The EMT 928 II Turntable with 909 Tonearm and Pure Black MC cartridge (for stereo) ($17,995), was joined by an EMT 912 Tonearm ($6995), EMT External Arm Pod ($2795), EMT Tondose TMD015 mono cart ($1995) and an EMT Tondose TND065 78 cart ($1995).
Auditorium 23…
The room was notably populated with distinguished folks—the owners of Acoustic Signature and Accustic Arts (Robert Hagemann and Jochen Voss, respectively) were in attendance, as was Rutherford Audio head Robb Neimann.
With big music streaming from an Antipodes Oladra ($29,000) utilizing the DAC in an Accustic Arts Power V integrated…
Harmonia—the recently renamed distribution arm of hi-fi company Upscale Audio—had four rooms on the 12th floor at AXPONA.
One room featured had a big, beautiful, woody pair of Fyne Audio loudspeakers—the very Tannoy-like Vintage Fifteen floorstanders ($39,999/pair), which feature a single 15" coaxial driver. These big speakers have a very high specified sensitivity of 97dB/2.83V/m and an in-room frequency response specified as 22Hz–26kHz (–6dB)—and this doesn’t include the optional SuperTrax supertweeter sitting on top, a new product from Fyne Audio, part of the Vintage series.…
Coincidentally, the last thing I'd read that turbulent morning was the Washington Post's front-page story about the late Ken Fritz (above), a diehard audiophile who'd spent 40 years…
Ever since the announcement some two weeks ago, I've been eager to hear the SVS Ultra Evolution Pinnacle loudspeakers, which, at $2499 each—or, you guessed it, $4998/pair—are cheap in high-end terms but quite expensive for SVS. Coming from such a high-value company, I'm thinking, this could be a serious assault on audio's high-end. Stereophile has already lined up a review.
When I walked into SVS's two-channel room—they also had a home theater room, something you don’t see much of at AXPONA—the first thing I noticed is that in every chair taken was a younger human—under 40, let us…
[Edited to add product information.]
When I walked into this room, just before closing time on Sunday, the show’s last day, they were spinning vinyl. Two things are notable about that fact, at least to me.
The first notable thing: I own the turntable, the Pure Fidelity Harmony ($11,390) in the quilted maple finish, which Ken Micallef reviewed. The cartridge was the Pure Fidelity Stratos, also well-known to me. The tonearm used on the Pure Fidelity was fancier than mine, the Origin Live–made Illustrious SE Stratos ($9095).
The second notable thing is that the…
The Carmel 3 is a two-way that crosses over at 1750Hz. YG emphasizes phase alignment between the drivers across the crossover range. Core specifications include "usable output" from…
The upgraded Rogue Audio RP-5 v2 preamplifier features a new…
To my eye, the most unusual newcomers in the diverse collection were three Ruark products. Beyond a small single-cube wireless speaker (the R1 Mk4 Bluetooth Radio, $399), there was a hefty-looking unit that approached the size of a small desk. Dubbed the R810 High Fidelity Radiogram ($3999), its form calls to mind stereo consoles from the 1950s. Sitting on tall polished-chrome legs, the R810 gives off that popular…