RMAF 2007
Sunday Page 1

  In the Usher, Oracle and JPS Labs room they had the Tiny Dancer Be-718 reference monitor ($2795/pr and the floorstanding Be-10 ($14,400/pr). The Be-718 is a globally designed project that is a year in the making. It has gone through about seven versions in pre-release and collaboration in Asian technology and United States technology to meet their goals. These goals were to produce an Usher product with universally excellent sound. They have slightly different version for the USA versus Asia to best suit the localized marketplace. Internals in all versions are made in the United States and GR Research assisted in the final tuning. JPS Labs wire are used exclusively internally.

Oracle Delphi MK V turntable. Instead of telling you more, read about this award-wining turntable in my review (click here).

Sweet cool blue lights on the Soundsmith brand Strain Gauge cartridge ($6000 including special preamplifier). A pair of very small silicone beams senses the cantilever position and changes the resistance as needed. Both VTA and azimuth can be adjusted directly on small screws located on the cartridge body.

Artemis Labs prototype turntable (perhaps around $6500 without tonearm) uses a unique belt system so that about 98 percent of the platter has belt contact. The plinth is made from a sandwich of bamboo, ebony, and bamboo. The motor is DC.

The Aaudio room featured Acapella hornspeakers, Einstein tube electronics, Isoclean power filtering and chords and Golden Acoustics room treatment. The Triolon speakers ($170,500) feature the patented Ion tweeter, a bass column with four 10-inch drivers, upper and lower midrange drivers, and each side weighs in at 880 lbs! These were being driven by the Einstein Final Cut MK60 balanced OTL tube amplifiers. The RMAF was the premiere of Einstein's The Source ($15,200) balanced tube CD player, which uses 6H30 tubes in Class A.

IsoTek had many power filtrations devices including their cute little Mira ($400) that is designed for digital sources and television. The larger Titan ($3450) is for power amplifier while the large Sigma ($2150) has six outlets and has two high power for amplifiers and four for front-end units. It is good for 17,000 watts of transient power filtration.

 

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