Although they're more boring looking, high-end DACs remind me of analog (phono) front ends, because of the manner in which they approach their job and the diverse quality of the work they do. It is crazy how different each of them can sound, but when they're exceptionally good—or exceptionally bad—the differences between…
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It was one of those walk-in-the-door, "Ah ha!" moments: Instantly, I got a very good feeling about not only the looks of Brinkmann Audio's Nyquist DAC ($18,000) but also the quality of the work it was doing in the MQA room. The Nyquist really caught my eye and my ear.
The most astoundingly-good-sound-for-the-component-size exhibit of the 47 or so I visited at RMAF 2016 sang in the larger-than-average hotel room occupied by SOtM of Korea and Boenicke of Switzerland. It wasn't the least expensive of the excellent-sounding systems I encountered—that honor goes to Peachtree/Zu—but it sure was the most compact and three-dimensional, as well as one of the most neutral and pleasing.
The remarkably compact Boenicke W5 Special Edition loudspeakers ($4500/pair) were fed by an entire SOtM array, including cabling, with the addition of a Nordost entry-level Purple…
Retailer Audio Den (2845 Middle Country Rd, Lake Grove, NY 11755) is holding an evening with John Atkinson, Editor-in Chief of Stereophile magazine, on Saturday, October 15, starting at 5pm. Not only has John been writing about audio for 40 years, he has engineered, produced, mastered, and played on more than 40 commercially released recordings. He will be discussing how recordings are made and how this affects what you hear on your own system. There will be illustrations from both John's own recordings as well as commercial recordings, and each session will last about an hour including a Q…
In the room shared by NAD and PSB, I got to meet the latter's Paul Barton and listen intimately to Francis Albert Sinatra. The little PSB Imagine Mini loudspeakers ($749/pair + $299 for stands) put lots of well-formed vocal energy into a rather large room—enough to let Sinatra be Ol' Blue Eyes while I closed my eyes and dreamed. Frank and Paul made such a nice vibe together—one that was surely enhanced by the affordable but sophisticated, downright overachieving , Paul Barton-designed Imagine Minis, plus NAD's 368 integrated amplifier-DAC ($899), C 568 CD player ($699), and C 556 turntable ($…
My beat at the 13th RMAF was the 7th and 11th floors of the Marriott Tower, so to kick off my reporting, my first room on the 7th floor was Dynaudio USA. Featured in the system was Dynaudio's new two-way Contour 20 loudspeakers ($5000/pair). Mounted on Stand 6 stands ($500/pair), the Contour 20s were driven by an Aurender N100 server ($2499) feeding a dCS Debussy DAC ($11,999) and the new Octave V110 SE integrated amplifier ($8000) via Cardas Clear Beyond interconnects and Cardas Clear speaker cables. On passive display was the Model 30 tower ($7500/pair) and both of the new models feature…
Day 2 began with more of floor 2. My first stop: the Eclipse room.
Before you ask—yes, the speakers look very much like you would expect them to. As in: if you merged an eclipse and a speaker, the result would closely resemble that of an Eclipse TD510ZMK2 speaker. (For size reference, they're like a smaller second cousin to the Devialet Phantom.)
Inside the room: Eclipse TD510ZMK2 Speakers ($5,990/pair) and Eclipse TD520SW Subwoofers ($7,200/pair) powered by a Luxman L-590AX Integrated 30 Wpc Amplifier ($8,490) with a mix CD (courtesy of Philip O'Hanlon, as these are all…
German loudspeaker manufacturer BMS “Sells fewer raw drivers to more DIY guys and more raw drivers to fewer pro-sound guys
”—or so says Jack Arnott of Assistance Audio, BMS’s North American importer. (Got that?)
I used to be a DIY guy, but now that I work for Stereophile, I'm living like Jay Z —and there's no time for sawing wood or screwing raw drivers into boxes. But: I think I know a high-quality, well-engineered cone speaker or compression driver when I see one—and the BMS drivers I saw at RMAF 2016 looked a lot like pro-style, industrial-strength objets d'art. The BMS…
The first day of the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest ended with two important events. The first was an intimate memorial gathering for Wes Phillips, Stereophile’s sorely missed deputy editor (1995–1999) and contributor (2000–2011), who died on August 27, 2016. Out of respect for those in attendance, Roy Gregory of The Audio Beat.com and Marjorie Baumert, the guiding light behind RMAF, held off the start of the Second Annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest International HiFi Press Awards [RIHPA] until Marjorie and I beat it across the street to the packed ballroom at the Hilton, where we let Roy and…
That my Saturday at RMAF began one flight up, on floor 6, would be of no significance save for one fact: the ascent revealed a handsome Zesto Audio/Marten/WyWires system that included the premiere showing of Zesto Audio's Andros Téssera tube phono stage ($12,000). This was one of those happy, expectation-fulfilling rooms where recordings actually sounded like music. I loved the timbres on a movement from Holst’s perpetually rotating The Planets, albeit highs were a little zingy at high volume. A Nat King Cole record featured gorgeous mids. There was a bit of booming in one narrow range on top…
On the day before RMAF 2016 began, German audio manufacturer Elac announced that they have entered an agreement to acquire Peter Madnick's American company, Audio Alchemy. When I heard this news, it felt good and right. Between them, Elac and Audio Alchemy are turning out a large portion of the best-sounding, highest-value audio equipment I have experienced in the 21st Century— and now they are officially a power couple!
Throughout the 1990s, Peter Madnick's reputation as a designer of modestly priced, reliable, and sonically superb audio products was etched in stone. (And Audio…