These things always start in the parking garage; Chattering fellows unloading boxes from vans with out-of-state license plates. This evolves into dozens of impromptu mini-fetes taking place in elevators with old friends making excited small talk over the tops of hotel carts stacked with amps and turntable boxes. By the time I make it to the Hilton Rockville's lobby Thursday afternoon, I am already in it—I can feel the "Audiofest" excitement building. I have only been out of the car 10 minutes and I've already shook 5 hands and I am staring into the grinning goateed face of Gary Gill…
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It didn't take long for me grasp that this 2015 edition of Capital Audiofest was a big moment for the universally admired (and loved) VPI clan. Everywhere I looked, clan patriarch Harry Weisfeld (center in photo) was smiling and telling great stories. Harry gets my Best In Show award for fascinating tales and amazing tutorials (we talked a lot about drag racing in the 1960s and turntable/arm-bearing lubes). His son Mat (peeking over shoulders in the background) and Mat's fiancée Jane win the Best Couple Ever award and I saw them hugging, kissing, and holding up the "Holy Shit!—That's My Son…
Walking from room to room at CAF, it occurred to me, that these shows are the best place—probably better than any audio dealer's showroom—for audiophiles to observe how the science and art of audio design infect each other. Every manufacturer creates his own art & engineering admixture—one that reflects his values and worldview. Moving directly from the really big VPI traveling show to the significantly more modest, artful, architectural feeling "fern & roby hard wares" emporium was a stirring example.
Fern & Roby make artful-looking, and (to me) an impressive…
People who speak of running with the big dogs describe the experience as a good thing; I can't imagine why. I'll take the small dogs any old time: They're more characterful, less self-possessed, and just plain friendlier. And among hi-fi shows, Capital Audiofest is the friendliest and most interesting small dog on the porch, and still one of my favorites.
Gary Gill's regional show, which retains its slight and very pleasant DIY vibe, returned to the Washington DC area on August 28–30 for its sixth year, and drew respectable numbers of people, especially by the end of the day on Saturday.…
EMIA stands for Experience Music Intact Audio. It represents a partnership and brotherhood between two of the finest most creative minds in world audio: Wunderkind amp and hornspeaker designer Jeffrey Jackson (Experience Music), and transformer-winder, amp designer, and tube audio savant, Dave Slagle (Intact Audio/HiFi Heroin). Both are cherished friends and engineering mentors. Both evolved out of the early days of New York Triode Mafia/New York Noise.
I need to explain all this about them, so when I tell you that while sitting in the EMIA room, I listened to one whole side of a…
On Friday, September 4, from 6 to 10pm, Sonor Filtronique (9343 Rue Lajeunesse, Montreal) will host a special event with Peter McGrath of Wilson Audio Specialties, John Quick of dCS, Dave Gordon of Audio Research, and Garth Powell of AudioQuest. Featured gear will include Wilson's Sabrina loudspeakers, dCS's Vivaldi DAC, ARC's GSi75 integrated amplifier, and AudioQuest's new Niagara 7000 AC power management system, pictured above. There will be 45-minute seminars held throughout the evening.
It was quiet when I entered the Resolution Acoustics room and sat down restfully in the chair between the giant Sonus Faber Stradivari speakers. I sat admiring the Meitner MA-2 and the Pass Labs XA100.5s; both of which are some mighty good audio hardware. But suddenly, without any warning: I was being soundboarded by the opening guitar work of the Eagles' "Hotel California." I cringed the first time I heard that song and I screamed silently every one of the 1000 times I heard it at Sound by Singer. And now—just because I am an audiophile—everybody in stereoland thinks I want to hear it.…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital Sources: Benchmark DAC 1, PS Audio DirectStream DAC; Apogee Groove, Meridian Explorer & Explorer2 USB DACs; Ayre Acoustics CX-7eMP CD player.
Analog Sources: Thorens TD-124 turntable reconditioned by Schopper AG; Oswalds Mill Audio slate plinth; Ortofon RMG-212 tonearm (rebuilt); Thomas Schick 12" tonearm; Ortofon 90th Anniversary SPU cartridge; Sony XDR-F1HD AM/FM/HD tuner.
Preamplification: Auditorium 23 step-up transformer.
Integrated Amplifier: Leben CS-600.
Loudspeakers: DeVore Fidelity The Nine.
Cables: USB: AudioQuest…
This is a story about vulgar words and what is likely one of the most innovative and exciting, yet self-consciously idiosyncratic, audio components of the 21st century: Schiit Audio's Ragnarok integrated amplifier ($1699).
I never use vulgar words—at least not in public. I rarely use the word shit as an adjective, a verb, or a noun. Therefore, when I first heard of an audio company founded by legendary audio engineer Mike Moffat (formally of Theta) and award-winning science-fiction author and audio polymath Jason Stoddard—a company named Schiit—I could permit myself to pronounce its name…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I measured the PS Audio NuWave DSD with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see www.ap.com and the January 2008 "As We See It"), feeding its S/PDIF input data from the SYS2722 and its USB input data sourced from a battery-powered MacBook Pro running Pure Music 2.0. The S/PDIF input accepted data sampled at all rates from 44.1 to 192kHz. Apple's USB Prober utility identified the NuWave as "PS Audio USB Audio 2.0" and confirmed that it operates in the optimal isochronous asynchronous mode. Mac's AudioMIDI utility stated that the NuWave's USB input would accept 24-bit…