We divided components and speakers into 7 or so basic sound groups in the Audiophiles Guide to the Galaxy (speakers, amps, preamps, cd players). These categories are:

Impressive
Enjoyable
Sweet
Sophisticated
Emotional
Natural
Real
Magical

This allowed us to both 1) include components and speakers that were not in our opinion the BEST allround components (like MBL), and 2) be more inclusive of other peoples tastes (like the vast numbers of people whose overwhelming priority is for impressiveness).

It is not clear if these categories are formed from:

1) The desires different people have for different types of sound during various stages of their maturity

2) The purposes of the designers when building their products

3) The purposes of the components that they just so happen to have irregardless of their designers intentions

4) The cosmologically fundamental goals of sound reproduction

5) Just a convenient yardstick to use in order to parsel things out so they are not all in one big messy pile

Not sure it matters one way or another.

But we use this methodology in our show reports as well as the Audiophile’s Guide - and some people have asked us to better define these categories. It is kind of a ‘you know it when you hear it’ kind of thing, but here goes anyway:

Impressive:

The most commonly desired category. [1] A big soundstage, powerfull bass, lots of macrodynamics. [2] Lots of midrange detail.

Enjoyable:

The most neglected category by the very high-end. [1] Competent sound (dynamics, frequency balance, soundstaging, timbre is not terrible). Nothing offensive.

Sweet:

Enjoyable plus something extra. [1] Timber and note envolopes altered to sound more like music does when the listener has consumed alcohol

Sophisticated:

Also enjoyable and pleasant [1] Exaggerated subtleties.

Emotional:

Often thought to be at the end of the high-end rainbow, but repeated experiences with blues and melancholy music pushes one to go farther. [1] The music pulls at the heart in the direction of the emotional content of the musicians’s message. This effect can be of varying strengths. [2] Leads to mood swings and to listening to more ‘fun’, lighthearted music than before.

Natural:

True timbe and note envelope development. [1] The subtleties of the sound is real. The correctness of the macrodynamics, level of detail, etc. is not necessary for this category

Real:

The ‘Absolute Sound’. Comparable to the real thing. The most often mistakenly heard category. [1] Able to suspend the listener’s sense of disbelief. Transparent - ability to ’see’ the stage and the musicians. [2] Sufficiently technically correct reproduction but only to the degree where it satisfies requirement [1].

Magical:

The voice of God. Contact with the Cosmic Consciousness. [1] Somethings occur inside the listener which are not typically associated with listening to music. The music becomes a pathway to experiencing things and ideas that are beyond the usual daydreams one has had before, and in fact, quite strange, but in a good way. [2] Rampant confusion and respect caused by [1]

It appears that Sweet and Sophisticated are subsets of Enjoyable and Natural a subset of Real. So maybe there are only 5 categories.

But wait!

We have been thinking of adding another category that has been kind of included in Magical. And that is “Messenger” or “Communicator”

Messenger:

That the sound is able to communicate not just the emotion, but the musicians state of mind, their intentions during playing the song, the intentions of the author of the piece, the particular skills of a particular musican playing a particular riff, etc. The sound is able to communicate the excitment and anticiaption and confusion of the audience.

It looks like we will have to add a Messenger category. Not sure if this is a property of a component or really of a system as a whole, though.

OK. Anyway - this is how we look at the sounds of various components and hopefully this will help people better understand how we evaluate these things.

Oh, and then there are components and speakers that embody combinations of the above…. like our new Mini Exquisites’s [And many other fine products as well, of course… ]

Oooooooh.

We are always a little nervous.

We hear something at a show or two - we are very confident we undertand the sound of this something. We even write a glowing review of the sound - because we really liked what we heard.

We have loved the Kharma sound for years, and championed them for years to everyone that we thought would really enjoy them, even though we did not carry them in our store. Yep, some people think we are nuts. Whatever. We just love this stuff. Anyway…

Then we get the chance to put our money where our pen is. OK, yes. Yes please.

But one never knows for sure, for really sure, until it is in the room, hooked to the amps, using the cables and playing the music whether that something will sound as good as expected.

Well, …

We are SO happy.

These little guys are a-m-a-z-i-n-g.

Sweet, Emotional, Enjoyable, Real and Magical.

They are even sounding a little impressive. These little guys? Impressive?

And this is right out of the box. I mean crates.

We (I ) turned it up louder than the spanking brand new speakers wanted to go, while trying to keep SPLs below the point where the room gets overloaded. Even unbroken in, the stiffness and brittleness had a positive, enjoyable, dare I say it, adrenaline-inducing impressive character to it.

We put them on the Lamm ML1.1 monoblocks (also cold) and the Audio Aero Capitole MK II (also cold) with Nordost Tyr speaker cable, Valhalla interconnects and Valhalla power cords on the amps, Shunyata Anaconda Alpha power cord on the Capitole.

It seems to be a pretty good match so far. [Yes, to everyone who has been asking, we will indeed put them on the Lamm ML2.1 very soon now The ML1.1 amps just happened to be sitting there and I think we should put at least a few hours on the Mini with these larger amps. And the ML2.1 on the Marten Design Coltranes is really taking the feet out from underneath everyone who hears it - literally]

That’s as far as we were able to get.

Oh. Yeah. My Daughter is only 23. Oops. Sorry about that last post there sweetie. Well, at least she is still young enough to like people thinking she is older than she really is. Whew! Everybody got a good laugh at the old man’s memory skills.

Here are some unwrapped Minis:

Unwrapping was an exercise in keeping my fingers out the way of Neli’s scissors as she lectures me on being very careful to not scratch the little Exquisites. Happy to say that no blood was spilled by either of Neli, the Mini, or I. [Neli tells me that I am exaggerating and she wasn’t really that way at all, hardly. Yes, everybody, she is wonderful, just wonderful, to unwrap speakers with………]

Yes, they are in Aubergine. The diamond tweeter cover is a magnet! It just sticks on to the front of the speaker to protect the otherwise very delicate tweeter.

Those fingerprints that you see on the cover plates on these totally brand new, just unwrapped speakers are put there by fingers that have just finished eating Vietnamese takeout and whose owner shall remain nameless (but their first name starts with a ‘N’ if you must know, not an ‘M’ )

I’m sure she’ll have it polished up better than ever even before I wake up tomorrow - it is just so much fun now that I finally have photographic evidence that *she* also has fingers that leave prints…:-)

Yes, they arrived.

Yes, we (finally) got them uncrated.

Yes, we got them up the stairs’s’s’s’s

But they are still wrapped as I write this. This evening we are celebrating the Daughter’s 24th birthday with her and a friend (of course, it is not actually her birthday, THAT was when the REAL party happened … no parents allowed . Anyway, Neli is off getting a birthday cake and, well, we may not get to set these up until tomorrow?

The pain, the PAIN!

I mean I’ will take a chance and caussssually mention to the ‘kids’ that we could go downstairs and check the new speakers out. And then even more casuallllly ask if they would like to hear them. And, well then, it will take just a few minutes to unwrap them and hook them up (to the Lamm ML1.1 driven by the Audio Aero Capitole MK II to start). Hey its worth a try. Bet I have some chance of success too Aren’t I a sneaky Dad?

All Neli can say over and over and over is “They’re so cute! They’re so CUTE!”. They really are. These are pretty little speakers just oozing WAF. Well, I’m sure ooze is not an approved WAF adjective, but you get what I mean.

Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.

A great sounding speaker and stand combination. Lost their way and now need a new home. Playful and endearing.

[The Kharma Mini Exquisites are supposed to arrive Monday…. We need the room now. And of course, our big red Acapella Triolons need a new home, too….Just a reminder ].

Rave reviews (by others as well as by us) at the last few shows.

A couple of small 1/2″ long scratches on top of one speaker, a few nearly invisible polishing scratches on the top of one speaker and the top of the bottom of the stand of the other. Otherwise perfect.

$4,400.00 or best offer. The retail on these was $6,800.00.

The squigglies on the top of this speaker are an optical illusion caused by the Morie patterns made by light coming through the screen on the window. Cool huh? These speakers are a very highly reflective piano black.

The two little scratches.

mike&neli@audiofederation.com
303-546-6503

We got our TAS a few weeks ago and in it they had 30 pages dedicated to their CES 2006 show report.

Nice show report. So happy to see they put out such a wealth of impressions from CES. It was a complete lack of any such information that caused us to start our show reports way back when.

But, well, now we are addicted to shows so we aren’t going back to the sidelines, sorry - but it is good that a print mag is putting out more than just excerpts from show brochures for a change.

OK, idea for another BLOG post: “Varieties of hi-fi audio addictions - Feeding and care of”.

Jonathan Valin’s section in the TAS show report had some surprising simularities to our impressions, and more interestingly, some variances.

Room-by-room then:

Nola / Plinius
We didn’t take much notice of this room

VR-9 / darTZeel
Agree that they sounded better at the Denver show. Don’t thnik ’syrupy’ is the right word here, at all. Actually do not agree with any of the description here.

Calix
I thought the driver integration and localization problems he noticed were minor flaws in an overall natural, big, pure sound which was a little relaxing after some of the hifi-ish sound in the other rooms.

Wisdom Audio / Edge
Agree with the reticence. Disagree with the implication that the Edge was at fault.

TAD
Agree that it was not quite (duh!) as abrasive as their HE 2005 room. The rest is to say he doesn’t like this sound either, though he blames the speakers by showering compliments on the Pass Labs amps whereas I womder if the blame should really be shared between the two.

AAA Audio
Not sure which room this is

Lumen White / Ayon
Closed in and dark? A little, I guess. I heard a little timbre anomolie which really grabbed my attention and wouldn’t let go, unfortunately.

Harbeth
Didn’t spend too much time in here

Hansen
Not much time in here either

Immedia
These were not playing any music when I was there

Ridley
Not sure which room this was

Fanfare International
Not sure which room this was, either

Zanden / Peak Consult
Agree with what he said, even with the ’slightly-more-hooded’ sound of the Peak Consult in comparison with the Kharma - though I would say ‘lots’ instead of ’slightly’.

Marten Design / EAR
Dark and bright at the same time? Say what? I guess this could mean the treble was a little forward and the midrange a little recessed? If so then I could see the EAR being described this way… I guess. The minor amount of these frequency bumps in that room I usually discount as part of the room (or the number of people in the room at the time of the listening session), …………unless he is talking about the first day…

Acoustic Precision (Venture / L:amm)
Spacious and detailed? I guess, but overwehelmed by a significant reticence and darkness that was obscuring the spaciousness and detail, IMHO.

Talon / Joule Electra
Peak in the midbass and glare in the upper mids? Yeah, and mostly the general lack of signs of life.

Nola Pegasus / ASR
Disagrees with HP and describes the overly-polite dynamic nature of the ASR. Exactly!

Burmester room
Say what? He likes this room and we just heard the deadness and lack of bloom and timbre that seemed a little off.

Coincident / Manley
All he says is that they were “coherent at loud levels”. Perhaps, but what about other attributes and at other listening levels. What a nice way to diss a room while being nice about it. We bow to the master (Neli says I should stop using words like ‘terrible’, so I am taking notes here . The problem here was that there was a lack of life (lack of micro-dynamics,real world richness of tone, subtle shades of timbre being lost, etc.)

Eben / Rado
Not sure we heard this room

Sound Lab / EMM Labs / Parasound
“Gorgeous sounding? Best fullrange stat at CES?” Well, there were only two stats there that I remember, so I agree with this. But this dry sound with very little tone does NOT represent the way the Meitner or Sound Lab sound. Either 1) people are looking for something VERY different than we are when it comes to the sonics of electrostatic speakers or 2) people have never heard the way the Sound Labs can REALLY sound, like they do here with top notch amplification.

Artemis Labs
Too busy chatting to listen in this room. Mea Culpa.

Magico / Edge / CAT
He loved this room and I thought it was muddy and disorganized sounding. Timbre was the slightest bit off and the dynamics somewhat unbalanced and compressed. Hopefully people don’t just attribute great sound to a room just because the speakers do so well for their size (although the tempation is there and we feel its pull as well). I cannot understand why some reviewers are liking this room so much (most people at the show seem to like the other Magico room better, but even that I found… not bad but kind of so-so).

ARC / Wilson
Agree that this room pulled off a great sound with what we would consider… somewhat colorless… electronics and a difficult speaker.

Ascendo
Agree that the tonal color was good and everything else that was said about the room. So nice to hear them sound so much better after their terrible showing at HE 2005 (Oops, still using that T word, ain’t I?)

Avalon / Hovland
He isn’t a fan of the Eidolon Diamonds (but we are!) but he liked this room (but I didn’t). I thought the Hovland Radia had more life than these new Stratos amplifiers - which sounded dark and reticent to me at CES.

Peak Consult / WAVAC / Continuum
Ha! He was also dissapointed with the turntable / system in this room .So were we - or rather, it is a fine turntable, but not unlike many other fine turntables out there.

Magico / Rowland
Agree on the lack of life in this room.

Dali Megalines / McIntosh
He didn’t like the room much - and my impressions were that it was warm and muddy, enjoyable for people in recovery from a overly bright system, perhaps.

Ayre / JBL
Didn’t hear this room

Avantgarde Acoustic
Maybe he is comparing these to all other very, very efficient horn designs and so he likes them using that scorecard? Otherwise…impressive yes. Emotional? Enjoyable? Real? Natural? Not to these ears.

VR7
I think we missed this room

Genesis
He says “Too much tweet and woof”. Good description.

GTT Audio
He liked it. So did we.

MBL
He says it is “wow”. We agree. “That the midrange is realistic”. To our ears they take away some of the leading edges of the notes and reshape the note envelope in a kind of interesting way - along with an almost complete lack of micro-dynamics, That the “treble is without parallel”. We actually find it to not be very realistic either. He gives this the best of show. But without specifying what it is best at, one cannot tell if he thinks it is just doing ‘impressive’ better than all the other speakers are ‘doing impressive’, or better than all other speakers at doing their job in pursuit of their particular ‘purpose’, whether that be real, enjoyability, emotionality, naturalness or whatever. Or, and this can’t be it, that it is the best at doing EVERYTHING compared to all the other systems at the show.

Most likely it is, like our old Best Of Show, the system they would most like to have in their posession. And in this case it is also the system most like the system in his possession. [JV has an MBL-based system these days].

Well, that’s it. Hope it was fun for everyone. If not, well, hope we will do better next time.

‘Til then, then.

About 1150 pictures.

Each in 3 resolutions.

Of about 60 rooms (which should be at least 95%+ of the show)

Commentary and impressions of 21 of the best sounding and/or most expensive rooms.

Quick links:

Low Resolution (500 pixels wide)

Low Resolution (1000 pixels wide)

High Resolution (1500 pixels wide)

Enjoy!