New York Audio & AV Show 2012
Report By Steven R. Rochlin

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  Busy! That is the one word to describe the opening of the New York Audio & AV Show 2012. If you want two words, I'd describe it as %$#@ busy! The crowd was literally wrapped around the hallway before the opening. Once the show began at 3pm, the crowd eventually found its way into the hallways. The rooms were quite busy throughout the evening all the way past the 8pm closing time of the New York Audio & AV show! As it has been many years since a high-end audio show in New York City, it was great to run into so many enthusiastic readers of Enjoy the Music.com. It is always wonderful to meet longtime friends who always make it to NYC events. As always, Nicoll PR had everything well-organized for us press guys and Lucette kept things running smoothly. As for the rooms, the acoustic were quite good in general. Some of the larger rooms had padded walls that actually made the sound a bit too dead(!), which is unusual as hotel rooms usually sound like echo-plexes and acoustic panels like those from RealTraps are necessary. With that said, to my horror i forgot to save some work on my brand new show reporting platform and literally lost two hours of text on my tablet. Of course i ran back to get the information once again as time allowed, yet as much as one attempts to retrace all their steps, some items were 'lost' and will be revisited tomorrow so they can be posted here. And with that said, on with the show!

As we are in New York City, longstanding retailer Andrew Singer has some cool new digs at 242 West 27 Street and heard a few rave reviews of his new place. The people I spoke with said the three new listening rooms at Sound By Singer have excellent sound. Sound By Singer was showcasing the Kudos Audio Cardea C-30 speaker ($11,000 on up depending on finish). The main 18cm driver uses a cast chassis and a unique tri-laminate Nextel coated paper cone. This driver is exclusive to Kudos and incorporates their own center phase plug. For the uppermost frequencies the SEAS Crescendo tweeter is employed. The C30 also uses a dedicated 18cm bass driver, which operates within its dedicated chamber. Sensitivity is 90dB and it presents an 8 Ohm load. Frequency response is from 20 Hz to 30 kHz. As for sound, being the first day of the show I came away surprised how many rooms sounded very good, with some rooms such as this one having that extra excitement. I sat down with Andrew and we had a great conversation about the industry, his new digs and other things audio. Andrew Singer has been very active within the industry for well over 30 years and it shows; as he truly has great knowledge, enthusiam and in-depth experience.

 

The Cable Company truly knows cables as they keep a large database of which products work with certain high-end audio products/systems. In the past decade they have seen the headphone revolution grow and just announced... "And so (drum roll please) based upon the prototype of our Cable Lending Library The Cable Company is pleased to announce our new Hi-End Headphone Lending Library". As such, a carefully chosen selection of high-end headphones are now available. The top headphones from Audeze, Beyerdynamic, Grado, HiFiMan, Sennheiser, and Ultrasone are the foundation of The Cable Company's Hi-End Headphone Library. Naturally they also offer headphone amplifier too and their database can help you with your selection too. If you love headphones, this is well worth checking out.

 

Veloce Audio teamed up with YG Acoustics at the New York Audio & AV Show. The Veloce Audio V-6 monoblocks ($15,000) drove the Kipod II Studio (Kipod II upper with Kipod II Studio Sub). With 400 watts from the V-6 on tap, the speakers easily gave forth great resolution and dynamics, plus my notes say they presented a nicely wide and deep soundstage. Heard other praising the system in the hallway, and it makes sense as review after review are raves on this gear. In fact I made a note to myself to stop back at some point during the show as the system settles in over the next two days.

 

Woo Audio had their tubed electrostatic headphone amplifier (WES for short, $4990 on up depending on configuration) at the show. Using the EL34, 6SL7 and 5AR4/5U4GB, this unit provides a fully balanced amplification stage. The lower power supply feeds the top amplification unit and it can easily drive two pairs of headphones. Woo Audio's WES is said to work great with the Stax SR-007 Mk2 headphones.

 

 A staple of virtually every American high-end show is May Audio Marking. As you know, this company specializes in music and audio tweaks. May Audio carries such labels as Fim, Opus 3, XRCD and many others. And for you tweakers and equipment junkies out there, they also sell Harmonix tuning devices, GutWire audio cables, Penaudio speakers, etc.

 

Lighton Audio is a new speaker company from longstanding audiophile Robert Lighton. Many furniture aficionado know Robert Lighton from his outstanding custom hand-crafted products. So of course his love, and now business, has blossomed into a loudspeaker company. As his one and only audio product, the model RL10 ($10,000) speaker use a 10" woofer with a one kilo total of Alnico magnet and carefully selected soft dome tweeter. Silver internal wire and Audio Note UK bi-wire speaker binding posts. Speaking of Audio Note, the crossover has Audio Note copper foil capacitors and heavy gauge copper ribbon inductor. As for the cabinet, real wood of course and is hand finished using water-based stains with upwards of 10 coats(!). The speaker were amazingly dynamic, as one would expect with such a high 95dB/W/m sensitivity at 8 Ohms. Frequency response is rated from 25 Hz to 25 kHz and it sure did sound very full range when i was in their room. Since Robert Lighton has owned Audio Note gear for many years, it makes sense he is also an Audio Note UK dealer.

 

Click here for Saturday's coverage.