Frank Schroeder
Hey, have you met Frank Schroeder?
Gradient Helsinki
See this little guy? It's the Gradient Helsinki ($8000/pair). I'm a big fan of this weird-ass speaker. Rather than placing its drive-units within a cabinet, the drive-units are laid bare, free for the world to see, mounted onto the speaker's narrow body. Why? Free love. Free love! Cabinet resonances are eliminated. The Helsinki's dipole-radiation woofer projects sound from side to side, canceling out top-to-bottom sound waves and minimizing deleterious room reflections.
Gradient Laura
And here is Walter Swanbon of Fidelis AV, importer for Harbeth and Gradient loudspeakers. Here you can get a better sense of the size of the M40.1 loudspeakers. To Walter's left is the newest member of the Gradient family, the Laura ($3995/pair). Intended for use in conjunction with the Helsinki or as a stereo pair, the Laura employs a coaxial drive unit and is designed to be positioned in close proximity to the front wall of your listening room. It's pretty, too.
Hansen, BAT, dCS, and TARA Pack Them In
The room was standing-room only, with three rows of chairs, both side walls, and the back walls filled with folks eager to hear one of the dream systems assembled by Denver retailer Audio Unlimited. Where shall we begin: the dCS Scarlatti Stack which consists of the CD/SACD transport, DAC, master clock, and upsampler/digital-to-digital converter (by my math $81,000 total, and by anyone's math a fair hunk of change); the BAT REX linestage ($20,000), BAT VK-P10SE phono stage with new Super Pak Premiere ($16,000), BAT VK-600M SE monoblocks ($26,000); Running Springs Audio Dmitri Conditioner Premiere ($4,000); Hansen's new Audio Emperor loudspeakers ($60,000/pair); or the little bundle of TARA Omega Gold and 0.8 cables that together cost at $36,000 but probably far more? The take-no-prisoners sound was stunning. So stunning that some of the people were pinned to the back wall. Wow!
Harbeth M40.1
Standing beside my friend, the Gradient Helsinki, is the Harbeth M40.1 ($12,995/pair), recently reviewed by Art Dudley. It's actually larger than it appears in this photo. I love its old-school wide-baffle design.
Headroom and Denon
Headroom's Tyll Hertsens and Ivy Scull. Tyll is the president and CEO, and Ivy is the VP of sales and marketing. These two know headphones and they know headphone amplifiers and they know which headphones to use with which headphone amplifiers. Beyond all that, they're really nice people to be around.
Headroom's Desktop System
"But what I really want you to listen to is this."
Immedia
Allen Perkins and Immedia put together another great-sounding room.
International Effort
In one huge room at Hyatt, I encountered a truly international effort. While some parts of this system are available in the US, others are not. Hence the prices in Euros.
Is it edible?
How I wish I could have seen Stephen Mejias' reaction to the Montegiro Lusso Komplet turntable ($33,000), distributed in the US by Koetsu USA. This thing looks like a cross between a tray of black and white ice cream parfaits and something from a Fellini movie. But it sure sounded good. Equipped with two arms, from SME and DaVinci, and two Koetsu cartridges, the Coral Stone Platinum ($15,000) and Onyx Platinum ($8000), the KMLK (for short) was making magic through Chario Serendipity Sovereign loudspeakers ($17,000/pair).