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Merlin Music Systems

Merlin Music Systems’ Bobby Palkovic is having a better time than ever, and you could tell by the sound in his room, which was remarkably tuneful, engaging&#151neither too forward nor too laidback&#151and, most of all, fun.

“I like to take things to an end, and now I’ve gotten to a point where I’m beyond happy,” Palkovic said of his Master VSM loudspeaker ($13,600/pair), which are now wired with Cardas Clear cable.

Adding to Palkovic’s pleasure is his new relationship with digital music: He was sending signals from a MacBook Pro, running iTunes via Pure Music, to…

PranaFidelity: Non-Defensive Listening

I wanted to better understand what I was hearing in the PranaFidelity/Musical Concepts room, so I asked PranaFidelity’s Steven Norber to tell me about his design philosophy.

Norber said something very interesting: He thinks in terms of “friendliness.” He feels an urge to build “responsible” loudspeakers. To that end, he places an emphasis on those aspects of speaker design that influence impedance. He strives for a very flat 8 ohms, with the object of building a speaker that will present a very stable load for either a tube or solid-state amplifier.

Further, Norber believes in “…

Eficion & Plinius

Eficion’s distinctly shaped F250 loudspeaker ($9950/pair) combines an Air Motion Transformer tweeter with a 5” carbon-fiber midrange unit and a 10” woofer. The speaker has a high specified sensitivity of 90db and a frequency range of 30Hz–35kHz.

The speakers were partnered with Plinius (“The Heart of Music”) gear: the 125Wpc, Class-A SA-103 power amplifier ($10,125), M8 preamplifier ($5150), and Tiki 24/96-compatible networking DAC ($4775).

Listening to an unfamiliar piece of Brazilian music, with hand percussion, acoustic guitar, and lovely vocals, I noted a sound that was warm…

Wavelength & Vaughn

Wavelength Audio and Vaughn Loudspeakers teamed up for a sound that may have lacked the bass impact and scale of other systems I heard at RMAF, but that was coherent, relaxed, and very easy to enjoy.

A MacBook Pro sent signals to the USB input of the Wavelength Crimson HS DAC via AudioQuest’s Diamond USB cable; the DAC fed Wavelength’s Royal preamplifier via AudioQuest Niagara interconnects; from the Royal, the signal went to Wavelength’s Cardinal 300B monoblock, and then to Vaughn’s attractive Cabernet II 100dB loudspeakers ($9000/pair) via AudioQuest Redwood speaker cable.

High-End Audio: Regaining the High Ground?

Although I was only able to stay long enough to snap a few photos and hear moderator Ken Kessler’s (Hi-Fi News) downer of an introduction, Friday evening’s post-show panel included, from left to right, HiFi Plus editor Alan Sircom, recording engineer Peter McGrath of Wilson Audio Specialties, Kathy Gornick of Thiel Audio, Michael Fremer of Stereophile and AnalogPlanet.com, Roy Hall of Music Hall and "why don’t you join me for a shot," and Kessler himself. Dan D’Agostino of D’Agostino, Inc., founder of and former designer at Krell, turned up after I had shot my photo.

John Atkinson adds:…

On an AudioQuest

In the AudioQuest room, I was treated to a course on the Powers of Network Attached Storage. It wasn’t really a course and it wasn’t really called that, but it could have been. AudioQuest’s Steve Silberman is convincing. And I am now convinced that, when the time comes for me to dive into computer audio and other digital waters, I’ll seriously consider a NAS for my needs.

While Silberman has found success with several different NAS devices, on display in the AQ room was Synology’s powerful DS712+, which Silberman says is highly reliable, has a very friendly user interface, and never…

SOTA's $800 Moonbeam

John Atkinson told me I should go see SOTA’s Donna Bodinet, so I did, and this is what I found: SOTA’s Series II Moonbeam turntable ($800 with S100 tonearm and Ortofon OM5E phono cartridge). The Moonbean features a platter and subplatter of high-density polymer, has a self-lubricating Turcite bearing cup, and a 24-pole synchronous motor. It weighs a solid 18 lbs.

Custom wood finishes add $100, but I think the Moonbeam is beautiful exactly as it is. (Gah: I sound like a pop song. Swoon.)

I suspect the Moonbeam can handle a higher-quality cartridge than the stock OM5E. To that end…

More Cowbell, Obviously

John Atkinson insisted that this cowbell had something to do with his daily seminar on recorded sound, but I suspect that he, like most people at RMAF, was just having a good time.

Odyssey Audio

Odyssey Audio products are proudly handmade in the US and sold factory-direct. The system I heard consisted of Odyssey’s Kismet Reference loudspeakers ($3500/pair), Stratos stereo amplifier ($1400), Candela preamp ($1500), Suspiro MC/MM phono stage ($1200), Groneberg cables, and a 15-year-old VPI turntable.

Odyssey’s Klaus Bunge turned out the lights and played Johnny Cash’s heartbreaking version of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” and the system presented good drama and scale and communicated a very fine sense of space around Cash’s tired, frayed voice. The system also seemed…

Musical Surroundings

On the Mezzanine Level, in the Crestone Peak room, Musical Surroundings put together an audacious, high-aspirations system:

Focal Maestro Utopia loudspeakers ($50,000/pair); Clearaudio Master Innovation Wood (ha) turntable ($25,000) with its matching Wood (ha ha) stand ($9000), Statement record clamp ($1000), Outer Limit peripheral ring clamp ($1350), and Goldfinger Statement phono cartridge ($15,000); Graham Phantom II Supreme 10” tonearm ($5750); Aesthetix Romulus VC DAC/CD player ($8000), Io Eclipse VC phono preamplifier ($19,500), Callisto Eclipse ($19,000), and Atlas Mono monoblock…