Salon Son & Image 2009

Report By Rick Becker  Part 1

  

A small but effective stack of components was the result of a combination of DNM, an English designer; Resolution Audio, a digital company in San Francisco; and a distributor in Switzerland and Germany by the name of Reson. This system begins with a power system and CD player that docks together, eliminating the need for interconnects. This combination is $3500 and rises to $7500 as you add an AM/FM tuner, MC/MM phono stage, an integrated amplifier, more inputs and a headphone output. The docking "systems approach" of the components eliminates the need for interconnects and requires only one power cord for the whole system. The resulting combination with the Gradient Helsinki loudspeaker mentioned above was quite effective.

 

The Grant Audio room was a treasure trove of gems. They are importers of top Chinese brands Jungson (tube & solid state amplifiers), Shengya (hybrid amplifiers) and Opera Consonance (turntables). At Montreal, they showed gear under their own brand name, Grant Fidelity. The rig I heard included their RITA-880 tube integrated (45 wpc, Class A, $4200 US, list), CD-1000 upsampling CD player with a tube output ($3200 US) and RBS-1 morel reference stand mounted monitor ($2200 US) seen in the photo. (25 percent discounts were offered on pre-orders by May 1^st). The music through this rig was very good, but hard to concentrate on because of the activity generated by this room. One of the items that caught my eye was the large Consonance Droplet turntable, but the one that created lust was the gorgeous Consonance Forbidden City. (Nothing like being "forbidden" to create lust, right?) The plinth, machined out of solid aluminum, is designed after the architecture of the Forbidden City. The Chinese red anodized color, punctuated by small faint green squares in a grid layout created one of the most stunning designs I have seen in High End audio. The turntable with its one piece machined black acrylic platter driven by translucent fishing line is $2200 US and the Opera Consonance carbon fiber ST-100 Tonearm shown on it is $750 US. The ST-600 tonearm is available as an upgrade for $1800 US. Graphite is used in critical junctures of the turntable for the absorption of vibration. And as if wonders would never cease, out of the corner of my recovering eye was spotted pairs of Shuguang Treasure Black Bottle tubes, named for the black vibration absorbing material used on the inside of the tube. The 300B-Z tubes shown here had a price of about $655/pair, US... more lust.

 

8th Floor

Driving a pair of Marten Design Miles III loudspeakers ($12,500 US) with ceramic drivers was a battery powered preamplifier and power amplifier from Veloce Audio, based in Ambler, PA. The LS 1 Line Stage ($12,500 US) is a two box tube unit with removable umbilical cord that will run about 70 hours on a charge. A smart auto-biasing system adjusts bias as battery conditions change. Both balanced and single ended inputs and outputs are supplied. The two 12AU7 and two 12AT7 dual triode signal tubes protrude horizontally through holes in the massive aluminum faceplate that effectively keeps them running cool. The design is visually unique and should provide a wonderful ambience while listening in the dark. Also shown were prototypes (~$12,000) of their V6 monoblocks on maple butcher block stands. The monoblocks are said to run about 40 hours on a charge. Being off grid, you will not need expensive power cords for either unit. While show conditions precluded an atmosphere sufficient to verify the jet black backgrounds for which batter power is noted, the sound was very clean and dynamic. This was probably the best I've ever heard a Marten Design loudspeaker. The remote on the left in the photo is for the LS-1 while the one on the right was for the Esoteric XO-1 Universal Disc Player modified by The Upgrade Company, an outfit noted for very effective upgrades of already highly regarded gear.

 

  

PMC loudspeakers from England are in a symbiotic relationship with Bryston, a Canadian manufacturer, so it was a bit of a surprise to find their $8000 OB1 speaker being driven by a Parasound JC 2 preamplifier and JC 1 monoblocks. The front ends were an Oracle CD player, which I heard, and an Oracle turntable with an Oracle SME 345 arm and Oracle Thalia cartridge. It was easy to hear why these well known companies have been so successful over the decades.

 

Emmanuel Lafleur had a real room at SSI this year. You may recall last year he was given the opportunity to set up in the Press Room with a large circular table filling the sweet spot. Here, powered by Simaudio Moon solid state electronics in a silver finish he displayed his $14,000 Lafleur X1 two-way monitors in a dark finish that goes well with the modern espresso furniture that is popular with younger people today. I have included a photo showing the front and back of the X2 model in a lighter finish on silent display because it shows the design and build quality of these loudspeakers. Using a cabinet built from a block of Russian cherry plywood, Lafleur took some heat for copying the Magico Mini last year, but this is a significantly different loudspeaker and significantly smaller in size. If memory serves me correctly, the front baffle and rear panel of this ported design are uniquely isolated from the wood cabinet. Likewise, the drivers themselves are isolated from the front baffle. The music here was quite good, but not a value at the asking price. But the story does not end here.

Around the other side of the block on the 8^th floor was another room featuring an X1 in a light finish. Xindak CD player and integrated amplifier were doing things right with the aid of Liquid Cables. Mark & Daniel loudspeakers were at the side of the room on silent display. The music was much better sounding here — so much so that I revisited both rooms on my final sweep at the end of the show. The prototype tube CD player was being used only as a transport in this system, I learned. A tube DAC with USB input opened up the sound considerably. The real icing on the cake was the breakthrough contribution of the Liquid Cables. In the hall outside the room I talked with Taras Kowalcyzszyn and Ken Hotte, both of TEO Audio in Kingston, Ontario. Their cable technology stems from a liquid metal comprised of three elements that was developed and patented by another company for use in medical thermometers to avoid the danger inherent in typical mercury thermometers. The patent is good for a specific proportion of the three metals, so TEO varied the proportions and developed their liquid interconnects, digital cables and speaker cables. I noted Eichmann Bullet plugs on the RCA connections. The results seem incredibly promising. A "white paper" they gave me served only to lead to a request for review samples. The down side, as you and I both suspected, is the cost. But who knows; maybe with a little more R&D or an examination of price vs. demand will lead to more economical versions down the road. But, cables aside, the comparison of the two rooms has shown me the Lafleur X1 is an excellent monitor. You just need to have the right gear upstream.

 

---> Next page.