Heard through Rockport Avior II loudspeakers and…
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One of those "OMG, it has been far too long" encounters with Kerem Küçükaslan enabled me to catch up on Nashua, New Hampshire-based Absolare's latest release, the Absolare Hybrid Stereo Power Amplifier, Signature Edition ($52,000). Using two 12AU7 or 12BH7 NOS tubes, the tube input and transistor output of the 73lb, dual-mono hybrid delivers 275Wpc into 4 ohms and maybe 175Wpc into 8 ohms. Equipped with proprietary aluminum/bronze vibration isolation feet, the amp is said to be compatible with speakers with a nominal impedance of 4–8 ohms.
A chance encounter, in MOC's interconnected ground floor Expo Halls, with Santos (Santy) Oropel of Southern California's TWIN Audio Video led to an enclosed booth where Troy Audio's Acapulco loudspeaker (36,000/pair), an improved version of the 1960 Altec Santana, held forth. The speaker cabinets are built in Riverside, CA and Oklahoma City, OK by Great Plains Audio, and house the new GPA 415-8C Biflex driver with Alnico magnet and a modified Fostex supertweeter. The full-range reflex speaker, which has no crossover, is certain to appeal to vintage loudspeaker lovers, and equally likely to…
The briefest of visits to the dCS room in Munich revealed the Vivaldi One Apex ($95,000). Originally released as the Vivaldi One in 2017 to commemorate the company's 30th Anniversary, the MQA-friendly, single chassis, all-in-one network music player, CD/SACD transport and Master Clock, upsampler and DAC has resurfaced in new Apex form. Only 50 new Vivaldi One Apex units are available. The 250 owners of the original 30th Anniversary model can upgrade to full Apex status ($9000).
The reason I didn't spend much time in the room is that a Rossini Apex DAC is on the way to Port Townsend for…
Perhaps the folks at Estelon were being intentionally tongue-in-cheek when they wrote, on their website, "By elevating the act of listening to new heights..." about the new Estelon Extreme Mk.II flagship loudspeaker (200,000/pair) whose mechanical system enables multiple height and tweeter depth adjustments to ensure stable imaging. (It also intentionally isolates the upper drivers from the speaker's bass units.)
What was anything but droll was the sound which, thanks in no small part to power and digital supplied by MSB through Kubala-Sosna cabling—internal wiring is Kubala-Sosna "pure…
One of my first stops at the Munich show was to find out who made the shiny red loudspeaker shown in an atrium room—shown in the same room as the latest gargantuan Gryphon Commander preamplifier and Apex amplifier. The striking speaker was rotating on a round platform that you couldn't miss when you entered the room. Why the rotation? It was an attractive speaker from all angles. It, uh, turns out, it was indeed a Gryphon—the EOS 2, a prototype, as text in large letters beneath clearly stated.
Benno Melgaard (above), who'd previously designed speakers for Gamut, was the mind…
A happy 35,000-foot-high encounter with Jim Thompson and John Callery of EgglestonWorks led to the unveiling of the new Oso loudspeaker ($12,895/pair). Mated with the belated show premiere of the same Doshi Evolution monoblocks ($44,000/pair, below) that graced the cover of our May 2021 issue, as well as an Innuos Statement music server and J. Sikora turntable ($21,000 without arms—see Michael Fremer's review in the forthcoming July issue), the speakers produced lovely sound.
Time was growing short on my last day at Munich High End. (Due to other pending deadlines, I left a day…
Purists might disagree, but for many listeners, having equipment that enables subtle sonic adjustments is welcome. This rings true for me, as I enjoy a wide variety of musical styles. Evidently Voxativ's Founder and Chief Engineer Inés Adler does too. Adler, a former designer of engines for Daimler's Mercedes-Benz marque, has made modern updates and options available for vintage hi-fi approaches.
The Voxativ room presented previews of a couple of forthcoming products, including upgrades to their 9.87 two-box (Pi-Monitor and Pi-Bass) speaker system (above). There's a new .01 Mid-Module…
There are no accidents, eh? A chance meeting with Wilson-Benesch's Luke Milnes, followed by several email and WhatsApp check-ins, led me to my final exhibit at Munich High End. There, in a system that also featured Audionet products, reigned the 308lb Wilson-Benesch Omnium loudspeaker ($169,000/pair), second in command in the company's reference Fibonacci Series. Containing three pairs of isobaric-loaded woofers, two additional bass drivers, one midrange unit, and the Fibonacci tweeter, this hardly diminutive loudspeaker (shown below) utilizes new bio-composite technology that replaces the…
The Wadax room brought huge gear and huge sound to Munich High End, along with a couple of new product introductions. Their main demo, in Atrium 4.2's E207 room presented the Wadax Atlantis Reference Server ($64,900) with a new, upgraded Reference PSU external power supply ($49,000) that's said to improve performance (as well it should). Its output noise is said to be crazy low: reportedly setting a record of 200nV of RMS noise from 0.1Hz to 20kHz. It uses a feedforward topology that adjusts its power regulation circuitry in real time based on current load requirements; this helps minimize…
In audio reviewing, there's a tension between scientific explanations for the qualities of the sound we hear and how the music, as conveyed through our equipment, makes us feel. Insights from the new field of interpersonal neurobiology can help us understand this conflict (footnote 1).
The distinction between our emotional response to music and our ability to describe and analyze it scientifically arises from the differing functions of the brain's right and left hemispheres. The right hemisphere is in constant communication with the autonomic nervous system (ANS) via branches of the…