The Cinderella story of the show this year was a million
dollar prize offered to the audiophile with a head large enough to wear these
headphones. While several people claimed the prize, they were ultimately
disqualified when the judges determined that it was merely their egos that fit
the headphones.
Wandering into the Coup de
Foudre room (Longueuil) I fully expected to see Peter McGrath and
the new Wilson Sabrina speaker, but was instead greeted with a smorgasbord of
other high end brands that are sometimes seen in the smaller hotel rooms. For
example, along the first wall was a pair of Devore
Fidelity speakers with gorgeous figured wood baffles along with Leben
integrated amp and Brinkman Bardo
turntable that might well have been hosted by John Devore in one of the rooms
on the hallways in an earlier year. On another wall was a pair of Shindo
components in a very dark green finish with gold knobs. On the left
was a D'Yguem, an 18 watt monoblock ($25,000 pr.) with volume control that
uses parallel 300B in SET. It is said to have a 110dB S/N ratio which is
pretty extraordinary for a tube amp. To the right was a Masseto stereo preamp
with MM/MC phono stage ($13,500US). This was a rare opportunity to see this
exclusive low-power, high quality gear. I was told never to expect to hear it
at any show, as that would be against the agreement Shindo Laboratory has with
its dealers. I guess that's the perfect excuse for me to pack up my hot-rodded
Linn LP-12 and truck over to Art Dudley's house for a listen. Thanks to
Danny Labrecque of Coupe de Foudre for walking me through some of this gear
and chatting about vintage motorcycles. If Art doesn't come through for me
I'll have to ride up to Montreal this summer to hear the Shindo at Coup de
Foudre.
On the active system in this room I heard cuts from a Blue
Note 1595 LP, Cannonball Adderley's Something
Else, which features the same line-up as Miles Davis' Kind
of Blue. The new Brinkman
Spider turntable ($14,000 without arms) sporting an EMT
TSD15 cartridge (~$2000) on a captivating Reed
1G 9" tonearm ($4200) from Lithuania with a wood arm tube was sounding very
good with lots of tonal color. A 10" version is a couple hundred dollars
more. Amplification was through the Luxman
C-600f control amp and M600A monoblocks that operate in Class A for 17 watts
and go up to 120 watts A/B ($9000 each) that were driving Vivid
Audio's K1 speakers ($26,000US) in a very
red red finish. Luxman's USB DAC DA-06 was also in the rig.
Off in the front corners of the room was a pair of modestly
sized Rockport Technology speakers that I would have loved to have
heard, a pair of PMC
floorstanders, and Vivid's
curly top Giya G3 speaker ($44,000US). A smaller G4 model, about one meter
tall, is available for about $38,000 if your room is more modest. I've been
applauding Vivid speakers for years and at first felt they were too far ahead
of their time from a styling standpoint, but they are hanging in there (and
doing well, I presume from the great reviews) and now seem practically, but
not quite, normal. Around the room on tables were seen samples of the many
lines they carry including a Line Magnetic
amp, Opera speakers, Simply
Italy amp, Clearaudio
turntable, VTL amp, BAT
amp, and a beautiful Triode Lab
stereo 2A3 amp with a blue chassis. Not only was this room candy shop yummy,
it was one of the Best Rooms at
the show. And no, it wasn't just the playing of Lou Reed's "Take a Walk
on the Wild Side" that won me over, but that was certainly one of those
goose bump moments.
Next door, in the Pointe aux Trembles room was an equally
tempting delicatessen, one of three spaces hosted by Plurison.
Rather than compete with an active display, they designed the room as a maze
with various marques represented in a well-lit vignette. It was almost like
walking through a jewelry store or an art gallery. Naim
gear was prominently featured and once again Emmanuel LeQuere clarified the
mystery of their new products including their NAC N 272 ($8295CDN), a hub unit
that combines digital formats and analog sources with preamplifier functions
that you can supplement with CD player, phono stage, Bluetooth, iRadio,
multi-room distribution and integrate with a power amp and speakers to achieve
the power and quality of separate components. This is the first Naim component
capable of dealing with DSD 64.
Naim also showed a new series of cables with extreme
flexibility built into the connectors to eliminate physical cable strain and
microphonic vibration and any noise that might be induced by that vibration.
The cables are available not only in the Naim DIN format, but also in RCA and
balanced form as well as various combinations of these three types for
intermixing Naim gear with other brands. The Super Lumina series of cables
range from $3495 to 11,995CDN per pair. At the furthest end of the path was a
huge Focal Grande Utopia speaker
and the Naim NAC S1 Statement preamp ($100,000) and NAP S1 monoblocks
($150,000/pair) which I saw, heard, and described in my Brooklyn report last
September. These are the amplifiers you want for your difficult 1 Ohm
loudspeakers, as they will put out 9000 watts into that low resistance.
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