Mexican electronics company Margules and Denmark's Raidho speakers, both brands represented by distributor Bruce Ball's AV Luxury Goods, have a rare synergy. I first got to experience it at the 2022 AXPONA, where a duo of Margules U280-sc tube amps drove a pair…
search
If you're pressed for time at a busy audio show, it can be a mistake to walk into a room just to say hi to an industry contact. Should the music speak to you, and the sound is dead-on, you may succumb to the temptation to sit down for a longer-than-expected listen. That's what occurred this morning. You know what? I regret nothing.
Mind if I slap some quick virtual labels on Gershman Acoustics' $17,000 pair of Grande Avant Garde speakers? From my notes: "Very big-sounding for small floorstanders." "Their brawn belies their size." "Elegant overachievers."
They're all that. At 89lb each and just 39" tall, the three-and-a-half–way dynamic Grande Avant Gardes ought to be top contenders for audiophiles who want full-range sound (down to 20Hz, according to the specs!) but have no use for speakers the size of coffins.
Even long-time fans of the brand might get a surprise when they hear the latest iteration—a 30th-…
At 32, David Strunk is one of the younger designers and entrepreneurs at the Florida show—and yet he's somewhat of a veteran. Strunk started seriously tinkering with electronics and audio when he was still in britches. Four years ago, he and his father, Tim, started Endow Audio with a hugely ambitious goal: redefining high-end speakers' capacity for sounding just like live music.
In 2019, the Strunks made a splash with their out-of-the-box FS301 point-array loudspeaker. I could describe its otherworldly looks, but it's probably best if you take a gander at the photo that accompanies JVS's…
No hyperbole, no exaggeration: This morning, a pair of Danish speakers made me cry. Not mainly because of the hole they'd be burning in my meager finances if I actually shelled out the $100,000 needed to own them, but because of the emotions they evoked . . . without even seeming to break a sweat.
What's extra crazy is that the song that made my eyes well up wasn't some audiophile chestnut. In fact, by today's standards, the 1964 recording leaves lots to be desired. The music was "And I Love Her" by the Beatles, streamed from Qobuz, and the speakers were a pair of just-launched,…
On the third and last day of the Florida Audio Expo, I realized I hadn't listened to Von Schweikert speakers in donkey's years. With only 35 minutes to spare till closing time, I made my way to the third-floor room where, according to the show literature, I should hear a pair of Von Schweikert Endeavor floorstanders ($31,000) being driven by a generous complement of multikilobuck tube components in a room cosponsored by Scott Walker Audio. Sure enough, the candy-apple-red speakers were there, tethered to a VAC Master Signature preamp ($44,000 with a phono stage) and VAC Master 300 monoblocks…
A friend had advised me to go listen to the single-ended Auris Nirvana IV headphone amplifier ($5700), deeming it "in some ways" an improvement over Auris's beloved Headonia model. Mission accepted.
I found the Nirvana IV in the Moon Audio room, where Moon founder and CEO Drew Baird set me up with Audeze LCD-5 headphones, the successor to the (heavier) LCD-4s that I occasionally still rock if my poor neck can bear it. Associated equipment consisted of an Aurender ACS10 streamer ($6500) and the iconic Chord Qutest DAC ($2125). Cables were Moon Audio's own Black Dragons; tubes were…
I've drifted away from using headphones in recent years, not because I don't enjoy them but because I enjoy them a little too much. That is, I tend to get into the swing of things when I wear them, and am soon inclined to turn up the volume as my excitement rises. That way lies tinnitus, which isn't a lot of fun.
While my collection of personal audio is pretty much complete (with high-end entries from HiFiMan, Audeze, Focal, and Sennheiser), I'd consider an addition from Britain's Warwick Acoustics if I were currently in the market for further headphone bliss. Warwick's Aperio Black (…
Although TAD is a Japanese brand, there's something dry, almost German about the name, which stands for Technical Audio Devices. It's comparable, in my book, to T+A, one of Germany's leading high-end companies, whose initials mean Theorie + Anwendung—that's Theory + Application. I like this just-the-facts approach, as long as the products leave room for emotion . . . maybe even a spot of sorcery. On that score, no worries about either brand.
After a years-long absence, TAD is back on the US market, represented by Dave Malekpour of Massachusetts' PAD Hifi Distribution (PAD stands for…
Poor Tom Graham. At the Florida Audio Expo, the amiable Naim product specialist found himself hamstrung by the two rooms at his disposal: one a small boîte with an orange pair of Focal Sopra 3 speakers ($26,000) powered by Naim electronics, and an only slightly larger adjoining space where 300,000 dollars' worth of Naim Statement gear did its best to make Focal's rather beefy Maestro Utopia EVOs sing.
I auditioned the $76,000/pair Maestro at two audio shows in 2022. In Chicago, they occupied a ballroom-type hall; in Seattle, a few months later, they stood in a low-ceilinged but pretty…
In Tampa, Latvian brand Aretai made another very good impression with its 100S speaker, a 2.5-way standmount in a sealed box ($9000/pair). Visually this speaker was among the more arresting offerings at the Florida expo: a neodymium-magnet tweeter in a handsome white horn sits atop a 16"-tall, matte-black enclosure. (The 100S is also available in piano gloss and various wood veneers.) Each speaker has two 6" drivers that deliver bass down to about 32Hz. The low-frequency onslaught that is Massive Attack's "Angel" sounded remarkably tight—a consequence of the sealed design, explained founder…