Legacy Brands Archives - Page 17 of 75

February 5, 2012 by Michael

THE Show 2012 (at CES) – Lotus Group, Audio Power Labs, WAVAC, Pranawire

This room featured the Lotus Group’s Granada loudspeakers being bi-amped with the big Audio Power Labs TNT-833 amps and the smaller WAVAC MD-805m amps. The larger WAVAC amps that were originally planned for this system developed some kind of issue during shipping, I think.

I was happy to see the Audio Power Labs here, having just come from the room that featured them on the smaller Tidal ‘piano’ speakers. I really was anxious to hear the Granada speakers pushed closer to their audiophile limits than I had previously heard them – those being systems with the speakers driven by the Pass Labs amps and later the Musical Fidelity amps.

Unfortunately something was not quite right here.

The sound was dull, notes kind of slurring together; atonal, notes not ringing free [which these speakers can do really well] and the color was more pastelish than vivid [which these speakers can also do well]; and dynamically compressed, specifically in the midi-dynamic region, with micro-dynamics not really happening either.

I only heard the system driven by the CD player, even tho I came back here a few times – but Neli heard it later with the Hanss turntable and said it sounded much better. They may have made other changes to the front end as well.

Trying to capture the glow of the vacuum tubes of the Wavac and Audio Power Labs.

Lotus Group ‘Granada’ loudspeaker

Lotus Group ‘Granada’ loudspeaker rear drivers

Audio Power Labs ‘TNT-833’ amplifier

Audio Power Labs ‘TNT-833’ amplifier from above

Audio Power Labs ‘TNT-833’ amplifier rear

The WAVAC MD-805m amplifier from above

The whole system from behind. Lots of Pranawire cables!

Some unidentified stuff in these Pranawire power cords and Acoustic Revive power distributor

More Paranawire power cables, Oyaide and Furutech plugs, and Acoustic Revive power distributor

The Hanss T-60 turntable

The Lyra Olympos cartridge

EAR Acute CD player

WAVAC LCR-X2 phono equalizer preamplifier

WAVAC PR-T1 line preamplifier

Loricraft PRC4 record cleaner

January 27, 2012 by Michael

CES 2012 – Triode Corp, Acoustic Zen, Nittobo Acoustic, Orb Jai

Acoustic Zen ‘Crescendo’ speakers on Triode Corp electronics using Nittobo Acoustic room treatments.

OK.

Surprise, surprise, Neli was here. I hardly ever, ever run into her when I cruise the show exhibits. So I spent my time wondering whether this was the first time she has ever seen me photograph a room for the show reports or not [I do an unorganized sloppy job on our own exhibit rooms – don’t know why, and I am trying to be better].

All to say that I did not listen much to this room.

But she did: really good layout of the soundstage, really good soundstage depth [we are used to some of the best soundstage layout and depth I’ve heard anywhere – here on a day to day basis – so this is an extreme compliment]. She also thought, whether because of the room treatments or the amp’s innate abilities, the sound was not flabby in any way [we talked about and we really like the way the speakers degrade really, really well when paired with less than optimal equipment – i.e. we are not sure they EVER get flabby and uncontrolled. They degrade well enough that one could put a $1K solid-state amp on them and still get something worth listening to. ]

The Crescendo [and smaller Adagio] are really, really good general purpose speakers for general purpose listening and an extremely good bargain at their price points. They do like power [see how the watt meters in these amps in this room behave in the photos below], and, although we do carry them here, I did not intend for the previous sentence to be salesy [go ahead and buy them somewhere else then – most people do 🙂 – the vast majority of our customers are looking for extreme high performance in $30K+ speakers or extreme high-efficiency (or both :-)) . But the Crescendo and Adagio are still great speakers].

Sweet Neli in the sweet spot

The system in the Acoustic Zen, Triode Corp room

The Acoustic Zen ‘Crescendo’ loudspeaker

The Triode Corp (Tri) TRX-M845 monoblock amplifier

The Triode Corp TRX-M845 amplifier

The Triode Corp (Tri) TRX-M845 amplifier

The Triode Corp TRV CD5SE CD player

The Triode Corp TRX-1 preamplifier

Nittobo Acoustic’s Acoustic Groove System room treatment

Nittobo Acoustic’s Acoustic Groove System room treatment on the side wall first reflection points

The Orb ‘Destat’ CD destaticizer. Removing static from CDs really does work, in our experience, but it has been hard for us to incorporate it into day to day listening.

in Acoustic Zen / CES 2012 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Show Reports 0 comments

January 26, 2012 by Michael

CES 2012 – Nordost, Raidho, Scansonic

Nordost had a small system setup with Raidho monitor speakers and a mix of Burmester and Jeff Rowland electronics [and Nordost cables, of course].

I do not remember the sound of the system here – I would have said there wasn’t any music playing, but the Burmester CD player, from the photos, is definitely spinning the disc.

Raidho C1.1 loudspeaker