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Nothing is Too Wonderful to be True

"Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature . . ."—Michael Faraday

"When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him."—Jonathan Swift

I quoted Faraday and Swift in an essay I wrote in March 1991 discussing how to distinguish effective audio tweaks from those that appear to be more about delusion than about any real change in performance. Back then, it was the Tice Clock (a RadioShack digital clock that George Tice claimed to have treated with a proprietary secret process…

The Fifth Element #80

First, two noteworthy CDs. San Francisco's Cypress String Quartet, whose set of Beethoven's late quartets and high-resolution downloads I praised in the April issue, is back with a new CD (Avie AV2275) that explores their musical roots.

The quartet takes its name from Anton°n Dvorák's early cycle of 18 love songs, Cypresses, which he composed in 1865, between his first and second symphonies. (The title is meant to evoke barren solitude.) Later in his career (1887), Dvorák transcribed 12 of the Cypresses songs for string quartet alone.

One word that often crops up in discussions of…

The Fifth Element #80 Page 2

I think that, following some years of doldrums in the US, Unison and Opera will have a higher profile going forward. After 20 years as president of cable company Cardas Audio, Colleen Cardas left to form, with Marc Phillips, Colleen Cardas Imports, at just about the time that Unison and Opera were looking for new representation for the US. Cardas already had a long relationship with Unison and Opera from those brands' often having used Cardas cables while developing and demonstrating their products.

I got in touch with Colleen Cardas because I wanted to put together a system, based on…

The Fifth Element #80 Contacts

Sidebar: Contacts

Unison Research, Opera Loudspeakers, A.R.I.A. Advanced Research in Audio, via Barone 4, 31030 Dosson di Casier (Treviso), Italy. Tel: (39) 0422-633547. Fax: (39) 0422-633550. Web: www.unisonresearch.com, www.operaloudspeakers.com. US distributor: Colleen Cardas Imports. Web: www.colleencardasimports.com

Music Matters 2013John Atkinson at ListenUp, Denver

In April 2013, Stereophile editor John Atkinson took part in two Music Matters evenings held by Colorado retailer ListenUp. JA took time off from the formal presentations to talk to ListenUp's George McClure about how we perceive music and about what matters most when we record and playback music.

CAS 2013 Gets Underway

Ensconced in the third hotel in its four-year history, the three-day California Audio Show opened on August 9, 2013 in the five-floor Westin Hotel in Millbrae, CA. Otherwise known as the Westin SFO, the hotel resides on One Old Bayshore Highway, a hefty stone's throw from San Francisco Bay, directly across the water from the airport runway where Asiana Flight 214 crashed on July 6.

For those who turned around as they approached the hotel's main entrance, the view of three huge black trailer-like structures on the runway, positioned when the FAA investigation got underway, served…

CAS 2013: Day One, Poking Round the Lobby

JIB cabling, long linked to its factory in Berlin, has now birthed a distinct US branch. Aptly named JIB-USA, it's located in Fremont, CA. At CAS, Allen Ong and his son displayed, among other models, the company's new DSP-001 speaker cable ($7150/2.5m pair). Composed of UP-OCC that is cryogenically treated, insulated with Teflon, and terminated with rhodium connectors, the cable made its silent show premiere.

Yes, JIB almost always mounts passive displays. Instead, they offer a 90-day money-back guarantee, which should give folks plenty of time to discover what lies beyond their cables'…

CAS 2013: Day One, Lots More Lobby

Time to settle into deeper listening. We'll spend a bit of time in Loggie Audio's second room, built around Ypsilon and (TEAC) Esoteric electronics and the equally excellent YG Acoustics Sonja 1.2 loudspeakers ($72,800/pair), not only because it sounded so good, but also because it presented the US debut of what may very well prove to be a major cable line.

The YG Sonja 1.2, which has one less woofer that the 1.3 that John Atkinson called "superb" in the July issue of Stereophile, joined forces with the mighty Ypsilon Aelius monoblock amplifiers ($36,000/pair); Esoteric's P-02 transport…

CAS 2013 Day One: Scaling the Heights

Far more beckoned on the lobby level, but you can only keep them down on the farm so long. Eventually, the lure of unexplored territory pulled this Cancer crab out of the questionable security of his shell onto the wilds of the Westin's second floor. There I encountered the wildest of them all, Sean Casey (above), spinning platters in the Zu Audio room.

Sean must have been a chameleon in another lifetime, because his Zu Audio loudspeakers, cabling, and other equipment sound radically different each time I encounter them. Three shows ago, they sounded bright and abrasive, like a hybrid…

CAS Day Two: The High and the Mighty

I've previously praised EnigmAcoustics' Sopranino self-polarizing electrostatic supertweeter ($3690/pair), which I first encountered at T.H.E. Show Newport Beach. The Sopranino claims a flat response to beyond 40kHz and fully passive operation without the need of external bias.

Here I heard a pair of Sopraninos in two different configurations. The first was atop EnigmAcoustics M1 loudspeakers ($14,900/pair). Paired with Ayre's V5-XE amplifier and K5-XE preamp, a Mac Mini as source, and Cardas' Golden Cross speaker cables, Clear balanced interconnects, and USB cable, the system produced a…