That is, until I asked Wilson's Peter McGrath to play one of his opera recordings. Peter obliged, but, after a brief listen, he said he wasn't entirely satisfied with the sound, a sonic shortfall he attributed to using the digital recorder to drive the amplifier directly, a task that the recorder was not really designed for. He re-…
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Montreal dealer Coup de Foudre's Wilson/Dan D'Agostino room had Wilson's new Sasha II speakers ($29,900/pair), combined with Dan D'Agostino's Momentum Line stage preamp and stereo power amp ($32,000 and $29,000, respectively). The sound was truly excellent.
Nordost provided the lanyards for the all badges (attendees, exhibitors, and press), with the Nordost name prominently displayed, and to the casual observer it might have seemed that everyone at SSI 2014 worked for Nordost! Not so, but Nordost cables were in a number of systems, and Nordost did brisk business at their booth selling cables and other accessories at a show discount.
As I made my way through the hall, I hesitated before entering the room of Lawrence Audio, makers of some very attractive floor-standing loudspeakers: They were playing the Nils Lofgren song "Keith Don't Go," which I really don't like, really loud. Even so, it was standing-room only: Mine appears to be the minority opinion, at least as far as the trampoline-loving Mr. Lofgren is concerned.
The next selection was a snippet of Peer Gynt, which I enjoy, so I ambled inside and took a seat. The system, propelled by Bryston electronics, had reasonably good color and substance, but it was too…
Retailer AudioShop and distributor Audio Associé demonstrated a pleasantly impactful system built around a pair of Cabasse Riga loudspeakers ($18,000 /pair, including the Cabasse subwoofer), with a brace of electronics from my upstate New York neighbors McIntosh: the MCD1000 SACD/CD player ($10,000), C2500 tube preamp ($6500), and the beautiful McIntosh 275 power amp ($6500), all plugged into the company's MPC1500 AC power conditioner ($5000).
Also on static display at Audio Pathways: the revivified Aragon stereo power amp ($5500).
In one of the rooms sponsored by Audio Pathways, the always-impressive yet consistently difficult-to-photograph-in-the-dark Raidho Acoustics C1.1 loudspeakers ($CAD18,000/pair) sounded excellent with a slightly-less-photo-phobic Jeff Rowland Continuum S2 integrated amp ($10,500), set up with Transparent cabling.
Ontario retailer and distributor Audio Pathways had a number of new products on display—some active, some passive. Among the latter were the impressive Magne air-bearing turntable and companion Magne air-bearing linear-tracking tonearm ($14,000 as a package) from Bergmann Audio of Denmark.
At the GTT Audio room, turntable designer Louis Desjardins introduced a more affordable alternative to the original Kronos turntable: the Kronos Sparta ($21,000, plus an additional $6500 for the companion Helena tonearm).
As the name implies, Desjardins' intent was to offer as much performance as possible in a less fancy package: "I don't want people to spend $20,000 and still feel like it's a shame they couldn't afford the 'better' one." The Sparta offers the same motor, same bearings, and same counter-rotational platter system as the more expensive model. And, as its designer…
I kept seeing pictures of something that looked a little like a DeVore O/96 and not really knowing what it was. Now, thanks to the GTT Audio room at SSI, I know that the thing I was seeing is the Grimm Audio LS1-S ($39,900), a three-way powered loudspeaker pair plus digital preamp with USB interface.
One need only add the source—which, for the GTT demonstration, took the form of an Audionet phono stage ($16,700) plus the aforementioned Kronos Sparta turntable and Helena tonearm, with an Airtight PC-1 phono cartridge and Kubala-Sosna cabling. The sound was subtle and inviting, with very…
Here's a closer look at the Ayre MXR 20 amplifier, which is due to ship fairly soon, according to Ayre's Alex Brinkman. As he puts it, "We lost a little time working on the Pono thing."