NHT has a killer-cheap $750 floor standing speaker dubbed the SuperTwo.   It's a three-way vented design with a 1" soft-dome tweeter, a 6.5" midwoofer, and a bottom firing 6.5" subwoofer.  It's almost a shootout between this speaker, the Gallo's and the Totem ARRO for a great bang for the $$$.  Killer stuff considering that there are not just one, but two killer "bargain" speakers for music lovers at this show in my humble opinion.  Oh, here are the Gallo speakers...

 

Many people at the show including S'phile writers and the public were praising the new Gallo satellite / subwoofer system.  Priced at around $800 this system comes complete with one subwoofer (ball on the floor and two small balls (seen on the left).  i've said it before and i'll say it again, "Gallo has balls!"  GREAT stuff my friend.  Ya might wanna check these babies out ASAP before they go on major backorder for months.  The single subwoofer system is only $699 while the two subwoofer system is $999.

 

       
Click photo for larger picture.

Wilson Audio gave a huge press conference on their new MAXX speaker.  Weighing in at a whopping 800 lbs. each these babies include one each per channel 12" and 10" woofers.  Then ya got two 7" midranges and one 1" inverted dome titanium tweeter.  Frequency response is claimed as 23Hz to 21kHz (+-3dB) and the sensitivity is 92dB/W/m.  The minimum resistance is 3 ohms @ 220Hz while the maximum impedance is 8 ohms @ 32 and 29 Hz according to David Wilson.  Availability should be around September 1, 1998 and pricing is $38,900.  Oh, for all you channel subscribers there's a super high resolution panorama of the Wilson room available!  The MAXX is shown above with the Wilson Witt speaker to the right to give you some idea as to the size (and i love the yellow by the way, yet Ferrari red would be my fave).  Oh speaking of Ferrari...   Anyone watch the Canadian F1 Grand Prix last week?

 

Well, er, um, i attended the NXT press conference where Jon Vizor gave a presentation on he NXT flat panel speakers.  Some of it made sense, other parts were very contradictive.  The real question was what exactly is the function of it's output (?dipole?).  They went on and on but the more they talked about it, the more contradictive it was.  Well, all i gotta say is let's hear the final product and see how she sings, fly, dies, or cries.  Shown below is their graph of how the panel produces soundwaves as compared to standard panel speakers.

 

Starting from the left, the stand mounted Mini Utopia uses the same technology as JMlabs highly rated Grand Utopia yet costs much less ($6,500 not including stands, but the literature isn't 100% clear as to the pricing).  The Mini Utopia consists of the Telar 57 tweeter with two 6.5" bass/midrange above and below.   Then in the middle is the three-way unit dubbed the Mezzo Utopia using the same Telar 57 tweeter and 6/5" midrange, yet also adds a 11" woofer and retails at $11,000.  lastly is their new subschnauser called, what else, the Sub Utopia which uses a larger 15" boomer and retails at $6,500.

 

Joseph Audio is showing their new RM25si Signature floor standing speakers which are 46" x 8.5" x 11.5"  (H x W x D).   Featuring two 6 1/2" aluminum cone drivers with center phase plug and a 25mm silk fabric dome tweeter between them.  Of course the Joseph Audio patented "Infinite Slope" crossover (120db/octave) is also a big part of this design.  Great news about this design all you tube dudes is that the impedance is claimed to never drop below 6 ohms though the sensitivity is 86 db/w/m.  All the capacitors are poly and wire is made by none other then Cardas.  In fact sand can be added into the cabinet itself to help minimize cabinet vibration.  Oh, before i forget, the frequency response is 32Hz to 20kHz (+-2dB).  Suggested retail price is $3,299.

Also in the Joseph Audio room is the new Muse 24-bit/96kHz transport/DAC combo.  This is the very first time the public will really get a good idea as to what i was all happy-happy-joy-joy about in my humble WCES '98 Show report.  VTL will have their TL 5.5 pure tube phono stage in which the new power supplied VPI TNT 4 turntable, JMW 12" tonearm, and Grado Reference cartridge will be used for vinyl source material.