Although a change of ownership wasn't publicized at the time of sale, David Whitt now owns Spatial Audio Lab. David's son Sam Whitt, 23, engineers the speakers, and former owner Clayton Shaw continues in sales and distribution…
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Spatial Audio Lab may have considered its main suite on the 13th floor of the hotel's tower, but its second exhibit in room 2210 offered plenty to love. I was taken in by the wonderful clarity, excellent depth, and openness delivered by Spatial's Q6 prototype open-baffle loudspeakers ($4995/pair and expected in August). Infected Mushroom's "Avratz" was a knockout.
No show coverage would be complete without a preview of Børresen's major M6 loudspeaker ($550,000/pair) world premiere. Joining forces with products from the three other companies that comprise Audio Group Denmark, Børresen's M6 dominated an exceedingly large room in the extremely attractive exhibit mounted by US Distributor/Dealer Next Level HiFi.
At the heart of the M6 lies a "topology-optimized 3D-printed basket made of zirconium" designed to ensure maximum rigidity and minimum vibration and resonance. There's a lot more original thought and technology behind the speaker, of course,…
Even though I knew what to expect, I was still a bit overwhelmed when I walked into the Triangle Art room at PAF 2023. Their products aren't bashful. They practically scream engineering and display a build quality and attention that Ferrari would envy. If MOMA wants an exemplar of industrial art, they need look no further. I wanted to go over each and every one with a fine-toothed comb but—I was on a mission. My plan was to focus on the three turntable models that were being played, sort out their similarities and differences, and determine the extent to which the differences were reflected…
At every show, I make it point to visit at least one company making their debut at the show AT PAF 2023, it was Bella Sound, based in Half Moon Bay, CA, and the offspring of Mike and Barbara Vice. Mike Vice described their path to PAF 2023 as having begun around 2010 with what was to be their first product, the Hanalei power amplifier. It had been ten years in the making and wowed everyone who heard it, but Mike decided that it "just wasn't ready". After eight more years of refining the Hanalei and developing a few other components, Mike and Barbara decided that the time was right and created…
I wasn't sure what to expect when I headed for the Angel City Audio room at PAF 2024—were they a dealer? A distributor? A manufacturer? After chatting with ACA's owner Hugh Nguyen (above), I can say that the answer fell somewhere between "all three" and "it depends."
Nguyen has been in the high-end audio world since the early 2000s, first as a dealer, evolving over time to become the distributor or US representative for a few other companies, and most recently as the manufacturer of a line of speakers—while continuing in his previous roles as well. Hugh walked me through the system to…
Walking into one of the rooms hosted by Middle River, MD audio dealer Just Audio was a bit of a surprise, and to quote Yogi Berra, "It's like déjà vu all over again."
I'd been in search of Cambridge Audio, to see what was new and if possible, spend some time with two of their integrated amplifiers, the $2999 Evo 150 and the $6499 Edge A. The Edge A is part of an upscale line that Cambridge created to establish a presence above their current one, which is defined by an ethos of "great sound, nondescript cosmetics, and reasonable prices."
The Evo 150 is about as different from the…
In 1973, Elton John and Bernie Taupin capped one of pop music's most epic periods of sustained creativity by writing, recording, and releasing the 10-track single disc Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player and the 17-track double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, both of which are now celebrating their 50th anniversary (footnote 1). As two of the strongest entries among the many classics that make 1972–73 the peak years for rock albums, both went #1 in the US and UK and arguably stand as the dual highpoints of John's recorded legacy.
At the center of both records is the unusual way…
Liner notes from jazz albums of the 1950s and 1960s can be shot through with naivete, hipsterism (usually faux), and callousness toward the abundance of musical talent then working. Few though are as shortsighted as the original essay by Jack Maher on the back of 1960's Workin' with the Miles Davis Quintet. Opening with "Miles Davis is the most maligned and idolized musician in modern American jazz today. He is at once the saint and the sinner," he goes on to cite a dynamic that literally all musicians experience, especially when playing live: "He has been accused of being lackadaisical and…
At least I didn't get arrested is a helluva way to begin a story, but then I never expected the FBI to question me about my online record shopping, viewing it as cover for potentially "Conspiring to Provide Material Support" to an international terrorist organization. "We need some information from you," the email said. "We've also temporarily limited certain features in your PayPal account.
"PayPal's Compliance Department has reviewed your account and identified activity that we have a couple questions about. To resolve the compliance inquiry in a timely fashion, PayPal is requesting…
In 1928, Swiss engineer and inventor Jean-Léon Reutter created a clock that could run for years without human interaction or any type of external power source. The Atmos Clock required no AC power, batteries, solar panels, or hand-winding. It was able to wind itself by leveraging subtle changes in atmospheric pressure and temperature.
The design was so energy efficient that a single degree of temperature change provided enough power for two days of operation; it would take an incredible 60 million Atmos clocks to equal the power demands of a single 15W light bulb. 95 years later, the…