In an event that i can only describe as amazing, the President of the
Electronics Industry, Gary Shapiro, gave a speech about how the high-performance audio
will greatly help the public in the upcoming transition to a more digital age. Gary
asked all of us to help out by doing and/or realizing the following:
1) Focus on home theater (1 in 7 homes in the USA have a H.T. system).
2) Experience matters (share our joy our experiences)
3) Prosper from HDTV
4) Broaden the audience
5) Data delivers
6) Computers count (over 15,000,000 people enjoy music with their computer)
7) Pay attention to policy (referring to the US Government)
8) Digital Radio (69% of DDS owners listen to about 10.5 hours of music w/DDS)
9) Trade shows make a difference
10) Get involved.
Let's face the facts. The internet is vastly changing the way we
all live. As the bandwidth greatens and modems get faster, many music labels will be
selling more and more music through the internet while sites such as mine will be able to
deliver higher quality streaming music for free! Will all this one day equal
high-performance? Yes in my humble opinion. One day it will. Right now
we are all seeing the very beginnings of what will one day be a very mature and seamless
digital society. Ok, i love my vinyl, yes, yet if we just take a look at what is
capable today with very high quality digital technologies, imagine what will be possible
just ten year from now let alone 20 years from today.
Welcome to the "Stuff" page. First up is a big panorama of
a "premiere" room. Here's a room which has about $200,000 of
yummies! When you first go up the escalator here at Hi-Fi '98, the very first room
virtually right in front of you is this one. What's here are none other then the Martin Logan Statement speakers which are 15"
wide and 5' 8" high! These use the famous CLS curvilinear electrostatic panel
for the highs which operate from 200-20,000 Hz while 7" dynamic cone midranges
operate from 60-200 Hz. Then we have the sub-bass towers (heh heh). Though
not seen in the panorama, each tower (two per stereo system) incorporates eight 12"
drivers. Needless to say if you have a hunger for bass, this system can easily
accommodate. An active, adjustable crossover called the EOS™ is also
included. The speakers will set ya back a mere $70,000. As for the amplifiers
to run these very large speakers, they were using no less then three pairs of VTL Woton
amplifier (total cost $27,500). For preamplifier duties is the VTL TL5.5 line unit
($2,950). For front-end duties are the new Wadia
270 transport ($7,450) and the Wadia 27i DAC ($8,950). The 27i comes standard with
output resolution claimed at 22-bit/48kHz though they are planning on offering a 2 chip
upgrade to 24-bit/96kHz when more software and demand is achieved. $22,000 of Cardas wire was also used in this full blow system de
jour. The sponsor of this room is Christopher Hansen 2 Inc.
High-Performance Audio Reviews
