Most prominent was the Emerald Physics CS2.3 point-source dipole loudspeaker ($4450/pair, and due for a price increase very soon). Since there aren't many places to audition this baby, Gliksman offers a free dinner to anyone…
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The sound was special in Michael Gliksman's High Value AV room. "Really smooth, midrange rich," I wrote in my notes as Rosa Passos and Ron Carter created bossa nova heaven on their great Chesky CD. The soundstaging was quite lovely, with great height. Yes, the sound was a bit dark (which many audiophiles prefer), but it was also extremely mellow and inviting.
Even if equipment is as excellent as it was in the Eficion/Stillpoints room, no system can sound better than its source material. On that score, I doubt any room save Cookie Marenco's Blue Coast Studios set-up, which was recording acoustic musicians live to DSD, could top Bruce A. Brown's hi-rez files. Bruce's Puget Sound Studios not only does all the mastering for Winston Ma's First Impressions Music (FIM), but also supplies all the 96/24 hi-res tracks for the Chesky Bros' HDTracks site.
Bruce had brought along a Pyramix DSD/DXD workstation, and a Digit Audio Denmark converter…
The sound was especially alluring in the Eficion/Stillpoint/Berning/Exemplar room. On display were Eficion F-250 loudspeakers ($8950/pair), Berning Quadrature Z 200W ZOTL monoblocks ($33,000/pair), Exemplar XP2 preamplifier ($12,999, and due for a new chassis of zero-absorption stablewood), Exemplar Expo multi-player ($2500), Stillpoints Isolation System rack ($4800), and prototype power cords, interconnects, and speaker wire. The beauty of Oscar Peterson's playing on First Impression Music's (FIM) We Get Reports, and the rawness of 96/24 Pink Floyd master tracks, left me both wanting…
Tim G. Ryan of SimpliFi Audio was making sure no one entered his room without awareness that the Gradient Helsinki 1.5 loudspeaker ($6500/pair) is on the cover of this month's Stereophile. Sounding far better than it did at T.H.E. Show last January, this little baby was throwing a mesmerizingly large, spacious soundstage that I found quite exciting. Irresistible, in fact.
It certainly helped that the rest of this $16,600 system consisted of Resolution Audio's Cantata Music Center ($6000), C50 DNM-based 50W integrated amplifier ($4000), and DNM stereo speaker cable (is there a mono…
Gary Leonard Koh's Genesis 7.1 loudspeaker ($7999/pair) has never sounded as good, clear, and invitingly transparent as it does right now in Marc Silver's Soundscape Audio & Video Room (Santa Rosa, CA). I was mesmerized by an LP of Les Brown and His Band of Renown, and again in love with the FIM/Puget Sound Studios remastering of Oscar Peterson's We Get Requests.
Part of the reason was the cabling: a full complement of Nordost Valhalla cabling, augmented by the Thor power distribution system and two extra special Nordost Odin power cables. Other contributors were Parasound's…
I wish I could say more about the prototype MartinLogan Ethos loudspeakers ($6499/pair). But in a 5.1 home theater set-up that made extended listening to the Genesis 7.1 loudspeaker next door an impossibility, some extremely compressed, overly loud rock DVD that wasn't functioning properly truncated the listening experience. Other speakers from MartinLogan and Velodyne, electronics from Sherwood, and cabling from Nordost and Tara Labs completed a system that held promise of good sound from better source material. The subs sure did an excellent job of slaying Oscar Peterson next door.
The imposing Lotus Group Granada UB II loudspeaker ($125,000/pair), complete with an active crossover and Feastrex Type II field-coil driver, was sounding the best I've ever heard it. The system as a whole was a bit dark for my taste, but a track from Esperanza Spalding's new disc, Chamber Music Society, was just beautiful. Everyone in the room loved it.
Joe Cohen handed me a list of system components that would take a day and a half to reproduce. Suffice it to say that the $414,822 system (!) included two pairs of Technical Brain 200W monoblocks ($60,000/pair), the exciting new…
Charlie Haden has been playing this week at Birdland in New York with his group Quartet West or, as he calls this incarnation, “Quartet West Goes East,” with Ravi Coltrane filling in for Ernie Watts on tenor sax and Rodney Green taking Larance Marable’s chair on drums.
It may be the New Yorker in me, but I like this hybrid model better.
Haden, who’s lived in Los Angeles for 30 years, formed Quartet West in 1986, so that he could lead a working band without leaving home. Its playbook—documented on such albums as In Angel City, Haunted Heart, Always Say Goodbye, Now Is the Hour and…
Back in the Audio Image room, one day later, Bob Kehn was showing the King Audio The King electrostats ($8500/pair). Before I arrived, these lovely panels were paired with VAC amplification. Unfortunately, those babies didn't have enough juice for the Kings. Upon the urging of Bob Walters, coordinator of the Bay Area Audiophile Society, the VACs that sounded so good on the Magico V-2 were traded for Aesthetix's Atlas Hybrid amp ($8000) and Janus Signature preamp/phono ($10,000).
Playing the very same Cantus track that I had played the day before with the Magico/VAC combo, I was…
Bob Kehn of Oakland retailer Audio Image Ltd. had a lot to be happy about. Not only were the 10 chairs in his midsize room totally full, but at least 10 other people were also standing in the back and on the sides. Even more gratifying, 20% of those people were women. And this was on a Friday, when I thought the traffic would be light.
Women don't often sit still when the sound is loud and strident, because their hearing in general is more sensitive than men's. Bob had nothing to fear. Even when, at the request of an attendee, the Magico V-2s ($18,000/pair) were played so loud as…