Las Vegas 2001

 

  Today was the first official day of the show. Here is some "face time" with some of the great press/writers/people within this industry.

Kal Rubenstein of Stereophile fame and Len Schneider who has written many wonderful articles in various industry magazines.

 

John Wyckoff of Enjoy the Music.com™

 

Jim Saxon and Todd Warkne of Enjoy the Music.com™. Yes, you read that right. The ever popular Jim and Todd are now writers for our Review Magazine. Welcome aboard dudes!

 

Gene Pitts of The Audiophile Voice

 

Dawn Gordon from CompuServe fame. Many years ago, before the Newsgroups were popular, there were quite a few of us who thoroughly enjoyed the CompuServe audio discussion board. At that time Dawn Gordon was the head moderator.

 

Steve Stone, Barbara Dwyer and John Gannon
of Stereophile Home Theater magazine.

 

Kore-eda Lab 2658B monoblock amplifier (approximately $25,000/pr.) are designed by the legendary in Japan Shigeharu Kore-eda. He has been building custom tube amplifiers for well over 20 years. During this time he has earned great respect from Japanese manic audiophiles. The above unit uses two 300B output tubes to produce 16 watts in push-pull operation. Custom transformers plus the highest and most musically synergist components are used throughout the entire design.

 

Seen above is the Kore-eda Lab 2660B pre-amplifier (approximately $27,500) employs six 12AU6 tubes to achieve 12.2dB of gain with a low distortion rating of less than 0.02%% at one volt output. Surprisingly, for an audiophile product, there are tone controls! A +-12dB at 50Hz and +-10dB at 15kHz for making adjustments to your music. Frequency response is claimed at an outstanding 3Hz to 100kHz (-2dB).

 

As seen within our last year's CES/T.H.E. Show coverage, the 47 Labs Pitracer CD transport (approximately $25,000) is once again being displayed. It has been further refined by Junji Kimura to be the ultimate CD transport. The CD remains still as the entire laser pickup system moves on the side rails as necessary. This system is said to insure a perfect 90 degree angle to even those discs that are cut off center. Four digital SPDIF (two RCA, two BNC) and an AES/EBU output are included. Seen above in the silver brushed aluminum finish, while a black anodized aluminum finish is also available.

 

 

Hovland has an officially nameless amplifier, tentatively called the Sapphire ($7,800), that produces 40-45 wpc using two EL34 output tubes and one 12AU7 for driver duties per channel. This unit consists of a solid-state input mated to a tube output circuitry. The output transformers are custom made while partial point to point wiring is used to insure signal purity. The round Pyrex glass cylinders looked way cool around the tubes while they are illuminated in a lovely blue light. This unit is also bridgeable for monoblock use.

 

As seen in our extensive pre-show report, deHavilland had their Aries-845 center and the Aries-572.

 

Buggtussel's Amygdala loudspeaker ($2,999/pr) is named after part of the human brain anatomy. Just think about that one! The cabinet design is a combination of partial transmission line. One 7" midrange/woofer and a 1" tweeter give the Amygdala a rated frequency response of 32Hz to 22kHz. Sensitivity is claimed as 91 dB/w/m. The tweeter is 24k gold coated (vapor deposited) and has a rear chamber that is specially tuned for optimum performance.

 

The Messenger Line pre-amplifier ($25,000) is a modular design with twelve tubes in the separate outboard power supply. An unusual assortment of two 0B2, 12BY7, 5AR4 and 6AS7 are used to supply power to the tubed pre-amplifier circuitry that uses one 6AS7 and one 6829 per channel. Just to give you an idea how serious a unit we are talking about, the power supply weighs in at 74 lbs.!

 

You can see the Messenger Line pre-amplifier in Bright Star audio's impressive new Gibraltar 4 rack ($999). The wood accents really looked wonderful!

 

OS Services Inc. was filled with the Jean Marie Reynaud Offrande monitors ($4,295 including stand), Audion Golden Dream Level 6 amplifier ($15,795) and the cool blue center monoblock amplifier by Cadence called the Canasya ($24,995) as first seen worldwide on our Hi-Fi News show back in 1999.

 

As Enjoy the Music.com™ was the first to break the news about the new Lehmann Audio Black Cube power supply ($275, seen right) in our pre-show report, it can be added to any existing unit for a vast gain in power supply quality. The bare board to the left is soon to be Lehmann Audio's new Silver Cube phono stage that will be enclosed inside an aluminum case. It uses high-quality Musicaps and other top-flight components. Retail for the new Silver Cube will be around $1,350 and include a better power supply than the one offered as an upgrade for the existing Black Cube!

 

Kirksaeter were making some good sounds with their Silverline 60 compact bookshelf loudspeakers ($698/pr). These small units are only 7.5 x 10.5 x 11.5 (HxWxD) include a 15cm coated carbon fiber midrange/woofer and  a 25mm soft metal dome tweeter. They were placed near the rear wall and were indeed making some surprisingly good sound for their diminutive size.

 

In the Granite Audio room was their 860.1 DECO monoblock amplifier ($24,700/pr). Two KT88 output tubes per monoblock amplifiers with zero feedback can be operated in either triode or pentode mode. An Alps attenuator is mounted on the top plate so that it can be used without a pre-amplifier for those with a single source music reproduction system. All internal wiring is of the hand soldered point to point variety. 

 

Tenor Audio's new Classic line includes the 75 Wi OTL (output transformer less) monoblock integrated amplifier ($18,600). Very high quality components are used throughout including the Elna stepped attenuator (24 steps). It produces 75 wpc. using the Russian 6C33C-B output tube. The input tube is the 6H30P and the 6H6P tubes. A special 60 second delay soft start circuitry insures that the tube heaters are at the proper operating temperature before fully powering the output tube. This extends the operating life of the tube.

 

Tyler Acoustics Taylo stand mounted Reference Monitor ($2,450/pr.) uses a 6.5" Seas midrange/woofer and Scanspeak Revelator 1" dome tweeter. The large floorstanding Lynnbrook Signature system ($6,000/pr.) have two separate enclosures. The lower unit holds two 8" Seas magnesium cone woofers while the top unit has a 1" Seas Millennium tweeter flanked above and below by a 6.5" Seas magnesium cone midrange driver. Hovland capacitors and Alpha Core inductors are joined by Cardas wire, solder and binding posts. Frequency response is claimed as 25 Hz to 25 kHz with a 92 dB/w/m sensitivity.

 

A trio of tonearms from Mørch.

 

In the Hammer Dynamics room was their Super 12 ($575 in kit form which includes everything but the cabinet). Cabinet plans are included as is an extensive manual. This is a full-range unit with a 12" driver covering the frequencies from 40 Hz to 10 kHz while the tweeter covers from 10 kHz on up. Front end amplification was by ElectraPrint. Cabling is by a new company called Zu Cable. According to Sean Casey of Zu Cable, their cables "are fun". 

 

The now in production audioharma Cable Cooker 2.0 ($649) is said to greatly improve cables and power conditioners through the use of sophisticated circuitry that sends a watt of power through interconnects and 22 watts for loudspeaker cables. It can also be used with power filters to further enhance their effectiveness!

 

Click here to see a complete listing of
specialty high-end audio show exhibitors.

 

Click here to see last year's show coverage.