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Bring Your Own <i>Battery</i>?

Also on display at the Audio Advancements' booth, the Altmann BYOB Amplifier, naked as it was, caught my attention. Why no clothes? The idea goes that doing away with the enclosure eliminates the chance for resonances which might otherwise corrupt the original signal.

And you'll never guess what "BYOB" stands for. In this particular application, it's: Bring Your Own Battery.

The Altmann Amplifier is powered by a basic car battery. Altmann, explained Hart Huschens, recommends Optima Red Top batteries, but any old battery will do. Even if it can no longer start…

Seductive Magicos

With a sound that was seductively full-bodied and convincing, the Magico room was actually the first to lure me into a listening seat. And I stayed there for awhile, happily listening to music I was not at all familiar with.

"May I take your photograph, please, standing beside the speaker?" I asked Magico's designer Alon Wolf.

"Sure."

He smiled, I snapped. "Great. Thank you."

"Does it look better than the last photo you guys posted of me?"

I took a look and thought it over, "Um."

The three-way Magico V3 ($22,800/pair) made its US…

Logical

Logitech, which has acquired Slim Devices, was showing its $499 Harmony 1000 remote. The H 1000 has a 3.5" touch screen that allows you to configure a control pad that features only those functions you need regularly. That means that Squeezebox and Transporter owners like me can say goodbye to scrolling into menus three or four command lines deep. That means heavy users like me might actually find a remote worth $499.

Harmony makes an RF extender for it, too. My wife asked, "Does that mean I can turn down his music from the other room?"

"Only if you have the remote," the…

Omaha Heat

Omaha was showing this nifty little 10Wpc No.OD-300B integrated amplifier ($1400), which was driving Omaha's Omaha Speaker (price tbd). Do I need to say that the No.OD300B uses a pair of 300B tubes? The system sounded warm and spacious. 10Wpc may not sound like much, but the Omaha speaker seemed comfortably driven. Fit'n'finish were impressive.

GamuT!

Lars Goller proudly rests on the GamuT Phi7 (price tbd), which couples five-midrange woofers in what he calls "perfect unison," thanks to GamuT's proprietary DC Coupled Midrange technology and Acoustic Coupled Driver technology. He says the tall, thin baffle, which arrays the woofers along almost its entire height, delivers excellent acoustic coupling to the listening room.

Since Goller has been Mr. Loudspeaker at ScanSpeak for the last 20 years, developing new driver technologies and writing acclaimed peer-reviewed articles about designing loudspeakers, we believed him.

…

Hot Cayin Peeper

VAS Audio's Sze Leung is one pleased papa when it comes to Cayin's new iDAC-1 USB-input DAC ("under $800!"). It has a Burr-Brown DAC, built-in remote controllable analog preamp that uses two 6DJ8s, sports an optical S/DIF digital input as well as the USB port, and even has a headphone jack.

"It's a great desktop solution, especially if you have powered loudspeakers like your NHT M-00s!" he said. "It's perfect for computers!"

Yes, Leung ends pretty much every sentence with an exclamation point. That's because he's excited about hi-fi. He's especially excited about good hi-fi…

One-Box Surround from Zvox

Sure, now he’s smiling. But when Zvox Audio’s Tom Hannaher introduced their new model 425 all-in-one-box surround sound system at a press conference on the first day of the show, he was most distressed about the fact that while the prototype unit had worked fine before he brought it to the room that the press conference was in, in the press conference room it would not make a sound at all. I was going to suggest that he take it back to the original room to see if it worked there, but I restrained myself, thinking that he probably would not appreciate the humor in my suggestion. As it…

Vinyl is dead? Apparently not!

There were a lot of turntables, and a lot of vinyl at the show, not just on demo, but for sale as well. LP vendors like Acoustic Sounds and Music Direct were doing brisk business in their booths in the Ballroom.

Focal + Pathos = Great Sound

Ian McArthur of Audio Plus, North American distributor of the French Focal speakers, is looking casual and relaxed. And why shouldn’t he be? He's leaning on the Electra 1037 Be ($11,000/pair), which has a review coming out by Michael Fremer, a review that —if this is not telling tales out of school —may have people running to their Focal dealers. The sound of the speakers at the Show (Mikey's actual review samples, so they were well broken-in), with Pathos electronics, was one of those that made me stop as I was walking along the corridor to check out what was playing.

Simply Red

Wandering around HE 2007 with my camera, I'm always watching for interesting-looking products to take pictures of. As soon as I caught a glimpse of the Scaena Iso-Linear Array speakers, I knew I had another subject. It’s available in several colors, including pewter/titanium (real metal), but, personally, I wouldn’t consider anything but the red that was on display. And it's not all just looks, either: this is a serious design, with multiple mid-tweeter modules and subwoofers with digitally controlled active bass management. The speaker is available in various heights, the price for…