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Ming Da's MC66E headphone amp really juiced my lizard. It boasts a 15Hz–50kHz frequency response and put out 42Wpc (92dB), using two 6N6 and one 12AX7 tubes. Not available in the US, it sells for 1760RMB, or about $210 USD.
These behemoths from Jungson have no English name, although they do have a US price: $49,000/pair. The bottom cabinet sports a 13" woofer and the top pod has a 4" ribbon tweeter. The midrange and midrange/woofer drivers are ceramic drivers from the German manufacturer Thiel, but nobody knew their sizes.
All three pods move together to adjust focus based on room size and the sound in a small hotel room was surprisingly good, if a little hot for my taste.
Beautifully made, but a little scary in aspect, don't you think?
Classic Radio's JR-455 was giving me goosebumps. Tube warmth and precise analog tuning pulled in some of the most satisfying sound of the show. I didn't get the list price on this baby, but I did get a look at its naughty bits.
The Classic Radio JR-455 from the other side. Kids, this is how they used to make 'em back when radios were built like cathedrals.
I bought the Classic Radio R601P on the spot. Beautiful walnut cabinet, warm tube sound, and that lovely magic tuning tube below the dial—all for under $500.
Tasty!
I was listening to Barque & Consonance's Opera Audio Consonance M-15 loudspeakers when Lino Faragi introduced himself. "I'm that crazy European guy who opened up a hi-fi shop in China—the first non-Asian to do high-end here," he said, handing me a card for Sound & Vision in Shanghai. "We do things a little differently. Come see us."
Why, I believe I may.
Barque & Consonance's Opera Consonance M15 mates a 15" woofer with a unique multicell horn tweeter. Sensitivity is 98dB (!) and frequency range is rate at 30Hz–20kHz. The tweeter handles everything above 500Hz. Price would be around $10,000/pair USD, not including distribution costs.
They were stunningly dynamic and not shouty at all—at least on the acoustic vocal music I was listening to. I walked back in a few minutes later and they were pumping out amplified music, which was not to my taste at all.
After my first few days wandering through the show, I began to wonder where all the Chinese speakers were—the relatively normal ones, I mean.
This is YiZhen Yao, standing next to his Elite Performance 10s. It's a one-box cabinet, even though it looks like two, and it sports a Morel D-29 tweeter, and kevlar sandwich 6.5" midrange and 10" woofers—both manufactured by Elite.
Driven by Jimmy Yu's Classic components, they delivered relaxed, natural sound that was a real oasis at the show.
NuForce's S-9 was pretty interesting, too. The cabinet is constructed of birch plywood laminations, which creates both the inner and outer profiles. The tweeter is mounted into a fairly deep horn and flanked by the twin midrange/woofers. There's a built-in switchable Zobel filter and an external crossover, which can be purchased as active or passive. Speaker wire is included in the S-9's $5500/pair (USD) price.
With quiet acoustic music and vocals, I was quite impressed by the S-9's clarity and natural, extended harmonic overtones. Based on the steep flare of the horn surrounding…
Zhou Yi of W'inner is kind of a crazy guy—audiophile crazy. His stuff is all big, and so are his aspirations. He really likes class-A, too.
He's squatting next to his $2300 (USD—although it is not distributed in the US) AD-9800B, which is sort of a multichannel integrated. He also likes multichannel high-rez, so he built a 7.1 integrated with an LCD display for navigating SACD and DVD-A programs.
He was just playing two of the 150W channels and the Dynaudio Countour 1.4s were singing mighty prettily.