"Come back later," Sasha Case said. "We're going to demonstrate our new active, adjustable crossover and that's a difference that isn't even debatably subtle. It's amazing."
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DEQX's PDC3 preamp/processor (price tdb) combines an analog preamplifier with a DAC and measurement-driven DSP. In a hotel room with zero treatment, Jon Iverson and I were enthralled by the three dimensional soundstaging of a pair of B&W 805s and a pair of B&W ASW 700s. Nope, it wasn't because the CD player was fabulous, either—it was solid, but not audiophile approved.
As we were walking out of DLS' room, we passed Supro Cables' display. "Are those Deltron connectors?" I asked.
"No, they're CombiComs ($40/pair). Terminate the wire to the end-piece and you can then screw in a pressure sleeve or spade lug." Good contact, good copper, good idea.
The Sooloos display comes with a built-in CD slot for loading your music onto the server. The $4400 Control:One touch-screen display/controller is pretty slick. The CD ripper is in the base—unobtrusively located, might we add? Once the disc is ripped, all of All Media Guide's metadata is automatically entered, so you could, for example, locate any recording in your collection with Phil Lesh playing bass. Oh wait—maybe we should have used an example with somebody who changed bands more frequently.
Sooloos is a company to watch, and here's the crew assembled in one room: Angus MacDonald, Enno Vandermeer, Rob Darling & Sandro Pugliese. These guys cringed if we even discussed anything less than full-resolution CD on their system.
What's in a name? "It's a palindrome, sort of an anagram, and an ambigram," said Rob Darling. It's pronounced, "su loose," by the way.
"We all ripped our CDs to computer 8 years ago," Rob said. "That was easy—everything else about the experience was a nightmare. Who relates to lists? We decided we needed a graphic, touchscreen controlled interface that worked seamlessly with no user effort. That's what Sooloos is all about."
"Oh yes, we couldn't stand compression, so it had to work with FLAC—and if we weren't using compression, then sound quality mattered, so no fans and…
Hansen Audio needed a speaker that wasn't quite as, um, lordly as its $65,000/pair King floorstanders, so Lars Hansen designed the $49,000/pair Emperors. The four driver three-ways are constructed of Hansen's composite matrix material in an enclosure that employs Sound Wave Refraction Distortion Elimination technology. The midrange (7.2") and bass (10.6") drivers are all multilayer composite sandwiches.
Driven by an Audio Aero SACD player and the Convergent Audio Technology's SL1 Ultimate Mk. II preamp and JL2 Signature power amps, the Emperors sounded quite regal. We suspect they…
Roy Hall was blunt as usual. "I'm bringing in some obscenely expensive tubes. They're Telefunken ECC803Ses, which is one of the best tubes available, but Cool Valve measures them and selects the most perfectly matched, and then bonds their EAT Cool Damper to them. The result is lower operational temperatures, longer life, and lower microphonics. They cost . . . "
My hearing must have stopped at that point—or else I couldn't make any sense of what Roy had said. "Say again?"
"They cost $250 each." Pause. "You know me, I'm cheap. I'd never even consider them, except they work…
If $250 per tube seems too dear, you can supply your own 12AX7, ECC 83, E83CC, 7025, 5751, 7058, 7729, 6681, CV492, CV8156, or 6057—and add Cool Valve's Eat Cool dampers for $40 each, as seen on the right..
Proac's $6000/pair Response D-28 was making real music connected to Sugden's $3000 CD21SE and $4000 A21SE 30Wpc integrated amplifier. I eyed the 42.5" floorstander, noting its 1" silk dome tweeter and 6.5" midrange/woofer—but I saw no port.
Had Proac gone to a sealed-box enclosure? Then my eagle eyes bespied a slight elevation of the cabinet off the plinth. I reached down to check—and yes! There was a downfiring port.
Of course, Jon Iverson caught me in the almost proctological examination position.
Sugden's US importer analog George Stanwick proudly preens with his A21SE 30wpc Class-A integrated amp and CD21SE CD player. What made the Keith Jarrett trio sound so good—was it the electronics or was it the Proac Response D28s?
"We think it's the combination of great loudspeakers and well-built electronics," he answered diplomatically.
"And maybe the new Proac speaker cables," Proac's Richard Gerberg added.
"And that, of course," Stanwick said diplomatically.