Jason Victor Serinus

A chance encounter, in MOC's interconnected ground floor Expo Halls, with Santos (Santy) Oropel of Southern California's TWIN Audio Video led to an enclosed booth where Troy Audio's Acapulco loudspeaker (€36,000/pair), an improved version of the 1960 Altec Santana, held forth. The speaker cabinets are built in Riverside, CA and Oklahoma City, OK by Great Plains Audio, and house the new GPA 415-8C Biflex driver with Alnico magnet and a modified Fostex supertweeter. The full-range reflex speaker, which has no crossover, is certain to appeal to vintage loudspeaker lovers, and equally likely to win over converts to the cause. If only the late Art Dudley were here to report about how it sounds.

One of those "OMG, it has been far too long" encounters with Kerem Küçükaslan enabled me to catch up on Nashua, New Hampshire-based Absolare's latest release, the Absolare Hybrid Stereo Power Amplifier, Signature Edition ($52,000). Using two 12AU7 or 12BH7 NOS tubes, the tube input and transistor output of the 73lb, dual-mono hybrid delivers 275Wpc into 4 ohms and maybe 175Wpc into 8 ohms.

When I reviewed the Moonriver 404 Reference integrated amplifier in the February 2021 issue, I noted that the then-recent fire in the AKM factory in Japan had left the company without chips for the unit's optional DAC. A year later, that issue has been resolved.

CH Precision made a move equally smart and enlightening. Rather than devote endless minutes to introducing the new CH Precision C1.2 DAC/Controller, they harnessed many of their finest components together for a demo, which Jim Austin attended at a different time, in which Kevin Wolff compared the sound of various silver disc formats. Thanks to the wise music choices of Kevin Wolff and Roy Gregory, it was time well-spent.

Two years ago, Dan Roemer founded Perlisten loudspeakers. Just one year later, when the company went public, their inventory already included 25 different speaker models. I don't know about you, but I find that an astounding achievement.

Mansour Mamaghani, founder and managing director of Audio Reference Munich (above), quietly commandeered one of the largest showrooms in the MOC's Atrium to present an impressive living color array of components that extended far beyond Wilson, D'Agostino, Perlisten, VTL, Nordost, VPI, and Krell. Although sonics were far from ideal during the press conference—VTL's pairing with Wilson and Nordost fared best—I finally got the lowdown on Krell's forthcoming 160lb. KSA-i400 power amplifier (below; $35,000 in stereo, or $70,000/monoblock pair) from Krell's COO, Walter Schofield. A matching preamp ($TBD) is in the works.

Gone are the days of blacks and grays. Thanks in large part to the new face of Wilson Audio, color reigned supreme in Audio Reference Munich's impressive Atrium spread.