A Turntable from Calibre
Posted Sat Apr 5, 2008, 5:03 PM ET
By Robert Deutsch
There were lots of turntables at the show, but the one that intrigued me the most was the Calibre Mk.101, from Audio Excellence, the Toronto-area dealer, which is making its first foray into the turntable business. The Calibre Mk.101 has a with a marble plinth, 1.5" thick acrylic platter, AC motor with speed regulation, high-quality polished bearing, and looks elegant without being ostentatious. The price of $1999 includes a good-quality arm, with further arm upgrades available. Audio Excellences stated aim in introducing the Calibre Mk.101 is "the best reproduction of records at the lowest price possible—making turntables we would own."
Neeper's a Keeper
Posted Sat Apr 5, 2008, 4:59 PM ET
By Robert Deutsch
Conventional audio marketing wisdom has it that any new company with a single product, selling at a high price, will have a really rough time establishing distribution and picking up dealers. But this apparently did not deter Kim Neeper Rasmussen. The Neeper Perfection One is a two-and-a-half way floorstander of modest size, with a 1.5" ScanSpeak ring-radiator tweeter and two 5.5" custom ScanSpeak midrange/bass units, each speaker weighing 30kg (66 lbs). A major feature of the design is that the cabinet walls are all non-parallel to each other, an approach to resonance-control that Rasmussen considers to be vastly superior to the use of damping materials. The speakers are made in Denmark, and are priced at $20,000/pair.
Kim Rasmussen had dealt with the room's upper-bass bloat by arranging the Neeper speakers to straddle a corner and fire into the room's diagonal. They sounded quite terrific: a big, open sound, dynamic, neutral tonality, and bass that makes you suspect that there's a subwoofer hidden somewhere. Rasmussen has been successful in transcending conventional audio marketing wisdom: the Perfection One has picked up distribution in 17 countries.
Lyngdorf: Getting It Corrected
Posted Sat Apr 5, 2008, 4:56 PM ET
By Robert Deutsch
I've heard demonstrations of Lyngdorf's digital room correction components before, and had been impressed by it, but never as much as at the demo held at this year's FSI. Adrian Low, whose Toronto store, Audio Excellence, is a dealer for Lyngdorf, played a recording of a male voice that was so bloated in the midbass as to be virtually unlistenable. That was with the Lyngdorf room correction bypassed. The sound was totally transformed when the room correction circuitry was engaged: the midbass boom, endemic to the smaller rooms on the Sheraton's upper floors, was gone, and while it was still clear that the performer was too close to the mike, producing the proximity effect that's a well-known consequence of this sort of miking, it sounded much more natural.
Ah, Puccini
Posted Sat Apr 5, 2008, 4:55 PM ET
By Robert Deutsch
dCS is known for its superb-sounding but stratospherically-priced digital source components—prices in the $50k+ range for a transport/DAC combination. While their new Puccini one-box CD/SACD player won't be a candidate for Budget Component of the Year, its $22,000 price represents low end for dCS. But don't start spending all the money you've saved by buying the Puccini rather than the more expensive dCS offerings: there is a matching external clock component upgrade that will be available in the near future. No price has been determined yet, but you can be sure that it will not be in three figures.
Well, Wouldn't You Just Know It?
Posted Sat Apr 5, 2008, 4:50 PM ET
By Robert Deutsch
It's been said often enough to be considered as a truism that FSI is an occasion for snow: at the show's opening, during the show, or at least when the show is closing. But it looked like this year was going to be an exception; the weather forecast for the three days of the show called for temperatures well above freezing, with rain on Friday.
And so Friday rolled around and—guess what?—it started snowing at around noon and continued the rest of the day. The picture accompanying this blog item may look suspiciously like one that was part of my show report last year, but I can assure you that it was taken this year.
The Calm Before Happy Hour
Posted Sat Apr 5, 2008, 4:48 PM ET
By Robert Deutsch
What does this photo of the bar in the Sheraton illustrate? Well, I could say that it provides further confirmation of the fact that it snowed in Montreal. But the real reason is that I just like this shot, taken with the Sigma 15mm fisheye on the Canon 5D, and thought that audiophiles that are also into photography (and there are many such in my acquaintance) might enjoy seeing it.
Lucky Number 781
Posted Sat Apr 5, 2008, 11:41 AM ET
By Wes Phillips
Wadia was showing its almost ready-to-ship CD/SACD player, the $15,000 781. (A 781i with digital inputs and outputs is also in the works.) The 781 uses two signal processors feeding a programmable gate array and the company's proprietary DigiMaster 2.5 upsampling software. This, Wadia claims, results in a data rate of 1.4112 million samples per second. The 781 also sports Clocklink jitter reduction for both CD and SACD.
Driving an Audio Research Reference 3 preamp, a pair of ARC Reference 610T monoblocks, and Sonus Faber Stradivari homage loudspeakers, the 781 sounded as dynamic and involving as the analog front end it was alternating with. That was impressive.
It Could Only Happen in Montreal
Posted Sat Apr 5, 2008, 11:40 AM ET
By Wes Phillips
I was riding the elevator yesterday, when I spotted Attention Screen's Mark Flynn and Chris Jones. I jumped out of the lift and asked, "What's up?"
"We are looking for large men," Chris said.
?!?
"We need to get the piano onto the stage," Mark explained. "It's on the floor."
I volunteered and they went to find more brawn. Ten minutes later, a gang of 15 Montrealers entered, sent by FSI show organizer Michel Plante. We surrounded the piano, chanted "One, two, allez" and cleaned and jerked that sucker up and over the stage lip. One minute later, they were gone and John Atkinson, Bob Reina, Don Fiorino, Chris, Mark, and I were staring at the piano on stage and wondering, Did that really happen?
As the photo shows, Bob Reina gave the piano a good working out at Friday evening's Stereophile-sponsored concert.
What's an Audio Show Without a Party?
Posted Sat Apr 5, 2008, 9:01 AM ET
By Robert Deutsch
What's an audio show without a party? Sponsored by Stereophile, the party on the first day of the show was for the exhibitors, trade visitors, and the press, and featured the Quebec rock group Give, with lead singer Caroline St. Louis.
Singing For His Supper—en Francais
Posted Sat Apr 5, 2008, 8:58 AM ET
By Robert Deutsch
The first evening of the show, I had a most pleasant dinner with John Atkinson, Stereophile associate publisher Keith Pray, columnist John Marks, and the folks from Dynaudio and Simaudio. During the pre-dinner conversation, John Marks illustrated a point he was making by singing a bit, ably demonstrating his ex-choirboy credentials. His performance was apparently noticed by the people at the next table; at the end of the meal, one of the ladies at that table came over to us and said that this was her friend's birthday, and asked if the gentleman who was singing before could sing "Happy Birthday" to her.
Ever game, the estimable Mr. Marks not only sang "Happy Birthday," but also an unauthorized version of the "Marseillaise," with the words, "Aux armes, Citroën!"
You had to be there.
Hunka Hunka Burnin' Glass
Posted Fri Apr 4, 2008, 5:20 PM ET
By Wes Phillips
The Galactus-sized Audio Research Reference 610T monoblock amplifiers ($20,000/ea) put out 600W. They require 8 matched pairs of 6550C output tubes, one 6550c regulator, one 6H30 as an amplifier regulator, a pair of 6550Cs as drivers, two 6NIP input tubes, and a 6H30 follower—that's a ton of tubes.
But man, oh man, did it makes Sonus Faber's Stradivarius sing in the Son or Filtronique room.
Details here.
Like My Birthday Cake, Only Hotter
Posted Fri Apr 4, 2008, 5:18 PM ET
By Wes Phillips
A bird's eye view of the ARC Reference 610T. The thermal updraft was fierce!
Fidelio!
Posted Fri Apr 4, 2008, 4:48 PM ET
By Wes Phillips
I always look forward to visiting recording engineer René Laflamme of
Fidelio at FSI, because he always has new fun recordings to play.
He didn't disappoint, either. This year's treat was the Micheal Donato Trio, which delivered a smoking "Nocturno." Next up was Laflamme's recording of the carillon of St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal. The high-rez digital recording revealed all the ambient noises of outdoor Montreal, while also offering direct and immediate sound of the carillon itself.
"It sounds like you're standing right in front of it. It doesn't sound at all like you were on the ground and it was way up in the steeple," I said.
"I wasn't standing on the ground," Laflamme explained. "I was up in a tree, holding Schoeps v62s!"
Later this month, Laflamme will begin selling native-resolution downloads of his 24-bit 88.2kHz and 96kHz recordings on his website. Expect the cost to be about $30/album. "Uncompressed digital files of that resolution eat up a lot of bandwidth," he explained. "It's an expense."
Small Coherent Source
Posted Fri Apr 4, 2008, 4:26 PM ET
By Wes Phillips
While Thiel's Ken Dawkins and I were talking, he said, "Have I told you about the SCS4?"
Why no.
"It replaces the SCS3. It costs $990 each and has sensitivity of 88dB. It has a cast aluminum baffle and the same concentric driver as the twice as expensive PowerPoint."
Dawkins paused to think. "Did I cover everything? Oh yeah, not only do they play louder than the SCS3s, they're cheaper!"
Fine, fine, but what about a pair of CS3.7s for Stereophile?
"They are manufacturing that pair at this very minute!"
Well, all right.
Just Keep Thinking
Posted Fri Apr 4, 2008, 4:14 PM ET
By Wes Phillips
I dropped by Thiel's room to tease them about the fact that I had heard that
Rolling Stone had a pair of CS3.7 loudspeakers, while a certain audiophile magazine did not.
All kidding aside, I thought it was a brilliant example of a high-end company reaching out beyond the converted audiophiles to demonstrate that better is, um, better.
"That was [Thiel PR rep] Micah Sheveloff's idea," Dawkins said. "Rolling Stone loves their Theil/Bryston system. The editor told me that the reviewers played the system for the A&R people at the labels and now they're bringing the artists in to hear their mixes on it."
There may be hope for the music industry yet!
A Duet That Really Sings
Posted Fri Apr 4, 2008, 3:34 PM ET
By Wes Phillips
The slot-loaded two-way
JM Reynaud Duet loudspeaker ($1525/pair) sounded quite special, driven by the Blue Circle FtTH. "That was surprising," the Reynaud rep explained. "We had Gilbert's top-of-the-line preamplifier and a pair of Blue Moon monoblocks, which we had intended to use. While we were setting up, we connected the FtTH and the synergy between that amp and these speakers was just magical—so we knew what to do."
The Duets replace the Reynaud Twin Signatures and utilize a 6" mid/bass driver and a 1" soft-dome tweeter.
Revenge of the FtTH
Posted Fri Apr 4, 2008, 3:19 PM ET
By Wes Phillips
Yeung was demonstrating a few new Blue Circle products, an inexpensive USB DAc and the $4895 95Wpc FtTH integrated amplifier. Yeung calls the FtTH his "statement" preamp, saying that it employs Blue Circle's True Balanced Audio technology, which, he says, "drives both the positive and the negative output terminals for better control of the loudspeakers."
This is a solution to a problem I was not aware of, but the FtTH did sound good driving a pair of JM Reynaud Duets ($1525/pair).
The FtTH's preamp section employs a pair of 6922s, while the power amp uses op-amps.It has an outboard power supply. I asked Gilbert how you pronounce FtTH and he said, "Eff tee tee aitch—the capitals are silent."
Sign O' the Times
Posted Fri Apr 4, 2008, 3:07 PM ET
By Wes Phillips
In a show that is distinguished by very good signage, Blue Circle's room is marked by what designer Gilbert Yeung proclaimed "the ugliest signs in the show." Yeung, an indefatigable self-promote, arrived at FSI, only to discover the show had provided no signs for the room. Yeung ran with the concept, deliberately lettering his own signs in a childish "Chinglish."
In past years Yeung has worn a large blue foam circle on his head and jammed monoblook power amplifiers into size 14 women's pumps. I actually bought a pair of those for my wife's office system, so which one of us is really playing the fool?
Now That's More Like It!
Posted Fri Apr 4, 2008, 1:38 PM ET
By John Atkinson
Dynaudio's 30th-anniversary Sapphire speakers had impressed the heck out of the magazine's scribes at other Shows, so I made a point of taking a listen in the room the Danish manufacturer was sharing at FSI with home-team electronics manufacturer Simaudio. The system included Simaudio's Moon SuperNova CD player, Moon P-7 preamplifier, and Moon W-7 power amplifier, all wired with Siltech cable. The speakers are not that large, visually, and use a pair of 8" woofers per side, but they appear to have excellent bass performance, to judge by the ease they reproduced some subterranean stirring on a performance of Miles Davis' "So What" from a Flanger CD called
Midnight Sounds. Then I noticed that there wasn't a CD playing!
"What gives?" I asked Sim's Lionel Goodfield.
He pointed to a PC monitor at the side of the room. He was playing uncompressed files with iTunes running on a tablet PC, and sending an S/PDIF digital stream to the SuperNova's data input.
Got an external optical drive?" I asked
"Sure, but why?"
"So I can load the hi-rez masters of some of my Stereophile recordings on to your PC's hard drive."
I had burned some 24-bit, 88.2kHz WAV files on a DVD-R the morning I left for the Show, and had been wondering if I would find some rooms in which I could play them. The drum intro from "Blizzard Limbs," from Attention Screen's Live at Merkin Hall album was reproduced on the Simaudio/Dynaudio with stunningly accurate soundstaging and image depth. I'm definitely going to get me a pair of them Dynaudio Sapphires for review.
Shock, Horror, JA Enjoys Lossy Compressed Music
Posted Fri Apr 4, 2008, 1:35 PM ET
By John Atkinson
I was as impressed as Robert Deutsch had been with KEF's $140k/pair Muons, and enjoyed a couple of tracks from the late Joe Zawinul's Faces & Places CD, Musical Fidelity's new 750k Supercharger monoblocks driving the speakers to satisfyingly high levels. Except there was no CD playing. It turned out I was listening to a 320kbps AAC file on an iPod sitting in the Wadia dock you can see in the photo. This takes an I2S digital output from a late-generation iPod and KEF were using the S/PDIF datastream to drive the digital input of the Musical Fidelity CD player at the top of the equipment stack. Given how much ink I have spilled recently on the dangers of lossy-compressed file formats, my face must have been as red as the room’s illumination had been at the time.
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