TAVES Consumer Electronics Show 2014 Show Report (Toronto Audio Video Entertainment Show)
Part 2: Report By Rick Becker

  

One of the neat things about going to shows is the opportunity to talk with the people who design and manufacture the gear. I learned this at my very first show when I drove to Chicago for a CES in the early 1990s that was open to the public on the upper floors. (The lower floors were ‘Trade only'). I got to meet and chat with John Hillig of Musical Concepts/Musical Design who built the first piece of high end gear I ever bought. Little did I know at that time where this would lead. These guys are real people with a passion and Tosh Goka of Reference 3A fame shown here is certainly a prime example. I slipped into the room, took a seat, ripped open a Clif Bar and listened to music. Here were the tubes, out of sight in the Copland CTA 405A integrated amp that Tosh uses so often—and for good reason. DSD files at 2.82 MHz were converted to analog by an exaSound e22 DAC Stereo DSD 256 DAC ($3499 USD), one of the most highly regarded DACs available. Utilizing ESS ES9018 Sabre 32 reference chips and including a headphone amp capable of driving low impedance/low sensitivity headphones, this DAC targets someone seeking excellence without going off the deep end. George Klissarov, head man at exaSound was present, as you might suspect, this being a Toronto based company. As an example of their engineering excellence, the e22 is said to have a signal-to-noise ratio of 128dB, far superior to most amplifiers.

The smaller floorstanding speaker shown here was the new Episode Taksim ($6900/pr.) that has revised internal bracing and a folded port tube for better bass response. The full range driver with the white honey-dipper diffuser is supplemented with a Beryllium tweeter mounted above it. It is obviously very tube friendly with 92dB/W/m efficiency and 8 Ohm impedance and has a frequency response of 29 Hz to 40 kHz. Nora Jones was very clear and sweet and the speaker had excellent transparency, probably due to the absence of a crossover (except, perhaps, to protect the tweeter). Gone from these new Ref. 3A speakers are the fine veneers of their previous designs, except the Grand Veena Be, replaced with the textured Nextel finish which is said to improve the sound. Tosh said he has experienced little resistance from his customers to the dark grey finish. The brass screws holding the driver stand out a bit, but are used because brass screws sound best. Simple as that. Listening in the dark, I'm sure the speakers would visually disappear nearly as completely as they do acoustically. Also on hand was the small Dulcet Be speaker ($1999) with Beryllium tweeter which is their entry level, sitting atop their adjustable height speaker stand ($395). The tall floorstander is their Sema Zen model weighing in at 220 pounds each. Ref. 3A is one of few speaker manufacturers I know of that recommends amplifiers to drive their products. On their website they promote the Copland shown here and Divergent Technologies tube amplifiers which they import and distribute. This was a very fine sounding room that was hard to leave.

 

Having finished the 2^nd floor, and as it was approaching the appointed time, I dropped down to the ground floor to re-connect with Tom. As luck would have it, the fire alarm went off, and overhead speakers alerted us to pay attention for further announcements. With the alarm bell slowly dinging, I wandered into the Meridian room where their very expensive and very highly resolving digital system was playing. I don't pay much attention to Meridian because it is a digital system approach geared for wealthy music lovers, not for people who like to piece together their own systems to achieve their favorite flavor of recorded music. (I know; I'm bad.) With Meridian the signal stays in the digital domain until it hits the amplifiers built into the speakers. Its appeal is its visual simplicity and minimal clutter—elegance that appeals to people who can afford it. Their success would indicate they are right on target. And it doesn't hurt that the sound is crystal clear, neutral and un-distorted. Like exotic cars, I look, I listen, but I don't get emotionally involved as it doesn't relate to how I pursue music or this hobby. Two things of interest here—what I heard was Red Book resolution (which speaks very well of the system) and the speakers were placed along the long wall in a room with relatively narrow width, which made the best of a difficult situation in an acoustically untreated room.

 

I was excited to learn I would be having another opportunity to hear the new Kharma speakers at this show and I found them in a small conference room down a hallway behind the stairs leading to the ground floor. It would have been easy to miss this hallway, though it was initially lined with paintings. But notice the absence of green arrows on the floor. On display were the two-way S7 model I had heard in Montreal (?) for $20,000 in red, and the dB7 ($40,000), both from their Elegance series which replaces the Ceramique series. I use the Ceramique 2.2 three-way model in my big rig. The Elegance series, as you might expect has a higher level of bling with more chrome on the front and side nameplates, and trim on the revised adjustable stand. The back side is also cleaned up, but the cabinet is basically the same shape. Grills are attachable with magnets embedded in the cabinet, so there are no unsightly holes when not in use. The big news is the use of Beryllium tweeters and mid/woofers with their proprietary composite cones. Both of these models are two-way designs, the dB7 being a bit more efficient, but operating at 4 Ohms instead of 8. The dB7 was being driven by a two-box LFD preamp and a pair of LFD 90 Watt monoblocks. The source was a little more obscure and you might not have heard what was playing during my visit. There was a Linn Majik DSM, Mark Levinson SACD Player No. 512, Moon 380 D DSD DAC playing 192kHz resolution with Louis Armstrong at the mic singing about dancing together cheek to cheek, a very retro activity these days. This was followed with Stevie Ray Vaughan's version of Tin Pan Alley, with which I'm very familiar. The system was wired with Nordost Valhalla 2 series cables. The sound was very familiar to me, but a bit more refined than my Ceramique 2.2. The Beryllium treble is a little more resolving and the bass is a bit tighter, though not noticeably deeper. It has the same house sound, probably because the cabinet is basically the same and of course, the same designer. Details are a little more layered than what I've achieved, though my rig and room are certainly more tricked out than the set-up in this room. Though now very pricey, it is a very fine speaker. The smaller S7 is probably the better value here. For the $20,000 difference you could pick up a pair of very nice subwoofers that would make for a truly extraordinary full range system. I doubled back on Sunday with hopes of hearing the S7 for direct comparison, but was told they were sticking with the dB7 because they had played the S7 at Montreal. OK. Kharma is selling direct to dealer without a distributor these days. Audio Eden in Aurora, Ontario, just north of Toronto, handles Canada and there are three dealers in the USA. In addition to the gear in this room, Audio Eden handles a bevy of other very fine lines.

 

The Paradigm room with a home theater setup was packed, but I wiggled past people to get a shot of their new speakers with aluminum cones, driven by Anthem electronics. Note the slim monoblocks on the floor beside the speakers and the adjustable spikes on the aluminum arcs on the speakers. Home theater isn't my beat, but felt obligated to give a nod to these important popular brands. It was too loud to talk details in this room, but I also took note of serious looking subwoofers here.

 

Next up was a room that was nothing if not dynamic with high efficiency JBL SK2-9900 horn speakers ($48,000) driven by a new Mark Levinson Model 585 integrated amp ($14,000) with 200 Wpc operating in Class AB and a built-in DAC operating at 32-bit/192kHz that will be out in December. The Levinson CD Player No. 512 ($19,000) feeding it has been out for a few years now. The JBL is the "little brother" of the Everest DD67000 Tom heard at RMAF. The black speakers shown here are from the Synthesis Array series. The JBL website is difficult to search, but further info is there if you persist.

 

Revel Ultima Studio 2 speakers ($20,000) held court with a tall stack of Arcam electronics. The FMJ preamp and power amp ($5000/$5500 each) in this stack, along with the FMJ A49 integrated amp ($6000) on a table to the side are made in Rochester, NY, my home town, by Ashley Audio. Ashley, a pro-audio manufacturer who started up in the early 1970s, post-Woodstock, has invested heavily in modern production equipment and has taken on the Arcam work to maximize their production capability. The production cost is the same as the Chinese sources they use on other Arcam products, so they've brought it a little closer to home where the production integrity is higher and they don't have to monitor it as closely as they do in China. The 120 Wpc A39 integrated, the smaller brother to the A49, will be the next to come on-line at Ashley. The Arcam products are designed in Great Britain and began as more modest entry level products, but they've been moving up the food chain in recent years.

So, that's it for the 2^nd floor and a bit of the ground floor. 3^rd and 4^th floors will be forthcoming. Stay tuned!

 

---> Rick Becker's TAVES 2014 show report part 3.