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Ultimate Audio Video had the Ferguson Hill FH007 Mini System set up out in the hall. Yes you can have horns and an iPod too.
McIntosh kept the lights low in their room to show off the new C220 vacuum tube preamp. Who can resist the alluring glow of green tubes? Retail is $3,300 for the C220 which also features an ingenious headphone mute feature and electronic level adjustment for each of eight source inputs.
If Luke Manley of VTL arrived one Cardas power cable short, and Jeff Joseph arrived minus one set of Cardas speaker cables (see earlier reports), designer Alexander Gaiderov and distributor Victor Rakovich upped them by powering their visually arresting Bolzano speakers with a Muse stereo amp that proceeded to blow up. I wish I knew how these Russian engineered, Italian-designed omnidirectional speakers can sound when paired with other than a Pioneer amp that cannot accommodate their subwoofer. Hopefully, time will tell.
VTL announced a major upgrade to their TL-7.5 Reference Linestage Preamplifier (current gain technology, with dramatically lower noise floor), which is now the TL-7.5 Series II. They also have an upgraded version of the MB-450 monoblocks and a new 250Wpc MB-185. Pictured: VTL’s Bea Lam with the system that featured the TL-7.5/MB-450 combo driving Wilson Sophia 2s. Lovely sound.
Bob Reina stopped me in the halls and asked, "Have you heard the water-cooled triodes?" Huh? Turns out the $59,000/pair Von Gaylord Audio Uni Signature Editions monoblock power amplifiers use exterior transmission-grade tubes submerged in an oil coolant, I presume and you can really see the thermal motion of the coolant, so I'm guessing the tubes run hot.
The sound certainly was, as played through Von Gaylord's The Legend loudspeakers ($3995/pair), Female vocals were precise and detailed, with the requisite amount of body. The system sounded extremely natural and relaxed, which is no…
For me, the highlight of HE2006 so far was sitting on the podium next to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's senior intellectual property attorney Fred Von Lohmann as he analyzed the threat restrictive digital rights management (DRM) poses to innovation of precisely the sort so beloved by us audiophiles.
Von Lohmann observed that CD quality has improved over the last two decades specifically because CD was designed as an open format. Inventors could get under the hood and tinker with the delivery of the data—and they have. DVD's quality—for both sound and image has not changed…
Ping Gong, AAA Audio's energetic director, shyly told me he had brought "something special" to the show. Knowing AAA's penchant for high-value, low-cost hi-fi, I expected something modest, but impressive. What he had brought was just flat-out impressive.
The $25,000/pair M-2000 Self-Analyzing Balanced mono power amplifiers are built like (fashionably luxurious) tanks and output 600W into 8 ohms. They weigh in at 170 lbs each. "They have an S/N Ratio of greater than 110dB," Gong confessed, "so they are very quiet."
Lord, yes, when Gong played Rutter's Requiem through Dynaudio…
Direct-marketer Aperion Audio was demonstrating its new $750/pair 533-T tower loudspeaker, built around two 5.25" mid/bass drivers and a 1" silk-dome tweeter. Aperion's cabinets employ 1" MDF and internal bracing, so they're extremely rigid. Aperion not only offers 30-day in-home auditions, but they pay return shipping if you choose not to buy—and they even offer a one year trade-up policy that refunds 100% of the cost of a speaker if you buy a better speaker from them.
Of course, none of that is interesting if the speakers aren't good and I thought the 533-Ts were very good. Paired…
Jenna Russo, Lucette Nicoll, and Erika Pearson (L to R) keep the press room stocked with coffee and cookies so that we can keep working hard.
"Did you get my picture, yet?" Lucette asked.
I hadn't. What was I waiting for?
Frustrated by the dead internet connection in my suite, I sat before the computer screen in the press room, checking in on all the Show coverage that I couldn't post.
At least, in the press room, there were cookies.
I dropped my peanut butter cookie, grabbed my camera, and asked the ladies to smile.
"At first, we didn't want to sell these speakers," admitted Jay Rein of the adorable Neat Motives. "I mean, who needs another nineteen hundred dollar speaker?"
Jay explained that Bluebird Music had brought in the Neat line for their larger Ultimatum MF7 loudspeakers ($15,000/pair), but when they heard the Motives, they knew they'd have to make room for them, too.
"We want to show that enjoyable music doesn’t have to cost a zillion dollars. This is about enjoying music and having fun. We're having fun now."
Paired with the Exposure 2010S amplifier and CD player…