Pursuing the Ultimate Music Experiences

Audio Federation High-Fidelity Audio Blog
 by Michael

Spring is here

It is so nice. A little distracting from my blog posting duties though… Spring in Boulder is a wonderful thing – a transition from gray hues to green and yellow and red and blue and purple….

The SoundLab U1 speakers have been sold. The Acoustic Zen Adagio speakers took their place – but it is not as different ‘feeling’ as I expected it to be…. A speaker down at that end of the room is just like any other speaker, I guess [no photos cause the speakers are on location until their new Adagios arrive].

We have a ARC Ref 3 preamp trade-in [that is for sale, BTW] that we are going to plug in to the system here and hear in a known environment.

Stewart Suda who has been with Audiogon for, what, about 5 years? [since the site got bought from Arnie) has left for greener pastures [or, hopefully, at least less stressful].

Also about Audiogon, they have once again dropped all show coverage from their site since at least Montreal. This is not to say that it won’t pop back up on their site again someday in the future – as this has happened before.

The availability of the new Nordost ODIN power cords have been announced at about $11K for a 4 foot cord ($10,995 for 1.25 meters). [Can’t wait to hear them! … but we’re going to need two…].

The Munich Show is over and the Portland show is starting NOW [Audio Note is there but Mike and Neli are sitting this one out – though some of our precioussss gear is there].

The AN Kegon Balanced amps are still kicking butt and ruining me for listening to any other amp [Neli is more forgiving and still listens to other amps…. poor girl ;-)].

OK, that is about it. If I know Audio Federation, things are quietest before everything happens at once. And June is the end of our fiscal year… so I think I will be glad I am rested up… 🙂

Happy Spring Everybody (above the equator)!

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

Lone Star AudioFest 2008

Neli represented Audio Federation at this years’ AudioFest down in Dallas, Texas.

She brought the small Audio Note system, this year focusing on affordability and portability. To that end she just took the CD player, the OTO integrated amplifier and a pair of speakers. Oh and some Sogon cables 🙂

Instead of the Acoustic Dreams equipment rack we decided to try using 3 HRS M3 Isolation Bases instead and put the equipment on the bases on the furniture that would be available. Unfortunately, the furniture selection was not overwhelming.

This year there were 9 exhibitors – about half of last year, and 30 – 40 people came to the room.

Here are some photos:

OK, obviously I did not go. Otherwise there’d be , even with only 9 rooms, what? about 900 photos, right? We’d find out EVERYTHING there is to know about that hotel (cleaner than the Alexis Park, anyway) and those exhibitors. Aren’t we all of us lucky…. 🙂

At least the people that did go got to spend quality time with some nice people.

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

Been busy here lately…

With the mortgage finance crises and just a general malaise here in the states, February and March were some of our slowest months ever.

But April is making up for both of them and more. Lots of people wanting to hear things – and lots of people buying things. Which is good for us – but not so good for blogging… oops.

Let’s see. We’ve sold our venerable Soundlab Ultimate One electrostatic speakers. They’ve been here about 5 years and it was time for a change. Neli wants to replace them with the M1 – a slightly smaller and lighter weight model in the Soundlab line. The price / performance ratio for Soundlab speakers for those who like a audiophile-quality [yes, this requirement leaves most competitors out of the competition :-)] big, full range sound is not really being challenged out there as prices go through the roof on all import and many domestic speaker models.

We did a [somewhat lighthearted] shootout between the phono stage in the little Audio Note M1 preamplifier [$700 on the used market. A steal] and the Lamm LP2 phono preamplifier [about $7500 new] – but we botched it. We started with the M1 pre’s phono stage – the first time we had ever used it here. It sounded good, and very musical – but lacking some control and resolution, which was expected. Then we went over the the LP2, which sounded more transparent… but hmmmmmm…. not quite right. We investigated and …. Oh! Something was channeling vibrations to the tonearm through their wires [must be Neli’s fault :-)]. So a quick fix and… lo and behold… things sounded great as expected. But we started the shootout too late, and no one wanted to go back to try the M1 again [I *told* you guys that starting *after* we stuffed ourselves with Vietnamese food wasn’t going to make us super productive… ;-)].

We’ve done a number of shootouts between Harmonic Resolution System’s (HRS) vibration control and the leading competitors – and it weren’t pretty. Not sure if people want to hear about which brands they were and the details… We usually stay away from talking about the performance of brands we do not carry on this blog, except for those little show reports we do…. 🙂 … and then only in the context of the sounds of various rooms, as opposed to head-to-head shootouts where ain’t nobody can hide [don’t ask me why I talk like some pseudo backwoodsman sometimes… I just don’t know].

The Kegon Balanced amps continue to impress the poop out of me. During a lot of the auditions people are talking with Neli and this or that thing – and I just sit there listening to the KBs controlling the heck out of those Kharma Exquisite Mini speakers. It is something to hear if you are familiar with just how hard the Kharma’s are to whip into shape for all other tube amps. The way the notes just appear from ground zero, blossom in just this very exquisite [sic] way [and correct, natural, musical, organic way], and then are controlled all the way down to zero again. And not just the bass, but the midrange as well.

We are going to move the Kharma’s and Acoustic Zen’s Adagio speakers to where the SoundLabs used to sit while we decide on what to replace the U1’s with. Funny, having those big guys gone did not make me, anyway, feel that we got back a lot of room. Maybe because … I don’t know. Because we were always walking behind one of them and the other was off to a side where we never go in any case?

Prices of things from Europe are going through the roof. Audio Note is OK so far – the British pound has been stable at $2 per pound for awhile now. But everything else…..Whew! It ain’t pretty.

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

ELROD power cords – with and without the Nordost ViDar

As people may (or may not, it has been awhile) remember – we have been trying to determine how effectatious, sonically, it is to burn in the ElRod power cords on the Nordost ViDar cable burn-in device.

The short and sweet is… not that much.

We tried this on the low-power ELROD EPS-2 Signature power cables. One was on the ViDar for 2 weeks or so. One wasn’t. For this test we put both in the system for two weeks and then compared them – trying them both on the Emm Labs CDSA player and both on the Audio Note CDT3 transport.

Neli heard no difference and I thought the un-vidar’ed power cord might have a wee little better separation and emotion… in both tests … but un-ViDar’ed cord was always tried after the other cord and maybe I was just settling into the song a little better? Perhaps. In any case, the differences are so subtle, compared to what we usually talk about on this blog, as to be insignificant.

Anyway, the conclusions we reached was that the ViDar, designed for low power interconnects and cables, on which the ViDar kicks tush – does not seem to have much effect on correspondingly high current power cords. At least not these cords on these components.

In fact, the taking off of the power cord, and letting its internal capacitors discharge for about 30 seconds during our swap in and outs during this test (as we rushed one upstairs and the other downstairs to quickly put them on the other system during this test – trying to keep them charged up] might have had more effect on the sound. Hard to tell.

So that is our next test for the ELRODs – charged versus un-charged. It takes about 3 – 7 days for the power cord’s capacitance to fully charge, so we will compare one that has been in the system for awhile versus one that has not. A test that does not allow us to go back and forth – i.e. to repeat the test except once every seven days. And it requires us to have a power cord just sitting around doing nothing – not something that we can afford here these days with all four systems fully operational.

But I guess we are doing it anyway.


The power cord with the ‘V’ tag Neli put on it to designated its ViDar’ed status. Otherwise things might get a wee bit confusing… now WHICH cord was that again?


The EPS-2 Signatures are about 1/2 the size of the high-powered ELRODs.


The cord on the back of the EMMLabs CDSA.


The Audio Note CDT-Three transport. It is not hooked up because…


… several of our HRS M3 Isolation Bases and Neli were out on audition during this photo shoot. So the HRS SXR and MXR racks were looking like Macy’s the day after Christmas [OK, yes, so I have been watching a lot of old movies lately].

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

Montral Festival Son Image – FSI 2008 Show Gossip

The rumor is that show attendance was down from about 11,000 to 8,000 and the number of rooms down 20% year over year.

Considering that the Canada economy is doing well (oil, the Olympics, their dollar vis-a-vis what is left of ours) one can only think that it is those of us from the lower 50 states that decided to stay home this year.

It also augers perhaps a lean year at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest this fall.

As almost everyone now knows, the Kharmas did not get put out of action by a static electricity discharge as Stereophile reported, but were instead rendered inoperable by user piloting error [hmmmm.. so sound? Turn up the volume all the way. Still no sound? Oh, forgot to press play. Blam! Oh, hmmm… no sound]. No, I’m not saying who it was – but it wasn’t us, thankfully.

Other than that, nothing much to report from afar.

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

FSI: Festival Son & Image: Montreal 2008 (updated)

Checking out the reports….

Cruising AudioXSell, it looks like Lamm brought their $139K ML3 amplifiers to the show. Looks like the Lohengren or Sarastro speakers. I guess this means we can show the Marten Coltrane Supremes one of these years without shocking the Canadians.

It also looks like Tenor is showing with Avalon Eidolon or Eidolon-ish speakers. So Kharma doesn’t appear to be there.

Audio Note isn’t there either – because none of us really got it together for this show on time. Officially, Audio Federation does not handle Canada – but we thought about doing the show anyway. The Montreal Show is a lot of fun 🙂

EnjoyTheMusic has their report. Positive Feedback, SonicFlare all look like they will not cover the show. Nothing in the discussions (kind of a blessing) on Audio Asylum or Audiogon. Nothing on Audio Circle. No wonder people like our show reports.

6moons has posted A Report. For some reason they covered many of which are traditionally the worst sounding rooms. Go figure.

Thanks to everybody (especially Robert Gaboury) for pointing me to the following reports:

Stereophile Montreal FSI Show Report [Why I didn’t think of this since this is ‘their’ show, I just couldn’t tell you. Neli, however, can go on at extreme length about my periodic lapses of common sense – and does. Frequently :-)]

UHF Magazine Montreal FSI Show Report. UHF is a Canadian print magazine so it makes sense that they should have great coverage.

Magazine Audio’s FSI page but I did not find any actual coverage there yet.

We will add more links to show reports as we (and you) find them.

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

FSI Montreal Opens Today

[The following is their press release. I was of the opinion that RMAF was the ‘largest consumer electronics show open to public in North America’, but FSI is certainly up there. Maybe the U.S. has succeeded from North America and nobody told any of us. Wouldn’t surprise me these days.

And it looks like Stereophile finally found their show away from their show to sponsor.

It sucks that we are missing it. Why are we missing this again, Neli?]

Subject: Opening of Festival Son & Image 2008 Thursday April 3

The Festival Son & Image (FSI), the largest consumer electronics show open to public in North America, will be launched tomorrow, Thursday April 3, 2008, at the Sheraton Centre Montréal, located at 1201 René‑Lévesque Boulevard West. This first day is exclusively for industry professionals and the press, who, of course, are all welcome throughout the weekend.

The FSI, which has a new partner in the prestigious audio magazine Stereophile, will go on for the following three days, that is Friday, Saturday, and Sunday April 4, 5, and 6. Visitors from the general public will have the opportunity to discover all the newest in high-end audio and home theater on the 11 floors of the show, where some 120 brands are represented.

This is an event not to be missed for quality audio-video and new technologies enthusiasts and specialists alike.

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

News of the Week

A lot of unrated bits and pieces.

Apparently Hi-Fi+

was in dire straits when it was purchased.

Besides that nugget, 98% of what goes on Audio Asylum is bickering. So, yeah, nothing new there.

Mike (me) is miffed

that 1/2 of the hallway A on the 29th floor of the large photos section of the CES report was missing the photos and commentary and no one (NO ONE) told him (me). 😉

I have been listening

to a hip-hop radio station and it is great. Well, except for the repeating of about 10 songs over and over (not kidding) and the SHOUTING at me between songs to buy stuff, or, as often as not, telling me HOW GREAT they are that they are not running a commercial that particular moment.

But they play the Hip Hop’s that is a blend of techno (electronics), disco (it has a beat), rap (one can understand the words and they use a lot of slang) and soul (it is not angry like rap, instead it is more like love songs and good times). Anyway, sometimes it is nice for a pick-me-up, and then switching to the classical station at the first commercial to balance out the hormones and minimize the speeding ticket income of the local police.

Let’s see.

The Kegon Balanced

amps kick butt. They control the Kharmas like nothing else I have heard. I just sit there and listen to them and it is so fun, switching between the glory of the harmonic structure and the beauty of the music and the impressiveness of he control.

Solid state amps on the Kharmas, and probably on everything, can be likened to SHOUTING [I know, twice in one post with the all caps shouting. What is with that?] when they get loud. The drive the speaker by punishing it. By throwing watts at it. But a great tube amp drives it by controlling it with an iron fist.

I am not saying that solidstate amps don;t have their place. Sometimes we want to punish the senses, to push them aggressively. After work, sometimes we might want to let off some steam, or to get a little rowdy.

Kind of like a couple of shots of tequila versus a glass of fine wine. I’ve enjoyed both [and now enjoy neither] and it is great that music, and our systems, can be tailored to suit our every mood and desire… 😉

Danny Kaey reviews

the Audi car stereo over on sonicflare. This is probably a step above the one in my Audi S8, even though I had it replaced about 6 months ago [a pushbutton on the dash had fallen off, so they replaced the whole unit. Ah, German engineering. You have to love it. You have to wonder why.]. As I get older [yes, it happens here at Audio Federation too, darn it] I wouldn’t mind taking a look at that A8 V12. But just a look, mind you. A good… long…. look.

Oh, the stereo is decent. It is well-balanced, top to bottom for what it has to work with. A little tipped up [or more like pumped up, the port frequency of the door?] in the bass to counter the bass of the wheels on the road. I don’t listen to XM or Sirius – which needs like a tube radio or something to be moire than just bearable, it is so bright and neutral sounding [aka DIGITAL]. The stereo, for me, is better than the ones in the less expensive Audis and was way better than the Levinson in the Lexus, the Levinson being worse than the cheaper Bose in the Lexus. So, the Audi Bose system is nice, but no great shakes… it is not audiophile, IMHO.

in Audio Note / CES 2008 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Music / News 0 comments
 by Michael

Some updates…

Some photos:


The tops are now on the new Audio Note Kegon Balanced amps. Even with the old $700 used M1 serving as preamplifier, these amps are killer. Very controlled. Very perfect. Like the Nordost ODIN interconnect, it can be hard to find any flaws [we try, it is our job to try, I guess. Haven’t found one yet, unless it is the lack of 211 sweetness. Surprisingly, I do not miss the 211. Not sure why. Maybe the M1 is sweet enough. Or that I have finally outgrown the 211. Time will tell, I guess.]


We are using empty Walker Vivid boxes to hold up the big ELROD power cords [I think it looks cool, but is this kind of like product placement in movies? I guess it is better than using boxes advertising Mastercard and Visa 🙂 I know what you are thinking. That this is supposed to be a family blog. What’s next? Neon lights? 🙂 Sorry, I’m in a strange mood today ….].

Also, Nordost ODIN speaker cable is making its way through the photo.

The old high-gain Audio Note Kegon amps are in the background.


A better photo of the Sound Lab U1 system we demo’ed yesterday.


A close-up of the elegantly compact Soundlab system.

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

How Much Fun

We have so many things in the queue … so many things lined up to try, that it gets a little overwhelming. The exact sequence of things gets a lot of discussion and seems to be updated on an almost hourly basis.

We have:

1. Compare the charged ELROD powercord that has been on the Nordost ViDar cable burner to a charged ELROD that has not been on the burner – i.e. How does the ViDar affect performance? We already did the cold (uncharged) Vidar’ed ELROD compared to the hot (charged) un-ViDar’ed ELROD. [Note, ELRODs take about 3 days or so to charge up their capacitors]. While this was ijntersting, and we will report on it, not being the brightest bears in the woods, we finally realized that this was kind of confusing [I bet you are confused, too, by now :-)], overloading the charged versus uncharged test with the Vidar’ed versus un-Vidar’ed test.

I said it was fun. But it also requires a degree in Research Methods… apparently.

2. Compare the Kegon Balanced with the old high-gain Kegons. We can do this on the Kharma Mini Exquisites – which we anticipate will show that 1) … well, let’s not make any predictions [see, I’m getting smarter. Maybe there is hope…]. But the Kharma is actually quite hard to drive, especially the bass – especially if you want that big open Kharma sound [Kharmas always sound exciting and delicious and big, but not always that room pressurizing wrap-around that many people crave like hot butter on potatoes].

3. Compare the Nordost ODIN speaker cable to the Jorma Design PRIME speaker cable on the Marten Coltrane Supremes. This will be… well, there may not be a winner. I expect the ODIN to be more dynamic, which the Supremes love, and the PRIME to be more detailed, which the Supremes love. But for all I know I am getting it exactly backwards. That’s what shootouts are for. Proving it one way or another [at least with respect to the equipment we have here – we do try to perform part of a shootout on a completely different system to make sure that out results more or less reflect the general case].

4. Compare the Kharma Mini Exquisites to the Audio Note SEC High Efficiency Signature speakers. OK, yes, completely different… but both are 2-ways and, well they were the same price but now the Minis are $60K [seen the dollar lately?] and, well the AN speakers are… we’ll know when Neli gets the price list out [uh, oh, she’s gonna smack me when she reads this… I am already bracing for the impact… hurry up and finish this so I can delete it before she sees it :-)]. I expect the Kharmas to be more detailed and the AN more dynamic. Duh. AN is almost horn-like and Kharma has that legendary midrange resolution. But what else will we hear?

5. Compare the M1 phono stage to the Lamm LP2 phono preamplifier. OK, Neli thinks this test is stupid too… but I want to hear the difference in character between the two. We’ve had a number of other inexpensive and expensive phono stages in here, so this is not all THAT outrageous.

6. Compare the old EMM Labs CDSA to the new one with the upgraded transport and feet. We should be getting close to getting 700 hours on the new CDSA soon now, one would think [I don;t have a little 700 hours cooking timer on it or anything].

7. Oh yeah, we still have to do the interconnect shootout where the signal is quite large, between the preamp and the amp. We actually point to a system periodically and say ‘oh, this would be a convenient time and configuration to perform the aforementioned test’ [well, we don’t use the word ‘aforementioned’ in casual conversation, sorry]. But do we sit down and do the shootout? Noooooooo. It does take about 6 or 7 hours of focused concentrated listening, so it is hard to find the time. But soon….

8. We want to compare the high-power ELROD powercords to the low-powered ones on the Lamm ML2.1. At what point to low-powered amps draw high-power? Just what IS the difference in sound between the two?

9. I am sure there is a 9. And 10….

in Audio Note / Elrod / Emm Labs / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Jorma Design / Kharma / Nordost 0 comments