Pursuing the Ultimate Music Experiences

Audio Federation High-Fidelity Audio Blog
 by Michael

Should we Twitter the Shootouts?

We were wondering if people were interested in having us Twitter the events and impressions of various shootouts here at Audio Federation.

For those of you who have a real life, Twitter is a very popular place to post comments and everyone has something somewhere between a Blog and a Chat Room, into which to post lots of very short messages.

The idea would be for us to post play-by-play about what is playing, what cables are being listened to, what peoples impressions are, and try to answer people’s questions during the shootout.

Anyway, just wanted to see if there was any interest. If there is not, that’s OK as it does take some amount of effort on our part – but if there is lots of interest, then it could be fun and you all out there might have some really good questions and ideas that will help the shootout be more effective at defining the differences between various components and cables.

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

The Cable Shootout Results will be Forthcoming

As many of you know, and many do not, we have been conducting a large number of cable shootouts. They are many focused on the new Jorma Design ‘Orego’ cable that sits between their No. 1 [approx. Nordost Valhalla pricing and performance] and their statement PRIME cable.

Also thrown in are the Nordost ODIN [well.. why not. Wouldn’t you?] and even the Stealth INDRA [interconnect]. We are shooting out with both interconnects and speaker cables – and of course, various combinations thereof.

Hopefully later this week we will have the report up… here I think. Neli says I am not posting on the blog enough, so…. I’ll try and post store-ish stuff here and ramblings and philosophy and humor and perspectives on the magazine.

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Jorma Design / Nordost 0 comments
 by Michael

Speaker Placement in Octagonal Rooms

You know, we have a lovely and very interesting house. But one thing that makes setting up audio systems here a little bit different, some would say more difficult, is that we do not have rectangular rooms.


The small room setup [listening room 3]

Oh yes, some will say we have it easier, but I say that 1) we still get unwanted side-to-side sound wave reinforcement and 2) most speakers were designed for rooms with a front wall [except those that were designed to go out in the middle of the room i.e most dipoles and most rear-ported speakers].

So here we have the Audio Note speakers. Designed to go into a corner. But we have no corners.

We do put them out from the walls, in the ‘middle of the room’, like a plain-old rear ported speaker – and that works as expected. Excellent imaging [superb actually], soundstage depth, transparency etc. But not as much bass as most speakers that were designed to go into the middle of the room would have.

So. What to do. What to do.

We tried making [in our feeble minds] corners out of the octagonal angles of the room and angling them this way and that. It kind-of-works.


The larger room [listening room 2]

We tried putting thm against the long walls [in our smaller room, not in the larger one yet]. It kind-of-works.

Then, somehow, I plucked down the heavy crossovers and let Neli do-with-them-what-she-will.

And, continuing the theme of the CES setup, with them towed in so much that they cross in front of the listener, she put them in parallel with one of the smaller octagonal walls. [See photos].

And it works! In my experience it works as well or better than putting them in the corners in rooms that have corners. There is bass reinforcement, but it is tight bass, unobtrusive bass. And there is still quite a bit of imaging and soundstaging – and almost all positions in the listening area, from wall-to-wall, have a good sense of a center image [all except where the one of the speakers is pointing right at you].

Anyway, for all of you who have octagonal rooms and Audio Note [or rear ported] speakers – you should really try this 🙂

in Audio Note / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo 0 comments
 by Michael

New Lamm LL2.1 Preamplifier

LL2.1

“We are pleased to announce the release of a line-stage preamplifier model LL2.1 which is a direct replacement for the LL2 preamplifier.

The LL2.1 features the following upgrades and modifications as compared to the LL2:

· addition of a built-in remote on/off for LAMM amplifiers

· introduction of the attenuation for gain reduction by 15 dB

· some new parts

· new knobs

· slight changes in schematic diagram

Here are the links to specs and description.

US retail price is $5,990 (deluxe version); $5,690 (regular)

This preamp is in production and available immediately.”

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

New issue of Spintricity

There is a new issue of Spintricity, with several articles already.

I think people will find the breadth and depth of our magazine a little different than the other mags out there.

We have an article on comparing photographic lenses to personal taste in shopping for music.

We have a review of some new music, Fever Ray, the day after it was released and of Pandora, the most popular internet radio site.

We also have a small report on the Hiend Show last fall in Vietnam.

We are always looking for more photos of more shows. Anybody want to photograph Montreal? Munich and Milan if we don’t make it [we probably won’t]?

We are also always look for more writers who want to write about something they are passionate about. You don’t have to know who to spell, or to be an expert at anything – it is passion that we all are wanting to share with other people in this cold cruel often-boring world.

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Spintricity 0 comments
 by Michael

Rix Rax is Moving to a Direct Sales Model

You still have a few weeks if you want Neli to walk you through the many, many details of having Rix Rax build a unique equipment rack that suits you per-fect-ly,

But after that, they be taking your orders directly at the factory. The goal, as I understand it, is fewer sales, higher margins. I am sure we can all relate.

We still love the racks and are not sure what to do for a platform-neutral furniture grade solution priced somewhere between cinder blocks and an HRS MXR [OK, SXR, but I like to keep my eye on the ultimate solution, … if not us then who? :-)].

The advantage to RixRax is that it comes at what has become in this market a very reasonable price – and to which we can add HRS M3 platforms one at a time, at our leisure, as we can afford it, to up the performance one component at a time.

Most other racks try and ‘do something’ to artificially improve the performance, most of which fail miserably [i.e. they hurt performance]. The Acoustic Dreams’ racks work well, but are more expensive [when you take into account all the shelf space on on Rix Rax], and if you plan on putting vibration controlling HRS platforms on all the shelves anyway [which not everybody does, of course. And it certainly can take several years to afford one for each shelf. We ourselves ain’t there yet after five years.Then again, we got a LOT of shelves to fill :-).] , it seems like some amount of the purchase price will be wasted on their built in vibration control. Although, nude, they do sound better than nude Rix Rax.

Mapleshade is the only rack that seems to have the same approach, but at a more modest level and I am not sure about putting 60lb M3 platforms all over one of them. And furniture grade it ain’t. This *is* however a rack that we recommend to people with a very modest budget who want to keep things up off the floor.

But Rix Rax it ain’t.

Anyway, we wish the best of luck to Rick Cox and you will start seeing Rix Rax slowly being removed from the site as we figure out just where are all the places are that we mention it. Ugh.

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Rix Rax 0 comments
 by Michael

State of the systems here…

I took these photos yesterday – and already things have changed quite a bit, with a few pieces going out on audition and Thursday another shootout will mix things up some more 🙂


We have had the Audio Note Kegon Balanced amps on the Marten Coltrane Supremes for a few months now. It is very nice and for some reason produces more bass than any amp we have had on these speakers [so we just turn down the bass on the crossover. We also can move the speakers out from the wall a wee bit more if we decide we are missing something. Haven’t felt that way so far though…]


We are running the Brinkmann Balance turntable and EMM Labs CDSD and DCC2 digital through the Audio Note M9 Phono preamplifier.


We are using the little S4 step-up for the Titan cartridge on the M9. Works pretty dang good, considering it wasn’t really made for this kind of thing. Heck, running the Titan direct sounded pretty dang good, although very quiet. The point being that the Phono in this preamp has a qualitative depth that is really fun to explore – it is very open, very harmonically complex, with very good dynamic resolution.


Downstairs…


This is the exact same system that we took to CES: Audio Note everything: Ongaku integrated, SEC Signature speakers, SOOTTO interconnects and SOGON speaker cables, with Nordost ODIN and AcroLink power cords.

Except the placement is kind of … different. A future post will talk about this weird placement that really works very very well … for octagonal rooms anyway.


A couple of turntables share the Lamm LP2 phono.


The Kharma Mini Exquisite speakers are being driven by the big EDGE reference amps. We swap between these and the Lamm ML2.1 amps, which A. underdrives the speakers something awful, but B. sounds very very wonderful in the midrange. About half the people only care about A and half only care about B. I think Neli and I are both B – because B is so gooood – but we understand the A point of view too 🙂


The EDGE from above. ODIN speaker cables and interconnects.


The 3rd room. We take new visitors to our store/home/showroom here first. I’d say about 60% convince us it is the best sound they ever heard.

Then we take them to hear the other systems.

This system is good enough that we tend to spend way longer here than we probably should – given that there are 3 systems to go we often spend 30 – 40% of our visitor’s time here.

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Showroom 1 / Showroom 2 / Showroom 3 / Showroom 4 0 comments
 by Michael

Vintage Voltage Expo – Denver, March 22

“It’s Spring… and Denver is warming up like a glowing vacuum tube!

This Sunday, March 22, the Vintage Voltage Expo will be the “centerpiece article” in the Colorado Sunday section of the DENVER POST! Claire Martin has interviewed a few of our vendors and there will be photos and everything!

Maybe you saw the small (yet effective!) blurb and photo in last Sunday’s Denver Post… We got a huge response from that! This bigger feature story will really boost our attendance and should place us well above the 1,200 mark! (We had about 900 last year!)

We’ve already sold over 70 vendor tables, but there are still a few left: $40 each or 3 for $100.
Sign up online at www.vintagevoltageexpo.eventbrite.com

Reminder: Calling All DJs: We’re debuting a new feature – with different DJs each offering up an hour of vintage tunes in our main showroom between 10 – 3. We want variety, and if you think you’ve got the goods, hit REPLY and we’ll work out the details! We’ll supply some of the sound equipment.

See you NEXT WEEKEND!
– Dana and Peter
303-347-8252 (email preferred)

Vintage Voltage Expo
Sunday, March 29
10am – 3pm
Ramada Plaza Convention Center
I-25 at 120th Ave, Denver/Northglenn
http://danacain.com/vintagevoltagexpo.html

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

The Montreal Show 2009

[Not sure whether we are going or not. But likely not.]

“Do not miss the 23rd edition of the Salon Son & Image, held from April 2 – 5 at the Centre Sheraton Montreal.

Thursday April 2nd is a dedicated day to you the Industry members and Press members.

Over 80 exhibitors will be waiting to show you their newest products over 300 brands.

To obtain your free visitor’s badge, you must register immediately on our website following this link:

http://www.salonsonimage.com/en/pros/form_e.html

The badges will be hand given the day of the event at the information booth located in the Centre Sheraton lobby, photo identification is required.

We would really appreciate that you do not wait until the last minute to register; this will help us to provide the best service for everyone.

Thanks
SSI Team

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

Lone Star Audio Fest 2009

[We will have more about LSAF 2009 as we learn more]

“We are pleased to let you know that the Lone Star Audio Fest is on for 2009.

There has been a need of a common place for fellow audio enthusiast to meet in our region. And Dallas seemed like the logical place that is central to several surrounding states and cities for us to come together. Therefore, LSAF was born with the hope of bringing our closely knit community together. LSAF 2009 is the third annual meeting, with the hope to expand attendance and continue our festival into future years.

Lone Star Audio Fest has grown from a grass roots effort to bring fellow enthusiast together in the pursuit of enjoying our common passion for music through audio playback equipment.

LSAF will be held in Dallas, TX at the Embassy Suites Dallas Park Central on June 19-21, 2009.

This Embassy Suite in the North East region of Dallas has recently gone through a massive renovation which offers a quality setting for LSAF 2009.

Here is a link to the hotel for further details: http://www.esdallasparkcentral.hotel-brochure.com/

There is no registration cost for exhibitors, and no admission price for attendees as usual. We believe that this low cost structure allows many more the opportunity to attend and exhibit at our festival. Your relationship is entirely between you and the hotel. We are all agreeing to meet there as attendees and exhibitors of the LSAF, and by booking as a group we are able to get a better room rate ($99 per night vs. the regular rate of $139). So be sure to let them know you are attending the LSAF event. To make reservations by phone call 972-234-3300 and tell them you are coming to the Lone Star Audio Fest. Or, go to http://embassysuites.hilton.com/en/es/groups/personalized/DALTXES-LSA-20090616/index.jhtml to register online.

Please email Shane Moore at shanemmail-lsaf@yahoo.com or info@lonestaraudiofest if you will be attending and would like to have your name/logo added to the list of exhibitors on the LSAF webpage(http://www.lonestaraudiofest.com/). Also, please email Shane after you book your room as well, so he can keep a head count.

If you have any other questions please don’t hesitate to contact us.

We in the LSAF steering committee have volunteered our time in an effort to make this festival a possibility. But, we know that your participation is what will make LSAF a success. It is the fellow enthusiasts that make this audio festival what it is.

And we are all looking forward to seeing everyone there!!!!

Many thanks from the LSAF steering committee:

Shane Moore, Paul Hileman, Norris Wilson

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / News / Show Reports 0 comments