To his credit, Len also supplied a full list of room components. Doing the honors were, first and foremost, Soundstring's GEN II Platinum Series power cords, interconnects and speaker cables. The 6' GEN II Beta 2-22NS single-ended interconnects ($570/pair), 8' GEN II Gamma 2-12 speaker cables ($750/pair), and 6' GEN II Gamma 4-12 "Special Edition" high…
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Bless Len Miller of Soundstring Cable Technologies for providing me with a solid presentation of John Travolta's "Stayin' Alive." As my pace increased as I attempted to cover four floors in three days, this music became a mantra of sorts.
Okay, I'm running out of clever titles, but NAD had no problem producing beautifully controlled, welcomingly sweet sound from its all-new Masters Digital Suite. The M50 Digital Music Player ($2500) and M52 Digital Music Vault ($2000), a combo that can stream, store and manage your digital music collection, was performing wonderfully with the M2 Direct Digital 250W digital-input amplifier ($6000 and a John Atkinson favorite), Tannoy Glenaire 10 loudspeakers ($7500/pair), and Synergistic Acoustic ART resonance control system.
"We weren't happy with the sound in our room at first," Jeff…
One of my favorite visits at T.H.E. Show was to the Tannoy/Cary/Synergistic Room sponsored by The Home Theater Experience of Carlsbad, CA. As luck would have it, 40-year industry veteran Tony Weber, a sound engineer on many of Delos' early recordings and currently Regional Sale Manager for Cary Audio, was at the helm.
Even before I knew what the components were, I was drawn in by a 1964 recording of Oscar Peterson with Ray Brown. When Tony found the ideal volume for the small room, the sound was lovely, with excellent, warm bass complementing the liquid highs. The natural resonance of the…
The sound from Richard Kohlruss' VMAX Services room excelled in warmth and soundstage width. It wasn't the most subtle or detailed system I encountered, but it definitely made a movement from Haydn's Trumpet Concerto a pleasure to listen to. Given that I have heard a movement from this concerto whistled at the whistling contest I've frequently attended and judged far more times than I wish to recount, this was no mean feat.
VMAX's main system paired the Vela Audio integrated amplifier ($699) and CD player ($699) with the new Amphion Ion+ monitor loudspeaker ($1395/pair). FYI, Vela Audio…
One of the three rooms at T.H.E. Show created by Scott Walker Audio of Anaheim excelled in solid, grounded sound with a firm bottom and natural tonalities. Ah, don't we all long for a firm bottom and natural toning. But I digress. In this room, YG Acoustics paired its excellent Kipod II Signature loudspeaker ($49,000/pair) with Sim Audio's Moon Evolution 700i 175Wpc integrated amplifier ($13,000) and 650D CD player ($9000)—both products that have been highly praised in Stereophile's pages—and Synergistic Research's Galileo cables, PowerCell 10 SE (probably Mk.III), and full complement of…
In the more extensive of its two set-ups, Emotiva produced lovely, welcomingly smooth sound. Although bass control was elusive, as it was for many systems in these small "sleeping rooms" at the Hilton, the system's impressive clarity on top and nice tonality confirmed its reputation as a bargain bonanza. Playing were the XRT 6.2 tower loudspeakers ($699/pair), XPA-1 monoblock amplifiers ($999/each), XSP-1 stereo preamplifier ($899), ERC-2 CD player ($449), and XDA-2 Reference DAC ($399). Watch for Bob Reina's rave review of Emotiva's smaller XRT-5.2 towers in the August issue of Stereophile.
Late on Saturday afternoon, Emotiva's hall-end room at the Hilton shifted into college fraternity mode. The Emotiva Stealth 8s ($1499/pair) and ProDAC ($699), connected with Emotiva cables, were blasting mono-tonality assaultive rock that, for all I could tell, was sourced from MP3. The bass was huge, the highs searing, the outcome lamentable. I'll bet, if John Atkinson had analyzed what was playing for one of his seminars on how compression is ruining the pop music industry, his meters would have read red, red, red.
As you will read in the next story, it was a very different story in…
You couldn't miss the signage for PrimaLuna and Nola; it was as big as the excellent signage for T.H.E. Show itself. You also couldn't miss the sound: lovely, warm, and extremely inviting. Although the system was playing a bit too loud for the room, the system handled bass extremely well, and made timbres on a (yes) Diana Krall recording pretty natural. Doing the honors were the Nola Ko loudspeaker ($9800/pair) and three components from PrimaLuna: Premium CD player ($3995), DiaLogue 3 linestage preamplifier ($2695), and DiaLogue 7 monoblock amplifiers ($5495/pair).
In case you…
Although Roger Sanders was not in the room when I finally got there on the third day, his "handcrafted in Colorado" electrostats were singing as if he were. In addition to the superb transparency that one expects from a good electrostat, the bass was not just convincing, but simply amazing. The sound was a bit sharp in the small room, and at one point, in an unfortunate performance of Puccini's "O mio babbino caro," distorted on top. Since I've not had either experience in previous auditions of Sanders electrostats, I have a hunch the distortion probably due to the mikes used to record this…
One of my fondest memories of a past CES was sitting with John Atkinson at T.H.E. Show, playing a track from one of his superb recordings of Cantus on an all-out darTZeel /Evolution Acoustics system from Jonathan Tinn's Blue Light Audio. Here, on more modest speakers and electronics, I was again blown away, this time by the fabulous soundstage height, three-dimensionality, and realistic depiction of horns and cymbals on Michael Tilson Thomas' recording of Mahler's Symphony 3.
Doing the honors were Evolution Acoustics' MMMicro One loudspeakers—Reference 2-way ($2500/pair), complete with…