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Across the hall I found a couple of familiar faces where Anne Bison was selling and signing CDs and LPs, notably her new Conversations LP in which she collaborated with cellist Vincent Belanger. The gentleman would be Robert Deutsch from Stereophile whom I also see twice a year at the Montreal and Toronto shows as Toronto is his home turf.
In the Newmarket room, which was not much bigger than the Whitchurch room in which Jack had his Woo headphone gear, Monitor Audio was playing their tall flagship Platinum 500 towers ($28,000 USD). A Cyrus server was feeding Johnny Cash from his last album into a Moon preamp with DAC which fed into Pass Labs XA 100.8 monoblocks to drive the speakers. For someone looking to fill a large room with good music, this could be a relatively cost effective way to do it, though the rig itself was a bit of a conglomerate. This would also be one of the Massif audio racks and cable risers that I was just talking about, though the risers I have are much more attractive in natural wood finish. I expect Monitor did not want the cable risers to rival the finish on their speakers.
Stepping into the Aurora room my eyes finally locked on to the KEF Muon II speakers I had hoped would be here since first hearing that a pair was shown at the Washington, DC show. They were bigger than I remembered them from the Montreal show in 2008. But I was assured they were the same size and the internal construction with the graphite lining had remained the same. I had also forgotten about the two rear-facing woofers on each speaker. The price back then, right as the Great Recession was taking hold, was $140,000 USD. The host from KEF seemed perturbed and apologetic that they did not sound very good here. As I listened to the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun" I simply thought they were playing it too loud. This is not, after all, a speaker that should be used to replicate a live rock concert. (That speaker was yet to come, just down the hall.)
The Muon is all about finesse, elegance and class. Muon II has been upgraded with KEF's most advanced Uni-Q point source mid-treble driver array that derives from their Blade speaker, and the requisite redesigning of the crossover. Listening to The Who belt out "Behind Blue Eyes" from the back of the room, the presentation was a lot more appropriate for the volume, so perhaps if you're into the concert replication thing, you simply need to put your Muon II in a larger room...or smooth them out with some tube amps at a lower volume. The original was spec'd at 90dB/W/m sensitivity with a 4 Ohm load and recommended power from 100 to 400 Watts. The Hegel stereo amps here were each bridged to put out 1100 Watts into 8 Ohms. I do recall having a more positive reaction to the original model where "the magnificent music was sourced from an iPod, whose digital signal was extracted by a Wadia device and fed to a high-end DAC" as I wrote in my show report. Nonetheless, this is one of the great loudspeakers of the day. As The Who sang while I was there, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." You could just as easily spend as much money on a painting or piece of sculpture that couldn't play a single note of music. The source here was the VPI Titanstatement turntable running into the new VPI phono stage designed by Mike Bettinger that drove the Hegel monoblocks directly, bypassing the Hegel preamp in the Massif rack (Yes, another Massif equipment rack!). Mike had already designed an excellent phono stage, but Harry Weisfeld, the Elder, who hates needless complexity asked him to incorporate a line stage into the phono stage, and the VPI unit shown here is what resulted. It is expected to retail for about $6000 USD when released. There will also be a more basic stand-alone phono stage that will sell for about $2000, I'm told. Mike also designed the ADS (Analog Drive System) for their tables that replace the SDS (which has digital components in it and has become expensive to make). A more refined, upscale ADS is in the works for the Titan flagship turntable, but they've been so busy building the one shown here to meet demand that they haven't gotten to it yet. Mat Weisfeld, who now runs the company, told me they had planned for a hundred ADS for 2017, but they've already sold them out. The ADS, he says is dead quiet. Ah, the problem with success! I didn't think to ask for prices of the Titan or the Muon, but as the saying goes, "If you have to ask...."
Outside the room, Mat had a little VPI Player entry level turntable that comes complete with an Ortofon 2M Red cartridge, built-in phono stage, built-in headphone amp, RCA outputs that allow you to feed the signal to an amplifier or active speakers, and the tonearm can be upgraded to a standard JMW-9 arm. I love the light wood plinth, but was astounded that it was not real wood — just a very durable vinyl wrap as I've seen in entry level furniture. I was embarrassed to be so fooled. A darker mocha walnut finish is also available now. This little rig is a gift to the entire High End industry that should bring throngs of newcomers to its fold, as well as endear purchasers to the VPI brand.
The art work of this young man, while intriguing, will not cost anything like the Muon. I say that with all due respect for his work, as I have large works hanging in my dedicated listening room. It's a great way to tame reflected sound without completely damping the life out of the music.
Stepping into Vaughan Hall East I found a line-up of Reference 3A speakers on the room's diagonal line. A pair of Oracle turntables was at the front end and the electronics were the first exposure to Krell gear I've had in quite a while. Jacques Reindeau of Oracle Audio Technologies was quick to grab my attention and give me the rundown on their new Origine turntable which I had seen elsewhere at the show. The turntable and tonearm are completely designed and manufactured in their factory in Sherbrooke, Quebec for a package price of $2000 USD. The tonearm is a unipivot design with the pivot point at the same level as the stylus on the record. A sliding weight is mounted on the tonearm to vary the effective mass to accommodate the varying cartridge compliances and also to act as a damping clamp to control energy in the tonearm. A small weight on a wire acts to control anti-skating. Internal wiring is by Cardas. The motor is an AC single speed unit with a two-step pulley that is easily accessible for changing speeds. The separate power supply was tucked behind the rack, out of sight. So overall, while it is their entry level turntable, it is a very high entry level product. Also on active display was their top line Delphi MkVI Gen-2 turntable, a descendant of the first turntable I fell in love with when entering high-end audio. Missing were their CD players and transports and their mid-line Paris MkV turntable. The company has been growing continuously in recent years and offers a much broader assortment of products than quickly come to mind. I really liked the Origine turntable. Rondi D'Agostino of Krell was on hand to tell me about a forthcoming 100 Wpc, seven channel power amp called the Theater 7, due by the end of the year (to be shown at CES?). This will be followed in Q1 of 2017 with three new amplifiers — a 200 Wpc stereo, a 400wpc stereo and an 800 Watt monoblock, along with a matching preamp. A couple of processors and a couple of phono stages will be coming along in the second quarter. I shared with Rondi that I haven't heard Krell gear in quite a while and that years ago I was not terribly impressed with it, being primarily a tube guy. But what I heard here from the three-year-old designs sounded pretty good to me. She expected to have active products from production runs at Axpona in the spring.
Tash Goka and I go back a long way and in spite of the fact that I've never reviewed his products, I've always had great respect for his work. He shared with me a lot about the technology within his new Reflector stand mounted monitor which he considers his most advanced design. Much of it is familiar territory, such as the Nextel painted exterior, the HDF board, the crossover-less design with a full-range driver gently melding with the tweeter, the tube friendly 92dB/W/m sensitivity and 8 Ohm impedance and the phase-coherent drivers. But some of it is new (to me, at least), such as the use of glass sides bonded to the cabinet with butyl/silicone adhesive to dampen the chassis, the use of dissimilar metal low in the cabinet to lower the center of gravity to improve the draining of vibrations, a new full-range driver designed specifically for this speaker and a tweeter designed to mate with the full-range driver, internal bracing designed not only to damp outward vibration of the chassis, but inward motion as well. And a weight of 75 lbs. each speaker that is more common with floorstanders than small monitors. Tash sweats every detail and the results were evident when I pulled out a ZZ Top LP and they played it for me. People in the room stopped talking and listened to "Blue Jean Blues". The Reflector filled this large room and I didn't give a damn that it was driven by solid state gear. Think what you will about this Nextel covered speaker; it really delivers the music. At $12,000 USD, you should expect it to. And if you need to have the lowest octave, expect to pay again as much for a pair of subwoofers capable of delivering the same quality in a large room. I gathered the principals together for a group shot, along with an unnamed soul from Oracle, and went on my way thinking this was another of the Best Rooms at the show. From the right is Jacques Reindeau, Rondi D'Agostino, Tash Goka, and another gentleman from Oracle.
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High-Performance Audio Reviews
