The discussion rapidly diverted into what was fueling…
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The Brooklyn show offered a full program of seminars throughout the weekend, and one of the best-attended was "The Virtues of Vintage," which took place late Saturday afternoon. Chaired by Stereophile's Art Dudley (far left), a panel of expert anachrophiles comprising (L–R) Steve Rowell (Audio Classics), Mike Trei (Sound & Vision), Jonathan Halpern (Tone Imports), Joe Roberts (Silbatone and once Sound Practices) and Herb Reichert (Stereophile) started off by examining what great components from audio's past had to offer.
Saturday dawned hot and bright—unnaturally so for the end of September—and showgoers showed up well before the 10:00am starting time: So much for my hopes of getting a jump on the crowds. Still I went for an early listen at the room shared by Volti Audio, Raven Audio, and Triode Wire Labs. The price of the three-way, fully-horn-loaded Volti Vittora loudspeaker ($21,500/pair without optional ELF subwoofer) has risen slightly since I wrote about it a year or so ago—yet it still endures as perhaps the best bargain in US-made hi-fi.
The Vittoras sounded as engaging as ever in a system with a…
Come Wednesday evening, October 1, at 7:30pm EDT, jazz lovers throughout the greater New York City environs—that includes Brooklyn—will flock to Jazz at Lincoln Center to groove to triple Grammy-nominated composer/pianist David Chesky's quintet, Jazz in the New Harmonic. Folks unable to join Stereophile editor John Atkinson and others in the audience for the first show, or the second at 9:30pm, can listen to a live stream of the initial set here.
Chesky and his two-year old ensemble—Javon Jackson, tenor saxophone; Jeremy Pelt, trumpet; Billy Drummond, drums (footnote 1); and Peter…
Halfway through the show I called home, and my wife informed me that the plumbing in the downstairs bathroom was clogged, and the dog had gone outside and rolled around in something dead. And she wondered: Was I having a nice time? It was time for me to pick up the pace.
Sony demonstrated a pair of their AR1 loudspeakers ($27,000/pair), driven with a pair of Sony's Nelson Pass-designed 40th Anniversary VFET monoblocks and hooked up with Kimber Kables; the source component was a sample of the Sony HAP-Z1ES media player ($1999.99) that so impressed Kal Rubinson. The system did a fine,…
Reliable readers of show reports will remember Robert Lighton as a successful designer and manufacturer of furniture who, a few years ago, turned his enthusiasm for domestic audio in general and Audio Note gear in particular into a side career by putting his own imprint on the basic Audio Note loudspeaker formula. Robert Lighton Audio of New York City has now progressed to designing and manufacturing its own high-efficiency loudspeakers, including the two-way RL5 ($10,000/pair)—the solid sapele mahogany enclosure of which is seen here in Robert's hands—and to having Audio Note UK co-design…
Billed as “Michael Fremer’s Ultimate Turntable Set-up Demo,” the final seminar at the Brooklyn show once again revealed that the editor of AnalogPlanet.com and Stereophile columnist has, as you might say, “large attachments.” I find setting up a phono cartridge the most stressful of audio-related activities, and that’s in the quiet of my home, with no pressure and all the time in the world. By contrast, Michael does it in public, with the clock ticking, an audience watching, and a high-definition video system showing a close-up of every move on the screen above and behind him.
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Sony's hot news at the New York show was the launch of what they called a "Walkman." However, this was no cassette player like the Walkpersons of 30 years ago but a hirez-capable file player with 64GB of RAM and a micro-SD slot for memory expansion. Priced at just $299 and beautifully styled, as you can see from the photo with David Chesky modeling it, the new Walkman makes my Astell&Kern player look clunky. But peculiarly, the new Sony player doesn't handle DSD files, just PCM up to 192kHz.
Shown standing next to one of his active Lipinski Signature 700 loudspeakers ($54,000…
Before I conclude our coverage of last weekend’s New York Audio Show, let me say that it was a pleasant surprise to find the Marriott’s corridors still busy before the show ended 5pm Sunday. While the show had a smaller number of exhibitors than I would have wished, the venue was excellent and the show was definitely a success and those manufacturers, distributors, and dealers who exhibited all had excellent traffic. Well done, Chester Group.
One constant throughout the show was the appearance of Canadian cellist Vincent Bélanger in many rooms, allowing showgoers to compare the live sound…
My best old friend, "David Ray of Today," dropped out of school when he was 15 so that he could stock vegetables on the night shift at the IGA in a small Illinois farm town. By the time he'd turned 25, he owned five houses, 25 Cadillacs, and a barn full of knickknacks.
David chose to work nights so his days would be free to buy objets d'art at the local Salvation Army store. He bought Fiesta Ware, Bakelite radios, homemade quilts, and locally fashioned tin chicken-feeders. The quilts had to be hand-sewn and in perfect condition, with no stains. The radios had to work, have all their…
". . . with faithfully replicated artwork."
That's how a press release, dated June 16 of this year, described the manner in which the next wave of Beatles LPs—mono releases claimed to be mastered direct from the original analog mixdown tapes, and not the 44.1kHz digital files that Apple Records and Universal Music Enterprises (which now owns EMI) considered good enough for their last wave of Beatles LPs—are being packaged for sale. Hope, as Emily Dickinson once observed, is that thing with the feathers. Which, as we all know, evolved from the dinosaurs.
Those new mono LPs,…