China Hi-Fi Tour 2006

Dussun Posted Sun Dec 3, 2006, 7:53 PM ET
By Wes Phillips

Dussun was showing a line of power conditioners (500W, 800W, and 1200W) that offered waveform shaping, regulation, isolation, and DC suppression. Oh yeah, and they offer 85% efficiency. The X-1200 retails for $2500.

But what's that little thing on top? That's the CT-1, a line tester that Dussun will loan to customers who buy the conditioners.

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W'inner Posted Sun Dec 3, 2006, 7:42 PM ET
By Wes Phillips

Zhou Yi of W'inner is kind of a crazy guy—audiophile crazy. His stuff is all big, and so are his aspirations. He really likes class-A, too.

He's squatting next to his $2300 (USD—although it is not distributed in the US) AD-9800B, which is sort of a multichannel integrated. He also likes multichannel high-rez, so he built a 7.1 integrated with an LCD display for navigating SACD and DVD-A programs.

He was just playing two of the 150W channels and the Dynaudio Countour 1.4s were singing mighty prettily.

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NuForce S-9 Posted Sun Dec 3, 2006, 5:26 PM ET
By Wes Phillips

NuForce's S-9 was pretty interesting, too. The cabinet is constructed of birch plywood laminations, which creates both the inner and outer profiles. The tweeter is mounted into a fairly deep horn and flanked by the twin midrange/woofers. There's a built-in switchable Zobel filter and an external crossover, which can be purchased as active or passive. Speaker wire is included in the S-9's $5500/pair (USD) price.

With quiet acoustic music and vocals, I was quite impressed by the S-9's clarity and natural, extended harmonic overtones. Based on the steep flare of the horn surrounding the tweeter, I expected some hootiness, which was not present at all—at least in my short audition. Some piano music played at a fairly high volume, however, sounded hard and clangy.

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Elite Speakers Posted Sun Dec 3, 2006, 5:13 PM ET
By Wes Phillips

After my first few days wandering through the show, I began to wonder where all the Chinese speakers were—the relatively normal ones, I mean.

This is YiZhen Yao, standing next to his Elite Performance 10s. It's a one-box cabinet, even though it looks like two, and it sports a Morel D-29 tweeter, and kevlar sandwich 6.5" midrange and 10" woofers—both manufactured by Elite.

Driven by Jimmy Yu's Classic components, they delivered relaxed, natural sound that was a real oasis at the show.

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B&C M15 Posted Sat Dec 2, 2006, 11:13 PM ET
By Wes Phillips

Barque & Consonance's Opera Consonance M15 mates a 15" woofer with a unique multicell horn tweeter. Sensitivity is 98dB (!) and frequency range is rate at 30Hz–20kHz. The tweeter handles everything above 500Hz. Price would be around $10,000/pair USD, not including distribution costs.

They were stunningly dynamic and not shouty at all—at least on the acoustic vocal music I was listening to. I walked back in a few minutes later and they were pumping out amplified music, which was not to my taste at all.

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I'm That Crazy Guy Posted Sat Dec 2, 2006, 11:06 PM ET
By Wes Phillips

I was listening to Barque & Consonance's Opera Audio Consonance M-15 loudspeakers when Lino Faragi introduced himself. "I'm that crazy European guy who opened up a hi-fi shop in China—the first non-Asian to do high-end here," he said, handing me a card for Sound & Vision in Shanghai. "We do things a little differently. Come see us."

Why, I believe I may.

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Mine! Posted Sat Dec 2, 2006, 10:57 PM ET
By Wes Phillips

I bought the Classic Radio R601P on the spot. Beautiful walnut cabinet, warm tube sound, and that lovely magic tuning tube below the dial—all for under $500.

Tasty!

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Innards Posted Sat Dec 2, 2006, 10:52 PM ET
By Wes Phillips

The Classic Radio JR-455 from the other side. Kids, this is how they used to make 'em back when radios were built like cathedrals.

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More Retro Radio Goodness Posted Sat Dec 2, 2006, 10:51 PM ET
By Wes Phillips

Classic Radio's JR-455 was giving me goosebumps. Tube warmth and precise analog tuning pulled in some of the most satisfying sound of the show. I didn't get the list price on this baby, but I did get a look at its naughty bits.

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No Translation Posted Sat Dec 2, 2006, 10:41 PM ET
By Wes Phillips

These behemoths from Jungson have no English name, although they do have a US price: $49,000/pair. The bottom cabinet sports a 13" woofer and the top pod has a 4" ribbon tweeter. The midrange and midrange/woofer drivers are ceramic drivers from the German manufacturer Thiel, but nobody knew their sizes.

All three pods move together to adjust focus based on room size and the sound in a small hotel room was surprisingly good, if a little hot for my taste.

Beautifully made, but a little scary in aspect, don't you think?

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Hot Head Posted Sat Dec 2, 2006, 6:43 PM ET
By Wes Phillips

Ming Da's MC66E headphone amp really juiced my lizard. It boasts a 15Hz–50kHz frequency response and put out 42Wpc (92dB), using two 6N6 and one 12AX7 tubes. Not available in the US, it sells for 1760RMB, or about $210 USD.

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Ready For Its Close Up Posted Sat Dec 2, 2006, 6:36 PM ET
By Wes Phillips

Here's a better look at the tubes from the Original CD-A6T—they're miniature 6C7B, a military tube.

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Original! Posted Sat Dec 2, 2006, 6:34 PM ET
By Wes Phillips

Original was getting great sound with its $3000 Leonardo CD-A9II CD player and AF 2008 preamp and AF-2008 monoblock power amps ($4500 for all three), played through Dynaudio Contour S 1.4s. But off to one side was a smaller CD player that caught my attention, the $800 CD-A6T. That's "T" as in tubes—you can see the little suckers up in the upper right hand corner of the PCB.

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Mr. Jimmy Yu Posted Sat Dec 2, 2006, 1:56 AM ET
By Wes Phillips

While I was drooling over the Classic No. 16.0, its equally charming designer, Mr. Jimmy Yu introduced himself to me. He seemed pleased that other people appreciated his work—and from the size of the crowd ooowing and ahhhing in the Classic room, I was far from the only one who did.

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Classic! Posted Sat Dec 2, 2006, 1:53 AM ET
By Wes Phillips

"This is Classic, one of the best Chinese audio manufacturers" said Original's Linda Ling. "Everything is so well-engineered."

Pure audio catnip—take this 40Wpc No. 16.0 tubed integrated here: potted transformers, gorgeous metal work, and that luverly retro-chic meter up front. And the price in China? About $1000 USD.

Nice.

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What's Zhou With You? Posted Sat Dec 2, 2006, 1:39 AM ET
By Wes Phillips

Show organizer Matthew Zhou is what we call an audio lifer. He wrote for hi-fi magazines for three years, penned a newspaper column on the high end for three years, has put on this show for 13 years, and has hosted a three-hour Sunday radio show on music, hi-fi, and sound for 16 years.

"The market is shrinking," he said. "It's a bottom-line situation. If a newspaper prints a single real estate column, it can support it with 16 pages of real estate ads. With audio, not so much."

That sounds familiar. So how can he have so much energy at his show—so much that I can barely keep up as he strides through the floors and floors of exhibits. "When you turn what you love into your career," he says, "you view everything with new eyes. I love what I do and I listen to music on LPs every day."

He looked guilty. "Well, not yesterday or today—the show has kept me busy. But I did get together with 120 of my listeners last night—and we listened to master tapes on reel-to-reel, so I've really only skipped today."

I said yesterday that the show's logistics are staggering, and they are—the flow-through of the crowds is remarkable. Zhou has one elevator set aside as the catapult to the seventh floor exhibits—all of the other elevators serve the hotel's guests.There are traffic directors at all bottlenecks and they keep the crowds moving through them (politely, but firmly), and the staircases are open and marked for all floor-to-foor travel. The halls are crowded, but more electric than at American shows—and the rooms are pretty much packed with people.

Critical listening? Fuhgedaboudit—but there's lots of cheerful ogling and sometimes respectful silence when everybody catches a spark of that hi-fi magic. The big rooms—where McIntosh, Krell, Mark Levinson, VTL, Classé, Sonus Faber, Tannoy, and Paradigm exhibit—are different, more accommodating of relaxed reflection. However, the dynamic of this show is, um, dynamic, if you know what I mean.

And here's a thought that makes me gulp and go pale: Matthew Zhou is coming to HE2007 in New York. I sure hope he doesn't decide we're pikers in comparison to his show.

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Calix Academy Jr. Phoenix Posted Fri Dec 1, 2006, 11:53 PM ET
By Wes Phillips

K. E. Lee's $8000/pair Calix Academy Jr. Phoenix loudspeakers are far smaller than the Phoenix Grand Signatures Paul Bolin reviewed, but tiny they ain't. Still, they looked a lot more manageable than those behemoths, which I helped JA wrestle into their shipping crates.

The speaker boasts a 1" silk dome tweeter, a 6" lower midrange driver, and a 10" woofer—the 2" silk dome midrange driver is horn loaded into the large, top-mounted, adjustable horn that gives the speaker its unique profile. The horn has a complex rear-mounted screw mechanism that allows it to be integrated into the rest of the speaker's drivers "regardless of room size and listening position," as Paul Bolin described so well.

Wowsers. The Academy Jr. was dynamic and present. I wanted to take them home. Alas, that may not be possible. "Would you like to distribute them in the US?" Calix president Liu Sun asked me.

Probably a bad idea. Successful dealers are never users themselves.

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Audio Art Posted Fri Dec 1, 2006, 11:29 PM ET

I'm a lummox of an American and I have to admit I get confused when dealing with multiple currencies. On this trip, I've been juggling USD, HK dollars, and RMB—and that really makes the going rough. So when I asked Peter Chang how much this Audio Art Jasmine Model 3A integrated amplifier (9Wpc) would cost in the US, I was sure he'd gotten confused too, when he said $42,000.

Nope. BTW, it's manufactured in the US and the construction quality (Vishay resistors, Partridge metal-work) is pure audio catnip. And yes, those are 300Bs.

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Little Giants Posted Fri Dec 1, 2006, 11:17 PM ET
By Wes Phillips

Amazing how changing scale changes perception. The sound I found small and forced became far bigger and more open when I discovered the speakers cost one-twentieth of what I initially had thought.

At $400/pair, the Usher S-520s were pretty exciting. "The Absolute Sound reviewed the Dancer IIs," Paul Chen told me. "I'm sure we could get you a pair, too."

"But I want to review these," I whined. (Too late, Bob Reina already reviewed them.)

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Usher Fooled Me! Posted Fri Dec 1, 2006, 11:15 PM ET
By Wes Phillips

I walked into Usher's room, where the $8000 (USD) Dancer II Beryllium held pride of place. I thought the sound was a little small and every so slightly forced, but I loved the rhythmic tautness and drive. "Not the best sound I've heard today," I thought, "but not too shabby."

"Not bad for $400," Paul Chen, Usher's export rep said.

I pointed to the floorstanding Dancer IIs and said, "Those cost $400?"

"We're playing these," he said, pointing to the two-way S-520s sitting on top of another pair of speakers.

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