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The program of seminars and workshops has been an important part of the Home Entertainment Show since its inception in 1987. For the past few years, Sunday afternoon has been the time for Stereophile Senior Editor Michael Fremer's guide to getting the best from LP playback. At this year's action-packed session, he showed a packed house to how to mount and align a phono cartridge on a VPI turntable, aided with close-up video help from Dave of Show contractor Moorea Marketing.
Well, few people have. In a stunning collaborative effort, Rives Audio, RPG, Modex, Talon, VAC, Wadia, XLO, and Silent Running set up two rooms designed to demonstrate that even the best audio components need a little help from intelligently applied digital EQ and room treatment. Two rooms, almost mirror images of one another, with essentially the same system—only one room used EQ and treatment and the other didn't.
Here's the system rundown: Wadia 581i disc player ($9450), 100Wpc VAC Alpha integrated amplifier ($10,000), Talon Thunderhawk loudspeakers ($25,000/pair), XLO Signature 2…
We trucked across the hall to the treated room which contained several sets of RPG Variscreen free-standing variable acoustics screen ($700/each), a Modex Plate ($1000)—which offers broadband low frequency absorbtion from 50–500Hz—and two Rives Audio Sub-PARC crossover/EQs ($4500/each). The system also boasted an extra pair of VAC Alphas—Richard Rives explained that he was using the Sub-PARCs as crossovers, bypassing their digital woofer amps to kep the signals equivalent from top to bottom.
Was there a difference? Man, I'll say. We think of room effects as subtle, but they aren't—…
Lukas Lipinski was happy to present his L-707 speakers ($4990/pair) on special stands which discreetly house the 300Wpc L-301 monoblocks ($6000/pair). Keeping the amps close to the speakers allows for shorter cable runs, and, of course, is a clever space-saving idea. The amps slide vertically into the stands and are held in place by small screws on the back panel. The amps' glass front panel bears the Lipinski logo and can be illuminated.
The room itself was evidence not only of Lipinski's work to cross over from pro-audio to hi-fi, but to bring true hi-fi sound to a larger…
What a great show HE 2007 turned out to be. Large crowds and much good feeling all around. If two channel audio is truly dying then I didn't see it. Lots of good sounding rooms, much impressive, well-priced gear, a successful RAVE awards and a hotel with a key location all made for a very successful show.
Most Encouraging Note from the HE 2007 Show: The Stereophile CDs, new and old, jazz and classical, sold like hotcakes. Congrats to JA for all his fine engineering, A&R and major domo work on them. So does this mean that the shiny, rainbow disc ain't dead yet? At least among…
Today, May 14, is a momentous day in music history as the anniversary of the passings of Keith Relf (Yardbirds), Chet Baker and one of the humankind's greatest musical talents, the one, the only, the chairman of the board, Francis Albert Sinatra who died in 1998. Somewhere, Frank's still got the world on a string—Ring–A–Ding–Ding!
Several of Stereophile's editors were excited about the compact and inexpensive Audioengine 5 amplified speakers ($349/pair), which were bringing forth some sweet sounds playing files directly from a laptop. New to the Audioengine line is the tiny 2 (seen here, $199/pair), which offered a sound surprisingly similar to that of its bigger brother. The music was clean and clear, and conveyed an emotion that belied the speaker's size. Like the A5, the A2 keeps all of its electronics in the left speaker but, unlike the A5, it uses a front slot port for bass performance.
Audioengine…
The Audioengine team is also looking at alternative cabinet materials. On display was a prototype A5 housed in lovely, sustainable bamboo. While the electronics remain the same, the bamboo models will incorporate added dampening.
"We were afraid the sound wouldn't match up to what we'd achieved with the original A5, but, when we were all finished, we were surprised to find that it sounded very similar."
We can expect this model to be released in the coming months, with a price somewhere around $599.
She was dancin' so hard, she danced herself into a diamond.
—Bill Callahan, "Diamond Dancer"
***
"What was your favorite part of the show?" Kelli asked me.
"Watching Morgan Jet dance like mad to the John Atkinson Trio," I said.