Lone Star Audio Fest 2010 Show Report
Text By John Semrad And Photo's Copyright Clay Grier

 

  Michael Mardis, also known as Panomaniac, was in Dallas with a system that featured John Busch-designed open baffle speakers. They use vintage Altec 605A 15" co-axial drivers supplemented with an Eminence 18" woofer.

A Yamaha Dvd-S1800 disc player fed Michael's prototype DAC that uses a Sabre chip and one of Bud Purvine'sOnetics output transformers. The integrated amp is a Grant Fidelity single-ended 300B using a 12AX7 input tubes and an EL-34 driver. Power to the sub is handled by a Virtue Audio class-D amp crossed over from a Behringer low pass filter.

Brad and Matt come up to Dallas every year to have a good time and show off their system based around an open baffle speaker that uses a Hawthorne 15" Duet co-ax and an Augie 15" bass augmenter.

The digital front end consisted of a Marantz SA8003 SACD player and a Boulder-modified Logitech Squeezebox and they fed an Audio Mirror PP-1 tube pre-amp. Power to the speakers was provided by a Redwine Audio 30.2 battery-powered class-D amp to the co-ax and a Rythmik Audio plate amp to the Augies.

Scott Warren's Advanced Home Theater Systems room had some very beautiful Luxman and Von Schweikert gear on display.

The gorgeous Luxman D-05 SACD player and Luxman L-507u integrated amplifier stood on HRS M3X isolation bases with HRS damping plates surmounting the SACD player.

The Von Schweikert Unifield 3 speakers featured a ribbon tweeter and sat on Sound Anchor stands.

Fred Thompson, representing the Houston Audio Society, showed his newest loudspeaker design, the Selah Audio Texas Revelator Tower. It uses, as you might guess, Scan-Speak Revelator drivers in a 2.5 way mode. The mid-woofers are 7" in diameter using a sliced-paper cone and the Air Circ Revelator tweeter has a silk dome and wide surround. The proprietary crossover uses premium Clarity SA capacitors and Mills wirewound resistors while the inductors are air core. Silver Circle Audio supplied the Pure Power One 5.0 line conditioner.

The speaker is available as a kit or fully assembled. Johan Van Zyl's room featured the improved production version of the new VZA Frontline loudspeaker. Johan has designed several successful horn-loaded speakers for other companies including BassMaxx and Affirm Audio. This company is his own venture.

The tractrix-flared back-loaded mini horn enclosure houses a Van Zyl-modified Jordan 92XJ unit providing fast and dynamic full-range performance with an Aurum Cantus G2Si ribbon tweeter supplying air on top. The crossover is first order. Shown is the standard burl laminate but the speaker is available in real wood veneer as an extra cost option.

Electronics were manufactured and supplied by Analog Research-Technology, of Garland, TX. Sources comprised of a modified Philips CD player, and an outboard DAC that was fed by a Legato USB-S/PDIF converter. A solid-state preamplifier and Class-D power amplifier rounded out the equipment used.

David Stanard of Silver Circle Audio in Houston designs and builds line voltage power conditioners. He brought to the show his Pure Power One 5.0 which uses a 5kVA toroidal isolation transformer and has eight Furutech outlets for audio equipment.

The rest of the system consisted of an Esoteric DV-60 SACD/CD player fed directly into an Antique Sound Lab AQ 1003 MkII push-pull EL-34 integrated stereo amplifier. The speakers are the Tyler Acoustics D3M (designed by the prolific Danny Richie) on Tyler Acoustics stands.

Duke LeJeune of AudioKinesis has faithfully made the trip down to Dallas for the LSAF every year.. Always friendly, he showed off his new Rhythm Prism loudspeakers which feature a 12" woofer mounted in a front baffle at a 45-degree inward angle. This results in a speaker that is less than 11" wide. The horn-loaded high-frequency compression driver is a high quality pro sound unit, as is the woofer.

The rest of the set-up consisted of an Oppo DV-970HD universal DVD player digital out to an MHDT Lab Paradisea DAC which uses a W.E. 396a vacuum tube for the buffer. The Lighter Note pre-amplifier drove one of Jeffrey Jackson's scary-looking prototype mercury/nickel/tantalum amplifiers.

 

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