Jason Victor Serinus

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SST, USSR/Volti, Maine/Nordost, Massachusetts
RMAF 2013
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Oct 21, 2013  |  0 comments
Sergey Sorokin, who deserves kudos as Russia’s first high-end manufacturer, arrived at the Marriott Denver Tech Center from Moscow a day before other exhibitors to ensure that his set-up was as close to ideal as the room allowed. Nonetheless, as John Atkinson and I learned upon listening, one of his Israeli-sourced, hand-wound transformers was damaged in transit, and insisted on humming/buzzing along with the music. Despite the unexpected accompaniment, the voice of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson singing Handel (Avie SACD) exhibited absolutely gorgeous tonalities. The great artist’s hushed sounds, even through the transformer noise, were something special. The period instrument orchestra’s bass foundation was also solid and superbly rendered.
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Stage III Concepts Cables
CES 2011
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jan 15, 2011  |  0 comments
Stage III Concepts, a Pasadena-based company whose products are distributed by Brian Ackerman of AAudio Imports, has released four newly re-engineered, top-of-the-line cables. All are part of the A.S.P. Reference series (Absolute Signal Purity), and are entirely handmade (including connectors) by Luis de la Fuente. Connectors are made of ceramic with a mixture of special resins to minimize crosstalk between pins, and the entire housing composed of carbon-fiber and epoxy resin. The wire itself is silver-palladium alloy. The A.S.P. Reference interconnect and speaker cable also sport a vacuum dielectric.

On display were the Zyklop power cord ($6000/1.5m), Gryphon interconnect ($5800/1m pair RCA, $6300/1m pair XLR), and Mantikor speaker cable ($13,200/2m pair). Besides digital and phono cables and speaker jumpers, the company sells hook-up wire for components in a variety of gauges. The least expensive, 22 AWG ($66/1.5m) is followed by 17 and 15 AWG ($280/1.5m).

Asked about the cable’s sonic properties, Ackerman replied, “It has no sound at all. It’s probably the closest thing I’ve heard to having no wire. It’s virtually invisible, like a direct connection.”

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Stage III Concepts from Pasadena
CES 2013
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jan 16, 2013  |  1 comments
I expect there’s a movie industry connection to the name of this cable company, whose new Kraken flagship power cable goes for $8400/1.5m. With internal wiring a silver-palladium alloy, the housing is a combination of carbon-fiber and epoxy resin. Even the ceramic plug is a composite, complete with pins that are a silver-copper alloy with palladium coating. They also look as good as you’d expect for cable that is 100% handmade in Pasadena.
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Stage III's New Entry-Level Cables
CES 2017
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jan 10, 2017  |  0 comments
There's no connection implied between their position on the floor in the photo above and their status as Stage III Concepts' new entry-level offerings…
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Stage III's new Flagship Leviathan
CES 2015
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jan 14, 2015  |  0 comments
Yup, they grow 'em big in Pasadena. Stage III's Leviathan power cord ($14,500/1.5m) has much larger silver-palladium conductors than the previous flagship model.
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Starting Off Saturday at RMAF Right
RMAF 2015
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Oct 08, 2015  |  7 comments
When there are over 150 exhibits to cover at an audio show, as there were at RMAF, I usually have no choice but to skip entertainment. But when Joe Reynolds of Nordost told me that I "must" hear Irish songstress and songwriter Eleanor McEvoy, whose initial work as a symphonic violinist segued into work as a session musician for U2 and Sinead O’Connor before she concentrated on songwriting and performing, I vowed to briefly stick my head into the Aspen Amphitheatre, grab a photo, and stay for part of a song.

Then I heard McEvoy, the composer of the title track of A Woman's Heart, the six-artist compilation that became Ireland's all-time best-selling CD, begin to sing her own music. . .

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Stayin' Alive with Soundstring
T.H.E. Show Newport 2012
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jun 09, 2012  |  0 comments
Bless Len Miller of Soundstring Cable Technologies for providing me with a solid presentation of John Travolta's "Stayin' Alive." As my pace increased as I attempted to cover four floors in three days, this music became a mantra of sorts.
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Staying in Touch
As We See It
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Sep 17, 2006  |  0 comments
"The trouble with some reviewers..."
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Stealth’s Thick to Thin Cables
CES 2013
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jan 16, 2013  |  0 comments
Thirteen years after the Maryland-based company’s founding, Stealth Audio Cables stand out for their unique geometry. According to R&D Director Serguei I. Timachev, the cables go from thicker to thinner to assist impedance matching in analog transmission. Handmade, including the connectors, prices range, to use interconnects as an example, from the “amorphous wire in Helium, VanCross geometry of Sakra v12 ($12,000/1m pair) to the pure 99.99% solid-core Gold Signal of PGS rev08 ($1000/1m pair).
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Stein Goes for the Gold
Munich 2022News
Jason Victor Serinus  |  May 25, 2022  |  9 comments
Holger Stein may be one of the softer-spoken men in the audio business, but he's hardly shy when it comes to attracting attention. For eye candy alone, Stein Music's new Bob XL Plus Ultimate loudspeaker (€348,000/pair) had few rivals at Munich High End.
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