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All prices listed are in Canadian dollars.

I heard rarefied, potently musical sound (out-of-this-world sound? hehe) in the Moon by Simaudio room.

The system included, from Moon by Simaudio's North Collection, the Moon 891 network player / preamplifier with built-in DAC and MM / MC phono stage (starting at $32,500), a 300Wpc Moon 861 power amplifier (starting at $29,000), and a pair of the curvaceous, somewhat futuristic-looking (perfect for Moon products) Estelon XB Mkll Reference speakers ($64,600/pair). Cabling was by Cardas.

This system offered some of the most…

Timely if nothing else, that email came just after I had serendipitously acquired a new-to-my-collection, first-pressing LP copy of the first Guy Clark album, Old No. 1. Killing time before a doctor's appointment near…

By noon Friday, the 2024 35th edition of the Montreal Audiofest had sold more admission tickets than it had the entire weekend last year, which is great news for the organizers and industry. For the audio reporter seeking a listening seat, never mind in the sweet spot or a good angle to take a photo, it required I do more strategizing than usual—including negotiating…

Not every vintage piece sounds…

For Christmas in 2020, a friend sent me a gift: a coffee mug decorated with a one-out-of-five-stars rating for the annus horribilis the world had just been through. The caption on the ceramic read, "VERY BAD WOULD NOT RECOMMEND."

True, the pandemic year and the lockdowns had been no fun, to put it mildly, but that doesn't mean there were no positives. Every day, rain or shine, my 10-year-old daughter and I played soccer on the field behind our house. We—pointlessly, I concede—trained our shepherd to walk backward on…

But…

One measure of Eric Alexander's drive and versatility is that, by his own count, 19-year-old Tekton Design has engineered and built roughly 250 different models of loudspeakers, one at a time, made to order, with a team that currently numbers eight people.

Rogier van Bakel: Your speaker designs vary quite a bit. Sometimes the ports are in the front, sometimes in the back. You make speakers that are intended to be coupled with SET amps, and others that do well when driven with considerable…

Description: 3-way bass-reflex floorstanding loudspeaker with dual rear ports, two 12" woofers, patented dual polycell all-beryllium midrange arrays, and a single beryllium tweeter for high-frequency reproduction. Crossover frequencies: 772Hz and 3.41kHz. Frequency response 27Hz–40kHz ±3dB. Sensitivity 93.0dB/2.83V/m. Recommended power 8–900W.
Dimensions: 69.2" (1758mm) H × 14" (356mm) W × 17" (432mm) D. Weight: 157lb.
Finishes: piano lacquer black, white, obsidian schwarz, bianco Italia, rosso folgore, grigio lynx, grigio titanio, infrared, rosso corsa,…

Digital sources: 16" MacBook Pro M1 Max running Roon 2.0. Lenovo ThinkCentre running Roon ROCK. Aurender A20. HiFi Rose RS520.
Preamplifiers: Audio Research LS16 MkII, Balanced Audio Technology VK-90, Benchmark HPA4 line stage.
Power amplifiers: Krell FPB 200c, two Margules U280sc (used as monoblocks), PrimaLuna Evo 400 integrated with Tung-Sol KT150 and Gold Lion platinum-grade 12AU7 tubes, Balanced Audio Technology REX 500.
Loudspeakers: Focal Utopia Scala Evo, Tekton Moab (original version).
Cables: Clarus Crimson pure copper OCC…

I measured one of the Tekton Moab Be loudspeaker, serial number 0001L, in RvB's listening room, driving it with his Krell FPB 200c amplifier. I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system with a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to examine the speaker's behavior in the farfield and an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield responses. It wasn't possible to raise the 157lb loudspeaker off the floor for the measurements, so the first reflection from the ground occurs earlier than is usually the case with my testing. I therefore measured the response and dispersion with the microphone…