Pursuing the Ultimate Music Experiences

Audio Federation High-Fidelity Audio Blog
 by Michael

FedEx Same-day Sunday and We Have Stereo

Sounds… fuller sounding… to have two speakers being driven. [Thanks to Neli and our kind benefactor in Florida]

Now to play some test CDs, but this system sounds quite excellent to our ears. [i.e. come see for yourself if you got the time].

Next stop for me is to register at CES 2008 at the Las Vegas Convention Center (which they call badge-holder pickup). Then take some photos of the main convention, then over tot the Venetian, then back to the St. Tropez and Alexis Park here at T.H.E. Show.

Fun!

in CES 2008 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Show Reports 0 comments
 by Michael

Finally setup for tomorrow

Should have a good tube here before the show and low and behold we’ll be back in the stereo world.

Listening to Sun Ra….

Subsequently to the photo the two box M9 phono preamp replaces the M1 (yes, Jim, YOUR old M1 – did a great job ) and a DAC5 Signature replaced our DAC4 4.1x Balanced.

I think Neli is going to enjoy this room too, way too, much…. 🙂

in CES 2008 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Show Reports 0 comments
 by Michael

CES NEWS….

Esoteric goes for world domination:

1/6/2008 ESOTERIC(R) INTRODUCES NEW “X” SERIES PLAYER FOR CD/SACD

1/6/2008 ESOTERIC(R) INTRODUCES HYBRID TRIOIDE TUBE AMPLIFER MODEL A-100

1/6/2008 ESOTERIC(R) INTRODUCES FIRST PREAMPLIFIER MODEL C-03

1/6/2008 ESOTERIC(R) SHIPS 2 NEW MASTER CLOCK SIGNAL GENERATORS FOR AUDIO VIDEO APPLICATIONS

1/6/2008 ESOTERIC(R) P-03/D-03 SELECTED AS EXCLUSIVE SOURCE COMPONENT FOR KEF MUON USA INTRODUCTION

1/6/2008 ESOTERIC(R) LOUDSPEAKERS NAMED INNOVATIONS 2008 HONOREE BY CONSUMER ELECTRONICS ASSOCIATION

1/6/2008 ESOTERIC(R) INTRODUCES RE-MASTER OF BEETHOVEN OVERATURES CONDUCTED BY SIR COLIN DAVIS

1/6/2008 ESOTERIC(R) INTRODUCES HI-END WIRE AND CABLE LINE AT CES 2008

ARC searches for lowest common [workable] denominator

1/6/2008 ACOUSTIC RESEARCH WIRELESS HOME THEATER SOLUTIONS PROVIDE TRUE “CD” QUALITY SOUND

Another year another “yeah, it’d be nice”

Logitech Transforms PC Audio into High-Performance Theater Sound

and…

The Doctor and the DJ Convene between the Sheets: World’s Smartest Bed Alleviates Snoring, Monitors Body Movements and Rocks the Bedroom

in CES 2008 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Show Reports 0 comments
 by Michael

Hello from Cloudy Rainy Cold Windy Las Vegas

Yesterday was 71 degrees for a few minutes as we picked up several loads of big heavy goodies from the shipper. Ah, shirt sleeves….

Well, here we are in the rather empty (deserted!) Alexis Park. Actually, many hotels are empty here, these few days before the Deluge of CES attendees flocking in like banshees out of Circuit City.

The small Audio Note room is more or less setup and warming up…

The large room, well…. its mostly up and warming…

Setting up the rack, uncrating the platforms, tracking down a RCA to XLR adapter (guitar center) for the M1 which, until the M9 gets here, is our preamp without balanced outputs.


Here are our new AN/E SEC Signature loudspeakers in Madrone. yummy.


High Efficiency. Yummy.


The Balanced Kegons… in a different chassis from the traditional Kegons.


VERY nice looking on the inside…


Except one channel has a Baaaaaad tube. BAD tube. No worky.

With only one channel, we break in one speaker and amp for awhile, then the other… but we should have both channels going sometime. We hope. As soon as we find a GOOD tube.

Sounds pretty farking good with just one channel …. Hee Hee Hee. 🙂 Killer speaker control and delicacy of decay….

… and that is with one channel, the M1 instead of the M9 which is arriving tomorrow, and with speakers that are brand new. [Yeah, we can both easily hear ‘past’ problems that we know are caused by situational difficulties like lack of break in, room anomalies, etc – so it will be interesting to hear what other people think…. ]

So now, to track down a 10Y (VT-25) tube…..

in CES 2008 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Show Reports 0 comments
 by Michael

Next Stop: CES 2008. Prepare for Photos and Commentray Extraordinaire

… Well, you will have to wait until AFTER the show starts.

Sorry.

According to the CES pamphlets this year – this is what the show is all about:

and

Funny how they focus on home audio when it is treated like such a distant cousin to PCs and Cell Phones and Cameras and even Car Audio and, oh yeah, video.

Face it, we lack glamor. Josh over at SonicFlare.com is trying to help, comparing equipment to sports cars.

Let’s see, what can we do?

Neli’s too busy to read this post, so how about:

The Sophia Loren of amplifiers. The Rachel Welch of speakers…?

McIntosh can get Brittney Spears…

No? The approach too libelous?

How about… No, can’t use gemstones: the platinum version of things this day is way too tired of a adjective .. or is it metaphor?

Endorsements would be cool…

These speakers are endorsed by Arnold as true Kick Alien Butt class loudspeakers. Spok says these amps are ‘The logical choice’.

Still gonna get us sued.

Well, we know how motorcycles and alcohol do it. But any nudity in Stereophile seems to bring out the church brigade. [I wonder what percentage of us WANTS high-end audio to stay a niche hobby.?]

One way is obvious, have the print media not dumb down their offerings to the ‘buyer guide for everyman’ state. Such a cop-out. Magazines in Japan have glorious audio porn and present the ultra high-end in a very desirable, Wish You Had These kind of style. You go to the magazine stand in THIS country, and look at the car mags… 1 in 20 is a buyers guide – the rest are high-end specialty car mags. Somebody has a clue over in THAT aisle.

Well, so now you know where we stand, and where this blog stands. And where we are headed.

I know, a lot of posts in a row – but you will be rid of me for a few days… next time you hear from this blog will be from smoky, sexy, crowded Las Vegas!

in CES 2008 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Philosophy / Show Reports 0 comments
 by Michael

As a member of the CES 2008 Press…

I now get lots of emails most of which I am not going to share with you [You can thank me later.]…

One email talked about their being 2700 exhibits this year… No. Wait. that is 2700 exhibitors. OK, at an average of, say, 5 exhibitors per exhibit? Is that a good number? … we get 540 exhibits. I expect about 160 – 180 high-end audio rooms [about 60 of which are at T.H.E. Show] so high-end audio is a third of the show [ and T.H.E. Show a 3rd of the high-end audio portion]? Maybe so – looking at how much time it takes me to photograph everything.

Hmmmm… WARNING – there was a lot of Wile Eyed Guessing in that last paragraph 🙂

in CES 2008 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Show Reports 0 comments
 by Michael

Radiohead – 'In Rainbows' arrived. Warning – Photo Spolier

Unfortunately, no ‘sonic spoiler’ as everything is packed up or plundered to take to CES 2008 to set up our two exhibits. Doh! But we are taking this so we can all hear it at the show.

We heard the downloadable at RMAF 2007 – a 128K MP3 [thanks Steve!] It was pretty good, musically, but sonically – it was OK for one song, as we were interested in whether their style had changed much – but as one heard the whole MP3 album the muffleling and lack of harmonics and dynamics and … etc… got to be a little wearing.

We ordered in December 10th, which was the first day it came out. Didn’t QUITE get here for Christmas, but close enough.

It has two CDs and two LPs. The LPs run at 45 rpm.

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

Happy Happy Brand New Year Everybody


We wish everybody a healthy and prosperous and musically fulfilling new year. May you all find great new music and some great equipment to play it on.

This is our Happy Little Fake Fiber Optic with LED holiday tree this year. With so many live trees outside, and having to dump it so soon after Christmas to go to CES, it didn’t seem right to cut down one this year.

It was fun hunting for things to put under the tree. For the record:

Audio Note SOOTTO interconnects
Nordost ODIN interconnects
A top to the EDGE NL Reference ‘pyramid’ amps we had laying around from when ours were made
Mel Torme ‘Swinging on the Moon’
A Ginger Bread house ornament
A Chocolate Santa Claus
Audio Aero Prestige remote control
A quad of EL84 tubes
Phonic PAA3 frequency analyzer
Radiohead 2plus2isfive
TiVo wireless ethernet device
HRS Nimbus Couplers

OK, I am not in the mood to be packing and this is the way I waste my time 🙂

Runner ups are below… 🙂

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

The Music is Shining in the Grooves

This post was supposed to show how the grooves techno LPs look different than, say, jazz or classical LPs.

Not sure how well the photos illustrate this – but let’s just continue on as if they do a remarkable job, shall we? Please? Perhaps I’ll find and post a better example later.

While we were shopping a few weeks ago in the dollar record bin -there was a certain angle where the LPs looked ‘broken’, and Neli said as much – but my impression is that the drum machines create these rhythmical pasterns on the LPs that makes them look very … different.

Capturing that angle in photos is a little difficult – and again, I am not sure these two albums are extreme enough to point out the unique signature of this genre.

Do other genres have signatures? Most people know that the grooves are shallower, reflecting less light, during quiet parts – female vocals for instance.

Can people tell which genre an LP is just by looking at it?

Can people tell what song it is? Can they, like some can just by looking at sheet music, start humming the music by just ‘Lookin at da Grooves?’

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