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Codenamed "ML-DVD" during its development, the Mark Levinson No.51 Media Player made its debut at CES. The $18,000, limited-edition player (only 150 will be offered for sale) is intended to get all there is to be gotten from CDs and DVD-Vs, but pointedly will not play SACDs or DVD-As (though it will, of course, play the video-zone Dolby Digital tracks of the latter). I listened to the No.51 in a system comprising the Mark Levinson No.40 controller, the new No.433 three-channel amplifier for the LCR speakers (a pair of Revel F52s and a C32) and a No.431 two-channel amp for the…
We're suckers for Proacs, so we were delighted to hear importer Richard Gerberg explain that the Studio line was designed to be affordable. "Well, affordable for Proac," Gerberg said. Our hearts fell—until Gerberg told us that the handsome stand-mounted Studio 110s were $1500/pair and the floorstanding Studio 140s were $2800/pair. Not cheap, but in line with our expectations for the venerable Northamptonshire manufacturer.
Proac is always pretty close-mouthed about the internal specifics, but we can tell you the driver complements. The 110 has a 6.5" proprietary coated cone midrange/woofer…
Moon's Lionel Goodfield kept telling us to drop by the room to see something new. We walked in and asked, "What's new?" Goodfield waggled his eyebrows and said, "What's new with you?" Ba dum dum.
Seriously, Moon has five new products:
Moon CD 5.3 CD player ($3000, $300 extra for analog balanced output)
Moon I 5.3 85Wpc integrated amp ($3000)
Moon P-7 preamplifier ($5500)
Moon W-7 150Wpc stereo power amplifier ($7200)
Moon W-7m 500Wpc monoblock amplifier ($7500)
The CD5.3 boasts separate digital and analog power supplies, eight stages of DC voltage regulation, in-…
The Audio Refinement brand of affordable components from France's YBA is no more—problems with their Asian manufacturing partner, I understand. But there’s good news: Audio Refinement has been reborn as YBA Design, with a new Asian manufacturing facility that promises to be more reliable. The first two products in the line—designed by Yves-Bernard André, Mr. YBA himself—are the YA201 integrated amp and YC201 CD player, each priced at $1499. The industrial design is stunning in its elegance and simplicity, and, judging by the sound of a pair of Focal-JMlab 1007Be loudspeakers driven…
The German Clearaudio company, ever-reverent of James Bond's lineage of luxury philosophy, introduced the $17,000 Goldfinger cartridge. Magnets have been doubled up to eight pieces, and a dynamic range of an extraordinary 100dB is claimed. Eric Clapton's "Layla" on vinyl (Reprise 9362-4502-1) never sounded better, I thought.
McIntosh displayed the full-range, $80,000/pair XRT2K speaker in their two-channel room at the Alexis Park. It sets a record for number of
drivers per side—110—with
40 tweeters, 64 midrange units, and six woofers. Frequency response is claimed to be 16Hz–45kHz. The system driven to full volume by the 495lb McIntosh MC2KW monoblock ($30,000), which can deliver 2kW, demonstrated awesome dynamic range.
Chinese OEM manufacturer Dissun was sharing a room with Tetra, so when we stopped by to see what Adrian Butts had wrought, we were pleasantly surprised to see the suite filled with interesting components—all of them looking well built and beautifully turned out.
We've grown used to good-looking affordably priced gear sourced from China—and we expect to see a lot more—but Dissun's Original electronics impressed us with novel engineering and solid design. Tetra's floorstanding 506es sounded solidly three dimensional with the CD-2008mk ($1598) and V-8 250Wpc dual mono integrated…
At $9750/pair, Tetra's 506 ain't cheap, but they sounded awfully good with Dissun's Original electronics. An 8" midrange/woofer and a 1.25" fabric-dome tweeter were making pretty music in this rear-ported design. Wynton Marsalis and Herbie Hancock have already purchased pairs, we were told. We asked, "Where's [Tetra's designer] Adrian Butts?"
"Oh, he's with Keith Richard this weekend voicing a new loudspeaker."
We had to ask.
We were on another mission from God—in other words, a request from Editor John Atkinson, which is the same thing for working journalists. "You have to check out Hovland's new power amplifier," JA gushed.
The 90lb 360W Stratos monoblocks ($34,000/pair) did look impressive—as they should. They're supposed to be stable into 2 ohms and have immense, sophisticated power supplies that employ quasi C-core transformers, fast-recovery Schottke rectifiers, and 80,000µF of slit-foil storage capacitors for quick delivery of current. The signal path is complementary and converts single-ended…