In the bookshelf Platinum 100 ($4295/pair plus stands) and the tower Platinum 300 ($8995/pair) a wide-bandwidth, ceramic-coated ribbon tweeter, combined with lower-range drivers that use aluminum-honeycomb diaphragms and…
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English speaker company Monitor Audio has been producing a range of excellent affordable speakers since its managment buyout nine years ago, including the Silver RS6 tower that so impressed Bob Reina last March. Their suite at the Hilton, however, saw the Platinum series, an assault on the state of the speaker art from a design team led by Dean Hartley (above).
When Stereophile webmaster Jon Iverson speaks, I listen, so when, in a conversation the night before the Show opened, he mentioned that he felt wireless speakers would be big in 2007, I looked out for examples.
The advantage of going wireless, of course, is that for rear channels in particular, there can be no more of those significant-other–annoying wires draped across the floor. The KEF Wireless System features a transmitter that connects to the owner's A/V receiver and two matching wireless receivers, one of which is seen here powering the English company's R203/2 bookshelf…
When I reviewed KEF's top-line Reference 207 loudspeaker in February 2004, it featured a supertweeter perched atop the module housing the coaxial Uni-Q tweeter/midrange driver to achieve true ultrasonic performance. A redesign of the Uni-Q driver, the tweeter in particular, has meant that the supertweeter could be dispensed with for the Mk.2 version, launched at the 2007 CES.
The 2007/2 was on static display, but I very much enjoyed the sound of my new Cantus CD played on a pair of the smaller Reference 205/2 speakers, driven by an Esoteric SACD player and Audio Research…
In case you were wondering, you can find me in Vegas. Our live coverage takes you into the heart of the Consumer Electronics Show.
"I'm not done," Lew Johnson said. "I showed you our high-aspiration products, now here's one more from the heart: the ET250S is a more realistically priced product at $7500 for 250Wpc. At the heart of the amp is a single-ended triode amplifier that supplies the voltage gain. A high-current buffer stage couples that to the speaker load. That architecture gives you tube grace and finesse, but deliver all the brute force you need for any loudspeaker. We'll ship them in February."
"Here's something a little different for us," CJ's Lew Johnson continued his tour. "The $10,000 TEA1 triode equalization amplifier embodies our current understanding of the state-of-the-art in phono stage design. It's a zero loop feedback design with two tube gain stages and a passive equalization network. We put a high-current buffer stage isolates the unit from cable and other loading elements."
Anything else?
"Well, yes. It has two inputs—high gain and low gain with adjustable resistive and capacitive loading."
Lew Johnson pointed at the LP275M ($12,500). "This is something CJ hasn't done in a while: a high output tube monoblock. We use four pairs of 6550s to obtain 275W with our proprietary translinear transformers. We can configure it for 2, 4, 8, or 16 Ohm loads (standard is 4 Ohm). Like our most recent designs, we're using metal foil resistors and Teflon CJD capacitors. We'll be shipping them by February."
"Basically, we're just having too much fun," Conrad-Johnson's Lew Johnson told me. "We're introducing three new state-of-the-art products. Well, the ART Series 3 is more new and improved.
"As you know, we introduced the ART preamp in a limited edition of 250. When we upgraded it to the Art Series 2, we stayed within that number. We recently discovered we still had the metal work for the last 30 unfulfilled ARTs. Not only that, but Bill Conrad and I had I had a few ideas about improving it. As it turned out, we replaced almost everything except the metal work, which makes it a lot…
We walked in to the room and spotted a pair of floorstanding speakers. Stevie Ray Vaughan filled the room, so we assumed the floorstanders were channelling him. "Oh no, you're listening to those."
Those? They were tiny.The $3950/pair Trenner & Friedl ART Ivory minimonitors have Corian baffles and Zebrawood-veneered enclosures. The enclosure is vented and the speakers are rated from 48Hz–40kHz.
We listened to more SRV. Yup, those little guys flat-out rocked!