Triode
Corporation Ltd. Japan
Now this was a room that I cozied right up to. When I walked
in I was greeted by the sound of the new TRV-845SE. This is an 845 SET that
used a 6SN7 to drive a 2A3 which in turn drives the 845. The new offering can
be run as an integrated or as a stand alone amplifier and even comes with a
remote. The speakers were the Acoustic Zen Crescendos ($14,000) done in Mappa
Burl which is a stunning finish. The little TRV-845 did a fine job of
driving the big Zens. I was pretty impressed based on the little bit of time I
spent in the room. The other goodies in the room were the TRV-CD4SE tubed CD
player 2200 and the TRV-6SE tube rectified pre-amplifier. If you look closely at
the TRV-6SE you'll see it has... GASP... TONE CONTROLS!
FINALLY, somebody gets it! Not all music is recorded or
mastered properly. Occasionally you NEED to reach over and goose the bass or
treble a little bit to make those anemic recordings sound better. To hell with
the phasing argument. I want to listen to ALL of my music, NOT just the stuff
that is audiophile approved. I say Bravo! to Junichi Yamazaki for having the
stones to design something using common sense rather than allowing himself to
be swayed by the hard core purists. Oh, by the way the tone controls are
defeatable. Besides, with all the people out there doing "room correction"
with digital gear are really just using fancy EQs no matter how you want to
spin it.
Big monoblocks were on the floor were the
TRV-88PP, As you can guess from the model number, these are push pull KT88
amps. I didn't get a chance to experience these when I was in the room.
Look for a complete write up on the TRV-845 sometime in the
next few months. I think I'm going to try to weasel my way into the TRV-6SE
pre-amp too.
ModWright
Room
In the ModWright room Dan was demonstrating his latest
creation the KWA-150 amplifier ($5995). The KWA was feeding a pair of
Daedalus Audio DA-RMa speakers ($6450). Dan was also snowing his new KWA-100
amplifier ($3295) which will be out in December. The sources for the room the ModWright Transporter with the
Platinum Truth modifications ($2000 mod only) which include tube
rectification, tube gain stage and a number of other circuit mods, All of this
fed the Modwright LS36.5 preamp ($4995). On top of the EquaRack sat a Redpoint
Model A turntable with the Triplanar arm and a Shelter 901 cart. This fed the
ModWright SWP90SE tubed phono preamp ($3495). And for those looking to do SACD
or DVD/A, Dan brought one of his Modified Oppo BD players.
Daedalus
Audio Room
In the Daedalus Audio Room Lou brought his flagship
speakers, the Ulysses ($10,950). Drive the Ulysses was a pair of ModWright
KW-150 in monoblock configuration. The preamp was the ModWright LS36.5. The
sources for Lou's system were the ModWright modified Transporter, the
Abbingdon Music Research CD-77 CD player and a Gill Audio/Art Audio Elise DAC.
While I was in the room, I mentioned to Lou how good his
speakers were sounding. A number of years ago I had the chance to play with a
pair. Lou mentioned that a couple of years ago he completely rethought his
approach to the speakers. In turn, he redesigned the crossovers and made
several other tweaks which has drastically improved (IMO) the sound.
German
Physics
Now these are some cool speakers. I'm just old enough to
remember rockin my brains out using a pair of Ohm Walsh F speakers way the heck back into the 1970's.
Trouble with
the F's, you could fry ‘em with a little more than nasty look.
These definitely aren't Ohm's. The fine folks at German
Physics brought their Borderland Mk IV speakers finished in a lovely quilted
and burled maple. Driving the system was the Vitus Audio SCD-010 SACD player.
Downstream was the Vitus SL-010 preamplifier which fed a pair of SM-010
monoblock amplifiers. Although I only spend a few minutes in this room, I felt the
combination was quite good. Tons of air and detail. With the omni-directional
nature of the DDD driver, the soundstage could be heard from nearly anywhere
in the room. The DDD driver seemed integrate quite well with the woofer also.
Quite nice.
Grant
Fidelity Room
Holy crap. I think Ian and Rachel brought almost his whole
line to display at the show. That's OK though. The stuff he did bring ranged
the gamut from extremely affordable to a little better than moderately priced.
What was playing when I came in the room was the Compact
WZ-5 speakers ($4500). Amplification was being supplied by the Grant Fidelity
Rita 880 integrated KT88 PP amp ($5299). The CD player was the super cool
looking tubed CD-1000 ($3200) which upsamples. As you can see, there was a myriad of additional gear on
hand including a headphone rig and mini-monitors sitting in the parlor.
Click here for page 2.
High-Performance Audio Reviews
