As most of
you probably know, Kentucky won the NCAA Basketball Championship on Monday,
and rumor has it the starting five will all drop out of school into
multi-million dollar contracts in the NBA, which is good news for High End
audio. No more $29.95 headphones for those boys. The industry shall rejoice
that five more audiophiles from the University of Kentucky are about to be
born.
The Gershman Acoustics
was back again this year promoting their $42,000 Black Swan speaker, a two
unit A-Frame design where the mid-tweeter unit stands over the lower bass
module. Unfortunately, the difficulty of setting the Swans up precludes their
changing over to other models during the show — and they have lots of fine
sounding models at much more modest prices, particularly the Sonogram. And I
believe I saw the Avant Garde model in the Pavillion du Canada at the show. I've
heard the Black Swan with many different rigs and I've always preferred it
with tube amplifiers — and not because I'm a big tube lover. The Mastersound
Evolution 845 Reference power amp did a wonderful job with the Swans and the Stello
CD player and preamp certainly contributed as well. It was surprising how well
this room with virtually no sound treatment sounded with a speaker that would
do justice to a room many times this size — fine enough for mention as
another Best Room.
Vienna Acoustics'
Beethoven Baby Grand Symphony Edition ($4500) was another splendid sounding
speaker driven by an Ayre integrated amp. A MacBook
Pro on top of the stand, presumably with some HD files, was the source feeding
digital signals to the Ayre Universal Player. The contemporary feet of the
speakers blended marvelously with the high gloss wood veneer of the classic
shape. Beautiful, yet conventional on the outside, the magic comes from
within. The cup was far more than half full in this room, rating very high in
value.
The Sonus Faber
Elipsa is a scaled down version of their Stradivari homage and is priced at
$20,000in the USA. We were treated to a premier of the Elipsa SE which
incorporates the ring radiator tweeter of the Stradivari and is graced with
the magnificent high gloss traditional red violin finish rather than the satin
maple finish of the standard Elipsa. The crossover is changed because of the
different tweeter but the specs remain the same. The upcharge for the SE is
$2900 (in the USA) but the finish alone makes it look like a million bucks,
suitable for more modest size rooms in the finest homes. To think of it as a
smaller sibling to the larger Stradivari homage would not be far off. I was
told the price in Canada is $26,000, but who knows what the latest fuel
surcharge will do to the price. The Elipsa SE was teamed with the REL
G2 subwoofer in piano gloss black below 30 Hz, and it was powered with a Boulder 3050 stereo amplifier putting out 1500 watts, weighing
400 pounds and costing $195,000. (Thieves will run off with the speakers
first). The Boulder was isolated from the carpet with a finite
element pagoda edition amp stand. The critically acclaimed Shunyata
Z-tron series cables were used throughout. The source was the dCs
Debussy DAC fed by a MacBook Pro
through a Siltech USB cable
costing $1800 for 1m. High prices will guarantee exclusivity but not
excellence. But in this case, if you are thinking this was one of the very Best
Rooms at the show, you are right.
From Italy, a Grandinote
transformer coupled integrated tube amp ($10,000) putting out 37 wpc was
driving a pair of Audio Physics
Virgo 25 loudspeakers ($14,000) that the host said was a very easy load to
drive. The source here was a Trigon
Chronolog music server ($10,000) that ties into the internet for downloads and
internet radio, connects to a NAS, and broadcasts Wi-Fi to work with an iPad.
While it indicated the music playing was 16bi/44.1kHz, it sounded very good.
An Elac FS 249
($6900) was shown this year without the supplementary super tweeter on top
that had been used in 2008. I've always thought this German line has been good
sounding with their ribbon tweeters and honeycomb-like metal drivers. They
were driven very nicely this year with a new Atoll
CD player and integrated amplifier although I noted a USB device
and an Oracle Paris turntable and
phonostage.
I took the opportunity to compare three of Sennheiser‘s
top headphones. The HD 800 circumaural design was light weight and very
comfortable. The playback quality was outstanding, as many others have
written. I found it very close in tonal balance to the HD 650, though the HD
800 was more focused and more comfortable than the HD 650 which is an "on-the-ear"
design. The HD 700 headphones, heard through a Grace m902 Reference headphone amplifier utilizing the left
& right balanced inputs on the front of the amp, had a different tonal
balance than the 800 and 650. I preferred the HD 800 in my brief comparison.
With all three it was pretty amazing sound quality though obviously a paradigm
shift from traditional speakers.
In a room kind of by itself off the hallway that passed the
outdoor rooftop pool was an impressive room featuring Audio
Physic Caldera speakers with a flashy upper side panel that will
guarantee exclusivity. It sounded very good driven by large Trigon monoblocks with a Trigon preamp and music server
upstream. I heard a familiar tune from Harry
Manx's CD Wise and Otherwise,
"Coat of Mail" which testified to the quality of this rig. A lot of glass and
bare walls here contributed a bit of bloom to the music, but it still
qualified as one of the Best Rooms
at the show. An Acoustic Signature
Ascona turntable was also in the rig but not in use at the time.
As I left the room I noticed the babes were gathering in the
heated outdoor pool, but I still had a half hour before the appointed time to
meet Tom for dinner. I descended the elevator to the lower Level Grands Salons
and kicked around in the Westmount/Centremont room where a lot of open space
was shared by various vendors. Among them was Jack
Wu's display with his various WooAudio
headphone amplifiers available for audition. I especially liked a two-unit
design with a separate tube power supply feeding the amplifier which was
equipped with upgraded 6SN6 tubes ($280 for the tube upgrade) and upgraded
300B tubes ($550 for the pair of Black Bottle 300B tubes). I believe it was
their WA5-LE SET Class A headphone amplifier ($2500) but it may have been the
virtually identical WA5 model that will also drive speakers in a desktop
setting ($3150). Playing my compilation CD the music sounded very good with
the Sennheiser HD 800 headphones, but the new WTP-1 Transport and WDS-1 24/192
DAC ($1099 each) got hung up intermittently, giving me static. Playing Roy
Orbison's Black & White Night commercially produced CD I had no
problems. These should be on display at the upcoming New York show, since Woo
is based there. Be sure and catch their display with the many high-end
headphones they also sell.
Also in the Westmount/Centermont room was the Canada
Pavilion with various high-end audio products made in Canada on silent
display. Unfortunately, many of the products were not labeled. Two that caught
my attention are shown here, the yellow FFX
monoblocks and a speaker enclosure and tonearm from Mike
Tang Audio. Another I recognized was a Gemme
Audio speaker with a full-range driver.
As I wandered out of the Canada Pavilion my ear caught what
sounded like the opening bass notes from a live performance. The door into the
room was clogged with listeners. I recalled a concept put forth by Sam Tellig
many years ago that never gained a foothold in audiophile lexicon. He called
it "LIAR" an acronym for "Listening In Another Room" by which equipment is
judged by its ability to sound like live music when listening from another
room. Since I had seen musicians carrying instruments at the show on a couple
of occasions, I figured this must be one of those "Is it Live or is it
Memorex?" endeavors. I pressed flesh to get a closer listen and then got a
break to enter after several people exited. It was the MBL room with all the
players from their Reference Line dressed in white. (Did I tell you "white" is
the new "black"?) They were playing a classic rock tune. It was loud. There
was no distortion. And it sounded closer to live music than I've ever heard
from a High End rig. I reserve the term "awesome" for rooms such as this. But
it was getting close to time to meet Tom, so I started to leave until I heard
the percussion opening of Hugh Masekela's "Stimela". Tom could wait
another 10:05. I settled into the recording venue of this very familiar piece
of music, reveling in the dynamics and transparency. My eyes swelled with
tears as I thought back to the first time I heard this piece. Linda and I had
just been out to dinner with John Barnes and his wife, Pam. We returned to
Audio Unlimited where he played this cut from the Burmester CD in the big room
with Boulder electronics driving Tannoy Churchill speakers, loud. John and Pam
had just seen Masekela perform a few weeks earlier in Denver. Life is made of
such special moments. And this was another one. With the omnidirectional MBL
speakers there really wasn't a bad seat in the room, or standing room, either.
True, this was a rig destined for the homes of one per centers, but it is also
the closest to live music I've ever heard. Sure, I may have heard some rigs
that have matched this performance with string or jazz quartets, but for large
scale music, this is it. I don't normally pinpoint a Best
of Show designation in my reports, but this room was truly
exceptional.
Later on Sunday I dropped in again to catch a listen to the
smaller mbl rig with the Corona line C31 CD player ($9200), C11
preamplifier ($8800) and C21 stereo power amplifier driving their entry level
Radialstrahler loudspeaker, the mbl 126 ($11,800 in satin finish, $13,500 in
piano finishes) plus matching speaker stands ($1190 to $1560 depending on
satin or gloss). A variety of silver, white and black finishes are available
with touches of chrome or gold to suit your appetite for sparkle. While the
sound here was also omni-directional allowing you to sit almost anywhere in
the room, it took a distant back seat to the Reference line I heard the night
before, as you would expect given the difference in price. At the price points
of the Corona line you have a lot of competition in the High End. But keep in
mind mbl also has the Noble and Classic lines between the two presented in
Montreal.
I met up with Tom and we bolted for the Grant
Fidelity room for a quick shot of real world audio gear. Sure
enough the joint was jumping, although the choice of amps on display had been
drastically reduced with "SOLD" signs on many of them. The Sheng
Ya V218 monitor ($1900) with a wood horn tweeter and 89dB
sensitivity was rocking with power from a handsome Consonance Ref. 5.5 MkII integrated SET amplifier ($2995) that
sported two pairs of Black Bottle 300B tubes (add $900), putting out 18 wpc.
It can also be used as a power amplifier. The Consonance LP 2.1 Die Walkure
turntable with a thick plinth of Baltic birch sandwiched between layers of
brass and aluminum has garnered a lot of attention with its ability to mount
three tonearms. It is priced at $2500 without arms or $3200 with a T1288 oil
damped carbon fiber arm. The table that intrigued me more was the $1100
Consonance 6.1 turntable with T988 oil damped tonearm. Nels Ferre has reviewed
it for Enjoy the Music.com earlier. Looking something like a Chinese
interpretation of the Kuzma Stabi,
it is reconfigurable to accept a 9" or 12" tonearm. The white top seen in the
photo here with the strobe markings is removable to reveal the acrylic
platter. Consonance is the Chinese manufacturer of the acclaimed Well Tempered
Turntables. Ian Grant was most helpful in sorting out his offerings, but the
tip of the hat goes to one of his satisfied customers who showed up with a
case of assorted fine n Canadian beers — none of it brewed with rice.
With a slight buzz from the great beer on an empty stomach,
Tom and I returned to our room to watch Syracuse come up short against Ohio
State in the Elite Eight round of the NCAA Basketball tournament. We wandered
around Montreal for a while, finally picking a restaurant, and shared our
audio discoveries of the day.
More Best Rooms and coverage of one of the most extraordinary presentations ever heard are yet to come. Stop back in a few more days.
Click here for part 4.
High-Performance Audio Reviews
