Hands down, the most impressive full-range system I encountered during my first hours in T.H.E. Hilton on Day 2 of T.H.E. Show Newport Beach was jointly sponsored by Synergistic Research and Scott Walker Audio of Anaheim. Held in the freezing Crystal Ballroom, which definitely called for hot music as an antidote to potential hyperthermia, the system paired Magico Q7 loudspeakers ($185,000/pair), VAC's Master Signature preamp w/phono ($40,000) and State monoblocks ($78,000/pair) with an unidentified computer audio/music server set-up and unauditioned Kronos Sparta turntable with arm ($28,000) and Sonorus ATR open-reel machine ($17,500).
Ever the audio expert, and always the music lover, Philip O'Hanlon of On a Higher Note distribution managed to produce enough top end in his smaller, mood-lit room to go a long way toward compensating for the ground floor's acoustically-generated grayness. Baritone Matthias Goerne's voice sounded very warm and simply gorgeous, as did a cut from Illinois Jacquet's fabulous Birthday Party LP. Images were huge and deep, with surprisingly profound bass.
Another great singer/songwriter at the Atrium Poolside was Audra Lee. Check her out on YouTube or her Facebook page. Gratitude to Richard Beers and Bob Levi for such great entertainment.
Entering the first of four rooms sponsored by Brian Berdan's Audio Element of Pasadena felt like coming home. Not only was I among familiar friendsWilson Audio Sasha Series 2 loudspeakers ($29,950/pair); mighty VTL Siegfried Reference monoblocks Series II ($65,000/pair), accompanied by VTL's TL-7.5 Reference line preamplifier Series III ($25,000) and TP-6.5 Signature phono stage ($12,000); dCS four-stack, state-of-the-art Vivaldi Digital Playback System ($108,996 total); Transparent Opus MM and Reference cables ($105,500 total); Grand Prix Audio Silverstone 4-shelf Isolation system ($19,175), Monaco-5 shelf Isolation system ($8400), and Formula Platforms ($6900); Audience AdeptResponse aR12TSS power conditioner ($11,545); and, a bit less familiar, Grand Prix Audio Monaco 1.5 turntable ($23,500) with new Tri-Planar SE tonearm ($7500) and luscious Lyra Etna cartridge ($6995)but I also finally heard a quality of musical presentation that decades upon decades of attending live performance have led me to hunger for.
Friday morning, May 30, was Day One of T.H.E Show Newport Beach. With the opening bell struck, as it were, by a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the lobby of the Hilton that I miss due to a very slow kitchen at the adjacent Atrium hotel, I dash from hotel to hotel to discover, instead of a frayed red Mylar ribbon or a row of hot, class-A amplifiers, a line of audio hot-rodded classic and contemporary cars.
Wilson Audio Specialties' Sasha Series 2 loudspeaker ($29,500/pair), which began shipping in March, celebrated its formal California debut on Saturday, May 24, at Music Lovers Audio in San Francisco. Handsomely accompanied by recording engineer Peter McGrath (above), Wilson's Director of Sales for North America, and Rich Maez of Boulder Amplifiers, whose electronics joined a dCS front end and cabling from Shunyata, Transparent, and Synergistic Research, the Sasha Series 2, aka Sasha 2, more than lived up to its promise in a less-than-ideal room whose set-up included Synergistic Research’s HFTs and FEQ and Grand Prix Audio’s Monaco equipment racks.
No sooner has the Munich Show ended than T.H.E. Show Newport Beach is set to commence. Running from May 30 through June 1 in the Hilton/Atrium hotel complex that lies directly across the street from Orange County's John Wayne Airport, Southern California's installment of T.H.E. Show promises well over 300 exhibitors in 180 active sound rooms, 4045 additional headphone exhibits scattered over two Headphoniums and other locations, and at least 15 vendor booths crammed with goodies galore.
I don't want to wax biblical here, but in Stereophile's world of show reports, the last shall be first, and the first, last. Thus we begin our coverage of the final day with the last system I auditioned at AXPONA 2014. Welcome to Goerner Communications' room on the Westin O'Hare's third floor.
I have no idea exactly what was in use in the McIntosh room, because both times I paid a visit, the exhibitor was too involved in demonstrating the system's "Room Correction" component to stop to chat. Regardless, the sound was very, very goodjust what you'd expect from a McIntosh system that can control challenging hotel acousticsand the demo far more convincing than my mother's apple pie.
This compact system, in which Monitor Audio's Gold GX 200 loudspeakers ($4500/pair) and brand new Silver 10 loudspeakers ($2500/pair) mated with the Cyrus Lyric 09 all-in-one class-D system ($6499, due in June or July), sounded very fine through Nordost Red Dawn cabling. Especially when I moved up a bit from the back wall, I noted how controlled and musical the system sounded at the start of the Budapest Festival Orchestra's Channel Classics recording of Mahler Symphony 2, and how good the bass was.