Featuring component debuts from Japan's Air-Tight, with senior Air-Tight representatives in attendance, AXISS Audio's lineup included the Reed Muse 1C turntable ($14,000 for standard finish, $15,500 for birch), Reed 5T Laser Tracking tonearm ($21,500), with Air-Tight Opus One MC cartridge ($17,500), into the Air-…
1. Dutch & Dutch model 8c speakers.
And here's a list of all the audio electronics in the Dutchies' 11th-floor room at AXPONA:
1. Dutch & Dutch model 8c speakers.
That's it. Other than the brutalist-looking Sound Anchor ADJ speaker stands, there was no associated gear. That's because the 8cs, reviewed in Stereophile by Kalman Rubinson here and by John Atkinson here, are DSP-equipped active speakers that are meant to be used with a networked source like a laptop or tablet.
As for the…
On static display, the 136-year old company introduced new products, including the YH-5000SE Open-back wired Orthodynamic® headphones ($4999), RN2000A Network Receiver ($3999), legacy A-S3200 and A-S2200 integrated amplifiers, new HA-L7A USB DAC headphone amplifier (price unavailable), and prototype NS-2000A floorstanding loudspeakers ($7998/pair).
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When Jurewicz fired up the Empire Streamer (above) and Empire monoblocks (below), playing Roxy Music's…
The Ohio company recently launched a product that approaches streamable music from the other direction: What if you already have a good pair of speakers . . . and are in the market for a versatile,…
At AXPONA, SOTA co-owner Donna Bodinet (above) was displaying their new Quasar model (below), which moves the suspension-less Urban product series a few steps upmarket. At $2995 without arm, it employs a new three-phase AC synchronous motor controlled by the Condor PSU developed by SOTA in cooperation with Phoenix Engineering, Unusually, 78rpm speed is included in addition to…
One recent project is Kassem's reissues of titles from the Contemporary Records catalog, recordings from the 1950s and '60s which have been praised by audiophiles for…
Ralph Abram of Plinius Audio Sales and Repair, and Plinius's own Johnny Harrison, were spinning The Beatles' Abbey Road on an Acoustic Signature Typhoon turntable ($17,995, below) with an Acoustic Signature TA 500 tonearm ($7895), running a Grado Aeon 3 phono cartridge ($6000). The sound was generally sweet and detailed, but muffled, and frankly, not loud enough for this New Yawker (see below).
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For 15% of that fortune, could an Acora speaker further down the line, like the SRC-1 ($35,000/pair), keep pace? I found out in Mimic Audio's dealer room on the hotel's 12th floor, where a high-level UN meeting of sorts was going on, with brands from four countries.
Acora's generously-chamfered, two-way bass-reflex columns, in white granite, had…