T
w o C h a n n e l A n a l o g E
n t h u s i a s t sE u g e n e , O r e g o n
541-729-8458 info @ eugenehifi.com
|
|||||||||||
|
|
 |
"I’ve heard loudspeakers from Living voice a few times at the Hifi Wigwam show and I always found them lacking a bit – very nice and polite but not just my cup of tea… but I’m well aware that many people heaped praise on them in the same listening environments. With this in mind I was prepared to be under whelmed. Playing in the Living Voice room when we went in was the company’s OBX – RW loudspeakers. Electronics in this system included the Kondo M77 pre, Kondo Kegon amplifier, Kondo Ongaku Pre M77 and Kondo KSL M7 Phono. Sources included an SME 30 (I think) turntable, Wadia CD and DAC and a Canary Audio CD-300 CD player (Again I think the model number is correct). |
|
|
"My report this year focuses on certain exhibits which stood out for reasons I'll describe and where I thus spent some quality time. This gets me directly to what I—and here I clearly was far from alone—thought was the best sound of the event by quite a margin. There were other presentations I enjoyed very much. But one room stood so far above the rest that usual provisos be damned, I'll call it unapologetically Best Of Show. " "This system did it all: scale, splendor, linearity, gushing ease, '64-bit' tone colors, emotional transport-you-to-elsewhere factor, resolution, top-end sophistication... you name it, this room had it. Even disbelievers who in their own words had never heard a hornspeaker that didn't sound like one admitted that this one was different. And though looking at the long 7-segment bronze trumpet with internal precision grooving alarms armchair engineers into thinking that this couldn't possibly work—they'd invoke horn honk, discontinuous directivity or what-not—it worked like a charm. " "If one didn't know what's possible, this room was the benchmark." |
 |
| It's been a long time since we've been excited about a CD player, but the Line Magnetic 215 has been an eye opening experience. The 215 has the inner resolution that lets the listener emotionally connect to the music, handling the smallest of details with a finesse that is downright scary at times. Live recordings take on a new life and live music collectors should take notice. Correct spatial cues put the listener right in the middle of the hall and questionable recordings can become much more interesting. Commercially produced live recordings put the listener in the front row. Heck, it's put Dickey Betts right in the living room with the Line Magnetic 219IA and the DeVore gibbon 88's. Frankly, we don't think a $1500 turntable system could keep up. If your CD collection was sold long ago, Line Magnetic also has a tubed DAC in their new Gold Series. The early comments from the dealers who have it
are really over the top.
|
 |
The Crimson is van den Hul's newest addition to their line of top-level phono cartridges. It's a crossbreed of The Canary and The Condor. The Crimson's wood body is available in three different stains: Light, Dark and Red. We are looking forward to hearing the new cartridge. Look for a review to be published later this year and a show debut at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in October. We'll be showing with DeVore Fidelity again. |
 |
 |
|
|
"Okay, so. Here’s the scoop. Buy these speakers. Yeah. I keep saying “Best In Show” contender, but I mean it — these speakers are great. I want ‘em. I want them with some big tubes — and while I’m at it, I want a pair of Orangutan O/96 for my bitty tube amps, and a pair of Gibbon 3XL for all those places where you can’t fit the other two. Okay? Okay. Good. Glad we have that sorted. The sound of a DeVore speaker, even one that hits low like the Gibbon X, is still hard to put a finger on as it doesn’t feel exaggerated or particularly excessive in along any particular degree. That is, I don’t really feel like I’m listening to speakers when I plop down unceremoniously in a DeVore demo room. The music is dynamic, deep, detailed, airy, that is, it is what it is, and I don’t marvel at the bits — I’m wrapped in the whole. " |
|
|
|
|
|
"William Firebaugh (Well Tempered Lab designer) has always shown a certain willingness to think outside the box and has, in the process, created an entire range of turntables perform far better than one might expect given their relatively modest prices (traditionally, Firebaugh has gravitated more toward clever, cost-effective solutions than toward “unobtanium-grade” designs). Now, Well Tempered has put into product the most ambitious Firebaugh turntable to date: namely, the Versalex turntable and arm combo. As fitted with a Van Den Hul Frog Gold cartridge and shown in the DeVore Fidelity room, the Versalex managed to sing ever so sweetly with a minimum of hi-fi-esque artifacts. Indeed, the Versalex might well represent one of the greatest analogue bargains at this year’s CES." |
|
| van den Hul The Frog Gold Cartridge | |
| "Over time, top-tier moving coil phono cartridges have reached some pretty stratospheric prices, so that it is always refreshing to find models that, while certainly not cheap, at least make some effort to hold purchase prices within sensible limits. One such cartridge is the new Frog Gold from Van Den Hul, which is essentially a hot-rodded version of the standard Frog that has been fitted with gold coil wires. The Frog Gold, mounted in a Well Tempered Versalex turntable and arm, sounded terrific in the DeVore Fidelity demonstration room, producing wide, deep, highly three-dimensional soundstages with plenty of detail. The very good news, though, is that the Frog Gold does all this without so much as a hint of the edgy, analytical sound that occasionally afflicts some of today’s upper-end moving coils—moving coils that arguably push sonic limits too far for their own good" |
 |
 |
|
 |
CES 2013 "Best of Show" DeVore Fidelity / van den Hul / Well Tempered Lab Acoustic Plan / Naim / Box Furniture |
| "Given the highly sensitive nature of Devore speakers, the Naim Nait XS was a surprising amp choice, but it worked remarkably well, timing being spot on and tone in almost the same league. We expected the former, but Naim is not renowned for its tonal depth, so the latter was quite a surprise. With ZZ Top's Tres Hombres on the turntable, this system was cooking -- close to if not the best we heard on the first day of the show."
|
|
|
|
New! Line Magnetic Gold Series |
|
|
|
|
|
