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Rapt in TAD

As co-blogger Bob Deutsch noted, the audiophiles indeed turned up for the Show. In buzzing, whirring droves. Opening day attendance was pretty damn staggering.

I wish you were here.

And, here, in the TAD Audio suite, we have a group of engrossed listeners all wrapped up in musical bliss. Let us watch as they strike the audiophile pose&#151arms crossed, hands on chin.

Shh!

Also in the Dynaudio room, Mike Manousselis was jazzed like Attention Screen over his small and wily desktop computer speakers, the sharp MC15s ($1299/pair). First spotted at CES, these active minis, featuring two integrated 50W amplifiers, were born from Dynaudio's pro-audio technologies, explained Manousselis.

Playing modest MP3s from Mike's new laptop, the MC15s had absolutely no right to sound as good as they did.

Playing MP3?! Say what? Oh, no he d'in't!

Oh, yes. He did. Intensely fun nearfield listening.

New CD from Reference Recordings

A tradition at HE SHows is the "bazaar: in one of the hotel's ballrooms, where record companies and accessory manufacturers do a brisk business. Here, Marcia Martin of Reference Recordings shows off their latest release Serenade, a recording of the same vocal group, the Turtle Creek Chorale, as in their best-selling Rutter's Requiem CD.

Verily Verity!

Verity Audio had Nagra's CDP CD Player ($13,495) driving its P-LP line stage ($11,495) and pyramidal PMA mono amplifiers ($10,995/pr)—all connected with Silversmith Audio Palladium interconnects ("starting at $4000/pair). At the other end was a pair of Parsifal Ovation loudspeakers ($19,495/pair).

The Parsifal's looked like large speakers for such a small room, but Verity's John Quick explained that the PO's rear-firing woofer module actually helped in small room placement. He might be right—Art Dudley and sat there for ages (in show time) feeding in CDs by the Move, Tierney Sutton…

Proclaimer

Proclaim Audioworks' Dan Herrington had a revelation one day while sitting in the smallest room of his house. "I was reading old JAES papers," he said, "when I read a measured analysis of speaker radiation patterns based on cabinet construction. A sphere was extraordinarily close to the perfect form, but then you had to deal with using multiple drivers."

His solution?

Multiple spheres. He also came up with a nifty "stand" mechanism that allows the consumer to adjust the position of the three drivers relative to their listening position and the room in which the speakers sit…

Hyperion Sound

Art Dudley and I didn't so much enter Hyperion Sound Design's room as get dragged in by our ears. Standing in the Hyatt's hallway, we heard some close harmony quartet singing that sounded mighty darn real.

We went in sat down and were given a demonstration of how to run a demo right. The room was modestly treated with RealTraps, the speakers were artfully placed to minimize boundary issues, and the music was playing at sane levels and was absolutely mesmerizing.

The best part? "You can buy the whole system, including four channels of single-ended tube amplificatiion,for…

Quart Bottle Tubes

The HT845 single-ended monoblock amplifiers ($2500/ea) were so new, Hyperion had no literature on them. They looked and sounded good, though.

Albert Wu

Hyperion Sound Design's Albert Wu holds up his SVF midrange driver. It's quite a piece of work. It has no spider, incorporates what Wu calls "rear pressure reduction," and the flat-carbon fiber plate that I took for a dust cap is really the transducer.

Obviously, the driver is proprietary to Hyperion—and it seemed like a lot of innovation for such a modestly priced speaker. "We like keeping prices sane," Wu smiled. "We think of ourselves as providing balance to an industry that needs some."

Best Sound In Show

Bob Silverman wowed a select but enthusiastic audience Friday with a concert that consisted of two Mozart sonatas (K303 and K300) and three Brahms piano sketches. He was playing a Steinway parlor grand that sounded wonderfully Mozartian.

Afterwards, the gentleman standing behind me put into words the thought that was only beginning to form in my mind: "Just one of those Brahms sketches was worth the price of my three-day ticket."

And Saturday at 11:30, we get to hear Silverman play a program devoted to Chopin.

Nice 'Stache

Jeff Wong (left) and Ken Kessler compare mustache waxes at the Classic Records event.