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The Problem with Vinyl

Oh man. You see this record? It was only fifteen bucks. I really wanted it. I mean, it was kind of just there, looking at me, asking me to love it.

I wanted to love you The Shape of Jazz to Come by Ornette Coleman, I really did. But I just couldn't do it.

The problem with vinyl is you can't just buy one album. Vinyl needs friends to go home with. The problem with me is I don't like even numbers. So, I would have to buy at least three, maybe even five new albums, you see.

I am sorry The Shape of Jazz to Come. Someone else will love you, I am sure.

Rachael Goldman

Remember that trend I mentioned earlier, the one about manufacturers and dealers bringing their kids along to the show?

Here it is in action again.

Truth be told, I moseyed my way on over to Miss Rachael Goldman simply because of that sexy Abbington Music Research compact disc player sitting on the table beside her. I hadn't even noticed her blonde hair, blue eyes, or bright red shoes.

I mean, come on, I am an audiophile.

The Rocky Mountain Audio Fest was Rachael's very first hi-fi show. She had spent the first 19 years of her life pretty much immune to…

Dr. Christian Feickert

Um, can life get any better than it is right now for Dr. Christian Feickert?

Look at the dude! He is sitting in a massage chair with a set of Grados over his ears, straddled by two beautiful women.

Life is good at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest.

A Walk on the Wild Side

Boy, is it hard to take a good photo when a company purposely leaves the shades behind their equipment wide open. But given that Darren Censulo of Avatar Acoustics (now relocated to Fayetteville, GA) had tuned the room with Frank Chang's Acoustic System International Resonators so that it would sound great with all that exposed glass, asking him to close the shades in order to snap a clearer picture was out of the question.

The clear picture in this case came from Lou Reed. I had forgotten how young and fresh he sounded when he recorded "Walk on the Wild Side," but here I could…

Making Fine Music

Lou Hinkley's Daedalus Audio teamed up with an old friend, Art Audio/Gill Audio, and a new friend, Manley Labs. Showcasing the Daedalus Audio Ulysses loudspeaker ($10,950/pair), now boasting new improved internal wire, the system's dark presentation was very well delineated, with impressively three-dimensional sound. The midrange was especially mellow and inviting.

Cables were Dynamic Design interconnect ($650), speaker cables ($800), digital cable ($500), and power cords ($750). A Denon 3910 transport was used for people like me who brought their own CDs. Preamp was Art Audio/Gill…

Tell It Like It Is

As I walked into the E.A.R./Marten room, Nat King Cole's voice sounded as beautiful as I have ever heard it reproduced. Through the modest-looking Marten FormFloor speakers ($6500/pair) and Marten FormSub ($4500), Reference Recordings' triumphant version of Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances was so thrillingly full and colorful that I could not hide my amazement. On Dialoghi, a demonstration-quality CD from Bob Attiyeh of Yarlung Records that Robert Levi of the Los Angeles Audio Society urged me to play, the sound of Elinor Frey' cello was as warm and beautiful as anyone would ever want…

Big Boy Does Good

After a short visit to the Daedalus room, during which time Peigen changed speakers and cables, I returned to hear the F200's big daddy, the F300 ($14,900/pair). This is a 3-way, 4-driver vented box, with a rear-firing supertweeter, Air Motion Transformer tweeter, and copper shorting ring on the woofer to facilitate tighter bass. Frequency range is 24Hz–40kHz, sensitivity 89dB, and weight 158 lbs each. The speaker comes in two parts, so that the mid-and high-range unit can be used separately as a center channel with an impressive frequency range of 40Hz–40kHz. Associated components…

New Kid on the Block

There's nothing like being greeted as the audiophile equivalent of the Messiah to either make your day or impel you to run for cover. In the case of Peigen Jiang's Eficion speakers, I'm glad I got over my embarassment and stayed.

Jiang was so excited to see me because the Bay Area Audiophile Society's Bob Walters had done everything but swear on the Bible that I would be visiting the room. Thankfully, I made it just in time before show's closing to hear Eficion's small and large models. Jiang, a former chip designer who resides in Redmond, WA and manufactures his speakers in…

Listening to Hi-Rez

As Jason mentioned earlier, I gave 5 hour-long presentations at RMAF entitled "Hearing is Believing—Is Hi Rez Digital the Future of Audio?" To allow Showgoers to hear the differences between the hi-rez masters of my recordings and CD and MP3 versions, I used a system put together by HiFi+ editor Roy Gregory for his demonstrations of system tuning—Ayre A7-xe integrated amplifier, Avalon Evolution NP2.0 speakers (which I reviewed in July, Vertex AQ cables, Stillpoints rack and speaker stands, and Quantum QX4 "field generator"—to which I added a MacBook running iTunes 8 driving a…

Wavelength's Cosecant DAC

A close-up of the Wavelength Cosecant v3 DAC ($3500) that I used for my hi-rez dems. Using a single 6GM8/ECC86 dual-triode to drive the single-ended, transformer-coupled output, this is one of a very few USB-input DACs on the market that runs the USB link in "asynchronous" mode, whereby the DAC controls the flow of data from the computer and not vice versa, thus drastically reducing word-clock jitter when those data are fed to the DAC chip. I was impressed by its sound, playing 24-bit/88.2kHz files from my laptop, so I have asked for a review sample.