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The California Audio Show may be for consumers, and the Consumer Electronics Show for members of the industry, but they have one thing in common: the venues in which they display high-end gear, the Westin SFO and Venetian Las Vegas, share a similar upper floor layout where corridors fan out from a central area near the elevators. But there, the similarities end. Because at CES, where displays are identified by identically sized signs in long corridors that seem to stretch down three very long roads, only to terminate at some unholy confluence between Infinite Bliss and the dreaded Black Hole…
"Do you two have a bodyguard?" I asked Elac speaker designer Andrew Jones (right) and equally legendary Audio Alchemy electronics designer Peter Madnick (left) upon hearing the tremendous sound pouring forth from their bargain system ($5500 including custom-made music server and cabling). "If you don't, you'd be wise to consider hiring one. Given the virtually illegal amount of warmth, bass, and full-range sound you're getting from those tiny little speakers and that sub, I wouldn't be surprised if at least one high-priced manufacturer is tempted to do you in, lest you give the lie to the…
Mexico's most distinguished audio manufacturer, Margules Audio, demmed a system at CAS6 headlined by the Margules U280-SC 25th-Anniversary, stereo tube amplifier ($5399). The midrange was warm and wonderful—just what the doctor ordered, in fact. Despite a little brightness on top, and a bit of shallowness on bottom, the set-up was supremely musical and capable of conveying joyful, delicate beauty with panache. That, my friends, means a whole lot in my book.
Also doing the honors, besides a Densen CD-410 CD player ($2200) and full complement of Atlas cables ($7000 total), were Margules'…
I wish I could tell you about the Linn system in this room, but both times I tried to enter, Steven Lester was in the middle of a long rap. Lester's video components always provide some of the most fun and unexpected treats at a show, and usually result in packed rooms. That was certainly the case the first time I came by.
Grant Fidelity, PureAudioProject, and Mundorf won my Best Slap-Silly Dance Music of Any Show Award with Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines." Believe me, it was no contest. It was also no contest between the two amps in the room, the rockin' Psvane TS845 SET…
Greek actress Melina Mercouri may have abstained on Sunday, but for audiophiles and distributors, slow slow Sunday is the day when systems are at their best. It's also the time when attendance dips markedly, and visitors can often spend all the time they want in rooms without preventing others from joining in the fun.
Sunday, for Stereophile, began in the larger rooms on the 2nd floor of the Westin SFO. In the first I visited, Pass Labs mated its INT-60 integrated amplifier ($9000) and XP-15 phono preamp ($3800) with a modified Technics SP10 Mk.II turntable fitted with a My Sonic Lab…
How to explain this one? At other shows, the most problematic rooms for an exhibitor to control are usually the large rooms on the ground level, where a combination of air walls, air-conditioning ducts, wall composition, and secrets pacts between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (which, in this case, was literally across the street from the Westin SFO) can defeat any and all attempts at good sound. But at both the California Audio Show and the last T.H.E. Show Newport Beach, most of the big rooms on the ground floor produced excellent sound.
The first additions to a "Best Sound at CAS6"…
Yes, boys and girls, there was yet one more distinctly superior system at CAS6. In addition to Bricasti, Elac/Audio Alchemy, and the two systems from AudioVision SF that included a varying combination of Dynaudio/YG Acoustics/Bel Canto Black/Pear Audio/Nordost and more, Michael Woods' Elite Audio Systems of San Francisco Kharma/CH Precision/Viola/Spiral Groove/ Primare/IsoTek and more system blew me away. Adding to his triumph is the fact that, on Thursday evening, a frustrated Michael (pictured on the right next to Kevin Wolff of Vana Ltd. and, on the left, Allen Perkins of Spiral Groove)…
It's a rare day when famed amplifier designer Nelson Pass leaves his bench to deliver a seminar. It's even rarer when that seminar is geared toward consumers rather than what he calls "specialists." In fact, at the start of his talk, Nelson confessed that after almost 50 years building amplifiers, his CAS seminar was his first ever tailored specifically toward consumers.
Hearing Nelson say that may have caused many of the hundreds of audiophiles in the packed seminar room to breathe a sigh of relief, and inspired hope that they would actually understand what he had to say. It was, after…
The California Audio Show may have been smaller than in years past, but its proportion of excellent sounding systems—6 out of 32 or so, if you count exhibit rooms that had more than one system in play—was quite high. For this reason alone, I believe the show offered great value for attendees. And it also offered some great views of San Francisco International Airport, as this shot, taken through my 7th-story hotel window, attests.
Here is the word on show attendance from show organizer, Constantine Soo:
The final number is 2300 attendees.
This year, with PonoMusic helping…
The B&W DM-6 is the second "phase-coherent" speaker system we have tested. (The first was the Dahlquist DQ-10 in January 1977.) From what we see in the latest ads from the US, England, and Japan, there will be more forthcoming. One speaker manufacturer who has been around for a long time and is currently pushing his own "phased" systems observed that many of his competitors' designs are being introduced merely because "phase response" sells these days. Yet the truth of the matter is that the experts still do not agree as to whether linear phase has any effect on reproduced sound.
The…