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High-Performance Audio Reviews
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The Inaugural Southwest Audio Fest
1423 - Genesis Advanced Technologies
This room was being manned by my long-time friend Profundo Audio's Bob Clarke, and after taking a few moments to catch up, he introduced me to some interesting gear from New Zealand, Austria, and Hungary by playing a variety of sources.
System details: The Wand Dark-Light Tonearm - custom pricing Genesis Hyper Sonic X4 cartridge - $18,000 Analog Audio Design TP-1000 Reel-to-Reel Tape Player - $27,000 Heed Thesis Delta (Transport w/DAC module) - $4200 Trenner & Friedl Art Loudspeakers - $6,000 Puritan PSM 156 AC Purifier/Power Conditioner - $2,300 Lateral Cadenz 4T Standard Rack - $1,700 Genesis Absolute Fidelity Interfaces – prices vary
The Wand 14-4 Master Turntable, so named because of its fourteen-inch, four-layer platter, which is said to provide twenty percent more inertia and to offer better damping and noise transfer, is a product of New Zealand. Combined with their tonearm and Gary Koh's new Genesis Hyper Sonic X4 cartridge, this was an intriguing analog front end, to say the least. While I cannot recall having any prior exposure to Hungary's Heed Audio products, I admit that I was quite curious to experience the result of this system driving a smaller set of Trenner and Friedl speakers from Austria.
Bob put on Hugh Masekela's "Almost like being in Jazz," from 2005, and this system made a believer of me in no time. It revealed such a remarkable sense of the body of the piano as well as presenting a spooky reality to the rendering of the tone of Hugh's flugelhorn. Very well done!
1422 - Genesis Advanced Technologies
System details: The Wand of Origin Tonearm - custom pricing Genesis Hyper Sonic X4 cartridge - $18,000 Genesis Premium Gold Phonostage - $15,000 Analog Audio Design TP-1000 Reel-to-Reel Tape Player - $27,000 Heed Helikon Preamp and Monoblock Power Amplifiers - $27,500 Genesis Foxtrot Loudspeakers - $13,800 – NEW! Puritan PSM 156 AC Purifier/Power Conditioner - $2,300 Lateral Cadenz 4T Standard Rack - $1,700 Genesis Absolute Fidelity Interfaces – prices vary
When I stopped in to see him, Gary asked me if I liked the Beach Boys. While I really wasn't sure where he was headed, once I answered in the affirmative, he started to spool a reel of tape, explaining that the tape had been stuck on a tape deck that had been brought in for repair to Charlie King, whom Gary refers to as, "Mr. Stellavox himself." But once Charlie had repaired the deck, freed, and heard the tape, he informed the client that the tape wasn't going to be returned! And – he had loaned it to Gary.
With no other provenance on the tape's origin, Gary's independent research led him to a California-based beach party band, Papa Doo Run Run, who had released an entire Beach Boy cover record called "California Project," on Telarc in 1984. Gary searched out a number of their recordings, and simply could not find an exact match for the recordings on this specific tape. With that setup, once the tape was threaded, he hit play. Wow! Not only was the music amazing, but the performances and production quality were off the hook as well. A big part of the remarkably successful sound here was the contribution of the spectacular voice of Genesis Advanced Technologies' new Series Seven loudspeaker, the Foxtrot. Don't let its fairly typical looks fool you. The Foxtrot uses several progressive approaches to accomplish its amazing level of performance. It starts by using two of the singular Genesis one-inch ring radiator ribbon tweeters, one on the front baffle delivering high-frequency information as you would expect, and a second in a dipolar configuration, mounted on the rear baffle to offer a little more room friendliness. The five-and-a-half-inch (5.5") midrange uses a titanium diaphragm, and it employs an incredibly effective pair of eight-inch woofers in an isobaric alignment. Finally, the Series Seven Foxtrot's enclosure is fabricated from sustainable bamboo and Gary uses all water-based finishes and adhesives to complete its assembly!
But regardless of source, the resultant playback was exceptionally well done, from its superbly solid, defined, and impactful low end, through its beautifully detailed and tonally accurate, rich midrange, full of bloom and vibrant color, to its particularly ample, spacious, and buoyant uppermost registers. This system delivered the real sonic goods, with vibrant tonality, excellent staging and imaging, and an organic, natural sense of continuity, that often elusive quality of being able to deliver broadband seamless continuousness. This system had also clearly earned its place among my top five systems at the inaugural 2024 Southwest Audiofest.
1434 – Synergistic Research
While I am almost certain to be impressed with the demos put on by Ted Denney, of Fountain Valley California's Synergistic Research, especially when he teams up with California's Orange County-based Scott Walker Audio, I was especially interested to hear the new Synergistic Research Voodoo Streamer/Server at this event. While I had gotten to see its introduction at Capital Audiofest last November, I had not yet had an opportunity to listen.
System details: Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC Reference Series 3- $28,000 Berkeley Audio Design Alpha USB Module - $2,495 McIntosh C12000 Preamp - $14,000 McIntosh MC611 Amplifiers - $16,000/pair Magico S3 Speakers (in Racer Blue High Gloss) - $45,500 Synergistic Research UEF Ethernet Switch - $2,295 Synergistic Research UEF Network Router - $2,995 Synergistic Research UEF Linear Power Supply - $2,295 Synergistic Research UEF USB & Ethernet Performance Enhancers - $295 Synergistic Research MiG SX Footers - $995 Synergistic Research Master Fuse - $595 Synergistic Research Purple Fuse - $199.95 Synergistic Research Tranquility Pod Carbon - $895 Synergistic Research Carbon Cable Elevators - $449 Synergistic Research Master Tuning Module - $425 Synergistic Research Galileo Powercell SX s/SRX Powercord - $27,995 Synergistic Research SRX Interconnect - $7,500 Synergistic Research SRXL Speaker Cables - $42,500 Synergistic Research SRX Digital Interconnect - $7,500 Synergistic Research Galileo Discovery USB - $2,995 Synergistic Research SRXL Power Cords - $13,000 Synergistic Research Tranquility Rack - $24,995 Synergistic Research Tranquility Base Carbon XL - 3,495 Synergistic Research Black Box - $1,995 Synergistic Research FEQ Carbon - $1,695 Synergistic Research HFT's - $499 (10 pack) Synergistic Research Vibratron, gold & silver w/ stand - $3,995 Synergistic Research Galileo Active Ground Block mkII - $7,495 Synergistic Research High Definition SX Ground Cables - $395
I was quite surprised by how natural the basic sonic signature of this system was, and I simply cannot recall having heard a more genuine and buoyant sounding system driven by McIntosh electronics. The demonstrations of the Voodoo streamer were quite impressive, as Ted would engage and disengage the use of the SR technology, demonstrating just how clearly it applied to, and elevated, the Voodoo streamer's overall performance.
Further demonstrations of the various Synergistic Research grounding and room/system tuning techniques were rather remarkably impressive. So much so that they had many folks scratching their heads in wonder as to how such significant sonic differences could be achieved with the application or removal of some of these electronic or passive approaches to tuning. The most relevant takeaway from my experience here was that this new Streamer / Server presented a surprisingly natural sound. Its ability to present the spatial components of the music it was being asked to recreate, with such naturalness and fluidity, with remarkably full sensations of body and bloom, and its ability to approximate so closely what one hears from the absolute best of vinyl playback, was simply exemplary. I have developed even greater anticipation for getting to spend some time with this new Voodoo server.
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