Still need to update the Tour photos…

But it was time to update the Equipment List.

Much of the text that we had there (and some of it still is there) was written in the first year of our store, some 4 years ago.

I had included stuff like This Magazines Award and That Magazines Award.

I thought I was sceptical at that time of the Reviewer community… hah! Now it is all but ludicrous.

I can just see the budding reviewer as a child on career day…

Politician? Reviewer? Politician? Reviewer?

Hey, at least it keeps them away from the nukes.

We try hard to ignore that part of the industry… really we do.

The equipment page was fun to redo - we have some cool stuff here - and some cool pics:

Audio Aero Capitole amplifier. The colors! More larger pics

The text describng our equipment here has a ways to go - to sort of migrate from the advertising copy approach which we kind of cut and pasted from various manufacturer’s copy to the “What Neli and Mike Think” approach.

For example:

Our Kharma Mini Exquisite loudspeaker. More larger pics.

What we say now is:

“The best 2-way speaker technically and perhaps the most magical 2-way as well.

Ours here, pictured at left, are in aubergine - which is kind of like an eggplant purple. Subtly hallucinogenic - just like the way they sound.

That 1.0 inch diamond tweeter provides an amazing amount of resolution, seemingly much more than the 3/4 inch, and it just seems to be able to project the music from the speaker into the listener’s head.”

This is all to say that the speaker functions excellently in a technical sense from the perspective of a listener compared to all other 2-way loudspeakers (for the sake of argument please ignore the ’stone knives and bearskins’ that J.A. et. al. use to measure sound quality).

It also is trying to say that there is something going on that is hard to describe, but revelatory and pleasurable - that the mind, while focused on and enjoying the very high resolution of the one inch diamond tweeter, is penetrated on other levels which at this time there are no words for.

So we call it magic. Or hallucinogenic. Or “don’t know what it is but I like it”.

It would be easy to kind of cop out and borrow lots of terminology from some religion or another, or Terrence McKenna, or New Age Hermetics, or…. .or Cheech and Chong.

But, although once in awhile borrowing phases from Star Trek TOS (which is simultaneously both tongue in cheek and strangely technically relevent), we try to avoid letting the ‘magic’ of muscial experience be drowned by the hyperbole, nomenclature, stifling hierarchical bureaucracy or consensual irrelevancies of these other pursuits.

We have our own hyperbole and consensual irrelevancies, thank you.

Oops, got side-tracked.

So, trying to explain each component we have here in a few words to someone checking out the list to see if we have something worthwhile listening to… What to say. What to say.

If they are just looking around at various dealers to hear what has received rave reviews - well, that is not going to narrow the list at all. Everything sounds great, haven’t you heard?

So, hopefully just putting down what we think is going on, in halting English, putting it out there - exposing our stumbling around in the dark, for everyone to see, as we try to figure out just WHAT this speaker, and a few other components here and there, do that is so darn AMAZING - that this will tempt people into comimg here to hear and experience the whatever-the-heck-it-is for themselves.

[Oh, and now I see in the TAS we just got that Wayne Garcia just raved the Mini Exquisites. Don’t know whether to giggle or scream. So I guess I’ll just go to bed. G’night everybody.]

[P.S. Hope everyone had a peaceful night. The problem with a rave reviews from most reviewers is that it puts a potentially really great speaker or component on the same level as all the mediocre speakers and components that the reviewer also gave rave reviews to.

Yes, many dealers just point to the recommended lists in Stereophile and TAS and grunt a little - and so random raves do spread the sales around to a wide variety of products - but it does a disservice to the consumer interested in the sound of their equipment. Why must this industry treat audiophiles like ‘marks’ at a carnival - like they were just wallets and purses with credit cards for arms, industry sanctioned ‘recommeded lists’ for eyes, and without any ears? We can do better.]

Picture of entire system with Kharma Mini Exquisite speakers, Lamm ML2.1 amplifiers and Audio Aero Prestige CD/SACD player on HRS M3 isolation bases and MXR equipment rack. Cabled by Nordost Valhalla and either Elrod Statement power cords or Shunyata Anaconda Alpha Helix power cords.

Kharma Mini Exquisite from above.

Sonically, this isn’t a blow-us-away system compared to the same system with the Marten Design Coltrane speakers. It is very nice and enjoyable - but not surprisingly so. Maybe our expectations were too high. Is it wrong to be so spoiled? At what point does our addiction get so out of hand that we no longer represent the average guy or gal? Oh, you are saying we passed that point a long, long time ago? Oops.

We still have to work on the positioning - and we are planning on moving the EDGE solid-state amps over on this side of the room - they being so successful on the other side on these Mini Exquisites, and switching back and forth.

Speaking of switching back and forth….

The power cords powering the ML2.1.

The power cords are the Elrod Statement III (the big ones) and the Shunyata Anadonda Helix Alpha (the red ones). The speaker cables are the Nordost Valhalla. This could be abstract art if it wasn’t so functional.

The Shunyata lends the system detail. The Elrod body and bass. If we are being picky we switch them for each song, depending on what we think will sound best. Though waiting for the Lamm amps to restart after switching power cords - waiting through their 90 second power-on cycle - is long enough for husband and wife to get a chance to talk to each other……

TheHRS MXR equipment rack is looking a little empty. And missing the top shelf. That Audio Aero is doing source and premaplification duties - what used to take four shelves now just takes one.

The top isolation base was out on loan - and now that it is back it is being repurposed elsewhere we are going to move the Brinkmann Balance turntable over on to the MXR equipment rack…. leaving just the Walker Proscenium Gold Signature TT on the RixRax / SoundLab system.

Finally, we are anxiously awaiting the conclusion of our Jorma Prime interconnect burning in on the Nordost Vidar burner.

Tick tock tick tock….

or… “Running Out of Room Here at Audio Federation”.

or… “The Beauty and the Beast”

or… “It really sounds pretty darn good, considering…”

or… “So, we keep stacking speakers choo-choo style like this and we are going to find ourselves to be sitting nearfield”

These pictures were taken right before a demo of the U1 electrostatics moved the Kharma loudspeakers to the side.

The Mini Exquisites sounded really good with the EDGE Signtaure One amplifiers - even though the Sound Lab loudspeakers were right behind them… more or less.

But we have no choice; we’re running out of room here unless we do something radical.

And Neli has her eye on getting in some MORE speakers…..?

I liked it better when she was collecting amplifiers….

Wide angle view of Listening room #2 - with the Sound Lab U1 loudspeakers behind the Kharma Mini Exquisite loudspeakers in a demonstartion of the 27th kind of positioning hell.

We just got this going. Still doing radical repositionings (i.e. we are moving the speaker a whole 12 inches every time we adjust the placement).

It does certainly seem to have enough SPLs to fill our 15 foot by 25 foot listening room #2.

Stay tuned….!

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.

As most people who hang out hereabouts know, we have liked the Kharma approach to making music for many years now. So it is probably not much of a surprise to many of you that we are pleased as punch to be able to ‘put our money where our ears are’ so to speak.

The Kharma Ceramique CE 3.1c speaker at FSI 2006. Very nice sound, exactly as one would expect a smaller version of the Kharma 3.2 to sound like.

We should be getting in the Mini-Exquisites in a few weeks. After what they sounded like at CES, we can’t wait!

This CES 2006 room review was added after the report had been published and so is available here as well.

The Kharma mini-Exquisites - like the Kharma 3.2 but with a diamond tweeter and made to look a lot like its bigger brother, the midi-Exquisites. Driven by the small Kharma amps and MBL electronics with Kubala-Sosna cables.

The Kharma Mini Exquisite room at CES 2006

Very engaging, very musical in that classic, ‘what we want music to sound like this’ fashion. Not so much a ‘you are there’ presentation like the Marten Coltrane Supremes - more like a ‘you are alive and feel good about it’ kind of thing. I really loved the sound in this room - for a small scale system it really does ‘it’ for me.

We described the sound of the Midi Exquisites driven by Lamm amplification at the Home Entertainment New York show in May, HE2005, as being almost drug-like, like a magnetic force it tried to suck you into the music, and, if you let it do this, if you gave in to it, there was a rush of feeling and emotion that swept one away, flying with the music.

The ASR amps on the Midi Exquisites, at this show, did not have the same effect, on me anyway, for whatever reason, but the Mini Exquisites…now they had an interesting effect, though somewhat different, from my perspective. Instead of having to consciously ‘let it’ do its magic, the magic just ‘was’. And whereas the ‘magic’ was thick and dense, like a hot summer night with the Midi Exquisites / Lamm system, the Mini Exquisites were light and airy, like a sunny Spring day.

The Mini’s magic was less intense, but more accessible. Perhaps this was in some part attributable to the better support the Mini had for an audiophile-quality presentation compared to the Midi system - I was able to relax more because the Mini presentation was more balanced and more realistic - albeit at a smaller scale.

Lots of detail, stable imaging, good separation, a rather narrow soundstage which we blamed on the room, good dynamics, and bass was scaled nicely to the room. Based on our two, admittedly short auditions, we think these are a slam-dunk, you are going to be so happy, upgrade for people who have the similarly sized Kharma 3.2’s and have had the money for the bigger Kharmas, but not the room.

In fact, I have a sneaky suspicion that the little 2-way 3.2s may have been the best speaker, for my tastes, of any in the amazing Kharma lineup of much more expensive speakers - and that now I have found a new ‘best’ speaker, the Mini, also a 2-way, with more of the Kharma magic and more of the audiophile attributes that make the music both more realistic and enjoyable.

The associated equipment is interesting: warm, smooth, and somewhat detailed MBL into a small (sized anyway) detailed solid state amp. The system was quite detailed sounding and engaging. It would be interesting to put these speakers on something more conventional, like Lamm amps and Meitner digital. THEN, with this cross-section of equipment, we could perhaps pinpoint the location in paradise these speakers come from - or whether, after all, they are from planet earth like most other speakers.

Oops, being a little overly effusive, I am. Time to turn Effusive menu option to OFF.

Only problem is the price: $45K. At this price it is going up against the similarly-priced Wilson Maxx II, Acapella Violon, Marten Coltrane, Avalon Eidolon, and Audio Note speakers.

Let’s discuss the competition some.

The Mini Exquisites are for small to medium sized spaces for people who want engaging and startlingly emotional and detailed renditions at the expense of having less detail in the low bass.

The Wilson Maxx 2 is for larger spaces, and for people who want an impressive sound: large scale soundstages, midrange and bass details, and dynamics at the expense of an almost complete lack of emotional capability and some unruly behaviors like drivability and an overly enthusiastic treble / upper midrange.

The Acapella* Violon is also for larger spaces and for people who like a very natural musical realism and large engrossing soundstages at the expense of some bottom end slam.

The Marten Design* Coltrane speakers are for people who like a very accurate and realistic presentation, at the expense of not having a big and open type of sound.

The Avalon Eidolon Diamond is also for bigger spaces and people who like emotional yet dynamic presentations at the expensive of deep bass control and drivability

The Audio Note* U.K. AN-E SEC Signature is for smaller spaces, like the Mini, and for people who want very dynamic and exciting and harmonically rich and detailed presentations, supplied by the necessary Audio Note electronics upstream, at the expense of looking at a box.

Looking at this run down - it seems that there is indeed a place for a $45K 2-way speaker, as much as this price for a relatively small speaker may make us uncomfortable. And that place is for people with relatively small rooms who still want one of the best, no compromise, musical experiences that money can buy.

The only alternative, from the perspective of this quick survey, is the Audio Note speaker, (though the Coltrane speakers are known to work very well providing a full-range experience in as small a room as 12.5 x 16 feet) and it is also an expensive 2-way speaker - albeit one that can be driven by that amazingly pure first watt of a small SET amplifier - and it does not quite have the visual presence and beauty of the Mini, but then few speakers do.