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TAVES Takes Toronto: Day 1

Does marketing work? You betcha! Micah Sheveloff, who handles Bryston for WIRC media, sent me an e-mail reminder of Bryston's presence at TAVES 2016. (Just to be sure that I got the message, he also sent the same e-mail to John Atkinson.) So when I arrived at the show, it seemed only natural that the first exhibit I checked out would be Bryston's.

Bryston is on a roll. After making their reputation with built-like-a-tank power amplifiers, the company followed up with preamps, digital components (DA converters, digital players, etc.), phono stages, speakers, headphone amplifiers,…

PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream D/A processor Torreys Upgrade

Robert Deutsch wrote about the Torreys upgrade in November 2016 (Vol.39 No.11):

Ted Smith, PS Audio's wizard of converting digital signals to analog, has been at it again. It's not as if he hadn't warned us. In the November 2015 issue I reported on Yale, the latest iteration of the DirectStream D/A processor's operating system. Although Yale was, in my estimation, a considerable improvement on the OS that preceded it—Pikes Peak—Smith said at the time that he was "already working on ideas that should make it much, much better still."

Now we have Torreys, DirectStream's latest OS,…

Koss ESP/950 electrostatic stereophones Herb Reichert November 2016

Herb Reichert wrote about the Koss ESP/950s in November 2016 (Vol.39 No.11):

I was listening via Tidal to Jorma Kaukonen sing Mary Chapin Carpenter's intoxicating "Just Because," from his Blue Country Heart (CD, Columbia CK 86394). I was using the Pass Labs HPA-1 amplifier ($3500) and Audeze LCD-4 headphones ($3995). All I could think, as Jorma sang, Béla Fleck picked, Byron House plucked, and the sound was rousing and joyous, was What more should anyone want? Then Jorma sang the Delmore Brothers' "Blues Stay Away from Me," and I thought, This is genuine heaven. Life is not filled with…

ENIGMAcoustics Sopranino electrostatic supertweeter Art Dudley November 2016

Art Dudley wrote about the Sopranino in November 2016, Vol.39 No.11):

In audio as elsewhere, there's nothing new under the sun (footnote 1). Thus, in their zeal to give consumers an ever-better facsimile of every note on their records, some audio designers turn their attention to old technologies. The California firm EnigmAcoustics, for example, has found a new use for something as old as the Earth itself: the electret, typified by such abundantly common minerals as quartz. And while EnigmAcoustics make their electrets out of exotic fluoropolymers rather than quartz, they have the same…

The New York Audio Show Returns to NY this Weekend

Now in its fifth year, the UK-based Chester Group's New York Audio Show opens to the public this Friday, November 4, at 1pm in the Park Lane Hotel overlooking Central Park. (Friday hours are until 7pm.) The three-day show, a smaller version of what has come before, promises 30 exhibit rooms, half of which are "oversized," two ballroom-sized exhibits, and two more ballrooms filled with exhibits and vendors selling merchandise. All-in-all, the event, whose one-day visitor pass costs $30 ($26 in advance, with significant savings for multi-day passes) promises almost 110 brands.

Christina…

A Visit to YG Acoustics

When Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2016 (RMAF)—the hot hi-fi rager of the Wild West—came to its close, I had one more official stop to make: YG Acoustics.

Located just 30 minutes from Denver in the city of Arvada, is the YG Acoustics facility—including the factory, showroom, and offices. Much like most factories, the exterior is an unassuming vanilla casing, with no evidence of the flavorful, no-compromise, high-tech, high-end speakers living (and being brought to life) inside.

The tour was informative. We breezed through the office space, then worked our way through the factory.…

TAVES 2016: Day 2

Muraudio, based in Ottawa, Ontario, pioneered the design of the omnidirectional electrostatic loudspeaker in their Domain Omni PX1. The follow-up to that model, the PX2 ($US79,500/pair), was introduced at TAVES 2016, and sounded very impressive indeed in a system including Simaudio Moon digital and analog electronics, with Shunyata cables and power-line conditioning. However, with a total system price of $US196,500, while not nearly the priciest of the systems demoed at TAVES, this is still well out of the reach of most audiophiles. In talking to company founder and chief technology officer,…

Music in the Round #81: Classé Sigma Mono amplifier, Sony UHP-H1 universal player

Last spring, when I was listening to Bowers & Wilkins's 802 D3 Diamond loudspeakers, Classé Audio offered a pair of their new Sigma Mono amps for the review. They claimed a synergy—B&W's D3 series had been developed using Classé amps. I declined, only because using unfamiliar amplifiers would add to my assessment an uncontrolled variable. Now that the B&Ws have settled in—three 802 D3 Diamonds across the front, two 804 D3s at the back—it seemed time to hear what they could do when driven by the Classés.

Unlike most other recent class-D amplifiers, the Sigma Mono ($8000/pair)…

Music in the Round #81: Classé Sigma Mono amplifier, Sony UHP-H1 universal player Page 2

My biggest remaining concern: With the Classé Sigma Monos driving the B&W 802 D3 Diamonds, I still can find no fault with the amps. They seem to combine the overall clarity of the Benchmark with the vitality of the NAD, the power and richness of the McIntosh and Bel Canto, and the unaffected balance of the Parasound and Theta. Perhaps the synergy with the 802 D3s was designed in, but I doubt it: It would be shortsighted to make an amp that worked best with only one speaker, or a speaker that sounded good with only one amp; what I can't deny is that, with the Sigma Mono amps, my system…

Shure KSE1500 electrostatic in-ear headphone system

I wrote several issues back that my first high-end headphones were Koss Pro4AAs, which I bought in 1972 following a positive review in the British magazine Hi-Fi News. Although that review didn't mention that the Pro4AAs were relatively fragile (footnote 1), I nonetheless loved their sound. They were the best headphones I'd heard—until, a couple years later, I was playing bass on some sessions for record producer Tony Cox. Tony had a pair of signal-energized electrostatic headphones, Koss ESP-6es, which were heavy and clunky—but they opened my ears to the sound quality that could be obtained…