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Leonid Korostyshevski, who hails from Saratov Russia and has written for the Stereophile web site in the past, checks out headphones and some music. When asked what he liked best about the show, Leonid said "everything."
If you're ever in LA, visit Kanpai for some of the best sushi you'll ever experience.
The brilliant Peter Kagawa took care of us. "You guys are basically a level ten," he told us. "You're willing to try anything."
After a day of listening to endless rooms of lovely music, yes, we were willing to try anything. And we were happy that we did.
Flying Mole Electronics is the whimsical name of a company that makes some compact, relatively inexpensive, and, from what I heard in their room, very good-sounding audio electronics. How compact? Well, just look at the picture of their CA-S3 integrated amp, with a CD box next to it for scale. The amplifier is described as "proprietary bi-phase PWM," with an output of 20Wpc, and sells for $850. The larger—but still compact—CA-S10 ($1500) puts out 100Wpc. Both are claimed to have a tube-like sound. The little CA-S3 did a good job driving both a custom system based on JBL components and…
Canadian Totem Acoustic specializes in manufacturing loudspeakers that are small is size and price but big in sound. Perhaps no speaker of theirs exemplifies this better than the cheapest model in the line: the $450/pair Dreamcatcher. Here’s designer Vince Bruzzese with the Dreamcatcher.
Proving that you could create beautiful music within the confines of a cement hotel room, AAA Audio was showing off their new disc player atop the Critical Mass Systems isolation platform.
Can a show report have too many pictures of oil-cooled tube amplifiers? I don't
think so.
The beautiful Ascendo loudspeaker, imported by airline pilot and audio enthusiast Darren Censullo of Avatar Acoustics
I always enjoy Ray Kimber's IsoMike demos more than almost any other HE Show demo. It's not the room full of pedigreed high-end gear, although he always has that. This time he demoed with four B&W 800d loudspeakers, two pairs of Pass Labs X350.5 power amplifiers, Genex Audio GX9000/DSD-BNC interface, and four channels of EMM Labs DAC8 MkIV DSD feeding EMM Labs Switchman (four channels worth, natch), not to mention a whole bunch of Kimber KableD-60, Kimber Select KS-3038, and Word Clock D-60 cables. Nor is it the meticulously recorded music that Ray has captured with his IsoMike…
Just got back from the John Atkinson/Bob Reina/Allen Perkins jazz trio concert and it was great! Especially when you consider that these guys only play together once a year at the HE shows.
The set included Bill Evans' "Peace Piece," Herbie Hancock's "Maiden Voyage," Miles Davis' "So What," Dizzy Gillespie's "Night In Tunisia," and originals by Reina and Atkinson.
The band had fun and so did I. Reina can be a monster on piano—and was was on today. JA played a popping/slapping solo in Reina's "Sinatra Way" that bought down the house, and where do you even start with Allen…
I walked into Music Direct's room and asked Bes Nievera, "What's new?"
"Funny you should ask, we just got the prototype for Mobile Fidelity's new cartridge!" MoFi's Byron Collett gave me the 411: The moving coil cartridge sports a carbon fiber body and outputs 0.24 mV. It weighs about 11 grams. Price is still to be determined. Oh yeah, and it was designed by Mr. Takeda, designer of the Miyabi Standard.
"Takeda-san is pretty enthused over the carbon fiber shell," Collett told me. "It makes an unbelievable difference in the life and noise floor of the cartridge. We expect this…