How much does it cost?
"The product stays the same price and every unit prior to the 2.1 version is eligible for the upgrade."
How do people find out about the upgrade?
"We announced it on www.audiocircle.com and now we're going through our warranty cards and notifying our customers—and I guess people will read about it on your blog."
One can…
Both amps feature PrimaLuna's adaptive auto bias so you can stick in any tube and the amp will optimize performance for it.
"So you're enabling tube rolling?" I asked Kevin Deal.
"You bet! Tube rolling is…
"What's so different about it?" I asked.
"Two words," Kevin said. "Tube clock! That means linear ultra-low-jitter performance."
Other details: Tube rectified power supply; dual mono, zero-feedback output stage, and custom designed isolation transformers separating the analog and digital circuits.
Before anything, I received an e-mail from a New York City friend, asking: "Can you smell that where you are?"
Apparently, in New York City, a gas line broke. Or was it thermal inversion? Something was causing a gas-like odor to drop over the city like a lid over a pot. In the New York City area, strange odors come and go, often never to be identified.
I'm alone in my hotel room, now, at 12:34am (EST), thinking about the length of this day, thinking of how this morning seems so far away, wanting to go to sleep, wanting to be forgotten as easily as a New…
Our Product of the Year trophies. It is an absolute pleasure to create and present these awards.
"I'll follow you."
I walk down the busy Venetian corridor with Sonic Flare's Josh Ray. I'm shoved, gently but thoroughly, from behind. I notice a bright green and yellow top. I notice black leather pants. I notice lots of tube blingware. And a:
"Watch out! Coming through!"
"I was just pushed by EveAnna Manley," I say.
"That's going in the blog," Josh responds.
During a lull in the award presentations, John Atkinson and I were visited by Bent Holter, technical director of Norway's Hegel Music Systems. The company, founded in 1990, has just gained US distribution through VMAX Services. I caught up with Bent after the awards.
Here you see Bent offering his 120Wpc entry-level H1 integrated amplifier ($2595). I appreciate the simple, clean design. I also appreciate Bent's excellent smile.
I had the pleasure of becoming familiar with Hegel's CDP2A ($2595). Like the H1 integrated amplifier, it offers a clean, simple design, and features a nicely curved front panel of milled aluminum.
All of Hegel's products employ their patented "Sound Engine Technology." What's that? "It's a dynamic real-time cancelling of error in the system." Bent Holter happily and patiently explained to me (with diagrams and all!) that the "Sound Engine Technology" utilizes a "threshold detector," which identifies, calculates, and eliminates error in the playback chain.
I…