Pursuing the Ultimate Music Experiences

Audio Federation High-Fidelity Audio Blog
 by Michael

CES 2012 – Good rooms I am not going back to

… because I do not have time and think I already know in which ways they are good…

Over on 30, the $50K 50 watt Audio Power Labs on the Von Schweikert VR5 Signature… very nicely dynamic, very well controlled, good harmonic color and detail. Very nice and open in a large-scale-from-4-foot-tall speaker kind of way.

On floor 30 too, CH Precision electronics on the Magico Q3. This is the epitome of that very controlled, dynamic, detailed, fairly linear responses, fairly soulless presentation we called the ‘gee-whiz’ sound a few shows ago [and still do], but the CH Precision amps [no, apparently this was the Luxman M-600A stereo amp] are able to control these hard to drive Q3 speakers better, I think, than any other amps I have heard with these speakers [several], especially in terms of the control over the speakers [not running out of steam] and with sufficient micro-dynamics so that it comes off sounding much closer to real music. Thing about the gee-whiz sound is that they are fun, I think, although lacking in emotional involvement and kind of bereft of any kind of drug-like out-of-body experience potential. I thought it was a lot of fun, in fact.

in CES 2012 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Show Reports 0 comments
 by Michael

CES 2012 Show Report Day 4

We have 3200 or so photos so far, every room every component, but still have most of floor 4 at THE Show to finish and just a few rooms on 30 at the Venetian.

So the rest of the day is dedicated to listening, I hope.

I would like to go back and hear more of:

* The ONEDOF table versus the Neodio digital in the big Lamm room [though I liked the sound better in the small Lamm room this year I think]

* Franco Serbli’s Ktema speakers to see just how much of their own sound they bring to the music and how that sonic signature differs from the classic Sonus Faber sound.

* The Magico Q7 speakers

* YG Acoustics Anat 3 on Tenor and the smaller YG on the old 400 watt Krell

* Perhaps the statement Sonus Faber again, though I got the feeling that these finally are the big version of the Stradivarius we all expected last year.

* The Granada speakers on the Smc pre instead of the Wavac pre

* Perhaps the Kondo room again just to get more of a feel for what they are trying to accomplish with their new speakers

I go to the gym every other day – functional fitness, crossfit training, weight training, aerobics, some yoga, etc. but all this squatting down and lunging and curls and contorting myself with this 10lb? camera – trying to get the best shot 3000+ times I guess – has really been … let’s just say I just wasn’t as well-prepared for it as I thought I would be. 🙂

in CES 2012 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Show Reports 0 comments
 by Michael

CES Show Report Day 2 Dailies


Franco Serblin – Ktena speakers and Air Tight amps


Franco Serblin – Ktena speakers


Basis Insipiration turntable


Inside a Velodyne subwoofer


TiDal speakers sounded good on Constellation amps


Nittobo Acoustic ‘Acoustic Groove System’ room treatments worked well here according to Santy (Tri) [I did not get to hear the ‘before’ room treatment sound]


The big Venture speakers sounded better than I think I’ve heard them before as well (those are Venture’s amps as well).


The big Sonus Faber speakers are nicer looking this year, huh? Last year must of been some kind of cosmic ray thing…


The big MBL speaker room was entertaining.


The new Hansen speaker look. I like the old melted look, myself.


This YG Acoustics system with the Tenors sounded better than at RMAF – perhaps because the source was a CD player, when I was there, and not a hard drive?


The inside of a Tenor amp


The large Magico Q7 speakers.

Yes, of course we will say something about the sound, and several 1000 more photos, but first, got to get back and listen more! 🙂

in CES 2012 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Show Reports 0 comments
 by Michael

CES Show Report Day 1 Dailies

Seems like less traffic than last year. Nice and calm means more time for listening, which is nice. Try to get as many photos up here in the evenings…


Cute little Chord Chordette (about 6 inches long).


A really cool looking amp from Jones. The ventilation holes on top are made in this kind of organically random pattern. The box itself is… not boxy! and the front panel is on the corner. Just so cool.


New Clearaudio ‘Master Innovation’ turntable ($27,500).


Napa Acoustic amp – very inexpensive (I think less than $1000) and very cute. And very, very high price performance.


Light Harmonic DAC. Another non-boxy component… looks like a stealth fighter jet, kind of – supports WiFi and takes streams directly from your smartphone.


Peak Consult’s Kepheus speakers. $110,000.


HRS SXR Signature (left). See the new cross braces on the top shelf which we took the platform off? These cross braces appear on the other shelves as well. New RXR prototype, HRS quality at a much lower price point.


Acoustic Signature’s Master Series ‘Ascona’ turntable. About $27K. Definitely a contender from based on what I heard.


Audio Note (UK) TT3 0.5 ‘half reference’ turntable (first time at a show in the U.S.). Much of the performance of the TT3 but with only 1 giant power supply box instead of 3.

in CES 2012 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Show Reports 0 comments
 by Michael

CES 2012 High-end Audio Show Report

Or as CES calls it, High Performance Audio. Good name too, I think.

We are driving to Vegas early tomorrow morning.

We will be posting news here to the blog.

The full show report will be spread between this blog and our Show Galleries.

We hope to cover each component in every room. One advantage to fewer rooms and fewer attendees is that I get to spend more time listening and less time jostling 🙂

Really looking forward to Tuesday….!

in CES 2012 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Show Reports 0 comments
 by Michael

Updating the Audiophile's Guide to High-end Audio Magazines

Been awhile since this got updated in a serious way.

I keep a list of Audio blogs for Mattters, and am finally getting around to updating the Audiophile’s Guide to High-end Audio Magazines.

Putting all the new sites more or less alphabetically in the Blogs section – almost all the new sites are blogs or written on top of a blog [i.e. WordPress].

There are quite a few. It’ll take awhile.

I’m adding the:

* good sites.

* the unethical site’s that are quite obviously ‘run an ad and we’ll write rave reviews of your equipment’ [in the hope that people will eventually become immune to these kind of review scams].

* and… I’m not sure about adding the ‘measurements reveal all – no need to listen, and people who listen are delusional and psychotic’ sites – feeling they are more about playing with test measurement gear [not that there is anything wrong with that!] than anything to do with high-end audio.

Some of the good sites get way less traffic than they should. A couple are:

in Audiophile 101 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / News 0 comments
 by Michael

Won't Get Fooled Again – Computer Audio

We have NOT gone over the the Dark Side

I have been talking about streaming music here a bit lately. While bored waiting for CES to get here, I surfed around a bit and came across an article on Audiostream.

Audiostream,com is Stereophile’s new spinoff computer audio zine.

Some of the perspective there on this stuff got me to thinking that you all might think we’ve gone to the Dark Side.

Nope.

Not us.

Not ever.

Not to pick on anyone in particular, but lets look at this article on the Musical Fidelity V-DAC II.

He does a excellent job describing the Musical Fidelity family sound and hints at their version-itus. But the overall context of the review reveals even more about how we are are experiencing yet another…

Worse is Better – Don’t You Clueless People Out There Get It?

… event in high fidelity audio.

Kool Aid Flavor #1 – If you don’t get it then you must be old or stupid

Now, about the AARP crack in the article… and that young people being are comfortable with ripping, no wait burning, no wait… downloading? streaming? digital music? computer audio? online music?

Heaven help me but I agree with Sam Tellig – “There’s so much uncertainty and confusion surrounding computer audio and high-resolution downloads.”

First, I think young people, the under 23 crowd, think all this junk is for middle aged geeks who have a lot of extra time on their hands. The desktop is seen as old school and not seen as an entertaining piece of hardware.

Second, if one tries and follows where the big money is going, what is being invested in, it is not,… well, it IS really confusing.

Kool Aid Flavor #2 – There is no confusion

First, there is Amazon and Apple and Google investing in their cloud services – which are, in this context, essentially, places to store music and videos and photos on a website somewhere. This is all because they figure this is currently the best way to monetize music and videos [they can make money off of subscription services (my prediction as the winner of the end game) – but not nearly as much. I mean, otherwise, how are they going to sell you the same pieces of music, over and over again… DSOTM say, about every 3 years we have to buy a newer better one right? :-)].

But you have all these blogs talking about ripping your CDs and saving them in some format or another across hopefully striped terrabyte drives on some noisy PC and playing it back using clumsy itunes or some such software. Seems like a big disconnect to me. Besides ripping being illegal [another stupid law written by corporate lobbyists, I agree, but…] and the RIAA and unscrupulous lawyers happy to use these laws to extort the most harmless of people, this is just a Transitional Technology – people making some money as we all make the transition from physical media to online media.

But on the hardware side, there is real confusion, IMHO. You have Google TV and Android TV versus Apple TV versus Smart TV versus the now ancient iPod and several thousand it seems boxes that sit on your network and pump music from place to place.

There IS a lot of confusion here because nothing is winning [although I heard that 9 million people have now permanently dropped cable and moved 100% online – aka cutting-the-cord – to netflix et. al…. so people WANT a solution now, they are diving in even without one], The idea being that music is online and coming back to the family living room from a long hiatus – and if 99.99% of people are going to be listening to music in their HT then that is the hardware source we maybe should be looking at making high-fidelity hardware work with.

Kool Aid Flavor #3 – The cheapest of the new sounds better than the most expensive of the old

Remember those $200 CD players back in 83 and 84? How they were better by far than any turntable? Well, they’re… back…. [here is where the horrified scream needs to be forcibly suppressed so as not to freak out Neli].

You really going to let yourself be fooled again?

Here is the quote [and I see this kind of thing said EVERYWHERE by the computer audio crowd, not just on this site] “That’s because I can enjoy a bargain as much as the next guy and the idea that you can buy a device for $349, connect it to your computer on one end and your hi-fi on the other and play music that’ll make your CD player weep with envy is cause for celebration. ”

[OK. Hard to hold back that scream huh?].

Be interesting to put up an $200 Oppo DVD/CD player [the cheapest player that is widely recommended] against this combination of several thousands $$$ [check audiogon if you do not believe. Well, when they get a category for this, anyway, until then search CD players and these show up] computer audio system with $349 external DAC. Interesting also to see which wins on the typical – usually bright sounding – solid-state system most computer audio people have and an ultra hifi system and see if the Oppo weeps or, perhaps, kicks ass. I think it would be close, but it would be a fun shootout, huh? 🙂

————————————————————————————-

In conclusion, We are Not Drinking no Darn Kool Aid.

As we explore various approaches and solutions for incorporating online music into our casual, or exploratory, focused, or ultimate music experiences we will do the following:

1. We WILLfocus on fidelity fidelity fidelity

2. We will NOT lie and tell you it is Better than what it is not better than [ *sheesh* ]

3. We will NOT say people are stupid if they do not see how obvious all this non-obvious stuff is

4. We will NOT throw away the good of the past [but we do expect to see a lot of very cheap CDs at yard sales in a few years. Can’t wait. :-)] but we will NOT hang on unnecessarily to past assumptions that are no longer as important [ultra flat screens now allow video to be brought into the high-end audio listening room, similarly the tablet/smartphone now allows more interactivity with our music in the listening room, etc.]

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Music / Philosophy / Sounding Off 0 comments
 by Michael

HRS at CES 2012

[HRS will have their equipment racks and platforms in a ton of rooms this CES, 14 by my count. We should have good photos of them all, if everything goes as planned. Of particular interest to us is the new SXR Signature Frame System. A lot of our customers really like the flexibility of the SXR rack system. Now, we can get the SXR Signature: Higher Performance. Same Great SXR Flexibility. ]

“Harmonic Resolution Systems (HRS) Inc will be displaying our existing and new product lines at CES 2012 next week. Our company is 12 years old this year and we have been attending CES ever year for the past Decade. We are very pleases to be working again with many excellent companies to build some great sounding demo systems for your to see, hear, and enjoy.

HRS is participating in 14 rooms this year including 13 active systems and one static display meeting room. Please find below a complete listing of demo rooms using HRS products this year. Please stop by and visit these excellent rooms if you are attending CES. Please also stop by the HRS static display room (Venetian 29-203) to speak with our company representatives.

We are introducing a number of new products this year at CES including:

1. The prototype of RXR frame system. This new frame system that will be about 40% lower price than the SXR frame system. Right now we have a target price of about $3295 for a RXR-1921-4V (four component stand). We will be putting final performance and cosmetic changes in place on the RXR after CES and it is scheduled for production shipments around end of March early April 2012. We will be taking orders and deposits on first production shipments the week after CES.

2. SXR Signature Frame System – We will show two production SXR Signature frame systems at CES for the first time ever. This new frame is an upgraded version of the SXR series. You can order the SXR Signature frame as of the first day of CES. During final development of the SXR Solid Brace Insert product line we looked at many ways to take advantage of the Solid Brace insert to not only increase load capacity of the frame but also increase frame performance. The results of this development effort are very positive. The performance gains achieved in the Signature SXR by use of the new SXR Solid Brace Inserts, located at each level in the frame, justify this new model and closes the performance gap with our reference level MXR frames.

3. New ADH Analog Disk Heavy – We will have prototype version of the new ADH Analog Disk (heavy – “H”). This is a non magnetic stainless steel version of the ADL (Analog Disk Light). The ADH has approximately three times the mass of the ADL and has been optimized for higher mass non suspension turntables. This new model will only be available in natural precession machined stainless steel finish

Harmonic Resolution Systems CES 2012 Reference Level Audio Stands Listing:

Aesthetix (The Venetian Suite 29-221)
– SXR-1921-4V Double Wide Frame (Black Finish) with M3X and R1X Isolation Bases

Audio Research/Sumiko (The Venetian Suite 30-105)
– SXR-1921-4V Double Wide Frame (Black Finish) with M3X Isolation Bases

Ayre Acoustics (The Venetian Suite 34-310)
– SXR-1921-4V Double Wide Frame (Silver Finish) with S1 and R1 Isolation Bases

Bel Canto Design (The Venetian “ Suite 29-140)
– SXR-1921-3V Frame (Black Finish) with M3X Isolation Bases

BSG Technologies (The Venetian Suite 34-210)
– SXR-1719-3V Frame (Black Finish) with R1 Isolation Bases

Constellation Audio (The Venetian Suite 29-132)
– SXR-1921-4V Frame (Black Finish) with M3X Isolation Bases

dCS (The Venetian Suite 29-131)
– SXR-1921-4V Frame (Black Finish) with M3X Isolation Bases

HRS Static Display and Meeting Room (The Venetian Suite 29-203)
– RXR-1921-3V Frame (Dark Finish) with R1X Isolation Bases
– RXR-1921-1V Frame (Dark Finish)
– SXR-1921-3V Signature Frame (Black Finish)
– Mix of 2012 M3X Isolation Base, S1 Isolation Bases and R1X Isolation Bases
– Analog Disk, Damping Plates and Nimbus System

LAMM Industries/HRS (The Venetian Suite 35-305)
– SXR-1921-3V Double Wide Signature Frame (Black Finish) with M3X Isolation Bases

On a Higher Note (Mirage Casino & Resort)
– SXR-1921-4V Frame (Black Finish) with M3X Isolation Bases

Redpoint Audio Design (The Venetian Suite 30-323)
– SXR-1921-3V Double Wide (Black Finish) with M3X and S1 Isolation Bases

Sumiko/Wadia Digital (The Venetian Suite 30-111)
– SXR-1921-4V Double Wide Frame (Black Finish) with M3X Isolation Bases

TAD/Pioneer Electronics (The Venetian Suite 34-208)
– MXR-1921-4V Frame (Red Birds Eye Maple Finish) with M3X Isolation Bases

Vandersteen Audio (The Venetian Suite 29-201)
– RXR-1921-4V Frame (Dark Finish) with R1X Isolation Bases

in CES 2012 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / HRS / Show Reports 0 comments
 by Michael

The New Audiogon

According to the vocal hordes on the Asylum and AudioCircle … nobody likes the New Audiogon [right now it is down, although you still can get to the forums if you are sneaky].

Having been on the receiving end of the ire of the same vocal hordes [e.g. w/r to Spintricity Magazine] seeing this happen to Audiogon is really fascinating. And we have also seen this backlash happen to Digg and Facebook, but not Twitter [which is bizarre because the Twitter UI changes by-and-large are non-intuitive, even after repeated use… much more like Facebook now, in fact]

It is fascinating because I think it allows us to rule out the validity of this or that particular feature and instead focus on the social dynamics of the situation.

Fact #1. Only techies like websites to change in any way

Many people claim to be techies, because they own a business that has a website, or they played with HTML some [and many have gotten paid for it!] , but really are not, are confused by web technology, and hate these kinds of changes. [This behavior really confused me for a long time]

Twitter is largely techies, so they got away with it. Digg, a counter example with supposedly a large techie population, has lots of people who, seriously, just like to be nasty and whine a lot.

Most of the home audio sites are horribly designed and implemented, but audiophiles love them because they are now used to them.

Rule #1. If you make a change to a site popular with non-techies, make it look exactly other sites they are comfortable with.

Stereophile changed its site to look just like an ordinary blog. This was largely accepted by audiophiles because they are now used to blogs. [I personally think it was nuts, they gave up their claim to fame – that of being a successful print magazine – to compete at the same level as 1M other blogs. Best thing they can do now is try to implement meta features like Engadget has done – but this will take time and be expensive].

When we recently changed Audio Federation, we copied a couple of other well-known luxury brochure sites as well as several very popular luxury shopping sites.

Audiogon is, unfortunately, making their site look like eBay – which is a quite unloved, albeit successful, site

Rule #2. Try to make a big change by making lots of itty bitty changes over time.

This is often extremely hard to do [i.e. very expensive], from a programming point of view.

Assuming Audiogon’s troubles go on for awhile, and even if they do not, I wonder if there is an opportunity here for a competitor to step in and break the Audiogon monopoly?

Opinions?

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