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It is to be expected at Shows that cost-no-object systems will sound great. But it is also a joy to listen to modest systems that over-achieve. In one of the two rooms sponsored by Bluebird Music, a pair of Neat Motive 2 tower speakers (CDN $2195/paor) made sweet sounds driven by the Exposure 2010S integrated amplifier that had so impressed Art Dudley in November 2005 and the English company's matching 2010S CD player. System price with Chord Company Chameleon Silver Plus interconnect and Carnival 2 speaker cable was a very affordable CDN $5274. I listened to my recording of Hyperion…
Not too long after I got my first audio magazine job in 1976, I reported on the founding of a new speaker company, Harbeth, featuring the designs from ex-BBC engineer Dudley Harwood, who had pioneered the use of polypropylene as a cone material. Dudley is long since retired but I have followed his company's progress with interest since it was acquired by Alan Shaw, and the little Harbeth HL-P3ES2 has long been a favorite of mine. Harbeth's Canadian distributor, Planet Sound, was demonstrating the larger Super HL5 speakers (around $5000/pair), the next step up from the Compact 7ES-3…
I was as impressed as Robert Deutsch had been with KEF's $140k/pair Muons, and enjoyed a couple of tracks from the late Joe Zawinul's Faces & Places CD, Musical Fidelity's new 750k Supercharger monoblocks driving the speakers to satisfyingly high levels. Except there was no CD playing. It turned out I was listening to a 320kbps AAC file on an iPod sitting in the Wadia dock you can see in the photo. This takes an I2S digital output from a late-generation iPod and KEF were using the S/PDIF datastream to drive the digital input of the Musical Fidelity CD player at the top of the…
Dynaudio's 30th-anniversary Sapphire speakers had impressed the heck out of the magazine's scribes at other Shows, so I made a point of taking a listen in the room the Danish manufacturer was sharing at FSI with home-team electronics manufacturer Simaudio. The system included Simaudio's Moon SuperNova CD player, Moon P-7 preamplifier, and Moon W-7 power amplifier, all wired with Siltech cable. The speakers are not that large, visually, and use a pair of 8" woofers per side, but they appear to have excellent bass performance, to judge by the ease they reproduced some subterranean…
In a show that is distinguished by very good signage, Blue Circle's room is marked by what designer Gilbert Yeung proclaimed "the ugliest signs in the show." Yeung, an indefatigable self-promote, arrived at FSI, only to discover the show had provided no signs for the room. Yeung ran with the concept, deliberately lettering his own signs in a childish "Chinglish."
In past years Yeung has worn a large blue foam circle on his head and jammed monoblook power amplifiers into size 14 women's pumps. I actually bought a pair of those for my wife's office system, so which one of us is…
Yeung was demonstrating a few new Blue Circle products, an inexpensive USB DAc and the $4895 95Wpc FtTH integrated amplifier. Yeung calls the FtTH his "statement" preamp, saying that it employs Blue Circle's True Balanced Audio technology, which, he says, "drives both the positive and the negative output terminals for better control of the loudspeakers."
This is a solution to a problem I was not aware of, but the FtTH did sound good driving a pair of JM Reynaud Duets ($1525/pair).
The FtTH's preamp section employs a pair of 6922s, while the power amp uses op-amps.It has an…
The slot-loaded two-way JM Reynaud Duet loudspeaker ($1525/pair) sounded quite special, driven by the Blue Circle FtTH. "That was surprising," the Reynaud rep explained. "We had Gilbert's top-of-the-line preamplifier and a pair of Blue Moon monoblocks, which we had intended to use. While we were setting up, we connected the FtTH and the synergy between that amp and these speakers was just magical—so we knew what to do."
The Duets replace the Reynaud Twin Signatures and utilize a 6" mid/bass driver and a 1" soft-dome tweeter.
I dropped by Thiel's room to tease them about the fact that I had heard that Rolling Stone had a pair of CS3.7 loudspeakers, while a certain audiophile magazine did not.
All kidding aside, I thought it was a brilliant example of a high-end company reaching out beyond the converted audiophiles to demonstrate that better is, um, better.
"That was [Thiel PR rep] Micah Sheveloff's idea," Dawkins said. "Rolling Stone loves their Theil/Bryston system. The editor told me that the reviewers played the system for the A&R people at the labels and now they're bringing the artists…
While Thiel's Ken Dawkins and I were talking, he said, "Have I told you about the SCS4?"
Why no.
"It replaces the SCS3. It costs $990 each and has sensitivity of 88dB. It has a cast aluminum baffle and the same concentric driver as the twice as expensive PowerPoint."
Dawkins paused to think. "Did I cover everything? Oh yeah, not only do they play louder than the SCS3s, they're cheaper!"
Fine, fine, but what about a pair of CS3.7s for Stereophile?
"They are manufacturing that pair at this very minute!"
Well, all right.
I always look forward to visiting recording engineer René Laflamme of Fidelio at FSI, because he always has new fun recordings to play.
He didn't disappoint, either. This year's treat was the Micheal Donato Trio, which delivered a smoking "Nocturno." Next up was Laflamme's recording of the carillon of St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal. The high-rez digital recording revealed all the ambient noises of outdoor Montreal, while also offering direct and immediate sound of the carillon itself.
"It sounds like you're standing right in front of it. It doesn't sound at all like you…