Our eyes must have shot open when we walked into the listening room. On A Higher Note's Philip O'Hanlon, distributor for Vivid Audio and Luxman, approached us and admitted, "It's one of those speakers that will polarize people. People will either love it or hate it."
We listened. At the end of a jazz piece, the first row of listeners broke into applause and shouted praise…
"There's no substitute for size when it comes to designing a subwoofer," JA explained. "A lot of small subs do a lot of things well, but when you want to reproduce truly deep, controlled bass, you need big drivers and a big box."
Wilson Audio Specialties' newest subwoofer, Thor's Hammer, certainly seems to have what it takes. Coming from a long line of serious subs, including the coffee-table-sized WHOW and seven-foot-tall XS, Wilson's newest design stands 59 inches tall, weighs over 400 lbs, features dual 15" long-throw woofers, and, of course, invokes the…
Sure enough, the large, heavy—try 140 lbs—dual-mono, $15,000, No.532 amplifier had the characteristic, classic, curved black-silver monolithic shape enjoyed by Mark Levinson amplifiers designed in the early 1990s.
"It may have the classic Mark Levinson appearance," continued Walter, "but it enjoys the latest in our technology. Its output levels are matched to…
We asked one exhibitor how show traffic had been. "There's ample parking," he said.
Things were a little busier at the San Tropez, but as we T.H.E. Show, we heard the CEA's official attendance: 143,695. "Nah," said our cab driver later in the evening, "the real count is closer to 150,000—and tomorrow the Adult Entertainment Expo will bring in another 40,000."