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Celebrating 29 Years Of Service To Music Lovers |
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Moving around to the big rig things got a little more complex. The speakers were the Marten Django L ($11,500) with ceramic midrange and tweeter, finished in silver metal flake. With their austere straight lines and contemporary finish, I thought they clashed, aesthetically, with the more organic looking Blue Circle gear but there was no arguing about the sound. Music was sourced from the slender black Melco N1A/2 high resolution music library ($3299) and fed to either a Blue Circle BC509 DAC that starts at $1295 and options up to $2935 with the GBC 500 external power supply and a 24-bit/96kHz USB input, or a Chord Hugo TT DAC/Headphone amplifier at $5195.
The Blue Circle preamp and the new NSW 300 stereo power amp had matching Tiger Wood and Sycamore faceplates and were priced about $11,500 each. The amp puts out 300 Wpc into 8 Ohms, 600 Wpc into 4 Ohms with both balanced and single ended inputs and dual binding posts for each channel. Gutwire UNO-S interconnects at $3168 for 1.5m were probably made with silver wire, and Gutwire SV-6 and SV-12 power cords were used at $1199 and $2399 for 6' length, respectively. It looked like there was a M3SCD Musical Fidelity CD player ($1499 US) tucked in on the bottom shelf of the rack, too.
So how did it sound, you ask? Well, it depended on whether these little gray pipe bombs nestled in between the power amp and the rack were engaged or not. They were the Blue Circle Tube Simulators in a Pipe (TSP) that made the rig warmer and more spacious when engaged, and cooler, more precise, with a flatter soundscape when removed. The difference was quite obvious to me and a lot of others. They were not terribly expensive, as I recall. Certainly much less expensive than buying a tube amp, but they do require an extra set of interconnects. The blue ones used here looked more like very affordable Canare Star Quad pro-audio cables than the expensive Gutwire UNO-S mentioned above.
And the TSP is available in either single ended or balanced configuration. If you're a solid state kind of guy, but tube curious, this is definitely the way to go. Gilbert is fond of putting stuff in plastic tubes, whether they are power line conditioners or phono stages. It keeps the price down and the functionality up. Obviously, Gilbert Yeung is one of the more extraordinary people in High End audio today and this was one of the Best Rooms at the show. He has achieved a kind of cult status in the High End and his fine-sounding gear combined with his signature wood faceplates could very well become collectable someday. If I were buying one, I'd be sure to ask for his signature and a few words right across the top of the chassis.
Moving on to HiFi Room D featuring The Speaker Shop I found complete rigs playing actual music rather than tables full of speaker drivers. They have actually put a couple of their designs into production, in addition to selling raw drivers, kit plans and offering lots of advice on how to build your own speakers. They also do repairs and upgrades on your speakers and electronics. I missed the big story here, but caught up with them after the show. The Canadian Loudspeaker Corporation (Fabian Acoustics) has been designing speakers since 1983. Frank Fabian is now marketing two complete speakers under the name of Candor Sound.
The Canadian government funded research for them centering on carbon nanotubes and opposing woofers. Their OMSS (Opposing mass speaker system) cancels vibrations by virtue of using equal and opposite cone movement, thereby cleaning up the bass and eliminating vibrations transmitted to the floor. It also explains why we only see two woofers on these models that claim to have four. (I didn't peek around back to see if they were mounted on the back side, or used in an isobaric internal configuration. On the left was the Model 2455 ($2600/pr.) with four 5.5" woofers and a 28mm dome tweeter said to run from 37Hz to 23kHz. It needs an amp of 40 to 300 Wpc. The second model (to the right) uses four 6.5" woofers and digs down to 30Hz, also requiring a minimum of 40 Wpc to sound decent. The silver components in the rack were discontinued TEAC AI-3000 integrated amplifier and CD-3000 CD player. The tweeters have dual magnets and are encased in a damped stainless steel acoustic isolation chamber. A nano treatment is applied to the dome to keep it from absorbing humidity and sounding different under different weather conditions in your listening room. (Did you ever notice how your music sounds different on days when you water your plants?) I should have paid more attention to these speakers, especially given the Totem-like poster beside them. I guess I'm not quite the dirty old man I like to think I am. You can be damn sure I will turn on my ears the next time I see these speakers.
The tube lover in me latched on to the imported amps from China that included the Max Fidelity Audio MFA PP235, a push-pull, 2 x 35 Watt integrated amp with a quartet of KT100 power tubes that were not being pushed very hard, costing $1700 Cdn on the top shelf. And the MFA SE213 for $1110 Cdn that put out 13 Wpc in SET mode from a pair of KT100 tubes—something you don't see very often at a price you don't see very often, either.
Moreover, the SE213 was equipped with Hammond output transformers from Canada, suggesting that this amp may be able to play a lot louder than you think—or at least drive more difficult speakers. Two of their production speakers were on display along with the TEAC gear in silver seen above.
It was pretty much a given that Frank Fazzalari of Coherent Audio would be driving his high efficiency speakers with Frank Ng's Triode Lab low powered tube amps again. It really is a wonderful combination as I have written in the past. Proof of the pudding was that I had to squeeze my way into the room on my first visit on Saturday. The eye-catcher was the Model 15 Retro Neo "almost-floorstander" with its 15" woofer mated with a 3" compression driver with the crossover set at 800Hz. The veneer inlay created a distinguishing look gracefully surrounding the coincident drivers as it traversed the baffle from top to bottom. With its large internal volume it easily reached 100dB sensitivity and a frequency response of 28Hz to 20kHz. Visitors glued themselves to the chairs for substantial lengths of time. Frank told me on Friday he was running the smaller Model 5 with a 5" woofer and coincident 1.7" compression driver and people were amazed at the size and quality of the sound it put out—thinking the Model 15 Retro Neo was playing.
At "only" 91dB/W/m sensitivity the Model 5 ($2195) needs 10 Watts minimum, rather than the paltry 1.5 Watts required by the Model 15 ($12,900). As usual, Frank used his Baetis Prodigy music server, this time feeding it to an Antelope Pure 2 DAC/ADC. The preamp was a Triode Lab AuPre and the power amp was a Triode Lab 2A3S with James transformers and a Hammond output transformer, similar to one I reviewed a few years ago. Power cables were from Zavfino who also made the turntable I commented on in Part 1. Triode Lab has gone to wood surrounds on their chassis to keep the price under control, yet while I profess to be a wood lover, I have to say the all-metal chassis of their earlier work was sleek, contemporary and unique with their expensive automotive paint finishes. Music here had an intimate sense of space possibly because Frank uses resonance slats in his speakers rather than damping material that would absorb the micro dynamics. Minimal crossover is used with Mundorf EVO Silver Gold Oil capacitors and Nordost internal wiring. No resistors are used. Quality parts and minimal crossover yield excellent transparency and convey the holographic signature of the SET amp, all of which added up to an emotional connection with the music for me... and obviously for others who seemed spellbound as they listened. And if they weren't listening, they were barraging Frank with inquiry. Here again was another Best Room at the show.
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High-Performance Audio Reviews
