But what's that little thing on top? That's the CT-1, a line tester that Dussun will loan to customers who buy the conditioners.
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Dussun was showing a line of power conditioners (500W, 800W, and 1200W) that offered waveform shaping, regulation, isolation, and DC suppression. Oh yeah, and they offer 85% efficiency. The X-1200 retails for $2500.
Plug the CT-1 into an outlet and it will measure the THD+N noise carried on your line. You can plug headphones into the output to hear the noise pollution, or you can measure it with a test instrument. The CT-1 will also alert you to DC on your line.
We went to the "audio district" of GuangZhou—in China, all shops of similar character tend to group together, so the audio district is where all the hi-fi shops are. Actually, they're there twice: many store have display showrooms in the central mall and listening rooms ranked along a nearby alley.
EMG, or Elegant Music Garden, was probably the fanciest of the lot. It had an illuminated display floor and various bits of gear displayed like museum pieces all about the lobby. The listening rooms were up a grand staircase.
We were there in the middle of the afternoon and the…
Down the street, we found a store running an active demo that had these strange devices flanking the loudspeakers. Seated on their own speaker stands, they had thin wires connecting on the positive inputs of both loudpseaker and super tweeter.
"What do they do?" I asked.
"They are soundfield enhancers."
"How do they work?"
"They are passive."
"If they are passive, why are they connected in line to the speaker inputs?"
A long explanation in Mandarin followed, which my translator declined to translate. I think it was, in essence, "Run along kid…
Actually, I have no idea what Sheng Ya means, but at the Sheng Ya showroom, I felt right at home. There were audiophiles hanging out, listening, and, of course, yakking when we walked in. The sales guy was really into what he was doing and immediately began playing these interesting looking speakers made by Consonance.
Wow. I don't think I've ever heard saxophone reproduced better. Was it the horn loaded tweeter? No clue, but I could have camped on that sofa for hours.
A side note to American dealers: This store subtly used what appeared to be decorative embellishments (…
All the way across town from the audio market is the area where used equipment and parts are sold. Many small shops are specialists, such as this transformer kiosk. Not only can you buy thousands of transformers, but you can pick up plates and wire and roll your own.
You can almost see the plates display all the way to the left.
Own the 12" acetate of The Velvet Underground with Nico for only $110,000. For that price I'd at least want an intact banana sticker.
Some questionable calls here. "Daydream Believer?" Did Boyce and Hart ever write a wussy song? Also some good advice: "Waltz time is a direct, foolproof route to wussiness."
However, whichever young whippersnapper wrote this list has no clue how revolutionary "When I'm 64" sounded in the midst of the youthquake. Bah humbug.