Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2009 Show Report
PART 7
Marantz sounded good with Snell A7 Illusion Reference tower said to be a
Full-Range, 3-Way, Tower with D'Appolito Array, 1" silk dome tweeter with neo magnetic in hexadym configuration on a cast aluminum enclosure
Two 5-1/4" Magnesium cone midrange, neo magnet in hexadym configuration and Two 10" Magnesium cone woofers
Frequency response 27Hz - 40kHz (+/- 3dB)
But..are they worth $35,000?
Here's more pretty expensive stuff from AirTight including the ATM-3 monoblocks seen on the floor.
Neil Young's "Live at Massey Hall" LP was playing. We had the first review of the Classic Records reissue that is gorgeous
and it sounded that way in this room over the big Transrotor table.
What's about the worst thing that can happen in a hotel full of audio gear
and people trying to listen to it?
A power outage.
And that's just we got. Twice.
Of course the worst thing would be a fire, but thankfully that didn't happen.
Just glad we weren't caught in an elevator.
Electrostats have a sound all their own. The Sander's 10B version was our 2008 Product of the Year.
Here we have the 72" tall Model One by JansZen. Most 'stats are dipoles with open backs, but these hybrids are enclosed in the rear for more of a line source effect.
Each panel has 3 tweeter elements that go from 600 to 20,000 Hz,
6 mids from 225 to 600
and 2 standard cone 8' from 225 down to 30, they claim.
Price: $27,000
This is what it's like in the demo rooms. Competing for a good listening position...jockeying to try to get a good picture..
trying to talk to the representatives while not disturbing the other people trying to listen carefully.
Not as glamorous as you might think...
The Chinese have gotten into the electrostats in a big way with a very large line of them by KingSound.
They say these almost 6' tall go from 32Hz to 24Khz but they are only 83 db efficient.
They sounded much better than their $8,000 asking price.
Inside look at the new Stello Ai500 that combines a solid-state integrated amp and D/A converter.
Output is 150 wpc class AB with a digital volume control.
3 unbalanced lines and 1 balanced
4 digital ins including PC USB and iPod
Seems like a good value at $3,495
The CDA500 is a matching CD player that can upsample to 192 Khz.
It also has USB connectivity
We had heard Haniwa's behemoth horns before, but this year
he got more sensible and showed his smaller versions.
His motto is "If the waveform is wrong, then the sound is also going to be wrong". He says he gets the waveform right "By preserving and reproducing the original impact of the sound,
from the deepest bass to the highest harmonics, through the highly accurate control of phase shift,
as well as flattening the gain curve in the frequency domain.
We listened to the HSP2H06 (!) models on the outside with the separate tuned digital channel divider
(we told you there was a lot more digital) that controls the phase curve and the amplitude curve in the frequency domain.
The two drivers, a 2" Tractrix horn and 6" cone woofer, are isolated in the molded cabinets.
Very impressive sound, but they cost $20,000.
Haniwa also debuted the world's first super low impedance (0.8 ohms/0.35mV output) MC cartridge that tracks at .7 grams.
It requires their phono equalizer/controller to achieve that, though. The cart and controller each costs $5,000.
This is only page 7. We're working on much more as you read this. Bookmark us and come back.