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How perfect. Shortly before I entered the room shared by Win Tinnon of Saskia Turntables and his friends, Dave Slagle of EMIA and Chris Kline of Telwire, relatively new singer/recording artist Lyn Stanley dropped by to hear her new LP. Lyn has an extremely special, warm mezzo, perfect what she calls “retro jazz,” which found its ideal home in the room’s fabulous sounding, clear and warm system. So did Bob McChesney’s trombone, which accompanied her with the perfect mix of edgy power and warmth. Thanks to Win’s hospitality and Lyn’s voice, this was one of my special moments at a very special…
No US audio show feels complete without hearing Acoustic Zen cables, interconnects, power cords, and loudspeakers connected to Triode Corporation electronics. Acoustic Zen’s Robert Lee deserved to smile, because his set-up showed everyone’s equipment at its best. Upsampled to 192kHz, a violin CD sounded gorgeous, and the low organ pedals on Saint-Saëns’ well-known “Organ Symphony” were equally convincing. Lee’s Crescendo loudspeakers ($16,000/pair) descend down to 22Hz (–6dB), and mated superbly with Tri’s TRX-M845 monoblock amplifiers ($22,500/pair), new TRX-2 tube preamp with MM/MC ($5000…
Shame on me for not writing down the name of Ron Sutherland’s adorable pooch, who stayed on my lap as we orbited to bliss with the great Johnny Hartmann. Partnering with some guys named John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner, Hartmann made magic of “They Say It’s Wonderful.” Of course, that was on LP, sounding—yes—wonderful thanks to a Merrill-Williams R.E.A.L. 101 table with Tri-Planar arm, Sutherland N1 full-feature line/phone preamplifier ($18,000) and Sutherland Power Block amplifier ($6000), arrayed on a Krollo Rack and connected to each other and Avalon Transcendent loudspeakers by Incline…
Roy Johnson of Green Mountain Audio (left) teamed with Ron Hedrick of Marigo Audio Labs (right) to create a system modest in appearance and generous in musicality. After pairing Green Mountain’s Eos HX top-of-the-line 2-way loudspeaker ($4995/pair) with a cheap Sony multi-disc changer and the Jeff Rowland Design Group’s Model 525 amp and Aeris DAC, they put Marigo’s Mystery Feet under the electronics, and used, in addition to Audio Magic power cords, Marigo Audio cables and, on CDs, Marigo’s new Ultimate High-Definition Signature Mat ($239).
The result, on a remaster of Lou Reed’s “Walk…
Walter Liederman’s Underwood Hifi showed an $11,600 system that he sells for the discount price of $8995 + freight. At its head were Emerald Physics CS3 Mk.2 open-baffle, controlled-dispersion loudspeakers complete with Emerald DSP2.4 digital equalizer/crossover ($3500/pair). Supporting them were two REL T9 powered subwoofers ($1200/each) electronically bi-amped through the Emerald DSP2.4, an Emerald Physics EP100.2SE amplifier ($2200), one DSPeaker Anti-Mode 2.0 Dual Core for preamplification and room correction ($1200), and a Jolida Fusion tube DAC/Transport ($2300). Also included, prices…
Thinking it was my last room—wrong—I lingered for some time with two great and dedicated guys, Keith Greeninger and Dayan Kai of Wyred 4 Sound. Listening to “The Deeper That You Love” from a Blue Coast Special album, I found a moderately bright leading edge balanced by an extremely lovely midrange. “Mids very, very nice for this price” I wrote in my notepad. Then, “Summertime” on an Original Master issue of Patricia Barber’s A Distortion of Love yielded “a fabulous sense of space and air, and great low bass.” (“A great demo track,” I noted, although the same can be said for many of Barber’s…
In German Physiks’ room on the 11th floor of the Denver Tech Center Marriott, the Unlimited Mk.II loudspeakers ($13,500/pair) were mated with Vitus Audio’s RCD-100 CD player ($12,750), RD-100 D/A converter ($11,250), and RS stereo power amplifier. Held together by Purist Audio Design’s Corvus balanced interconnects ($2100/1m pair), fabulously named Aqueous Aureus digital cable ($705/1m), and Venustas speaker cable ($5450/7m pair), the system displayed a lovely midrange with a bit of hard edge on a golden oldie, Sara K’s “If I Could Sing the Blues.” (Who remembers the audio show where this…
As had happened at the 2008 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, there were so many exhibitors wanting to show their wares at the 2013 show that there was some overflow housed at the nearby Hyatt Regency Tech Center. I'll be writing about the Scaena and Wilson exhibits at the Hyatt in stories to be posted later, but the first room I went into featured speakers from a company of which I had been unaware, Missouri-based Vapor Audio (www.vaporsound.com). The floor-standing Joule Black speakers ($12,995/pair) were being demmed with a BMC preamplifier and monoblock amplification, but beyond that I have…
Denver retailer Gold Sound was featuring Focal's new tower speaker, the Aria 948 ($5000/pair), in its room at RMAF, in a system featuring a Cambridge Audio 851E preamp ($1799) and Cambridge 851W 200–350Wpc amplifier ($2499), both also new at the show. Front ends were either a Cambridge 851C CD player or a VPI Classic turntable fitted with the 3D-printed tonearm and an Ortofon Cadenza Bronze MC cartridge and amplified with a Parasound Halo JC3 phono preamp.
The 948 uses a new tweeter with an aluminum/magnesium dome, while the twin 8" woofers and 6.5" midrange unit use cones made from a…
I had been impressed by the 5.1 speaker from the German Lansche company when I reviewed it in July 2012. In particular, I found Lansche's horn-loaded ionic tweeter produced superb treble sound quality. At RMAF, I photographed Aaudio's Brian Ackerman standing by the enormous, 900lb Lansche 8.2 ($266,000/pair in Macassar ebony veneer), which combines that ionic tweeter with four 8" mid/woofers, crossed over at 2.5kHz.
But the 8.2 also uses two 18" subwoofers to handle the range below 40Hz, each driven by a 1.2kW amplifier and mounted one avbove the other on the speaker's rear.…