The speakers were the Borderland Mk.IV ($34,995/pair), driven by a Vitus SCD-010 CD player ($20,000), Vitus SL-10 line stage ($28,000 wity system remote), and a pair of SM-010 40W class-A monoblocks ($50,000/pair). The sound was open and transparent, as it should be…
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"This wasn't our choice of music," whispered German Physiks' Robert Kelly when I entered the room they were sharing with Danish electronics manufacturer Vitus Audio. "No problem," I whispered back, " I love Howard Shore's symphonic score to the movie trilogy Lord of the Rings," which a visitor had asked to be played.
As expected, Bel Canto Design's complement of components fully lived up to their reputation for affordable excellence. The top-of-the-line e.One CD2 CD transport/player ($2995), prototype DAC 3.5 (price not yet set), two REF500M Balanced mono amplifiers ($1995/each), REF VBS1 Virtual Battery Supply, which can power up to three front-end products ($1495), USB Link 24/96 USB to /SPDIF link ($495), and new USB Lightlink High Speed Optical ST glass-fiber link (price not supplied) were fed by an Airport Express-equipped computer server. As Bel Canto President Michael McCormick explained, "…
Since the demise of of its own Show, Stereophile has been supporting North American audio Shows, which was why you can find us at RMAF in Denver and SSI in Montreal. Next March, we are partnering with the Axpona Show in Florida, which had a booth at RMAF. The booth was manned, er, personed by two beautiful girls but, of course, when I went back with my camera, they had left for the day.
Restocking the magazines on the Stereophile booth, I saw a familiar face on the booth next door. Audio industry veteran Jim Smith was selling (and autographing) copies of his book Get Better Sound, which is, as the name suggests, about how to get better sound from your system.
In his recent review, Art Dudley concluded that "Get Better Sound is the cheapest good tweak you can buy for your system....It also has the potential to be among the best system investments you can make, period, partly for its breadth of subject matter, and partly because it could lead any open-minded reader…
Bea Lam's Martini party in honor of J. Gordon Holt—that's Bea at the right of the photo— concluded with a solo violin recital to remind partygoers what high-end audio is all about.
When I last met Charles Holt in 1991, he was a teenager. But I had no problem recognizing him at RMAF—he looks just like his Dad. And, as you can see in Jason Serinus' photograph, in which Charles is flanked by his girlfriend Melissa and me, Charles is wearing the infamous "finger button," which was Gordon's favorite image of himself.
But I am not sure if JGH would have approved of the Chocolate Martini.
Bob O'Neill sold advertising for Stereophile in the early 1980s and also contributed record reviews to the magazine. He became a firm friend of J. Gordon Holt's and gave a moving eulogy honoring Gordon's memory at RMAF.
On Saturday evening, at show's close, Bea and Luke Manley of VTL, with the support of Nordost, hosted a Martini tribute to the recently departed founder of Stereophile, the inimitable J. Gordon Holt. Located outside Nordost's Humboldt Peak room on the Denver Marriott Tech Center's mezzanine, the tribute drew a huge crowd of industry icons.
Forty-seven years after Gordon published the first issue of Stereophile, his son, Charles Holt (above), joined John Atkinson, Gordon's long-time friend Bob O'Neill, veteran tube-amp designer Roger Modjeski, and fellow publishing icon Harry Pearson of…
I listened to Ducktails’ Landscapes once—once!—and was disappointed by its apparent simplicity. I set it aside while many other albums came into my life and piled atop its strange, hot pink cover art.
I listened to Ducktails’ Landscapes again just a few days ago. Somehow, between that first time and now, the album’s mellow charms and sweet melodies found their way into my chest and into my mind, planted themselves there, to reappear suddenly, without calling first, like old friends after months or even years apart, like memories stirred by nothing in particular,…