The S-Series subwoofer-satellite system ($22,100) was producing a big sound with the tiny satellites stood…
search
After Peter Lyngdorf left Tact, he went into partnership with the Steinway piano company to make a line of expensive speakers aimed not at audiophiles but at well-heeled music lovers. I was impressed by what I heard of the first of this line, which incorporates Lyngdorf's RoomPerfect acoustic correction, when I auditioned it in Manhattan a couple of years back, so I wasn't surprised when Steve Guttenberg button-holed me and told to go listen in the Steinway–Lyngdorf room at Axpona.
In Channel D's own room at Axpona, Rob Robinson demmed the latest version of his Pure Vinyl LP ripping program and Pure Music audio file player program for me. One of the new features of Pure Music v1.8 is the ability to play DSD files as well as hi-rez PCM, and to emphasize that fact, I photographed the display of Rob's Playback Designs MPD-3 D/A converter ($6500) to show that it was receiving DSD data via USB2.0.
Despite the small room, the music—David Elias's "Freedom on the Freeway"—sounded excellent, with an analog-like ease to the presentation. The rest of the system…
Like many exhibitors at Axpona, Joseph Audio was playing files from a laptop for their dems. In this case, Jeff Joseph was using Pure Music on his MacBook Pro and feeding a short USB link to Bel Canto's LightLink converter (reviewed by Erick Lichte in the June issue), which in turn fed the audio data via a low-jitter ST optical link to the Bel Canto DAC3.5VB, which also acted as the system preamp. Power amplifiers were a pair of Bel Canto Ref.500 monoblocks and speakers were Joseph's own stand-mounted Pulsars ($7000/pair). The sound of Jeff's rip of Louis Armstrong's "St. James Infirmary," a…
One might argue that there are more research-driven engineering innovations in the Linkwitz Lab Orion-4 than in most other high-end loudspeakers— which is remarkable, considering that it sells for less than $15,000/pair—but at the Axpona show I found it easy to forget all of that and simply enjoy the speaker's musical prowess. Driven by Bryston amplifiers and fed by an Auraliti L1000 digital music player and MSB D/A processor, the Linkwitz loudspeakers disappeared into their own wide, deep, and mildly recessed (as opposed to in-your-face) soundfield. In addition to being spatially convincing…
The show started before the show started: Julia and I were having morning tea in our room on the 7th floor when we heard a familiar and compelling voice: not Amanda McBroom or Jacintha but Lhasa de Sela —a real recording artist! The music turned out to be coming from one of two exhibit rooms sponsored by New Jersey retailer Woodbridge Audio, whose proprietor also had the audacity to play such non-audiophile fare as the Andrews Sisters and Michael Hedges. Think of it! The system in Woodbridge's tonier room had an estimated total value of $125k and included a VPI TNT HRX record player with…
Bright red Totem Mani-2 loudspeakers, glimpsed through an open door, drew Julia and I into the Amsterdam Room, where products from D-Box Technologies, Digital Projection, Audio Design Associates, Stewart Filmscreen, and Totem were combined to create an exceptionally impressive 3-D home theater demonstration. Leather lounge chairs from Design NS had been equipped to convey a sense of motion to their users' posteriors—presumably these remain perfectly still during most Merchant Ivory films—so we felt as well as saw as well as heard the action during excerpts from Avatar and The Owls of Ga'Hoole…
During the half-hour Julia and I spent visiting Channel D Software's Rob Robinson, the room never ceased to be mobbed with attendees. That was partly due to the good sound (provided by Joseph Audio Pulsar speakers, Hegel H20 amp, Artemis record player with Zu cartridge, and Audio Research DAC8—plus, of course, a Synology NAS and a brace of Apple computer gear, driven by Channel D software), and partly to the fact that the exhibit was like a free seminar on both the basics and the minutiae of computer audio, with Robinson as the generous instructor. Channel D's Pure Music 1.8 ($129) is now…
Art Dudley mentioned earlier in this show report the Audio Power Laboratories tube monoblocks driving Wharfedale's new Neo Airedale flagship loudspeakers ($25,000/pair). Source was a Musical Fidelity CD player, preamp an Audio Research, and the sound in this room was indeed one of the best at Axpona: extended lows, clean highs, and impressive dynamic range.
It’s okay to like R.E.M. again, and not just because their latest single (“Uberlin”) is the band’s best in over a decade: In the exhibit sponsored by EgglestonWorks and Rogue Audio, R.E.M.’s “How the West Was Won and Where it Got Us” sounded so good and so clear and so utterly fresh that I literally did not, at first, recognize the music. The combination of Rogue Hera II preamplifier ($7995) and Apollo monoblock amplifiers ($10,995/pair) plus Eggleston Andra III loudspeakers (ca $24,000 per pair) contributed to my wondering if the album from which that single sprung—1997’s New Adventures in…
I tried but failed to photograph the on-screen image from the home-theater dem in one of the two Emotiva rooms, so you’ll have to take my word: Eric Clapton wore a black short-sleeved shirt and a pair of ripped and faded jeans (shame how some of these rock stars just frittered away their millions), and played a baby-blue Fender Stratocaster. But the real stars of this slick and commendably spare-sounding band were the three backup singers, who were sufficiently passionate to convince me that they had, working together, indeed murdered a sheriff somewhere. The excitement of it all was…