The Anima horns were not the only expensive goodies in this system, which also showcased WAVAC Audio Lab’s EC-300B SE Stereo Amplifier ($38,000), AC-2 Conditioner ($29,000), and PRZ1 Linestage Preamplifier ($29,500) alongside Nagra’s CDC disc player ($22,000) and Classic DAC ($17,000). Connections were made by Crystal…
search
Eye candy, eh? Tune Audio’s Anima 3-way fully horn-loaded loudspeakers ($58,000/pair) claim 109dB sensitive. THEY certainly were drawing in listeners, to the extent that I had to visit twice before I could get into the room then slowly inch my way closer to the sweet spot.
If Scott Walker Audio had staked out a mini-empire on floor 3, Sunny Components of Covina, California, did the same on floor 6. The first room I visited, of the four from Sunil Merchant, included Egglestonworks' 87dB-efficient Nico speakers ($4250/pair), which had not finished breaking in. Nonetheless, wireless Qobuz streams of St. Vincent’s “Smoking Section,” Billy Eilish’s “Hostage,” and a 24/96 file of Kurt Elling & Lee Ritenour’s “River Man” showed the speakers and their Bryston roommates capable of conveying fine, natural, appealing timbres. These speakers are definitely worthy of…
Who would have expected to hear a theorbo reproduced in 24/192 at an audio demo? It was followed by Eva Cassidy’s “Songbird” in Redbook. Both of those tracks sound very fine in this room from Sunny Components, and with a DSD file of the classic “The Girl from Ipanema,” this system revealed an impressively large amount of close-miked detail. Doing the honors: MartinLogan Masterpiece ESL13A speakers ($14,995/pair) and Dynamo 800X subwoofer ($799), Hegel H-590 integrated amplifier ($11,000), Wolf Audio Streamer/Server ($7600), Audience and AudioQuest cabling and conditioning, and Quadraspire…
To these ears, the pairing of Vandersteen Quatro loudspeakers ($15,499/pair) and the company’s smaller M5-HPA monoblocks ($15,800/pair) with the Jeff Rowland Corus Stereo preamplifier + PSU ($21,900) and Conductor phonostage ($8500) is a winner. Images were on the small side, but the tonalities on an LP of Gerry Mulligan playing “Making Whoopee” were to whoop over. A 96K MQA file of Muddy Waters’ “Never Go Back Again” revealed just how much depth this lovely-sounding system could produce (even if MQA-haters are praying we go back, back, back to the pre-MQA era).
Also heard to…
Some may have found these burnished beauties a little over-precise, but to others, it was the system among all those presented by Sunny Components whose absolute clarity put it over the top—or so was my brief impression on an LP of Cécile McLorin Salvant singing “Le Front caché sur les Genoux.”
Heard, with the understanding that CH Precision prices listed are starting prices and do not include lists of options and possible upgrade paths: CH Precision C1 D/A Controller ($32,000), D1 SACD / CD Drive ($38,000), L1 preamp ($34,500), P1 phono stage ($31,000), X1 dual power supplies ($20,500),…
It took two tries over the course of two days to find a seat, but on Sunday afternoon, I finally squeezed into the room shared by EAR and PranaFidelity. The wait was worth it.
After the overplayed “These Bones Will Rise Again” from a CD of the Fairfield Four—a recording whose limited octave compass established the beauty of the system’s midrange—EAR’s Dan Meinwald took over and it was on to “Stratusphunk” from an LP of the George Russell Sextet. The bass line was excellent—absolutely firm—and the balance between highs and lows ideal.
Then, as if my mind had not been shattered…
Red was more than the color of my true love’s hair toward the end of T.H.E. Show Long Beach, as I moved from one winning red speaker to another. This time, from Alma Music & Audio, it was the Wilson Audio TuneTot ($9800/pair), the entry-level loudspeaker from Wilson, which I was hearing for the first time. Although engineered to perform optimally when placed near boundaries (e.g. on bookshelves or close to walls), here it sounded exceptionally fine sitting out in the open on unidentified stands.
We began with a DSD file of Henry Mancini’s “Theme from The Pink Panther,” which…
After Emiko Carlin of T.H.E. Show basically ordered me to check out AirHush’s display at T.H.E. Show, I spent a few minutes speaking with company CCO Michael Quinby. It turns out that the company’s mass-loaded vinyl ISAT (Inflatable Sound Attenuation Technology) systems, initially designed for Pro applications and large recording environments, were being used in the Brooks Berdan room to reduce interactions with the hotel’s sonically dreadful air wall partitions. Some audiophiles use them for noise isolation in condos, especially when they want to turn up the volume on their high-end rigs…
Ah, mbl. This time, making music not in its usual large room, but rather in an 11-foot wide space. Mbl North America’s Jeremy Bryan had asked for a larger exhibit room, but none was available. After hearing the havoc wrought by air wall subdividers in many of the Hilton Long Beach’s conference rooms, I think Bryan is lucky to have been refused.
Even with mbl’s second smallest speaker, the 120 Radialstrahler hybrid ($21,400/pair), placed closer to the sidewalls than optimal, this Noble line system sounded great. Timbres were lovely and balance from top to bottom was ideal on an out-take…
See the smiling woman in this photo with a dazed-amidst-all-these-rooms yours truly? Meet T.H.E. Show’s fabulous Director of Social Media and Marketing, Emiko Carlin, a former classical pianist and musician whose 3000 songs include some #1 pop singles. I don’t know how this dazzling woman comes across to others, but for me, discovering Ms. Carlin was like meeting an old friend.
Clearly Carlin has many friends. While I don’t know how many show attendees arrived due to her heavy social media campaigning, I do know that virtually every younger person to whom I posed the question, “How did…