by Michael

CES 2015 Acapella Audio Arts

At CES 2015 Acapella Audio Arts will introduce their new Acapella Cellini speakers.

We will be exhibiting with Acapella this year in room 30-225, in the Venetian tower, with Neli spending most of her time here.

The Cellini speakers are similar in size and pricing to their Violon speakers but feature Acapella’s new hyperspherical-shaped horn.

Here’s a lovely description, and specifications, fom the factory:

Acapella first used a hyper spherical midrange horn in the Poseydon speakers. This horn configuration offers an extraordinarily open and transparent sound in a more compact home loud speaker system,

Acapella Cellini

This highly musical midrange is traditional accompanied by the Acapella Ion Tweeter TW 1
The bass foundation is provided in a sleek housing that also serves as the support for the Ion Tweeter
and the spherical horn. The complete system recreates the sound of any type of music with absolute
authenticity and a certain mysterious magic.

Technical: Overall Frequency Response: 28 Hz – 40 kHz, Efficiency: ~ 91 dB / 1 W / 1 m
Impedance 8 Ohm, Load capacity: 100 W – 1000 W / 10 ms
Recommended power output of the amplifier: from 15 W
Dimensions (HxWxD) without horn: 1490 x 330 x 475 mm (4,89 x 1,08 x 1,56 feet)
Dimensions (HxWxD) with horn: 1705 x 620 x 585 mm (5,59 x 2,03 x 1,91 feet)
Weight: ~ 105 kg (230 lb), High Version 120 kg (265 lb)

The room will feature:

* Acapella Cellini High loudspeakers, € 46,600, currently $58,250 with the Euro at 1.25.

* Acapella LaMusika integrated amplifier, $106,388.

* Acapella cables, specifics tbd.

* The EMM Labs XDS1 player ($25000) or… the Audio Note CDT-5 transport with one of their Level 5 DACs, specifics tbd

* HRS SXR equipment rack and M3X platforms.

————

CES 2015 is just a few weeks away…

Be there or… read the several dozen show reports that no doubt will appear [including ours :-)]

 

 

in Acapella / CES 2015 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo 2 comments
 by Michael

Best High-end Audio Blogs of 2014

The Best High-end Audio Blogs of 2014 are a varied bunch.

I think we are uniquely qualified to judge who the best blogs are because:

1) Although we have a fairly successful blog, we actually acknowledge that other blogs / magazines exist

2) We list all of them in the Audiophiles Guide: High-end Audio Blogs.

3) We carry all those that can be carried on the Ultimist high-end audio news page

So, like our show reports where we go to each and every room, we read each and every blog [off and on, we don’t click through to read every single post!]. However, in the end, this is a purely subjective choice.

Drum roll… roll… roll…

1. Mono and Stereo

By shear breadth of coverage and frequency of posts, these guys are dominating the blogosphere in the Audiophile World. The stories are not as in-depth as we would like, and hardly any thought pieces, but these guys have tapped the mainline of what is happening in high-end audio.

twogoodears-header-logo

2. Two Good Ears

Something about the vibe; the immediacy of the portrayal of a life of an audiophile; the international, welcoming feel that makes this a water-cooler type hub for what is happening in the Audiophile World. A nice place to hangout.

3. Can’t think of a 3. [Not that there aren’t a ton of good ones, but none seem to stand out as I write this]

 

Runner ups:

Audiophile Magazine (French). In-depth editorials that address serious issues in our community.

6moons. We like the new design of the front page. A minor change but much easier on the old noggin.

A few really good posts on the passing of Harry Pearson:

* Jonathan Valin on Harry Pearson

* Jonathan Valin also had a great post on the 40th anniversary of TAS, which included a lot about HP, but for  some reason it seems to have been pulled down? I do not remember it being at all inappropriate. Hmmm….

* Mike Fremer on Harry Pearson

 

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

NVS Sound and Audio Federation

NVS Sound and Audio Federation are now working together to help people build more perfect high-end audio systems.

NVS Sound is a U.S. manufacturer of high-end audio cables. Their cables range from the reasonably priced to the not quite atmospherically priced. Their technology consists of high-quality silver and copper conductors wrapped with special proprietary concoctions of various powders. This approach allows them to significantly dampen the deleterious effects of vibration on their cables, as well as to provide first-class shielding against the ravages of EMI / RFI.

NVS Sound cables have an extremely musical, emotional and inspiring sound, communicating the intent of the musicians in what seems like an almost magical manner – while being at the same time clear sounding, quite linear top-to-bottom, and with the high-resolution people expect from today’s cables.

These cables are currently extremely popular in Japan. Now I ask you, why should they have all the fun? It is time for the rest of the world to get to experience what these cables can do to improve the quality of our home audio high-fidelity playback.

The top-of-the-line NVS is competitive with the best in the world. The lower parts of the line wildly exceed the performance of comparably priced cables. They are very well-built and attractive cables. Some cables are use copper conductors and some use silver, helping the audiophile get just the cables that best fit their needs.

Audio Federation is the international distributor for NVS Sound and will be leading the effort to market and sell the brand worldwide. We are entertaining distributorship inquiries for countries outside the U.S. (excluding Japan) as well as dealership inquires. If you are looking to join us please drop us a line. Some brands have a all-for-one, one-for-all feeling. All the distributors and dealers are part of one big… syndicate.We like that. So far the NVS family is primarily Nathan (NVS Sound), Eiji (Eilex, Japan), and now us . We are looking forward to expanding this network of people who want to make some money helping audiophiles get much better sound for their high-end audio dollar.

In the meantime, NVS Sound cables are available direct from us here at Audio Federation. The NVS product line and prices are here on the website [speaker cables and power cable prices will be posted soon].

in News 0 comments