I walked into the Margules room and was welcomed by Peter Frampton’s funny cover of Soundgarden’s late grunge-era hit, “Black Hole Sun,” with all the fuzzy, phasey, talk boxy effects you might expect from Frampton held perfectly in check, well-focused within the wide soundstage.
Margules’ Grand Orpheus loudspeakers ($30,000/pair) were mated to the company’s 40Wpc U280 power amplifier and F220 preamplifier ($3000). Source was the M6 CD player ($2500) and cables were all Cardas.
Whether playing solo piano or large-scale orchestral, I was impressed by the system’s sense of flow…
Through a system built on all-Linn electronics (Akurate DS: $6990; Akurate Kontrol: $6500; Akurate 2200 power amp: $5200), Tannoy Definition DC8 loudspeakers ($3600/pair, in lovely Espresso Walnut finish), and MIT cables, we listened to a series of short excerpts of hi-res demo material, from female vocals to a familiar drum solo off the good, ol' Sheffield Track & Drum Record.
Our host, Steven Lester, used an iPad running PlugPlayer and a QNAP NAS to play a combination of "Red Book," DVD-A, HDTracks, and Society of Sound files.
Vocals sounded consistently big and smooth,…
Made in Sweden and now represented in the US by SimpliFi Audio, the DLS Flatbox on-wall loudspeakers come in five sizes (Mini, far right: $249 each; Midi, center: $349 each; Slim Large; Large; and XL, far left: $499 each), can be hung horizontally or vertically, and are available in variations of white and black cabinets and grilles. There are also three subwoofers, including the Flatsub8 ($799), used in the room. Partnered with Resolution Audio’s Opus 21 system and inexpensive DNM cables, the speakers threw a surprisingly wide stage, despite being mounted on temporary plywood walls. As we…
While many exhibitors at the California Audio Show struggled with the sound of their rooms, employing careful, creative speaker placement and a variety of room acoustics treatments, SimpliFi Audio’s Tim Ryan seemed happy to ignore the room altogether.
Partnering Gradient’s Revolution Active loudspeakers ($11,995/pair) in bi-amped configuration with a $500 Fosgate amplifier and 50Wpc Resolution Audio C50 amp, and playing ordinary CD-quality music files through iTunes running Channel D’s Pure Music and a Resolution Audio Cantata Music Center (review to come from Jon Iverson), Ryan wanted…
A packed and captivated audience in the MBL room.
I was delighted to see so many people at the 2011 California Audio Show so attentively listening to music, as though listening to music on the hi-fi in 2011 is as much of an event as watching an episode of “True Blood” on Sunday night. Of course, we know that listening to music on the hi-fi is a special event, an active, enriching, and entertaining experience, worthy of our time and energy for the joy and nourishment it brings our minds and souls. It’s a lot of fun. If you were present at the California Audio Show, you experienced this…
I received a very kind note from Owen McCafferty, who, along with Ben Meadors, hopes to travel to Portland, San Francisco, Chicago, Cleveland, and New York City, meeting vinyl collectors, record store owners, and other vinyl enthusiasts, to discuss why vinyl is important. The duo will document their journey and publish a book detailing their experiences.
A week ago, when we first caught up with Owen and Ben, they were about $2000 away from the funds needed to support their Kickstarter project. As of today, with 10 days left to go, they are only $500 short of their goal! Owen says we’ve…
It seems the obvious way to build a loudspeaker: one driver, no crossover, full range.
Instead, most speakers work this way: Complicated electronics split the audio signal into pieces, adding various colorations and phase shifts along the way. The pieces are distributed to different drivers, each of which adds another unique set of characteristics. We then expect these fragments of electronic signal to be brought together again in a continuous, coherent reproduction of music. We agonize over different cable routings or which contact cleaner to use, and yet we calmly accept this grotesque…
The cabinet is constructed of a 13-layer Baltic birch ply, with heavy internal bracing and shaping that ensure that there are no parallel surfaces inside the speaker. The front and rear baffles are stouter yet, each CNC-machined from a 3/8"-thick slab of aircraft-grade aluminum, then damped using a proprietary combination of surface finish and coating. Heavy Cardas speaker lugs provide connections, and all internal wiring is the oxygen-free, monocrystal copper used in Audience's own Au24 e speaker cables. Each completed wiring harness is cryogenically treated just prior to installation in…
This was most noticeable with voices. I cued up Ike & Tina Turner's cover of John Fogerty's "Proud Mary," from Greatest Hits (LP, United Artists UA-LA592-G), and was stunned. Far from sounding flat or the least bit dull, voices seemed to practically jump out of the soundstage. I heard levels of detail and inflection that had obviously been masked by the churning of other speakers. This track has always been cool, but never this stunningly so.
The 2+2's magic extended well past voices. I was particularly taken by the woodwinds' sound in Charles Munch and the Orchestre de Paris's…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: One-way, crossoverless, stand-mounted loudspeaker. Drive-units: four 3", proprietary, aluminum alloy-cone units (two fire forward, two fire rearward); one 6" passive radiator (fires to the side facing the other speaker). Cabinet: 13-layer Baltic Birch with CNC-machined aluminum front and rear plinths. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms. In-room sensitivity: 90dB/2.83V/m. Maximum continuous output per pair: 110dB. Maximum RMS continuous power per speaker: 100W.
Dimensions: 14.5" (368mm) H by 7.875" (200mm) W by 10.25" (260mm) D. Weight: 16.5 lbs (7.5kg).…
