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The Home Entertainment Show (HE2004), the largest and most comprehensive showcase of consumer electronics and imaging products in America, returns to New York City May 20–23, 2004 at the Hilton New York Hotel—the site of two popular HE Shows held in 2001 and 2002. Over 15,000 attendees are expected to visit the NY Hilton, optimized for the ultimate user experience. Unlike typical trade shows, HE2004 provides visitors with the opportunity of seeing and hearing the finest products in upscale hotel rooms, creating the best-sounding environments for demonstrating high-performance gear.
There are rooms at hi-fi shows, and then there are rooms. Kubotek/Haniwa were hosting the "Harry Pearson Memorial Concert" in Room 1122 of the Denver Marriott. I had seen information in advance, but it took me a moment to realize that I had walked into a unique event. It was a bit like viewing hours at a funeral parlor, but instead of a casket, arranged around the room were a selection of the legendary Harry Pearson's actual 3000-LP collection, which he bequeathed complete to Dr. Tetsuo Kubo, designer and president/CEO of the Kubotek Corporation, based in Osaka, Japan. As if this weren't…
Before and since the pandemic, many traditional hi-fi dealerships evolved to expand the products and services they offer—into custom install and home integration, in particular. There has also been a bit of a multichannel/home theater resurgence.
Shifts in the market and personal interests led to changes at Adirondack Audio & Video, an established company with locations in upstate New York and—as HiFi Loft—in Manhattan. The company recently split into two separate entities. Under new ownership by a former partner/employee, just before Labor Day, 2023, HiFi Loft spun off from…
Photo: VPI
Social distancing. Flattening the curve. These expressions are embedded in our collective psyche as we to try to keep COVID-19 and the novel coronavirus that causes it at bay. Few of us who live through this will ever forget them.
But life and work must somehow go on, if at a slower pace than before. Even now—as I write, just a couple of weeks after the earliest stay-at-home order went into effect, in California—the pandemic anxiety and resulting closures have businesses across all sectors taking a huge hit. Today's unemployment numbers were staggering, dwarfing those…
Jon Reichbach of Sonic Studio/Amarra displayed the latest Amarra sQ+ 2.3 inline DSP processor. The software can equalize music's entire range, if desired, before sending it along for playback. The new version includes multiple EQs (filter topologies) that, in Reichbach's words, "let you build some very complex EQ curves." There is also optional Dirac Live room-correction software and broadband noise reduction.
"In 1989, when we started Sonic Studio, Warner used this noise reduction software and it cost $125,000," he said. "It produced a disc that won an Academy Award for Technical…
Most of my audio show experiences have been mixed, with strings of fine-sounding rooms punctuated by others that have sounded mediocre or worse. On the worst of days, the pattern has been reversed, with room after room sounding so dismal that I occasionally began to wonder if I was suffering from a temporary case of sonic indigestion. But on the Renaissance Schaumberg's 4th floor, despite room layouts that seemed to have been designed by the Son of the Set-up Demon himself, room after room delivered fine sound.
This was certainly the case in the Fidelis Music Systems room, where Stenheim…
While covering CanMania at the 2017 Capital Audiofest, I was sitting at the table of HeadAmp Audio Electronics, listening first to John McEuen singing Warren Zevon's "Excitable Boy," from McEuen's Made in Brooklyn (24-bit/192kHz AIFF, Chesky JD388/HDtracks), then to Macy Gray's Stripped (24/96 AIFF, Chesky JD389/HDtracks). I was listening through HeadAmp's extraordinary GS-X Mk.2 headphone amplifier ($2999–$3199), but midway through Gray's "I Try," I stopped, pulled the Audeze LCD-4 headphones off my head, and asked HeadAmp's head of sales and marketing, Peter James, what DAC he was using…
The audiophile does not pursue music reproduction because it is useful; he pursues it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If music were not beautiful it would not be worth knowing, and if music were not worth knowing life would not be worth living.
My apologies for corrupting the well-known statement by French mathematician Jules Henri Poincaré (1854–1912), in which he described his relationship with science and nature. But substituting audiophile for scientist and music for nature, I feel the sentiment expresses what drives many audiophiles to the…
Then JA asked if I'd like some more DACs to compare. First to arrive was the Auralic Vega, then Ayre Acoustics' QB-9DSD. A few weeks later, Philip O'Hanlon, of distributor On a Higher Note, asked if I'd like to hang out with the Luxman DA-06, which Art Dudley reviewed in the July 2014 issue. Add to that growing stack my trusty Benchmark DAC2 HGC, and I was searching for a way out of the DAC maze.
Relief came in the form of Tony Holt, cofounder of the Central Coast Audio Club. We quickly devised a plan for comparing several DACs with a custom Pipeline set—as in the surf tune "Pipeline,"…
Meanwhile, Schiit has shifted forward plans to expand its operations to a facility in Utah, a state not under lockdown and, Jason says, one that is less likely to be. "Yeah, don't be surprised if the words on our site change very quickly to, like, 'designed and manufactured in California and/or Utah,'" he chuckles.
"Of course, like everyone, I'm sure we've taken a bit of a hit, but the orders are coming in. People are still asking questions. People still need to have service performed. What we're trying to do is do that without jeopardizing anyone here."
Looking forward,…