search

Tower of Power

I decided that since Stereophile only had two show bloggers this year, I would avoid writing about weird custom-install products and home-theater systems. However, rules, as they say, are made to be broken.

I knew I was in trouble when I saw NHT's $42,500 7.2 Pro Theater system. Think of it as an Xd system writ large.

The brains of the system is NHT's The Controller. Each channel uses one XdA amplifier, which contains DEQC calibration and 800W of power. The monitors are M-80Xds, with two 8" magnesium-cone woofers, two 2" metal-dome midranges, and a 1" metal-dome tweeter.…

Adam's Professional Monitors Feature Heil Drivers

I got a chance to listen to a 5.1 setup of small HM series monitors ($1699 each) from Adam Professional Audio, the same speakers that the recording had been mixed on. Even amidst the hustle and bustle of the CEDIA floor, they made a good showing. Even more impressive were the new Tensor series, all of which use ART (Advanced Ribbon Technology, inspired by the old Oskar Heil ribbons) HF and MF drivers, along with active Hexacone woofers in substantial cabinets. The larger Beta and Alpha models have additional cone midrange drivers. All are also available in fully active versions and the…

Beer-Budget Beautiful Jamo Speakers

Continuing with European speakers, on static exhibit at the Klipsch Group complex was one of the most cleanly and beautifully simple speaker designs I've seen in a while. It was Jamo's S60, the largest in a new "S" line that, so far, includes a tiny bookshelf, a small center channel, and a subwoofer. These looked like many European small designs, almost too small to be effective. But the graceful three-way S60 sports a dome tweeter, a vertically arrayed pair of 4" midrange units, and a side-firing 8" woofer. Everything fit and matched, and the materials and textures just screamed…

Neat $499 NAD CD Receiver

There was a lot to see in the Lenbrook Group rooms and I was pleased to see that the anticipated T-175 multichannel pre-pro was ready for prime-time. However, the unit that caught my eye was a little stereo unit, the T-715. This trim, $499 beauty has a 25Wpc amp, a CD player, an AM-FM tuner, and a subwoofer output in addition to the usual audio line-level inputs and outputs and headphone jack. It also sports a USB input for playback of MP3s or of anything streaming off the Internet. It's just about the size of a shoebox. Add a pair of small speakers, like PSB's $279/pair Alpha B1s,…

Cary Adds Video Processor to HT Line

A beaming Gregg Dunn hailed me over to the Cary booth and said, "I know what you are looking for!" He was right. In his hands, he was holding the new Cary Cinema 11V, the video-input/processor that mates with the Cinema 11 (now 11A) audio-only pre-pro that I found to be a really wonderful performer in my July column. What the 11V adds is a useful array of video (and audio!) inputs and outputs but, most significantly for audiophiles, it strips the hi-def audio content from HDMI inputs and pipes it through a proprietary digital connection to the 11A. Add an RS232 connection and the two…

Wilson Alexandria Series 2

Wilson's flagship speaker has gotten a make-over, including a new midrange driver that, the company claims, has even "greater clarity, tonal density, and truthfulness" than the original.

The new titanium oxide tweeter also affords improvements, John Giolas explained. "It's sweeter and more resolving, and has an even lower noise floor, making it the perfect companion to the new midrange."

The new drivers necessitated a new crossover for the Alexandria, with the result, Giolas said, of even greater authority and extension in the bass—a result of Wilson's ability to hear "…

Hersch & Moran

A quick, final word on Fred Hersch’s week of piano duets at the Jazz Standard. His early set last night with Jason Moran was one of the most enthralling concerts I’ve seen in a long time. At its peak moments (and there were several of them), the two settled into such a head-spinning groove, they sounded like one pianist playing magically with four hands. Moran, as I’ve noted in an earlier entry, may be the jazz pianist of our times, the supreme post-modernist who appropriates everything around him—musical traditions from Schumann and Jelly Roll Morton to Afrika Bambaata and Jaki Byard, as…

It's Supernait

Naim's long time a-borning $4750 Supernait is finally here. The Supernait's 80Wpc amplifier section is based upon that of Naim's NAP200, giving it 400VA output transient capability.

The Supernait's unusual preamp section accommodates six analog inputs and five digital inputs via its built-in DAC, which handles sampling rates from 32kHz to 96kHz. Digital inputs include two S/PDIF coaxial, two TOSlink (which Naim suggests are "ideal for connection to a computer . . . with perhaps a dirtier-than-normal power supply, as the optical connection isolates the two separate grounds"), and a…

New Canton Vento

Canton's chief designer Frank Göbl proclaimed the new, improved Vento line "better—not a lot better, but significantly." What's new and improved?

The tweeters and midrange drivers, followed by the crossover, and, on the 807 and 809, the ports are now downward-firing rather than front-firing.

"I re-radiused the flare of the midrange driver," Gøbel explained. "This made the driver stiffer at the voice-coil and more compliant at the surround. The driver, technically speaking, is somewhat less pistonic at frequencies outside its range, but more linear within it.

"I also…

The Fabulous Acapella-Einstein Duo

I have heard Acapella horn loudspeakers and Einstein electronics on other occasions, but they have never sounded as glorious as they did paired together in one of the Aaudio Imports room at CES 2010. I only wish Erick Lichte and John Atkinson had been present as I played John's 2008 recording of Cantus' While You Are Alive, which Erick produced. (Erick was also Cantus' Artistic Director at the time). The sound was big—huge, in fact—maximally transparent, and thanks to the Einstein electronics' euphonic presentation, absolutely luscious.

To test the system further, I played the…