The speaker has two woofers, one on the front, the other on the back, as well as a 5" midrange unit and…
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MartinLogan co-founder Gayle Sanders emerged from retirement at the 2018 AXPONA with a new loudspeaker brand, Eikon. But Eikon is not just a loudspeaker but a complete system ($25,000 in standard finish or $30,000 in the carbon-fiber finish shown in my photo), with DAC, preamplifier, and digital signal processor incorporated into the Eikontrol unit, which has both analog inputs and digital (USB and S/PDIF but PCM only) inputs, and each of the speaker's drive-units has its own amplifier.
Florida-based Bending Wave USA were showing the ginormous Divin Noblesse loudspeakers ($220,000/pair) making their US debut—I wrote "ginormous" but these are actually just the second largest speakers in the German company Goebel's line—driven by the Swiss CH Precision phono preamp, preamplifier, and power amplifiers.
I missed the seminars at AXPONA from Motofumi Hirata from TechDAS, who was discussing turntable design, but I did get to listen to "Hotel California" from the live Hell Freezes Over Eagles LP on the TechDAS Airforce One Premium turntable. The Bending Wave room was…
The last room I visited at the 2019 AXPONA was the best-sounding: the big room shared by Kyomi Audio and MBL on the Renaissance Hotel's 15th floor. The system comprised MBL's Noble Line N31 CD player/DAC ($15,400) that I reviewed in February 2018, the N11 preamplifier ($14,600), four N15 monoblock amplifiers ($35,600/pair) and the omnidirectional 101E Mk.2 loudspeakers ($70,500/pair), all hooked up with WireWorld Eclipse Series 8 cables. The N31 is being updated to act as a Roon endpoint, so I hope to be writing a followup.
As luck would have it, Jürgen Reis's laptop crashed as I walked…
By the time I knew they were handing out cots, it was too late: They had already run out. The person at the Help Desk at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport said he'd never seen so many people camping out there. (Thanks to Mike Trei for the above photo.)
The day had begun on a less dire note. When I woke up Sunday morning at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel, I looked out the window and saw some pretty snow flurries.
Not long after, it was a snow squall, and soon after that, it was a snow bomb: a complete whiteout. I thought it was charming: The hotel is mostly glass,…
As much as I enjoy hi-fi, I strongly prefer non-hi-fi accoutrements, especially component racks. I'm currently using—and have been for years—a standard cherry entertainment console (the Durham) made by Maine-based furniture company Chilton. True, it's sagging a bit under the weight of my components, but I've managed to reinforce it with strategically placed home-made screw jacks.
The racks produced by Butcher Block Acoustics, which were on display in the EXPO at AXPONA 2019, are about what you'd expect from a company with that name: They look like butcher blocks made into shelves, with…
Both the name of the company and the look of their products belie what I found to be the company's spirit. "CAD"—short, in this case, for Computer Audio Design, but more commonly denoting computer-aided design, evokes highly technical, inhuman stuff. The main CAD products on active display in this room at AXPONA—the CAD Audio Transport, the 1543 Mk II DAC, and various "Ground Control" boxes—are squared off and minimalist in design, resembling space objects from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The components' green logos evoked, for me, nothing so much as the eyes of aliens come to abduct us.
CAD…
AXPONA 2019 was a good show—I'm tempted to say an important show. It's just an intuition, but I sense renewed vitality.
I wasn't able to visit as many rooms as I wanted to—too many meetings! Those meetings, though, had their own rewards—indeed, they were the highlight of the show for me. What a privilege to meet so many talented and enthusiastic people who share my passion for hi-fi. I met Sandy Gross of GoldenEar, who, years ago at Polk Audio, designed my first serious pair of speakers, Polk's Model 7Bs, bought when I was 16. I met Tim de Pavaracini, who designed the EAR 834P…
Francesco Diodati Yellow Squeeds: Never the Same
Francesco Diodati, electric & acoustic guitar, gongs; Francesco Lento, trumpet; Glauco Benedetti, tuba, valve trombone, flute; Enrico Zanisi, piano, Fender Rhodes, synths; Enrico Morello, drums, gongs
Auand AU9080 (CD). 2019. Francesco Diodati, Marco Valente, prods.; Stefano Del Vecchio, Roberto Lioli, engs. DDD. TT: 44:24
Performance ****½
Sonics ****
Francesco Diodati, electric & acoustic guitar, gongs; Francesco Lento, trumpet; Glauco Benedetti, tuba, valve trombone, flute; Enrico Zanisi, piano, Fender Rhodes, synths; Enrico Morello, drums, gongs
Auand AU9080 (CD). 2019. Francesco Diodati, Marco Valente, prods.; Stefano Del Vecchio, Roberto Lioli, engs. DDD. TT: 44:24
Performance ****½
Sonics ****
Guitarist Francesco Diodati is one of the freshest voices to enter jazz in the new millennium. If this news comes as a surprise, you probably live in the US. A…
When we launched Stereophile's website at the end of 1997, we decided that we would not reprint the magazine's most popular features, including the biannual "Recommended Components" listings and Michael Fremer's monthly "Analog Corner" column. We were concerned that doing so would cannibalize magazine sales. As it turned out, we were wrong—and so the latest "Recommended Components" is available on our free-access website day-and-date with the publication of the April and October issues in which it appears. And starting with Mikey's very first "Analog Corner," from July 1995, I have been…
I keep getting older. By the time you read this, I will be genuinely old. When I was genuinely young, I bellyached, "Wires are the worst part of hi-fi—there's gotta be a way to get rid of them." I first made that statement when audio electronics and loudspeakers both still nestled inconspicuously in proper bookcases. Back then, people sitting on the sofa weren't forced to stare at diverse audio boxes and ungainly wires.
I marveled when audiophile speakers departed the bookcase and ventured into the walkabout space of the room. I laughed as they and their zip-cord tails inched nearer the…