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Positive Feedback ISSUE 75
New York
Audio Show 2014
Brooklyn. Popularized as "Crooklyn" by Spike Lee. The filming location for Three Days of the Condor, Saturday Night Fever and The Departed. More recently, known for its hipster-filled neighborhoods of Williamsburg (home to Leeds Audio), Greenpoint (home to the Record Grouch), and up-and-coming Gowanus (the infamous Gowanus Canal Superfund site). And this year, host to Chester Group's New York Audio Show. Moving the event from Manhattan to the Marriott Brooklyn Bridge provided both a respite from the deluge of noise and crowds typically jamming every cranny of Manhattan, and more importantly: logical hallways! No more rounding a corner to see that you've landed in the laundry room. There were typical problems of mediocre sound in many rooms, but thankfully a handful of systems rose above the audio fray. Not wanting to bore you or myself with the usual rundown of products A, B and C in rooms X, Y and Z, I opted to focus attention on favorite rooms from dealers and manufacturers both new and familiar. As always, Jeff Catalano of High Water Sound, Audio Note UK, Jeff Joseph of Joseph Audio, MBL, and the ever-friendly Wes Bender of Wes Bender Studio NYC created excellent sound in less than optimal conditions.
In the Volti Audio, Raven Audio, and Triode Wire Labs room the humongous three-way, horn-loaded Volti Vittora loudspeakers ($21,500/pair) were powered by a Raven Spirit 300B Reference Stereo amp ($7295), Raven Audio Silhouette Reference preamp ($9995), joined together by Triode wiring, with a Meitner transport and D/A converter. The sound was large-scale, sweet, and dynamic. It drew me and a room full of listeners with its magic.
Straight from Mars, the gigantic hourglass-shaped, powerful and human-sounding Alta Audio Statement Towers ($200,000/pair) created some of the loveliest sounds of the show. Accompanying gear included VAC Statement 450i amplifiers, Mojo Audio upgraded Mac Mini with Joule IV Power Supply, and the newly introduced VPI Classic Direct turntable.
Alta Audio founder and designer Michael Levy took obvious enjoyment presenting such a fine sound and we both agreed that the experience recreated the all important and often-missing emotion of the recorded event. The towering Alta Audio Statements were clean and coherent, especially for a multi-driver, ribbon-tweeter assisted speaker in such a tiny room. Great dynamics, depth, liquidity, and gut-level physicality made this system a blast. Tonality was also spot-on via a gorgeous Reference Recordings Rachmaninoff LP performed by the Minnesota Orchestra.
As he did in the lobby area and in several rooms, Quebec cellist and Fidelio Musique recording artist Vincent Bélanger played beautiful sounds on his 200 year old instrument. In Levy's room, Belanger performed to his new CD and while the playback couldn't match the real thing, it was certainly fun. This was the first time I've seen a musician actively engaging listeners in an exhibitor's room and it was a real treat. Memorex... ?
I always look forward to seeing Jeff Catalano of High Water Sound. High Water Sound's motto is "2 Channel With Attitude." Not only does always Jeff play fantastic LPs at the show, his warmth, spirit and knowledge are truly engaging. Jeff is one cool cat! High Water Sound is located in the nearly ancient South Street Seaport area of Manhattan, where cobblestone streets buffer the encroaching plaque of gentrification. If you visit NYC, Jeff will welcome you into his cozy showroom like a friend, with no pressure, and some truly superb hi-fi gear to behold.
Jeff, with Paul Manos of High Fidelity Services, played the new Parsifal Anniversary Loudspeaker from Verity Audio ($24,995/pair), driven by Audia Flight Strumento electronics including the Audia Flight Strumento preamplifier ($17,500) and Audia Flight Strumento amplifier ($27,500). Coupled to Jeff's gorgeous TW-Acustic Raven GT SE table ($12,500) with TW-Acustic 10.5 tonearms ($11,000 for the pair) and Miyajima Madake (stereo, $5900) and Zero (mono, $2000) cartridges, this system produced a clean, tight and tone-full sound. Sorry about the blurry shot!
In the brightly colorful VAC room, Statement 450iQ monoblock amplifiers ($116,000/pair) coupled to the Statement Line Preamplifier ($66,000) and Statement Phono Preamplifier ($70,000) provided major kick factor to an adjustable pair of Focal Grande Utopia EM speakers ($195,000/pair).
The Bergmann Audio Sindre turntable and its air-bearing tonearm/Lyra Etna cart ($28,000) supplied the signal, and the sound simply gobsmacked me. My notes read "brilliant treble definition," "wide open sound," "lightweight bass," "broad transparency."
In a room so darkly lit I hoped some winsome beauty would pour me a drink, Part Time Audiophile's Scott Hull moderated the Sunday afternoon panel discussion, "The 21st Century Audiophile." Hull, Stereophile's Art Dudley, CNET's Steve Guttenberg (The Audiophiliac) and Digital Audio Review's John Darko bantered about the best entry level systems, how to create that "looking glass" moment for new adherents of hi-fi, and the value of Neil Young's PONO hi-rez player. Guttenberg praised an entry level rig consisting of the tiny 20-watt-per-channel Lepai LP-2020A+ amplifier ($24.49) with the Dayton Audio B652 bookshelf speakers ($44.50 per pair), HiFiMan Express HM-101 USB-powered DAC ($39.00), and of course, the Kickstarter funded U-Turn Orbit Turntable ($179.00).
The Woo Audio room held a lovely pair of Oswaldsmills Audio OMA Mini hybrid horn/moving coil woofer speakers ($25,000) powered by WA-234 monoblocks ($15,900 per pair), creating an accurate, quick, and thoroughly gripping audio event. Even via a digital source the sound was organic with meat-on-the bones. And oh so silky.
Causing a major buzz both at the show and online, David Stanavich's cost-no-object Wax Rax "record carts" are solid aluminum anodized racks on rollers that are overbuilt yet attractive. The RC-1 ($1,500) holds 400 records, and like its big brother the LP-V4, is stunning in its industrial design and custom saturated colors. (Note the excellent Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis album Cookbook to the right.) The 72-inch tall LP-V4 holds 700 LPs and costs a whopping $6,200. These are extremely well-built units, and will likely become family heirlooms along with the LPs!
Finally, what would any audio show be without VPI turntables? VPI Nomad, Traveler, Scout and Classic turntables were lined up in a static display in the VPI room allowing attendees to touch, "ooh" and "ahh," but not hear. I was particularly taken by VPI's MW-1 Cyclone cleaning machine and its reversible, dual-direction platter, as explained to me by the lovely Jane Cai, official VPI greeter and friend of Mat Weisfeld. I didn't see Mat, but looking at Jane, who cares?
New York Audio Show 2014 was compact in comparison to past NYC audio shows, but it was easier to manage and some rooms produced truly excellent sound. Kudos to Chester Group and here's to 2015!
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