search
Audioengine's small powered speakers have become my go-to recommendations for desktop situations; I bought a pair of the Audioengine 2s for use with the flat-screen HDTV in our kitchen, where they do a great job. The 2s ($199/pair) are the small white speakers in the center of my photograph; flanking them are the Audioengine 5+ speakers ($399/pair). Source was a MacBook Pro feeding the speakers 24/96 audio via the 24-bit capable Audioengine D2 streaming wireless interface/DAC ($599/set), which my colleague Michael Lavorgna enthusiastically reviewed in February 2012.
"Updating of a legend..." read the one-sheet in Barrington retailer Essential Audio's room. It was referring to the Transmission Audio M1i speaker, a much-evolved descendant of the Red Rose Music R3 loudspeaker designed by Bo Bengtsson that Michael Fremer favorably reviewed for Stereophile back in May 2001. The M1i combines a dipole quad-ribbon tweeter with an aperiodically damped 5" woofer and costs $4500/pair.
The speakers were being driven by Atma-Sphere MA-1 OTL tube amps, an Atma-Sphere Mp1 preamp, Abbingdon Music Research CD-771.1 CD player and DP-777 DAC, with the analog front end…
Yes, that's a dub LP from Bob Marley and the Wailers you can see in the Music Hall room at AXPONA. It was being played on the forthcoming Ikura turntable (price still to be decided, probably around $1000), with the new Creek EVO-50A integrated amplifier ($1195) and a pair of Music Hall's budget-priced Marimba speakers ($350/pair). The Marimba was designed by Roy Hall hisself, and is made in China; it will be reviewed by Stephen Mejias in our June issue). At $250/pair, the stands cost almost as much as the speakers!
This was the second room I encountered at AXPONA playing dub. (The other…
Allowing Showgoers to calibrate their ears as he has done at prior AXPONA shows, pianist John Yurick did a great job in the DoubleTree's lobby. Sunday afternoon, as I was leaving for the airport, John was joined by someone playing standards from the American songbook on a chromatic harmonic—luvverly music!
It's always a challenge, in a room filled with unfamiliar equipment, to pinpoint what's causing what. All I know is that on the 7th floor, in the room wired with $8000 worth of Silnote Audio Cables, the midrange on a recording of the Talking Crows was simply beautiful, if a bit dry.
"Lots of really fine midrange but a bit stiff—no sparkle on top," I wrote in my notebook after listening some more. The cabling? The fact that a piece of equipment was virtually fresh out of the box? Too much room treatment? Who knows? What I do know is that the system included, in addition to the cables,…
Together with Chicago retailer Holm Audio, Nordost was conducting one of its ever-popular cable and support demos. Taking over where the now retired Lars Christensen left off, Nordost Eastern Regional Sales Jefe Steve Greene let folks hear differences between Blue Heaven, Red Dawn LS, Heimdall 2, and Frey 2 interconnects, speaker cables and power cords by calling into play a Hegel H300 250Wpc integrated amp with built-in DAC ($5500), Hegel CDP4A CD player ($4000), Sony's new SS-NA2ES loudspeakers ($10,000/pair), and, from Nordost, a QB8 distribution bar ($1399.99), two QV2 AC Line Harmonizers…
An extremely healthy looking Dan Wright of Modwright Instruments, Inc. greeted me as I entered the room wired with Dynamic Design cabling. Treated to the CD version of Cantate Domino, the sound of a Scandinavian choir singing "Stille Nacht" (Silent Night) in German was exceptionally smooth and lovely, if a bit gray around the edges. Then again, aren't many of us these days?
Doing the honors were Modwright Instruments' KWI-200 integrated amplifier w/DAC and phono ($6500), LS-100 tube preamplifier ($3500), and tube and power supply modded Oppo BDP-105 universal player ($3500 with all…
Don't let appearances fool you. Those pipes you see in the photo are actually Bigston single-driver loudspeakers with built-in amplifiers. Designed in Japan and manufactured in Elk Grove Village, IL, the Bigston speaker systems have been designed to give an accurate representation of a soundfield as recorded at a live performance. The smallest of the lot, the Light ($300/pair with 3Wpc amplification), is designed specifically for use with laptops etc., and comes complete with a travel case.
I believe I listened to the tall Yoshii9 ($5000/pair), which include a 12Wpc amplifier. The Bigston…
The folks from Happy Sounds of Japan were doing everything in their power to tame reflections in their room. Here's the left side of the room; the right was just as interesting. I can't recall if they also requested some of the room treatment from ATS Acoustics that AXPONA made available to anyone who requested it.
Happy Sounds? Jacintha didn't seem to be laughing her way through "Light My Fire," but the sound was definitely pleasingly smooth and solid, if a bit dry and with a grayish background. The intriguing-looking speakers were Newform Research's No Holds Barred Coaxial Ribbon LineSource ($11,400/pair). Claimed to be "the first in the world to implement a coaxial ribbon linesource configuration," they contain high-impedance, wide-dispersion, monopole ribbons.
Other components in the $25,300 system included DEQX HD-4 crossover ($5495); Oppo BDP-105 ($1199), Wyred4sound SX-500 monoblocks ($899…