Saturday
T.H.E. Show Newport Beach (The Home Entertainment Show) 2013

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  Snake River Audio is here at T.H.E. Show Newport Beach 2013 and the room was filled with truly stunning curvaceous speakers and the sensual glass center speakers are by the French company Waterfall Audio.

 

Breaking from traditional front driver array is the Heed Enigma speaker with angled to-firing drivers ($3850 in standard finish, $4250 in rosewood as seen here).

 

Musical Surrounding rooms had the AMG V-12 turntable with 12" arm ($17,000) in black lacquer trim. Is it just me folks, or have some manufacturers and distributors set a new trend where prices are getting quite a bit out of hand for the apparent value and appearance of what they are selling?

 

MSB, known for their FEMTO clock DAC, was mated to the always impressive YG Acoustics Amat Sig. 3 speakers ($68,000). Their Analog DAC ($7000) is a good percentage of the company's higher end model yet at lower cost. And for the record, rooms with YG Acoustic speakers always seem to sound quite good.

 

Angel City Audio showcased their MN845 tube monoblocks ($13,599).

 

Magnepan made their usual good showing and had lines waiting for their demos. This Super MMG ($1199, or $1750 with an extra bass panel) three-piece system is specifically designed to mate perfectly and has a dedicated bass panel. The other two panels handle the remainder quite impressively.

 

M2Tech had a wide array of their products here at T.H.E. Show Newport Beach 2013 including their E-Young-B 384kHz DAC and HiFace DAC 384kHz ($1399 and $295 respectively).

 

Teresonic always has great stylish speakers that use a single full-range driver.

 

Cali Cool Fred Crane playing Superman with his Enjoy the Music.com steampunk t-shirt.

 

Wave Touch Audio speakers have a very unique driver set within their Mt. Whitney ($5000/pr) large monitor. It uses horn waveguides to control dispersion. 

 

Vanatoo speakers has perhaps the best disappearing act in imaging, with a nicely deep soundscape too! Their Transparent One monitor ($499 in black and $549 in cherry) is a this two-way that uses a 5.25" mid/woofer and 1" soft dome. It has direct USB 24-bit/96kHz input via S/PDIF coax and TosLink optical.. Somehow forgot to photo the assembled version, as above are the inner working of this impressive unit.

 

The Empirical Audio room.

 

Audio Element, a retail store in Pasadena Cali had dCS front end driving VTL tube amplification. They also have Sonus Faber speakers, Grand Prix Audio stands, etc.

 

Another great sounding room is Magico speakers that were being driven by Constellation electronics and Kubala-Sosna cables. If you're at T.H.E. Show check it out! Their Cygnus media player ($29,000) handles DSD, 384kHz, etc. And yes you can use the MPaD app for controlling the unit. And for the record, i have yet to hear a bad setup at a show using Kubala-Sosna cabling. Hmmm...

 

Astell&Kern AK120... awesomeness defined! Got my hot little hands on a unit so expect a review shortly by Yours truly. There is no doubt in my mind that the AK120 is most definitely Cali Cool!

 

HRT Music Streamer HD... because "everyone deserves great sound!" HRT showed their Music Streamer HD ($450) that does 24-bit/192kHz and has both balanced and unbalanced output.

 

CEntrance brought their HiFi-M8 ($699) DAC for iPhone plus it includes a USB 24-bit/192kHz input and can drive three, yes three sets of headphones!

 

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