McIntosh kept the lights low in their room to show off the new C220 vacuum tube preamp. Who can resist the alluring glow of green tubes? Retail is $3,300 for the C220 which also features an ingenious headphone mute feature and electronic level adjustment for each of eight source inputs.
Being able to listen to discs from audiophile labels is one of the great benefits of an audio show. M•A Recordings Todd Garfinkle (second from left) assists music fans.
Music Hall's Roy Hall and Leland Leard flank the new Shanling integrated amp that Robert Deutsch describes below.
Here's another shot of the Ask The Editors seminar, this time from the audience.
Guitarist Anthony Wilson, whose new album with his 9-piece band, "The Power of Nine" was featured in the May <I>Stereophile</I>, turned in a blistering set of hard-blowing jazz Friday afternoon at Home Entertainment 2006, courtesy of AudioQuest, Audio Research, and Vandersteen.
In the Show's ongoing HE Luminaries series, Jim Thiel, founder of Thiel Audio, talked to John Atkinson about his ideas on speaker design, and the evolution of his speakers through the years, including the new CS3.7, which made its debut at HE2006.
Ask the Editors: the view from the stage. The questions this year did <I>not</I> include the usual ones about which exhibits people liked the most, recommendations about tweaks, and why <I>Stereophile</I> doesn’t do blind testing in all reviews. Instead, there were questions about things like intellectual property rights, the future of various audio formats, and whether multichannel represents a worthwhile enhancement of the music-listening experience. Very polite and friendly.
Shanling is known for the striking industrial design of their tube electronics. Seen in the Music Hall room, the new A500 integrated amp ($6499) maintains the striking looks, but it's solid-state. Lots of nice blue lights, though.
A gaggle of Clearaudio turntables. "They’re only a fraction of the ones that are available," said Garth Leerer of US importer Musical Surroundings.