Also seen in the Canadian Pavilion at SSI 2013: Simaudio Moon 600i integrated amps (125Wpc), in a choice of red or blue finish. The price of these limited-edition amps has yet to be determined; the 600i’s normal retail price is $9500.
The stats are impressive: Quebec's Oracle Audio Technologies, formerly Trans Audio (footnote 1), has been in business for 37 years, during which they've sold nearly 11,000 Oracle Delphi turntables. That's not bad for a perfectionist turntableand especially not bad for a perfectionist turntable whose first and most estimable competitor, the Linn Sondek LP12, was well established by the time of the Delphi's debut, in 1979.
The Oracle Audio system that sounded so lovely included the two most recent entries in the company’s Paris line of products: the Paris CD 250 CD player and Paris DAC 250 D/A converter, both pictured above ($3750 apiece). Other highlights were the current Oracle Delphi turntable with Oracle SME arm and Benz-made Corinth Reference cartridge (a $22,500 package), Paris phono stage ($1795), Delphi SI 1000 MOSFET integrated amplifier ($12,500), and Focal Grand Utopia Scala loudspeakers ($32,000/pair), with all-Kimber Kable wiring.
Let’s get right to it: The Coup de Foudre system comprising DeVore Fidelity Orangutan O/96 loudspeakers ($12,000/pair), Leben CS300XS integrated amplifier ($3795) and RS30EQ phono preamp ($2795), Hommage T2 phono transformer ($4995), EMT TSD-15 phono cartridge ($1800), Brinkmann Bardo I turntable with Origin Live Encounter arm ($7990 and $2000, respectively), and Box Furniture 3S3 stand ($2300) was nothing less than wonderful: easily in the show’s Top Five, and quite possibly the best of the bunch. The star was the latest pre-production iteration of the O/96, a 96dB sensitive (geddit?) loudspeaker that uses a 10" paper-cone woofer and a 1" silk-dome tweeter in a wide-faced (geddit?) box with a birch-ply baffle and MDF everything else. Their presentation was solid, substantial, rich, and colorful, with great touch, timing, and, above all, dynamics. Flesh and blood? The system was like a day at the butcher shopbut everyone was smiling, and there were no straw boaters.
Asked how to make a guitar, the celebrated luthier Wayne Henderson offered a straight-up answer: "Just get a pile of really nice wood and a whittling knife. Then you just carve away everything that isn't a guitar." (footnote 1)
The making of a preamplifier seems more or less the opposite. You start with a simple volume control and a couple of jacks, then add whatever you think constitutes a preamplifier. Choices might include electronic source switching, line-level gain, phono-level gain and equalization, tone controls, tone-defeat switches, a balance control, a headphone jack, an iPod input, and maybe even a digital-to-analog converter with a USB receiver. The sky is pretty much the limit.
Whether one was surprised, in 2010, by the success of Peachtree Audio's iDecco may have more to do with age than anything else. My peers and I wondered, at first, who would want their high-end integrated amps to come bundled not only with digital-to-analog converters but with iPod docks, of all things; at the same time, younger hobbyists wondered who in the world still wanted their integrated amps to contain phono preamplifiers. (Respect for the elderly, myself especially, prevents me from adding "and mono switches.") Color me chastened.
One year ago almost to the day as I write, Peachtree Audio invited me and other members of the audio press to the New York City retail shop Stereo Exchange, where various announcements regarding the brand were bundled, by the company's Jim Spainhour and David Solomon, under the virtual banner "PEACHTREE 2.0." Among the news: Peachtree, based in Bellevue, Washington, would now be manufacturing their nova integrated amplifiers in Canadathe company's previous offerings were all made in Chinaand they'd signed up a new design and engineering team.
As with so many other things, from cell phones to soy milk, the idea of a portable MP3 player was something I at first disdained, only to later embrace with the fervor of any reformed sinner. But not so the idea of a high-fidelity iPod dock: Given that I now carry around several hundred high-resolution AIFF files on my own Apple iPod Touch, the usefulness of a compatible transport seemed obvious from the start. Look at it this way: In 1970, whenever I bought a music recording, I could enjoy it on any player, in any room in the house. In 2010, why shouldn't I enjoy at least that degree of convenience and flexibilitywithout resorting to a pair of tinny, uncomfortable earbuds?