When I first took the elevator up to the Presidential Suite it was still early. I could hear Dire Straits doing "Money for Nothing" loud and clear down the hall. So loud and clear that when I knocked no one could hear me. I tried again an hour later and this time was…
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By the time I went to book a room for this year's RMAF there was no room at the Denver Marriott inn. Perhaps the same thing happened to Magico, as we both ended up one long suburban block away at the Hyatt Regency Denver Tech. Which was nice for me, in that it allowed me to get a breath of fresh air between listening bouts.
Voxativ may be one of the only companies in the high-end whose equipment list is designed as a flow chart. The visual presentation seems entirely apt, given how beautifully music flowed through the eye-catching and soul-pleasing Voxativ 9.87 system loudspeakers with its AC-4d wideband driver and bass extension ($34,900/pair).
This truly superior system excelled in communicating the life and beating heart behind the notes. Listening to Agnes Obel via Tidal, I heard beautiful sonorities distinguished by open highs, a superb midrange, and deep bass. Nor did the voice of Cassandra Wilson on "…
When there are over 150 exhibits to cover at an audio show, as there were at RMAF, I usually have no choice but to skip entertainment. But when Joe Reynolds of Nordost told me that I "must" hear Irish songstress and songwriter Eleanor McEvoy, whose initial work as a symphonic violinist segued into work as a session musician for U2 and Sinead O’Connor before she concentrated on songwriting and performing, I vowed to briefly stick my head into the Aspen Amphitheatre, grab a photo, and stay for part of a song.
Then I heard McEvoy, the composer of the title track of A Woman's Heart, the six-…
There are rooms at hi-fi shows, and then there are rooms. Kubotek/Haniwa were hosting the "Harry Pearson Memorial Concert" in Room 1122 of the Denver Marriott. I had seen information in advance, but it took me a moment to realize that I had walked into a unique event. It was a bit like viewing hours at a funeral parlor, but instead of a casket, arranged around the room were a selection of the legendary Harry Pearson's actual 3000-LP collection, which he bequeathed complete to Dr. Tetsuo Kubo, designer and president/CEO of the Kubotek Corporation, based in Osaka, Japan. As if this weren't…
Ah yes. Through the audio jungle I thrashed, through sound both thrilling and threadbare, until, having totally exhausted the alliteration resources of my thoroughly thumbed thesaurus, I alighted upon the thoroughfare of Thrax. Once there, I threw all literary pretense aside, and thrillingly cried, "Thanks be to Thrax!"
And with this borderline hysterical paragraph behind me, I solemnly pledge to never again abandon critical impartiality in order to indulge in the mad plunge into holographic hyperbole!
Over it I may be. But what I'm not over is how good this room, assembled by…
VANA’s Kevin Wolf (right) with AudioStream.com's Michael Lavorgna in the hot seat
Kevin Wolf and VANA Ltd. represent a group of distinctive high-quality/high-value audio products that are mostly right up my aesthetic alley. I raved about their modestly priced ($1299) Blue Horizon Profono MM/MC phono stage in a recent "Gramophone Dreams" column in Stereophile. I have used their Dr. Feickert Analogue Protractor to align every one of the dozen or so cartridges I have written about. Every day, I treat the Dr.'s protractor like it was a rare artifact from the holy land. If there was a fire in…
Oh my, what a difference a few feet can make. I am talking, in this case, about the 6'7.8"-tall, 573.2-lb Focal Grande Utopia EM loudspeakers ($195,000/pair), each of which houses a 16" woofer, an 11" midbass driver, two 6.5" midrange drivers, and a 1" pure-beryllium, inverted-dome tweeter. This loudspeaker throws one of the largest and most realistically proportioned soundstages I have ever heard. When playing my SACD of Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra performing Mahler's Symphony 9 (Channel Classics), the Grand Utopia EMs were actually capable of suggesting the huge scale,…
In scouting the lay of the land for the last day of RMAF, my fellow expedition members told me I must hear the demo Nordost was presenting. Late on Sunday afternoon I finally caught up with the Nordost team in the Humboldt Peak room at the Denver Marriott. As at the Munich Show last May, Nordost chose RMAF to showcase their new Supreme Reference Range Odin 2 cabling.
Nordost really had their act together, offering a very interesting and convincing A/B demo in their room, and then referring listeners to their downstairs booth where irresistible show pricing was offered on the spot. Heck—…
During these shows, I tend to move through the halls like an invisible force is pushing me. For each room I take a picture of the sign, walk in and do a fast calculation about where to get the best photo of the setup. Then I introduce myself to the proprietor and ask for a sheet with prices and the names of the gear being demonstrated. Then I listen, collect more data, and ask a few questions. After about the second or third question I say, "Thank you. Bye . . . gotta go! I have 50 more rooms to cover." Rolling, rolling, and rolling . . . keep them doggies rolling. But always I try to make…
It wasn't expected to be a mad dash. But at 3:40pm, when I suddenly feared that I had accidentally overlooked Zesto's amplifier premiere, and then forgotten to return to Maier Shadi and Peter Madnick's oft-packed, initially skipped Audio Salon/Audio Alchemy room on the day when I could actually snare a good seat, I panicked. Literally.
With only 20 minutes until show's end, out of the wonderful sounding Pass/Usher room I bolted, thankful that Herb had said that he'd cover it, and up the stairs to Zesto I ran. When Carolyn Counnas assured the breathless Serinus that one of my colleagues…