of 2020.

Haniwa's chief designer, Tetsuo Kubo, surprised me with the sound of his new Clear Focus speakers plus digital phase control system amplifier ($25,000 total). With a much larger cone than in previous versions and an impedance of 1.3 ohms, this loudspeaker sounded totally smooth, with a very strong midrange presence, when mated with their 400Wpc amplifier. Even the bright voice of Luciano Pavarotti was pleasant to listen to, and thrilling as well.

It’s no surprise that the Wilson Audio rooms were buzzing. Both Sheryl Lee Wilson and her late husband Dave’s successor, son Daryl, were on hand to unveil, in passive display, the new Chronosonic XVX loudspeaker ($329,000/pair, seen to Daryl’s right).

Before the revelation of Bryston’s new BDA-3.14 streamer/DAC/digital preamp ($4195) came another, far less welcome one: The Gaylord Resort and Convention Center is huge. Ridiculously huge, and constructed with less-than-penetrable logic.

Where am I? I thought I was heading to Denver to cover the 16th edition of the three-day Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, but it looks as though I boarded the wrong plane and ended up in Las Vegas.

Like most older teens growing up in the South in the late 1970s, I had two poles of rock and roll heroes: The Allman Brothers Band and ZZ Top on one side, Yes and King Crimson on the other.

An editorial note: We recently republished Stereophile founder J. Gordon Holt's 1966 review of the Swiss Thorens TD-150AB turntable. This was the first high-end 'table I bought after leaving university and earning a wage. But as good as I felt the TD-150AB to be, with its belt drive and sprung suspension, it was sonically overshadowed both by Thorens's TD 124 turntable and by the English Garrard 301 turntable.

Thursday, September 19, 2019, 6-10pm Sound by Singer (242 W. 27th St., second floor, New York, NY 10001) will host a special two-part program featuring CH Precision, Stenheim, and Stereophile's Michael Fremer.

Back in the days of pre-stereo high fidelity, when a 6-gram phono pickup was considered to be "featherweight," the best universal-type tonearm we knew of was a bulky, very professional-looking device made by Gray Labs and designated the Model 108. One unusual thing about it was that, instead of using sleeve or cone-face bearings, it had a single up-ended needle—a so-called unipivot—for both the vertical and lateral modes of motion. The other unusual thing about it was that the pivot system was viscous-damped, and it was this, we suspect, that was largely responsible for the arm's ability to make any pickup sound somehow sweeter and cleaner than it did in any other arm.