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The 2011 California Audio Show

San Francisco is just as I remember it: Misty and gray, but smiling nonetheless.

The 2011 California Audio Show, sponsored by Dagogo, is being held Friday through Sunday, July 15 through 17, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, in Burlingame, CA, just minutes away from the San Francisco International Airport.

I arrived moments ago and have settled into my clean, quiet room. Actually, I should say I’ve settled into my fairly quiet room&#151I’m directly across from the Amarra suite and someone’s playing large-scale orchestral music in there. (It sounds pretty good, too!)

I’ll be…

The Sonic Characteristics of Hi-Fi Systems in Hotel Rooms

Confession: I judge albums by their covers. I do it all the time. And when I saw the cover for Amon Tobin’s ISAM, I decided it would be beautiful, I decided it would be mine.

Because it’s been haunting me lately, satisfying me lately, because it’s found its way into my column and into my mind, because it’s beautiful, because it’s strange, and even at the risk of it becoming inextricably tied to thoughts of uncomfortable seats and smelly hotel rooms, I’ll be using Amon Tobin’s ISAM as a “reference disc” during the 2011 California Audio Show.

Purists (some of my closest colleagues…

The Beginning of Love: Bob Hodas, The Tape Project, VTL, Focal, Siltech, Zanden

I had no idea that the very first room I’d enter would offer such exquisite sound and music. I was in Bob Hodas’s Acoustic Analysis room and The Tape Project was spinning the Bill Evans Trio, the Sonny Rollins Quartet, Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane, and so much soul.

It was a packed room of bobbing heads and tapping toes, unable to resist the smooth, smooth flow. Here was a lively sound, a vibrant sound, a sweet, flowing, blooming, effortless sound, marked by so much body and heart and an absolutely wonderful sense of timing.

The system: Focal Diablo Utopia 2-way monitors…

Wells Audio

From down the hall, I heard The Doors. Inside the Wells Audio room, a VPI Scout turntable (still just $1800 after all these years) was spinning “Riders on the Storm.”

The system: Usher Mini II loudspeakers ($4999/pair), Dynavector XX-2 phono cartridge ($1950), Wells Audio Innamorata power amplifier ($5500), ModWright LS100 preamp (modified by Audible Arts; stock price: $3500), Wells Audio Model PH10 phono stage ($3295), Music Hall 25.4 DAC (modified by Audible Arts; stock price: $600), Wells Audio power conditioner ($3995), MIT Z Stabilizer ($700), JPS Labs loudspeaker cables and…

Amarra's Wild World

In the Amarra room, we listened to the great Cat Stevens singing “Wild World” through Focal floorstanders, Parasound amplification, Amarra’s Model 4 digital-to-analog converter ($4000), and Amarra Mini playback software ($295), which supports up to 192kHz sample rates.

The system’s overall sound was clean, detailed, and transparent, while Cat Stevens’s voice was lovely, full of wonder and pain&#151just as it should be.

Napa Acoustic & Mistral

Napa Acoustic seemed to have a million and one pretty little things on display.

We listened to the Mistral 35Wpc MT-34 tubed integrated amplifier ($1199) and Mistral BOW-A3 loudspeakers ($1699/pair). Delivering a violin piece, the system created a thrilling sound, full of speed and sibilance.

Moving to the larger, 4-way BOW-A2 loudspeakers ($2299/pair) and 150Wpc MM6 hybrid integrated amplifier resulted in a darker tonal balance, with just as much speed and better image focus.

Lithe, Alluring: Playback Designs, Evolution Acoustics, darTZeel, Wave Kinetics, Channel D

At a hi-fi show, the halls, stairwells, and elevators talk. If you listen closely, they’ll tell you where the show’s best sound can be found. On the show’s first day, I kept hearing whispers about Jonathan Tinn’s Blue Light Audio room.

Inside, I was greeted by Channel D’s smiling Rob Robinson, manning the controls of a Pure Music/Pure Vinyl-equipped Mac, sending high-resolution music files to a Playback Designs MPS-3 CD player ($8500) via USB. The sleek MPS-3 handles up to 384kHZ PCM and 6.1MHz DSD.

The small, attractive speakers were Evolution Acoustics’ MMMicroOne ($2500/pair…

Channel D's Pure Vinyl

Typically, the mere thought of digitizing my vinyl is enough to give me the heebie-jeebies&#151the process can be so tedious and time-consuming&#151but after watching Channel D’s Rob Robinson quickly and easily set track markers on a virtual LP using his clever Pure Vinyl software ($229), I imagined that even I could have fun with it.

The King of Limbs: Simaudio, Dynaudio, Shunyata, Quadraspire

In one of several rooms set up by local dealer Audio Vision, an attractive and deceptively simple little system was making some outstanding music: Simaudio 650 D CD/DAC transport ($7999), Simaudio 600 I integrated amplifier ($7999), Dynaudio C1 Signature loudspeakers ($8950, with stands), and cables and accessories from Shunyata: Black Mamba power cables ($595 each), Anaconda power cables ($1999), Anaconda speaker cables ($3499/2m pair), Anaconda interconnects ($2499/1m pair), Dark Field cable-lifters ($295/pack of 12). The components sat on a Quadraspire Sunoko rack ($395/level).

…

A Busy Day

On Friday, the California Audio Show seemed fairly quiet, as can be expected for the first day of any show. But early on Saturday a long line to the registration desk promised a busy day of music and hi-fi.