in this issue

IN THIS ISSUE 

ISSUE 161 ■ APRIL/MAY 2006 

122 COVER STORY 

Mark Levinson N o. 326S Preamplifier and 

N o. 432 Power Amplifier 

Listening to Levinson’s latest, Robert Harley finds the company’s 

tradition of excellence not just upheld but improved upon. 

85 Basic Repertoire: South African and West African Pop 

Derk Richardson dips into a richly varied musical culture, and 

recommends essential recordings. 

22 

22 A Higher High End—The 2006 

Consumer Electronics Show 

Join us on a trip to Las Vegas, where our staff shows you a bounty of 

fascinating new gear and reports on the state of the high end. 

EQUIPMENT REPORTS 

14 Absolute Analog: Lamm Industries LP2 Deluxe 

Phonostage and Clearaudio Titanium Cartridge 

Spin a few LPs with Jonathan Valin, who is savoring some tasty 

analog goods. 

97 Sonus Faber Concerto Domus Loudspeaker 

Neil Gader on an Italian speaker that makes you feel right at home. 

101 Thule Audio Spirit IA350B Integrated Amplifier and 

Space DVA250B DVD/CD Player 

Sallie Reynolds on two sweet performers from Denmark. 

106 Esoteric X-03 CD/SACD Player 

Jacob Heilbrunn listens to the latest from TEAC’s high-end division. 

97 

112 Channel Islands Audio D-200 Monoblock Amplifier 

Class D amps are all the rage. Chris Martens listens to another offering in 

this rapidly growing field. 

118 Krell SACD Standard CD/SACD Player 

Fred Kaplan explains how one player changed a critic’s mind about the 

SACD format. 

130 HP’s Workshop 

Memoirs of the CES: What happened in Las Vegas doesn’t stay in 

Las Vegas—this time around. 

85 

2 THE ABSOLUTE SOUND ■ APRIL/MAY 2006

VIEWPOINTS 

6 Letters 

134 Manufacturer Comments 

COLUMNS 

12 From The Editor 

MUSIC 

136 Recording of the Issue: Mogwai’s Mr. Beast 

136 Rock Etc. 

Reviews of 11 new CDs, including the latest from the Flaming Lips, 

Drive-By Truckers, Cat Power, Loose Fur, Rosanne Cash, Sarah Harmer, 

Tom Zé, and Swearing at Motorists. Plus, a round-up of recent 

Pure Pleasure and Analogue Productions audiophile blues LPs. 

151 Classical 

Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1with Han-Na Chang, Shostakovich’s 

Piano Trios Nos. 1 and 2 with Beaux Arts Trio, Handel’s Delirio with 

Natalie Desay, and five more new CDs critiqued. Also, four Mozart 

SACDs with which to celebrate the composer’s 250 th birthday. 

161 Jazz 

The scoop on the latest from Manu Katche, Ken Hatfield, Paul Motian, 

and Quinsin Nachoff, plus four Nina Simone reissues and Monster Cable’s 

Vince Guaraldi set. 

168 TAS Retrospective: 

Harman Kardon Citation 16 Power Amplifier 

Sue Kraft goes shopping on eBay. 

founder; chairman, editorial advisory board 

Harry Pearson 

editor-in-chief Robert Harley 

editor Wayne Garcia 

executive editor Jonathan Valin 

managing and Bob Gendron 

music editor 

acquisitions manager Neil Gader 

and associate editor 

news editor Barry Willis 

equipment setup Danny Gonzalez 

editorial advisory board Sallie Reynolds 

advisor, cutting edge Atul Kanagat 

senior writers 

John W. Cooledge, Anthony H. Cordesman, 

Gary Giddins, Robert E. Greene, Fred Kaplan, 

Andrew Quint, Paul Seydor, Alan Taffel 

reviewers and contributing writers 

Soren Baker, Greg Cahill, Dan Davis, Andy Downing, 

Jim Hannon, Stephan Harrell, Jacob Heilbrunn, 

John Higgins, Sue Kraft, Mark Lehman, Ted Libbey, 

David McGee, Derk Richardson, Don Saltzman, Dan 

Schwartz, Aaron M. Shatzman, 

Arnie Williams 

design/production Design Farm, Inc. 

publisher/editor, AVGuide Chris Martens 

web producer Ari Koinuma 

Absolute Multimedia, Inc. 

chairman and ceo Thomas B. Martin, Jr. 

vice president/publisher Mark Fisher 

advertising reps Cheryl Smith 

(512) 891-7775 

Marvin Lewis, 

MTM Sales 

(718) 225-8803 

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136 

112 

© 2006 Absolute Multimedia, Inc., Issue 161, April/May 2006. 

The Absolute Sound (ISSN #0097-1138) is published ten times per year, 

$42 per year for US residents, Absolute Multimedia, Inc., 4544 S. Lamar, 

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L E T T E R S 

Best Article Ever 

As a reader since Volume 1 and a subscriber 

since Volume 2, I have enjoyed 

your publication and believe you are 

working hard to make it even better. 

The interview in Issue 159 with 

Benjamin Zander [by Jonathan Valin 

and Mark Lehman] has to be the best 

article I have ever read in an audio publication! 

The passion this man has to get 

the “message” of classical music to the 

non-initiated is unprecedented. If only 

more people in the business/art had that 

desire we would not be talking about 

the demise of classical music. 

JOHN C. SHAW 

No Mark Levinson? 

I bought the December issue of The 

Absolute Sound and was amazed that the 

listing of recommended products does 

not feature any components from Mark 

Levinson. On this side of the ocean, 

these are often regarded as reference gear 

and have some “cult-status.” 

See this issue’s cover story. –RH 

JOHN VAN POLEN 

THE NETHERLANDS 

Getting the Bass Right 

Thank you for REG’s article on getting 

the bass right using the TacT 2.2X and 

corner subs. Flat bass response coupled 

with time-alignment in a real room 

should be heard by music lovers everywhere. 

I’ve experimented with sub/sat 

arrangements since my first M&K system 

back in 1982. Finally, with the 

TacT, the promise is realized. The room 

effects, and the loss of midrange magic, 

obscured by those ever-present bass 

nodes, are effectively removed. My TacT 

replaced eight room lenses and bass 

busters in the corners and the effect is an 

order of magnitude more profound (and 

the Wife Acceptance Factor is high, too). 

While corner/front-firing subs can 

sound really good with the TacT (I’ve 

used several, including VBT and RBH) 

I would encourage TacT users to experiment 

with dipole bass also. I use a pair 

of stacked Linkwitz Phoenixes beside 

my line arrays, and the bass is simply 

fabulous. I’m not a bass freak, and 

mostly listen to acoustic jazz, but the 

room-filling bass from eight 12" drivers 

provides a foundation of power and 

musical drive that I’d never experienced 

before in a listening room. The 

miniscule trade-off in transparency 

with the TacT is more than compensated 

for in musical realism. 

RICHARD SHWERY 

The new room-correction system from 

Lyngdorf Audio appears to be a significant 

advancement in the technology. See REG’s 

report from CES in this issue. –RH 

Perhaps it Was Breathing Those 

Solder Fumes 

I must write after reading the garbage 

written by Bob Gendron about high end 

doing the nosedive because manufacturers 

are ignoring new music. Hip-hop, 

Bob, is garbage music from a garbage 

culture that glorifies gangs, cop killing, 

and the white man as the root of all evil. 

What’s worse is to see rich suburban 

kids listening to this shit with their four 

18" subwoofers. All of the other 

garbage, like the bands Garbage and 

Phish, follow suit. 

Yes, gone are the days when an 

artist sat in front of a microphone and 

performed with real talent. Nowadays, 

the music is a MIDI patch stuck on 

repeat. Where is the melody? Today’s 

music is like Hollywood’s latest films. 

We need another King Kong? Most 

movies today are patches of other movies 

put together under a new title. There is 

no creativity at all. 

If you like this shit Bob, you need 

to talk to someone who actually knows 

about music. Like a real musician. Neil 

Young’s latest album Prairie Wind is perhaps 

one of the finest albums to come 

along in years. There are no MIDI tracks 

stuck on repeat. It’s real music made by 

a real person in real time. The lyrics are 

timeless. Will the world remember the 

band Garbage in 20 years? 

Back to the real reason high end is 

doing the tip. No one builds kits anymore. 

When I was sixteen all I could 

afford were Dynakits and AR turntables 

on my lawn-mowing budget. I got so 

turned on to hi-fi by building this stuff 

that it became a part of my soul. I’ll bet 

Upcoming in TAS 

A complete Goldmund system 

Hovland HP-200 preamp 

Adept Response power conditioner 

Revel F52 speaker 

Basic Repertoire: Free-jazz guitarists 

Wilson Benesch Full circle turntable system 

HP’s Workshop 


L E T T E R S 

a large number of equipment manufacturers put kits together 

when they were young, too. It gets in the blood. Though I’m 

not an electrical engineer, I know what resistors and capacitors 

and transistors are. Kids nowadays don’t care about this unless 

it’s an Xbox. That’s it. 

Could you own a ’57 Chevy and not have your head under 

the hood? There are people that try, but it just doesn’t work. 

You can’t get to the next level until you tweak the transmission 

or put in a Hurst shifter—stuff like this. This is the stuff of love. 

And like that ’57 Chevy owned by a non-motorhead, you 

just can’t go out and buy a good high-end system the first time. 

It will sound like crap because the person buying it didn’t 

know why he was buying it. It was just because it cost a lot of 

money, and the guy at the stereo shop said this was top shelf. 

When you get to your sixth or seventh power amp, you’ll 

know why you don’t have the other ones anymore. You let this 

stuff get into your blood. 

My advice to equipment manufacturers is this: There has to 

be a lot more touchy-feely to this stuff. Help consumers understand 

what goes on under the hood. Make some stuff that can 

be tweaked at home. Let them breath in solder fumes. Once 

hooked, this Audiofish will soon know the difference between 

good and garbage. 

WAYNE NIELSON 

Buying Used Gear 

I love reading TAS, but I’m also a poor college student, as I’m 

sure many of you were in your glory days, and nothing interests 

me more than budget hi-fi. I am constantly amazed by the 

magic that companies can work for less than $1k. Last month’s 

article about the $2000 system raises some serious points about 

how to build a modest listening setup. I understand that the 

goal of the article was not to build the perfect $2000 system, 

but to demonstrate the state of normal, two-channel hi-fi in a 

world of big-box electronics stores peddling $200 surround systems. 

However, in my humble opinion, I’m not sure if I agree 

with the system put together by the local hi-fi shop, particularly 

the peculiar cost imbalance of the components. I believe the 

best solution is to go at least partially with used components. 

I don’t think that there is any serious audiophile who 

would agree that the best budget system can or should be 

built entirely from new gear. For example, the Web site 

Audiogon is filled with great used gear; most of the sellers are 

honest audio freaks like you and me who take care of their 

stuff and are willing to part with it at substantially reduced 

prices. It’s also important to note that many fine, expensive 

CD players diminish in value after only a couple of years—all 

the more reason to go used. A buyer could snatch up something 

like my amp, the 60W Rotel RA972 (w/remote)—a 

perfectly good substitute for the pricey 1062. This would 

leave several hundred dollars extra to devote to the rest of the 

system. It’s this kind of balancing/compromising that will in 

the end yield a system that gives a true taste of the high end, 

and all it requires is a bit of browsing and e-mailing. 

DAVID METHOT 

The Retail Experience 

After reading Barry Willis’ article on The Quest for Great Sound 

on a $2000 budget, I could not agree more with his experience 

with Mr. Patrick Pack at Access to Music in San Rafael, 

California. I was a novice audiophile looking for a decent twochannel 

system and visited almost all the high-end audio shops 

in the San Francisco Bay Area. I must say that not all salespersons 

are alike in the so-called high-end audio market. Everyone 

appears to be a self-proclaimed audiophile who has the necessary 

technical knowledge on the products he sells, but certainly with 

varying attitudes. Mr. Pack stands out in the crowd with his 

enthusiasm and willingness to help a novice customer like me. I 

ended up purchasing my system from Mr. Pack who handdelivered 

the speakers free of charge to my third floor San 

Francisco apartment on his day off. What exemplary service! In 

comparison to that, when I visited a well-known high-end 

audio-video store in San Francisco, a salesperson almost laughed 

at my budget and called it “mid-fi” (which is probably true by 

his standards). 

I think it’s the experience that counts when you are shopping 

for your audio gear. In this age when true audiophile 

salespersons are a blink away from extinction, I cannot com- 


L E T T E R S 

mend enough the positive experience a 

salesperson like Mr. Pack provides to all 

his customers no matter what the size of 

their wallets. An experience like this is 

hard to find, and we ought to acknowledge 

such outstanding service whenever 

we can so that others in the sales market 

will learn from such examples. 

JIN KIM 

Red Book CD is Forever? 

Congratulations on upping TAS to 

monthly issues. This is a welcome event, 

as most people still prefer to read in 

physical form over a computer screen. 

My letter concerns your persistent 

push for new formats in audio. You have 

been doing this since at least the mid 

1990s—not too many years after CDs 

became mass-market giants. It almost 

looks as if you have a personal interest in 

a new format, but I’m not charging you 

with this per se. 

In your most recent editorial, you 

blame the mass market for rejecting 

SACD, creating its downfall. But it was 

audiophile rejection of this format that 

really did the damage. If SACD can’t satisfy 

audiophiles, then how can it satisfy 

the mass market? 

Understand that when I say this I 

mean the majority of audiophiles, not all 

of them. There is a small group out there 

that swears by DSD recordings, most 

notably David Robinson, editor of Positive 

Feedback Online. Many audiophiles used to 

be SACD fans, but, due to advances in 

Red Book recordings and playback, they 

are no more. 

It’s funny that in your piece you didn’t 

mention the incredible advances this 

“old” format has made in recent years. I 

recommend spinning a few recordings by 

Hyperion, Harmonia Mundi, or EMI 

Classics through the Reimyo CD player 

(or the Zanden gear if you’re not afraid of 

the price) to get a refreshing update on 

CD playback technology. 

So my theory that “Red Book is 

Forever” holds true, but I’ll be the first 

to admit that we still could use a few 

more bits in word length—why not 

HDCD? 

JOHN HARNICK 

Editorial Whining 

Your January piece on the neglected 

high-res audio potential of Blu-ray and 

HD DVD was interesting and informative, 

but I believe it ultimately represents 

another instance of misdirected 

energy in the audiophile community. 

Misdirected because you entertain the 

slim possibility that someday the 

industry might indeed agree upon, roll 

out, and support a better audio format 

for all music genres, and misdirected 

because you dismiss the current success 

of SACD as a niche format. By declaring 

SACD and DVD-A dead already, 

you’re discouraging audiophiles, many 

of whom are niche-music fans, from 

supporting a hi-res format that’s 

already here. 

As a classical, jazz, and roots-music 

follower, I’ve watched many important 

European and American boutique labels 

enthusiastically embrace SACD. They’re 

not only continuing to issue new product; 

some of them seem to be increasing 

their output. Great producers like Jared 

Sacks, Robert Wood, and Ted Perry 

know what their customers want, and 

they’re backing SACD. The series of 

Bach cantata discs I’ve been acquiring 

for a couple of years now—beautiful performances 

by the Japan Bach Collegium 

on early instruments—will be issued, 

from Vol. 28 onward, in SACD hybrid 

format only; their label (BIS, Sweden) 

understands that SACD offers not only 

improved sound but also a competitive 

edge in the classical marketplace. Last 

month The Gramophone, England’s venerable 

classical-music magazine, devoted a 

special section to SACD, with capsules 

of the best music released so far, reviews 

of new hardware (including pricey twochannel 

gear), and heartfelt advocacy for 

the technology itself. They have seen a 

future that’s actually possible, and they’re 

trying to encourage it. 

In contrast, your forlorn wish for 

some future, more universal format flies 

in the face of the evidence and only comforts 

the enemy. Major labels have 

already essentially abandoned minorityinterest 

genres like classical and jazz. 

Why should they invest in technology 

WWW.THEABSOLUTESOUND.COM 9

L E T T E R S 

that likewise interests only a few consumers? 

Let’s face it: The most reliable 

consumer base for hi-res, now and in the 

future, consists mainly of people who 

know what a Stradivarius or a Martin 

Dreadnought actually sounds like and 

are willing to pay to hear it in their living 

rooms (or, OK, possibly through 

their E5c’s, sucking in a high-sample file 

from an iPod). 

All those iPods have convinced the 

majors that ordinary folks, many of 

whom have never heard an acoustic 

instrument or experienced unamplified 

music in a performance space, want 

music that’s portable and easy to manipulate, 

not “sweet” or “absolute.” Ashlee 

Simpson fans are never going to rise up 

and demand Blu-ray. 

By repeatedly and prematurely 

sounding the death knell for SACD and 

DVD-A, you are hurting those who actually 

care. We’ll probably survive—after 

all, we’ve been hearing reports of the 

“death” of classical music for years now— 

but continued editorial whining from 

influential voices like yours will only further 

diminish the stream of new domestic 

releases on existing hi-res formats. It certainly 

won’t pave the way for Blu-ray 

audio; as you admit, its chances are slim. 

Please consider giving more space 

and support in TAS to digital hi-res 

that’s here, now, instead of cultivating 

false hopes for formats that are far less 

likely to emerge, let alone succeed. 

LAWRENCE SCHENBECK, DMA 

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MUSIC HISTORY 

SPELMAN COLLEGE, ATLANTA 

For the record, I never said that SACD was 

“dead.” Rather, my point was that as a niche 

format at best, SACD (and DVD-Audio) 

would not satisfy the two essential criteria of 

great sound and availability of a significant 

percentage of the world’s recorded music. –RH 

CD, High-Res Digital, and LP 

First of all, I would like to congratulate 

you on a magazine which is courageous 

enough to tackle new and varied highresolution 

types of music reproduction 

such as SACD and XRCD. Thank you 

for proposing to the reader what you 

hear and how you hear it on certain 

equipment when most other magazines 

are ignoring or barely mentioning such 

important changes in the formats of 

sound reproduction. In the future, it 

will be interesting to see how you tackle 

the new high-resolution formats in 

the form of Blu-ray and HD DVD, with 

what seems to be the relegation of 

SACD and DVD-Audio, in particular, 

to footnotes of audio history. This 

upheaval in high-res digital helps me 

appreciate your fallback mode with the 

LP. It is already a niche market, and as 

such is like an old shoe, always familiar 

and comfortable. It is for most of us, 


L E T T E R S 

the initial imprint of musical information 

aside from live performances, and 

as such holds a very dear and special 

place in our hearts. When I listen to my 

LPs, there is always a remembered 

experience, which is in itself an art 

form. Our shared experience with the 

people who make the music on the LP, 

and those who share our love of hearing 

it many times over, is a very engaging 

and life-affirming activity. Naturally, 

we find this experience so intensely 

personal that we want to relive and 

enjoy the sensation we have found in 

such an activity. 

I have found the new high-res formats 

remind me of much that I loved 

with my LPs. My CD collection on the 

other hand has not been able to live up 

to the musical art form I felt with LPs 

and my SACDs, DVD-Audios, and 

XRCDs. Only in the last couple of 

years have I heard some CDs that really 

do express the art of music in the 

digital format. Mainly in the high-res 

formats have I found the soul and joy of 

music as it is relayed to the listener in 

the earlier LP mode. However, even in 

the high-res format I’ve found sterile 

and univolving music performances 

such as the Sonoma SACD of “Music 

for Organ, Brass and Timpani.” I realize 

this is highly regarded by you, but I 

would ask you to listen to the Strauss 

“Feierlicher Einzug Der Ritter Des 

Johanniterordens” on the Audite label. 

It is with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester 

Saarbrucken conducted by 

Johannes Wildner and performed in the 

gothic church of St. Arnual. 

Where the Graham Ashton 

Ensemble is perfect in their execution of 

the piece on Sonoma, they also, to me, 

kill its sense of artistic excitement. The 

Wildner group brings the excitement 

and artistic sense of life to this music in 

great measure, and makes me want to listen 

to it over and over, just as I used to 

listen to my best LPs. Both recordings 

are in the SACD format. I would just say 

to you that the joy of music is the real 

basis of listening, no matter the format. 

For the above reasons, I would like 

to say that I find the XRCD recordings 

of RCA Living Stereo far more listenable 

than many of the SACD RCA 

Living Stereo recordings. The SACDs 

are screechy in the highs and terribly 

congested in louder passages, whereas 

the same performances on XRCD are 

much smoother in the treble and bass, 

and much less congested in fuller passages, 

where instruments are playing at 

a forte level. 

I realize much of this is how I hear 

music and thus my opinion, but I would 

ask you to always listen for the joy of 

music in all that you review. 

STEVE LIVINGSTON 


f r o m t h e e d i t o r 

ne plus ultra in Austin, Texas 

TAS Plus 

Robert Harley 

I’m pleased to announce that Absolute 

Multimedia, publisher of The Absolute Sound 

and The Perfect Vision, has acquired the 

British magazine Hi-Fi+. We think that Hi- 

Fi+ is a natural fit with The Absolute Sound 

from both an editorial and a business perspective. 

Both magazines share a fundamental 

viewpoint on high-quality music reproduction, 

although we have our own distinctive 

flavors. The magazines’ respective editorial directions 

and staff will remain the same now and in the foreseeable 

future. 

We see an opportunity to increase the presence of 

The Absolute Sound in the U.K. and in Europe in concert 

with Hi-Fi+, and to make Plus more readily available in 

North America. The magazines will co-exist side-byside 

in all markets throughout the world. We at TAS 

have long admired Hi-Fi+ and are delighted to welcome 

Editor Roy Gregory and his team to the Absolute 

Multimedia family. 

Absolute Multimedia is making big waves in the 

automotive-publishing world too with its start-up autoenthusiast 

magazine, Winding Road. After just seven 

issues, Winding Road has more than 120,000 readers, 

making it the world’s fastest-growing auto magazine. 

The dean of automotive publishing, David E. Davis, just 

assumed the role of Editor-in-Chief. Mr. Davis led Car 

and Driver to great success beginning in 1962, and went 

on to found Automobile magazine in 1985. 

Winding Road is a free digital magazine available at 

www.windingroad.com. 

* * * 

As discussed in last issue’s Roundtable on the state 

of high-end audio as a business, the premium-grade 

presentation of high-end equipment is becoming a lost 

art—to the great detriment of the industry. There’s no 

way to tell someone about great sound; one must hear it 

for oneself to appreciate what high-end audio is all 

about. Given the overall decline in the number of places 

to experience high-end audio at its best, I was greatly 

heartened to discover a relatively new high-end dealership 

that is fully committed to delivering the best possible 

sound in an absolutely wonderful environment. 

That dealer is ne plus ultra in Austin, Texas. 

Proprietor Casey McKee, an industry veteran, has set up 

shop in a Victorian mansion in downtown Austin. 

Although a by-appointment retail establishment, ne plus 

ultra feels nothing like a store. Rather, it’s like listening 

to music in an elegantly furnished home (which, in fact, 

it is). The “store’s” five listening suites feature a spectrum 

of gear all the way from a Sugden integrated 

amplifier and Audio Physic loudspeakers to the Wilson 

Alexandria X-2. (A full listing of lines carried is available 

at www.neplusultrainc.com.) Every room I heard 

delivered terrific sound and the atmosphere encouraged 

relaxed listening and appreciation of the musical pleasure 

these products can provide. Ne plus ultra is a model 

of how high-end audio should be presented and sold. 

Finally, I’d like to encourage you to join the writers 

and editors of The Absolute Sound and The Perfect Vision at 

our new on-line forum for discussing all things audio. 

All your favorite writers will be there along with lots of 

other TAS readers. Visit www.avguide.com and bring 

your questions, comments, and suggestions. We’d love 

to hear from you, and look forward to some lively and 

informative discussions. 

& 


a b s o l u t e a n a l o g 

Lamm Industries LP2 Deluxe Phonostage 

and Clearaudio Titanium Cartridge 

Jonathan Valin 

I’ve been patting MBL speakers and 

electronics on the back so often 

lately for their transparency and 

resolution that the front-end components 

I’m about to review have 

been kind of lost in the shuffle. True, the 

“grip” of the 101 E Radialstrahlers, 

6010 D linestage preamp, and 9011 

monoblock amps on very low-level 

musical details is phenomenal; in combination, 

they simply don’t let go of a 

sound until the instrument stops sounding, 

reaching with greater clarity higher 

into fortissimos and lower into pianissimos 

than other electronics, and reproducing 

the way a note dies off so clearly 

and completely that you can hear the 

exact moment when the faintest sound 

stops and silence starts. 

As I mentioned in my review of the 

ARC Reference 3 preamp and 210 amps 

in Issue 159, my locus classicus for this 

sort of thing is the first movement 

cadenza of the Montsalvatge Concerto 

Breve [London], where pianist Alicia de 

Larrocha sustains a note via finger and 

pedal for what seems like an eternity, 

providing a primer on the way a piano’s 

overtones gradually die out. With the 

MBL gear, the instant that de Larrocha 

finally lets up on pedal and key and that 

last little enharmonic overtone, which 

has been sounding at an extremely low 

level for several seconds, finally stops is 

so marked that the moment of rest 

which follows takes your breath away. 

The clear divide between very-lowlevel 

sounds and silence is something you 

hear in concert halls all the time, but 

typically don’t hear on stereo systems, 

which tend to add enough of their own 

noise to obscure both. With this recording 

and the superb ARC tube gear, for 

example, you would be harder put to tell 

precisely when that last overtone stops 

and silence begins. The one just seems to 

vaguely meld into the other without an 

unambiguous line of demarcation. With 

the MBL electronics, the moment that 

overtone dies out is like a bank vault 

door closing. 

On the other hand, in the 

instants between successive 

notes, the ARC gear 

has a magical ability to 

“hang” harmonics almost 

visibly in the air, so you can 

hear the way the colors of 

one note of, say, John 

Ogden’s Steinway—at the 

start of the great Andante of 

Shostakovich’s Second Piano Concerto— 

harmonize with and reinforce the colors 

of the next note, as you would (to an 

even greater degree) in life. 

All of this perceived detail is a testament 

to the class-leading resolution of 

MBL and ARC electronics (and MBL’s 

second-line preamp, the $8000 5011, 

and second-line amp, the $40k 9008 

monoblocks, belong in this same exalted 

company). But it is also a testament to 

the transparency of the Lamm LP2 

phonostage, the Clearaudio Titanium 

cartridge, and the Walker Proscenium 

Gold record player that feed these preamps 

and amps. 

This front end is a veritable pane of 

glass when it comes to low-level 

detail—and frankly to just about every 

other aspect of high-fidelity reproduction. 

It is also neutral enough to allow 

the ARC gear to show its set of virtues 

to full advantage and the MBL its rather 

different one, without stamping its own 

personality too markedly on either. 

Though other cartridge/phonostage/ 

record-player combos have significantly 

different virtues and several items on 

the horizon look promising, as a music 

source nothing I’ve yet heard betters 

the Clearaudio/Lamm/Walker, analog 

or digital. 

There was a time 

when I wouldn’t have 

said this—when I 

would’ve conceded that 

digital (particularly 

SACD) had the edge in reproducing 

certain kinds of details, 

particularly transient-related 


ones. And while I still think that 

CD/SACD is superior to the best analog 

in definition, extension, and impact in 

the low bass, everywhere else the 

Lamm/Clearaudio/Walker stomps it. 

Since it was the addition of the 

$6000 Clearaudio Titanium cartridge 

that elevated the Lamm and Walker to 

new levels of clarity, I’ll start with it. 

The Suchys of Clearaudio (Peter, 

Robert, and Patrick) and their U.S. 

importer, Garth Leerer of Musical 

Surroundings, have been kind of vague 

about what it is that makes this movingcoil 

cartridge (one of several new “HD” 

Series Clearaudio moving coils, including 

the Gold, the Stradivari, and the 

Concerto) sound so much better. One 

difference is obvious. A flanged plastic 

disc—looking rather like a small gear or 

gigantic, serrated Marigo Dot—sits 

atop the cartridge where it mounts to 

the headshell. Playfully designated 

“magic fingers” by Leerer, it is said to 

serve some sort of decoupling/resonancecontrol 

function. Like most quasi-magical 

audio “tweaks,” the science of it is 

less important than the effect, which 

appears to be profound. Clearaudio cartridges 

have always been high in detail; 

this one is the highest yet, with simply 

unparalleled (in my experience) resolution 

of both attacks and decays from the 

midbass to the upper treble and a (to my 

ear) nearer-to-ideal tonal palette than 

Clearaudio has before achieved. 

It has become a reviewer cliché to 

rhapsodize about how much more information 

remains to be discovered in the 

thirty, forty, and fifty-year-old grooves of 

old-standby LPs, but, folks, it is simply 

mind-boggling to play back a record 

you’ve heard scores of times—like the 

Rózsa Violin Concerto [RCA]—and 

hear new details in Heifetz’s bowing and 

fingering, and, best of all, in the sumptuous 

tone of his Guarnerius. Listening 

to this disc through MBL, ARC, and 

Edge electronics, I got the eerie feeling I 

was hearing a slightly different pressing 

of the LP with each pair of preamps and 

amps—fresh features were brought to 

the foreground by each combo. In combination 

with that of the Lamm LP2 

Deluxe, the cartridge’s transparency to 

the source seems to make every disc a 

veritable smorgasbord of audio 

delights—a table so large and varied 

that no one set of electronics can sample 

all that is being offered. 

The Titanium (so-called because it is 

housed in a titanium body) uses lowermass 

coils and higher-efficiency magnets 

than previous top-end Suchy designs, 

although both coils and magnets are configured 

in same “symmetrical” fashion as 

classic Clearaudios, and output remains a 

relatively high 0.8mV. The Titanium 

does have a completely new stylus, however—a 

design that the Suchys call 

“Micro HD.” I don’t know what geometric 

changes the Micro HD may entail, 


ut the resolution, tone color, transients, 

soundstaging, and transparency 

of the cartridge are doubtlessly attributable 

in part to the extremely low mass 

(0.00016 grams) of the HD stylus and 

perhaps to the high mass (9 grams) of 

the titanium housing, which is said to 

lower resonance and reflections and permit 

better dynamics. (Clearaudio claims 

a dynamic range of +95dB, which 

would explain the Titanium’s way with 

starting and stopping transients.) At a 

VTF of about 2.35 grams, the Titanium 

also tracks beautifully. 

The Titanium isn’t perfect. It is not 

as thunderous or extended in the very 

deep bass as, say, the MBL 1621A/ 

1611E CD player are. Though it has 

plenty of “oomph” on doublebasses, 

timps, piano, or low brass and winds, it 

won’t reproduce something like a battery 

of Tsuridaiko and Kakko drums or 

the synths on David Bowie’s Earthling 

[Sony] with the jaw-dropping impact of 

the MBL digital gear. On the tip-top it 

is just a little less stingingly dynamic 

than CD/SACD on attacks like cymbal 

strikes, although it compensates for this 

with greater treble-range air, superior 

extension, more natural tone colors, and 

simply marvelous decays. The way the 


Titanium/Lamm hangs on to something 

like the long reverberation of the tamtam 

in the Decca recording of Henze’s 

charming ballet-cum-flute-concerto The 

Emperor’s Nightingale [L’Oiseau-Lyre] is 

something to marvel at. Its midband is, 

as noted, much more gemütlich than previous 

Clearaudio I’ve auditioned, 

though not overly warm after the fashion 

of a Koetsu or gravy-rich-and-thick 

like a Shelter. On a superb cut like “All 

My Trials” from Peter Paul & Mary’s In 

the Wind [Warner]—a record that really 

ought to be reissued by someone—it 

comes as close to making voices and guitars 

sound in-the-room-with-you there as 

anything I’ve heard from any source. 

If the Titanium has added new layers 

of musical detail to my front-end setup, 

the $6990 Lamm Industries LP2 Deluxe 

phonostage has preserved them intact. 

To be honest it has taken me a very 

long time to appreciate the virtues of the 

LP2 Deluxe. When I first got it—several 

years ago, now—I thought it was too 

polite, too lacking in bloom, too dark 

and lifeless. Why, then, did I use it? 

Because it was also, and in spite of these 

serious deficiencies, dead quiet. 

Vladimir Lamm lives and works in 

Brooklyn, where RFI is a genuine problem. 

Unlike certain other designers of 

phonostages, who seemingly live on 

mountaintops far from urban broadcast 

towers and who simply don’t appreciate 

how irritating it is to listen to an LP 

while a radio program intermittently 

drones on in the background, Vladimir 

feels your pain. Thanks to what is 

unquestionably the best step-up transformer 

around (the unit is made by 

Jensen Transformers) and elaborate RFI 

filtering of the AC voltage, he has seen 

to it that I don’t have to “tune out” some 

evangelist praising the Lord over the airwaves 

while Messaien praises Him after 

his own fashion on the turntable. 

Generally step-up devices rob you of 

transparency, and they do this at the very 

first link in the Great Chain of 

Reproduction, which means there is no 

way of compensating for what’s been 

lost. I don’t know what’s different about 

the Jensen transformer, but it is phenomenally 

transparent, and, since it isolates 

the signal from RFI/EMI contamination, 

phenomenally quiet. 

The step-up transformer aside, you 

wouldn’t think that the LP2 would be a 

world-beatingly low-noise component, 

as it is all-tube save for one solid-state 

regulator for the heater supply. 

Vladimir, who likes to do things differently, 

makes a superb solid-state 

linestage preamp, the L2 Reference; for 

reasons only he can explain, he turned to 

Western Electric 417A/5842 triodes for 

his phono preamp. You might think this 

would soften the sound and grunge it up 


a bit, but it doesn’t. Indeed, you’d be 

hard put to distinguish the LP2 from its 

transistorized partner—it sounds so little 

like tubes. As noted, right out of the 

box it doesn’t sound particularly distinguished, 

either. 

A friend and former employer of 

mine, Jerry Gladstein, once told me that 

the keys to getting the most out of the 

LP2 were time and patience. He was 

right. It takes a good six months of constant 

play to start to get the LP2 to 

straighten up and walk right. Even then 

it still sounds the slightest bit dark, 

overly controlled, and lacking in bloom 

compared to something like the 

Aesthetix Io. But even before it fully 

loosens up, its clarity will impress you, 

and when it finally does break in...folks, 

you ain’t heard nothing yet until you’ve 

heard this preamp with a truly high-resolution 

cartridge like the Titanium. It 

passes everything through, uncolored 

and unedited (save for that slight persistent 

darkness and reduction in bloom), 

making for what may be the most transparent 

source component I’ve yet heard. 

With the LP2, what you get from the 

cartridge is essentially what you get from 

the Lamm unit’s outputs, which is why 

very different preamp/amp combos like 

the MBL 6010/9011 or 5010/9008 or the 

ARC Reference 3/210 or the Edge 

1.1/12.5 not only sound markedly different 

but bring entirely different details of 

the recording to life. The LP2 just transmits 

the information, letting the preamps 

and amps pick and choose the emphases. 

As different-sounding as they are, the 

presentations of all these preamp/amp 

combos do have certain things in common 

that are attributable to the LP2. 

First, as noted, low-level transient 

and harmonic details are exceptionally 

clear, making attacks and decays more 

lifelike and producing the best reproduction 

of the duration of notes I’ve yet 

heard. With the right recordings, such as 

Viktor Kalabis’ Sonata for Violin and 

Piano [Panton], you not only get the 

whole note you get the whole mechanism 

by which that note was sounded. 

The LP2 (with the Titanium and 

Walker) positively illuminates the action 

of pianist Milian Langer’s piano, so that 

you can “hear” the depression of the keys, 

the felts of the hammers, the movements 

of the balanciers and the jacks. These are 

the kinds of detail that, as Robert Harley 

noted in our last issue, contribute to the 

“realistic” presence of an instrument and 

instrumentalist, and the LP2 gives them 

to you, to quote Sallie Reynolds, in 

spades and diamonds. 

Second, bass is unusually welldefined 

and extended. As noted, the LP2 

won’t give you CD definition and thwack 

on Japanese drums or bass synth, but as 

phonostages go it comes mighty close 


and is simply superb on low-pitched 

acoustic instruments, reaching deeper 

into the bottom than the Aesthetix Io but 

without all of the Aesthetix’s magical 

mid-and-upper-bass bloom. 

Third, though the LP2 is a supremely 

transparent device, it is slightly sweet 

and forgiving—nothing ever really 

sounds awful through it, although 

whether this is a demerit I leave up to 

you. As for its tonal balance…at one 

early point in its sojourn, I thought the 

LP2 was darker than it actually is; either 

it or I have outgrown that phase, for it 

now sounds closer to neutral. 

Fourth, because the LP2 lacks the 

helium bloom of something like the 

Aesthetix Io, instruments can sound 

slightly “flatter” through it than they do 

through classic tube phonostages. 

However, dimensionality depends to a 

large extent on what you feed the LP2 

into. With linestages that are capable of 

3-D imaging, such as the Edge or ARC 

Reference 3, you get a very satisfyingly 

three-dimensional sound. 

Fifth, the LP2 is not a one-size-fits-all 

soundstager like the Zanden phonostage. 

As with bloom, it doesn’t over-inflate the 

stage, but passes on what’s on the record, 

letting the linestage/amp make its own 

interpretation of the data. If the linestage 

and amp are consistently big-sounding, 

like the Ref 3/210, the stage is enormous. 

If they are more size-neutral, like the 

MBL 6010/9011 or 5011/9008, then the 

stage grows and shrinks with the source. 

With speakers that are as capable as 

the 101 Es, and electronics that are as 

high in resolution as the MBL amps and 

preamps and the ARC amp and preamp, 

it is easy to forget how crucial the front 

end is. But its transparency to the source 

is, in fact, the key to all that follows, and 

in the case of the Titanium cartridge, the 

Lamm LP2 Deluxe phonostage, and the 

Walker ’table and arm, this transparency 

is so high that I seldom find myself listening 

to CDs or SACDs anymore. I can 

think of no higher compliment to pay an 

analog front end than that. & 

MANUFACTURER AND DISTRIBUTOR INFORMATION 

MUSICAL SURROUNDINGS, INC. 

5662 Shattuck Ave 

Oakland, California 94609 

(510) 547-5006 

musicalsurroundings.com 

Price: $6000 

LAMM INDUSTRIES INC. 

2621 East 24th Street 

Brooklyn, New York 11235 

(718) 368-0181 

lammindustries.com 

Price: $6990 


A HIGHER HIGH END 

2006 

CONSUMER 

ELECTRONICS 

SHOW 

This year’s CES was a most 

fascinating affair. For those 

of us assigned to cover the 

high-end exhibits at the 

Alexis Park and T.H.E. 

Show, it’s safe to say 

that this expo was 

unlike any other 

in recent 

memory.

It was almost exclusively about two-channel sound, 

and almost exclusively about very pricey gear. To be 

sure, there’s still plenty of affordable stuff out there 

(and you’ll find the cream of it on the following 

pages), and aspiring to the highest of the high end 

has always been an expensive game, but never before 

have we seen so many components at $10,000 and 

above. Manufacturers routinely described systems 

comprising $30,000 monoblock amps, $15,000 preamps, 

$20,000 DACs, and $25,000–$60,000 speaker systems 

as “affordable.” To actually come across a component 

that was “merely” $10,000 was a kind of perverse 

relief. In our current economy, the gap between the 

haves and have-nots is growing and the middle class is 

shrinking. If this trend is reflected in specialty audio— 

and we believe it is—it indicates that what was once the 

bread-and-butter price range of $1500– $5000 per 

component is shrinking as well. If last year’s show 

indicated a growing separation between two-channel 

audio and home theater and an increase in analog 

sales, this year’s—at least in our little high-end world— 

even more forcefully announced itself as two-channel, 

analog-based, pricey, and proud of it. So, pour yourself 

a drink, put on some music, sit back, and tour the 

show with our staff. Eight enthusiastic and ultimately 

footsore gents were assigned to report on the most interesting 

components seen and heard. Although we don’t 

list every item displayed in every room, we’re confident 

that our commentary reflects what makes CES—and 

our hobby—so much fun. Finally, apologies to the 

many worthy manufacturers who we were unable to 

mention due to either time or space limitations. 


CES2006 REPORT 

LOUDSPEAKERS $4000–$10,000 

NEIL GADER 

Every CES has its own characteristic vibe. Over the last 

few years that vibe has been decidedly downbeat in the 

audio sector, with the home-theater groundswell creating 

a siege mentality among high-end exhibitors. In 

a half-baked response, a bevy of new subwoofers, center 

channel and surround speakers, and even in-walls 

were floated like lifeboats 

on the swiftly rising 

video-centric tide. 

This year the mood 

was more upbeat, even 

defiant. And certainly 

more focused. Clearly 

attendance was lighter 

and exhibitors fewer, but 

according to some distributors 

more serious 

business was being 

done. The exhibits 

seemed to pander less to 

potential crossover buyers 

and more to the 

high-end’s dedicated base. 

TAS’ Neil 

Gader chats As a result, entry-level products played second 

with Elite’s fiddle to some of the most impressive flagship loudspeakers 

I’ve seen in some time. There was even an 

Scot Markwell 

(a former 

unapologetic trend towards small but mondoexpensive 

“statement” components in product cate- 

colleague) 

gories typically associated with cost savings. Whereas integrated 

amplifiers and stand-mounted two-ways were rarely priced north 

of three or four grand a few years ago, they sure aren’t today. Fresh 

integrated amplifier offerings like the CA200 control amplifier 

from Conrad-Johnson and the Précis from Chapter Electronics 

and speakers like the Duette from Wilson Audio and the 121 

from MBL exemplified this champagne-and-caviar trend. 

Small Speaker for Big Spenders 

These noteworthy compacts may not be at the 

top of their respective lines, but the seriousness 

of their performance could signal a revolution 

in small-speaker design—and an 

important development for high-res multichannel 

fans seeking space-saving alternatives 

to large floorstanders. 

Eben of Denmark made a strong impression 

in a couple of settings, but it was its X- 

Centric ($9200), a stand-mounted monitor 

with a planar-magnetic tweeter, that demonstrated 

a speed, dynamism, and punch rare in 

Acapella’s Fidelio II 

this weight class. 

From Elac of 

Germany the BS 602 

X-Jet, a compact 

stand-mounted threeway, 

offered an interesting 

spin on the 

concentric driver, 

wrapping a circular 

planar magnetic/honeycomb 

midrange 

around Elac’s own Jet 

III ribbon tweeter. 

Replete with inverted aluminum-cone 

woofer and high-tech 

aluminum enclosure, it jetted in at 

$9000. At $6800 the Acapella Fidelio 

II was a tiny but brilliant reproducer of vocals, although it will 

certainly benefit from a subwoofer for more aggressive listening. 

Beautifully constructed of layered hardwoods rather than 

the customary MDF, it uses a pair of small woofers nestled 

tightly against a centered tweeter. Bass output and extension 

are said to be roughly the equivalent of a single 7" driver. 

The Wilson Audio Duette falls just wide of my category at 

$11,000, but I’ll take the liberty of mentioning the impressive 

performance it displayed at a demo in the Mirage. Its understated 

looks conceal some intriguing technology. Built to meet 

the challenges of “hostile environments”—that is, positioning at 

weird heights, like bookshelves or near boundaries—it can be 

optimized via an extravagant external crossover and custom 

crossover-to-speaker cabling. In an A/B/C comparison with two 

other ultra-prestige speakers, a compact two-way and a hefty 

floorstander, the Duette made the sonic pecking order clear. 

Goldmund introduced the Logos Active, part of the company’s 

new (and for Goldmund, affordable) Metis Line. The Logos 

Active is a two-way satellite with solid aluminum cabinets. Each 

of the speaker’s drivers is powered by a 200-watt Goldmund 

Telos amp. In addition, since Goldmund DACs are built-in, the 

Logos Active accepts digital input. Total cost is $10,000. 

Jewel-like in its construction, the MBL Radialstrahler- 

Compact 121 ($10,000) produced 

vivid three-dimensional 

imaging and soundstaging 

thanks to the omni 

tweeter/midrange technology 

that it shares with the vaunted 

MBL 101 and 111 speakers. 

With surprising bass output 

from its push-pull woofer configuration 

it displayed more 

than a passing resemblance to 

MBL Radialstrahler- 

Compact 121 



NEIL GADER’S Best of Show 

Most Significant New Product 

Any product that draws the younger generation toward the high 

end is significant. So my most significant new product is Arcam’s 

r-Lead ($85)—an “intelligent” cable that enables Arcam’s Solo 

remote handset to control the iPod, and provides track, song, and 

other iPod information on the receiver’s display. A more advanced 

unit, the r-Dock arrives later this year. 

Coolest New Products 

Thorens premiered a series of stunning electronics—the $2000 

TEP-302 phono preamplifier, the TEP-3800 preamp at $14,995, 

and the TEM-3200 tube/transistor hybrid monoblock amplifiers at 

$29,990. 

Coolest Accessory 

Synergistic Research has been clever enough to exploit the possibilities 

of one of the most musical subs out there, the REL line. 

Its SR Spec cables with active shielding, specifically voiced for 

REL subs, are a natural expression of this cable manufacturer’s 

spirit of innovation. 

Most Frequently Heard Demo Music 

Diana Krall and Kodo drummers were popular. So was Nils 

Lofgren’s guitar-slashing “Keith Don’t Go.” I was pretty numb from 

this track until I heard it on the Coincident Speaker Technology 

Total Victory—a heckuva loudspeaker. 

Greatest Value 

In the mini department, Silverline’s Prelude at $1200 is a tiny 

tower capable of playing surprisingly big and clean. From Finland, 

the Amphion Ion is a petite two-way that was tuneful with a 

vibrant presence range at $1350. Finally, there was the Majestic 

Magic Diamond II two-way from TBI Sound. This mini with a 2" 

paper-cone tweeter and 5" cone woofer made some serious highend 

music, while clocking in at an estimated $1000. 

Biggest Surprise at CES 

The sheer number of turntables actively being used in exhibitor’s 

rooms was truly eye-opening—as was their performance. 

Best Sound at CES 

Sonicweld takes a systems approach with its active loudspeakers. 

Not inexpensive at $49,000–$64,000 (depending on subwoofers), 

the system comes complete with triple ICEpower modules 

for each quasi-line-array satellite speaker, a Subpulse bass 

module, and the DEQX PDC (preamp-style functions and digital 

crossover and room correction). Sonicweld’s trademark CNC aluminum 

construction throughout is a mindblower. 

TAS Family Reunion: 

Neil Gader, Harry Pearson, 

Jon Valin, and Wayne Garcia 

its slamming big brothers. The new rosewood finish was a breathtaking 

change from the more somber piano black seen throughout 

the show. 

Curves Are In 

It’s well known that non-parallel sidewalls make for better 

loudspeakers, and they made their presence known this year. 

Musical Surroundings, the distributor of all things analog, has 

taken on its first speaker line with fascinating Vivid Audio. 

Out of South Africa, with an ex-B&W designer at the helm, 

Vivid offered a series of graceful ovular loudspeakers that use 

carbon-fiber-loaded polyester-compound enclosures and drivers 

of Vivid’s own design and manufacture. The fully decoupled 

midrange and tweeter feature aluminum domes mounted in 

tapered tubes. The new V1.5 ($7500), a two-way with a single 

pole floorstand that flares out to a broad pedestal, is likely to be 

the meat-and-potatoes of the line. Available in any Pantone 

color for an additional $750. 

Much ink has been spilled writing about the Model 1 

loudspeakers from the TAD Pro Division of Pioneer 

Electronics. The new Pioneer EX Series embodies many of 

the Model One’s virtues, including the Coherent Source 

Transducer (a beryllium tweeter mounted within a magnesium 

midrange), in a much more affordable package. 

Available as the stand-mounted three-way S-2EX for $6000 

and the S-1EX floorstander at $9000. 

Curves were also in evidence in the Evolution line from 

Italian maker Pearl Evolution. The speakers’ dynamic drivers 

are essentially decoupled from their front baffles, though 

they remain pistonically linear and 

stable thanks to a rigid horizontal 

pole running from the rear of the cabinets 

to the back of the transducers’ 

magnets. The resulting sound was 

boxless and electrostat-like in the 

mids and highs, melding transparency 

with dynamism like few speakers 

at the show. The Evo-203, a two-way 

Pearl, will retail for $6000. 

Mirage has rescaled its small 

potent Omnisat technology and driven 

it uptown with the curvaceous OMD- 

28. On display in a vivid burl grain, 

this three-way, upward-firing omni 

with concentric tweeter/midrange 

sports a dual port in its base. Due in 

late spring at $7500. 

Perennial Frontrunners 

Quad, one of the high-end’s legendary 

darlings, displayed the 2805 ($9000) 

and its larger cousin the 2905 

($11,500) electrostats. Derived from 

PHOTO BY ROBERT HARLEY 

Harbeth’s new, unnamed speaker 



the current 988 and 989 respectively, both boast improvements 

to the stator panel membrane and greater frame rigidity (thanks 

to hefty aluminum side extrusions and top caps, and an aluminum 

buttress in the rear). 

Focal’s new Electra 1007Be ($3995) compact two-way projected 

rich sonics via a beryllium inverted-dome tweeter. The 

bass-reflex design locates the port at the back near its base. Also 

available as a floorstander, the 1027Be, that will list for $7495. 

Harbeth premiered a mysterious, mid-sized, three-way, 

tri-wireable floorstander in gorgeous burl that employs a dualwoofer 

design with a rear port. The speaker embodied the characteristic 

Harbeth qualities of tonal neutrality and warmth in 

an updated design. Available later this year. (Pricing has not yet 

been announced.) 

Importer/distributor Immedia has replaced Audio 

Physic in its distribution chain with another German contender, 

Sonics. The deep, narrow-baffle designs of the 

Allegretto and Allegro ($5300 and $7800) are reminiscent 

of the best of Audio Physic (they should be with former AP 

designer Joachim Gerhard at the helm), and judging by a 

quick listen to Tony Bennett/Bill Evans tracks on the flagship 

PassionS ($32,000), Sonics offerings obviously have the 

transparency and many of the same soundstage qualities that 

have always distinguished AP loudspeakers. ➤ 

INTEGRATED/“CONTROL” AMPLIFIERS 

JIM HANNON 

As the audio venues in Las Vegas demonstrated, integrated 

amplifiers offer some of the best values in 

audio, and several new offerings grabbed my attention. 

Designers are overcoming some of the physical 

and performance limitations of integrated 

amplifiers, namely the relatively small size of 

power supplies and the inability to completely isolate sensitive 

preamp circuitry from the noisier power amplifier section. Indeed, 

this show suggested that the performance gap between integrated 

amplifiers and their “separates” counterparts is narrowing. 

Conrad-Johnson CA200 control amplifier 

Several of the trends that I note in power amplifiers (see 

“Power Amplifiers under $10,000” below) also apply to integrated 

amplifiers. Some of the biggest names in audio are using their 

integrated and control amps to expand their markets into lowerpriced 

segments. The good news here is that many are using the 

same circuits in their integrated amplifiers found in their more 

expensive separates—but at a significant savings. Unfortunately, 

many of these components were on static display, so I am unable 

to comment on their sonics. However, if you’ve ever dreamed of 

owning Conrad-Johnson, McIntosh, Bryston, or MBL separates 

but found their prices beyond your budget, I encourage you to 

check out their new integrated or control amplifiers. 

What’s a control amplifier? Conrad-Johnson is calling it 

a new category between power and integrated amplifiers. The 

Conrad-Johnson CA200 control amplifier ($6500), for example, 

combines a set of input selector switches, a stepped attenuator 

positioned at the input of the amplifier, and a reduced 

power version of CJ’s Premier 350 amplifier. This design 

JIM HANNON’S Best of Show 

Most Significant New Products 

The upcoming Classic Records reissues, particularly the 35mm 

Everests, the mono Blue Notes, the Coltrane (One Down, One Up), 

and Voodoo Child from the Jimi Hendrix collection. 


The Manley Labs Manta Ray integrated (think two Snappers on 

one big chassis, five line inputs, a USB connector, and a remote), 

and the Wavelength Audio Jupiter 50 (the first commercially 

available amp based on the RCA 50 tube). 


The Acoustic System Resonators. These minute metal objects 

that rest on wooden bases can help focus your soundstage and 

disperse room “nasties.” 


Can’t say since I asked them to play jazz and classical music. 


The McIntosh MA6300 and NuForce IA7 integrated amplifiers 

with circuits from their much more expensive separates. 


The number of turntable rigs being used in demos. How I wish I 

could afford the Kuzma straight-line arm and Reference table. 

Listening to the marvelous sound of the Merlin VSM-MXs driven 

by a VPI TNT VI rig made my ears go “Ahhhhh!” 


Besides the $750,000 Bosendorfer Grand Piano, the big 

SoundLab Millennium-1 PXs (Tascam DV-RA1000/Blowtorch 

Pre/Parasound JC1s) captured my heart with their seamless 

coherence from top to bottom, ultra-low distortion, transient 

speed, and truth of timbre. However, my head said the nod 

should go to the big MBLs for their resolution and incredible 

dynamic range. Honorable mentions: Merlin, Kharma, Wisdom 

Audio/Edge, Rockport/Nagra/Purist, Verity Audio/Nagra, Usher 

(particularly the BE-20s), Wilson/Audio Research, and 

B&W/Musical Fidelity. 



essentially eliminates the linestage and 

has no gain in the “control section.” 

We’ve seen some fine amplifiers with volume 

controls, but this solution allows the 

use of multiple sources. 

McIntosh premiered its MA6300 

integrated amplifier (price is still TBD 

but is projected around $3000), which 

combines the preamp circuit from the C46 

Audio Control Center with the output 

topologies of its MC2KW power amplifier and MA6500 integrated. 

It is rated at 100Wpc into 8 ohms and uses a new type 

of output device that locates the thermal sensor inside the transistor. 

This is said to result in lower distortion at all power levels 

without excess heat. All switching is done at the jacks, and 

the switches are encased in a nitrogen bath. Switches need to be 

cleaned once every 325 years—so put that in your will. 

Bryston’s B100-SST ($2995) integrates the circuitry and 

power supply of the 2B-SST stereo amplifier with the BP-16 

preamplifier in a dual-mono configuration. The layout of the 

amplifier looked very clean, with good isolation of critical components, 

and it comes with a full-function remote control. 

The MBL 7006 integrated amplifier ($3500) is rated at 

180Wpc but uses the same circuits as the MBL 8006 B amplifier 

and 4006 preamplifier combo that I liked so much driving 

the low-sensitivity MBL 121 compact monitors. 

Two less familiar makers of high-performance separates also 

introduced noteworthy products that made me forget I was listening 

to integrated amplifiers. The Karan KAI 180 ($8500) 

is hand-built with no caps in the signal path, no phase distortion, 

gold-plated circuit boards, resonance control, and no negative 

feedback. It is balanced from input to output and held the 

new Ascendo C7s under complete control, yielding a highly 

musical result with excellent detail, transparency, and transient 

speed. The Chapter Précis integrated ($6500) exemplified an 

emerging trend towards using Class D output stages. It is rated 

at 130Wpc into 8 ohms and, like the Karan, its sound was fast, 

accurate, and liquid without a trace of hardness. It also sports 

KEF’s KHT 3000 Series system 

an iPod input on the front panel, a feature that is appearing in 

more new integrated amps. 

Perhaps the most anticipated introduction among Class D 

integrated amps was the NuForce IA7 ($1195). It utilizes the 

same chassis as the NuForce Reference 9 and is said to include 

two Reference 9 boards and the board of the P8 stereo preamplifier. 

It comes with a remote, preamp outputs, and home-theater 

bypass, and can be daisy chained for surround. The sound 

on a pair of monitors was clean and transparent but given the 

Reference 9’s performance, I suspect it will also produce very 

good bass. (Given the speakers, it was impossible to verify this.) 

Several manufacturers of integrated amplifiers displayed 

offerings at very attractive prices, typically because of off-shoremanufacturing 

efficiencies. The Genesis I60 ($3495) is rated 

at 60Wpc, uses KT88s, and employs very little feedback. If it 

sounds anything like the Genesis M60 monoblocks ($3995) I 

heard driving a pair of G3 speakers, it is definitely something 

to check out. That Genesis combo had a lot of dynamic slam 

but also considerable harmonic richness. 

LA Audio was showing its A-6550 integrated ($3900) 

rated at 150Wpc with point-to-point wiring and hand-wound 

transformers. 

PrimaLuna was showing a prototype of its Dialogue One 

($2000), an EL-34-based integrated with a remote control and 

triode/ultralinear switch. At approximately 70 pounds this 

baby was heavy. 

Some attractive entry-level integrateds were the Music Hall 

A25.2 ($600), the Creek EVO ($895), and the Audiolabs 800S 

($995). Creek was also demonstrating a fine-sounding integrated 

under $2k, the New Destiny, which uses MOSFET output 

devices. It sounded very natural and musical on vocal recordings. 

As part of its Masters Series, NAD was showing its M3 

dual-mono integrated amplifier ($2799). It is rated at 180Wpc 

into 8 ohms and uses custom-made Holmgren transformers. 

NAD’s Bjorn Erik Edvardsen designed the preamp section to 

keep signal paths as short as possible. 

Last, but certainly not least, was the new Manta Ray integrated 

from Manley Labs ($4000). It is essentially a stereo 

integrated version of Manley’s popular Snapper monoblocks, 

using Manley’s own output transformers in a low-feedback 

design with a fully symmetrical circuit. It looks very cool. As 

Manley Labs Manta Ray 



Final Sound’s Virtual Home 

an aside, the Manley Labs folks seemed to be having the most 

fun at the show. ➤ 

LOUDSPEAKERS UNDER $4000 

CHRIS MARTENS 

CES 2006 left me convinced that now is a terrific time 

to be shopping for loudspeakers in the sub-$4000 

price range. Why? The short answer is that technological 

and market forces are converging in ways 

that both enable and compel manufacturers to build 

speakers that sound great for not a lot of money. 

We’re all for that, aren’t we? To see how speaker manufacturers 

are pulling this off, let’s consider three trends. 

Definitive debuted its $1099 ProCinema 800 and 

$1499–$1649 ProCinema 1000 5.1-channel systems, both 

with satellite speakers that incorporate top-mounted passive 

radiators and drive units featuring innovative new suspension 

systems. The result is a small satellite/subwoofer system that 

offers almost shocking levels of openness and midrange subtlety, 

and terrific dynamics. 

The British firm KEF unveiled its new KHT 3000 Series 

surround system, which will sell for approximately $1500, 

with drive units that—much like those in the Definitive systems—offer 

innovative new suspension systems. As an additional 

twist, KEF molds slender radial stiffening ribs into the 

backs of the KHT 3000 Series mid/bass driver cones—a change 

said to increase resolution of low-level details. A brief listening 

session showed that this system offers remarkably smooth, 

well-focused sound with unexpected dynamic punch. 

Finally, the Dutch manufacturer Final Sound exhibited a 

remarkably affordable 90i-based 2.1-channel Virtual Home 

Theater system based on two stand-mounted, dipolar electrostatic 

panels and a very fast powered subwoofer—all for just 

$1300. Final Sound has developed new-generation electrostatic 

panels that offer good dispersion, support surprisingly high 

playback levels, and eliminate the weight and bulk of previous 

designs. Final’s entry-level Virtual Home Theater system puts 

electrostatic sound within reach at an unprecedented low price. 

The sonic gravy, so to speak, is that the system’s dipolar electrostatic 

panels sound particularly good when used with the SRStype 

virtual-surround-sound decoders in modern A/V receivers. 

Compact speakers that offer a taste of 

“audiophile heaven” 

Each year, it seems, CES brings us a new crop of compact speakers 

that somehow manages to deliver disproportionately huge 

Budget-priced surround systems as 

entry-level music systems 

Surprising though it seems, today’s most cost-effective and 

musical small speakers are often found in surround systems. 

That’s because space and budget constraints are leading many 

enthusiasts to choose multichannel home-entertainment systems 

that serve double-duty for film and music playback. And 

buyers’ performance expectations run high, though their equipment 

budgets are slim by audiophile standards. Further, mounting 

anecdotal evidence suggests that many “home-theater” customers 

regard music listening as the primary activity for which 

they use their systems. Manufacturers are answering this challenge 

by developing new technologies calculated to help small, 

affordable speakers perform as never before. At CES, three good 

examples of this trend came in the form of new surround speaker 

systems from Definitive Technology, KEF, and Final Sounds. 

DALI’s IKON series 



CHRIS MARTENS’ Best of Show 


Class D amplifiers from a variety of manufacturers are changing 

the way we think about amplification, both for purist audiophile 

and home-theater systems. The best designs provide sonic 

finesse and substantial power in surprisingly small, cool-running, 

affordable packages. 


Combo cellphone/PDA/digital-video-and-audio-players from a variety 

of manufacturers. Could future high-end audio systems be 

based on handheld devices? Perhaps. 


The Chang Lightspeed Encounter parallel noise sink/power strip. 

Just plug the Encounter into the same power circuit you use for 

your hi-fi system and watch the noise floor drop. Neat. 


There were few clear-cut trends, but various Diana Krall tracks, 

especially “Narrow Daylight” from The Girl In the Other Room, 

appeared quite frequently. 


DALI’s new IKON loudspeaker family offers value that is off the 

charts. 

Biggest Surprise At CES 

The SLS Loudspeakers Q-line surround system (endorsed by Quincy 

Jones), which provides five ribbon-driver-equipped satellites, a powered 

subwoofer, and an AVR for—I am not making this up—$500. 

Best Sound At CES 

The Sound Lab Millenium-1 full-range electrostats. Accuracy, neutrality, 

high resolution, and musicality converge right here. 

helpings of audiophile magic. My sense is that as driver technologies 

continue to improve and as designers become more 

adept at juggling performance trade-offs, small monitors are 

becoming more and more capable of surprising us with what 

they can do. This year, two of the most pleasing surprises came 

from ERA and Amphion. 

ERA loudspeakers are developed by the team at Signal 

Path International (the U.S. distributors for Musical 

Fidelity), and at CES ERA demonstrated its tiny new Design 3 

loudspeaker, whose projected price is just $400, alongside a 

pair of B&Ws flagship 800Ds. The funny part was that the little 

ERAs sounded so full, warm, and three-dimensional that 

some suite visitors sheepishly asked, “Which ones are playing?” 

Does this mean the $400 ERAs sound as good as the big 

B&Ws? Of course not, but it does mean they’re good enough 

to keep listeners guessing, at least for a while. 

Amphion is a Finnish loudspeaker manufacturer whose 

designs emphasize controlled directivity, achieved by using 

dish-shaped waveguides said to help minimize interactions 

between the speakers and the listening room. (The theory: You 

hear more music and fewer room anomalies.) Among the least 

expensive Amphions are the $1300 stand-mount Ions, which I 

found capable of remarkable purity, delicacy, and expressiveness. 

Though not the last word in bass extension or high output, the 

Ions in other respects remind me of more costly monitors. 

Brilliant generalists at affordable prices 

The best speakers in the $2000–$4000 range have gotten so 

good that they truly qualify as brilliant generalists that do all 

things well. While expensive top-tier models have undeniable 

appeal, I suspect speakers in this lower price range will, for 

many music lovers, represent the point of diminishing returns. 

And judging by the sounds of three new floorstanders from 

DALI, ProAc, and Reference 3A, those sonic returns are greater 

than ever before. 

TAS readers will know our writers hold DALI’s Helicon 

Series speakers in high regard, so what we didn’t see coming 

was a new family of DALI loudspeakers that deliver about 90% 

of the goodness of Helicons for about one third their price. Yet 

that is precisely what DALI’s new IKON Series speaker offers. 

The IKON features wood-composite fiber-cone mid/bass drivers, 

oversized fabric-dome mid/high drivers, and ribbon tweeters, 

just as the bigger Helicons do, yet the flagship IKON 7 

floorstanders will sell for just $2100. A brief listen to the 

IKON 6 floorstanders ($1595) convinced me these speakers are 

the real deal. 

ProAc speakers from Great Britain have long been audiophile 

favorites, and while they offer compelling sonic merits I 

doubt anyone would have termed them “bargain priced”— 

until now. ProAc demonstrated its delightful new Studio 140 

floorstander, and my first impression was that it offered the 

kind of balanced performance and effortless musicality likely to 

make it extremely expensive. I was surprised and delighted to 

learn the Studio 140 will sell for just $2800. (Based on its 

sound, I feared it might cost twice that.) 

Finally, I was entranced by Reference 3A’s new 

$3000–$3300 Veena floorstander, specifically because it does 

all the good things for which Reference 3A’s smaller standmount 

monitors are famous—openness, textural finesse, terrific 

resolution of inner details—while offering improved three- 

A bevy of Pro-Ject turntables 



dimensionality, greater bass extension, and more neutral tonal 

balance. What particularly caught my ear was the Veena’s ability 

to reveal deep interior aspects of the music—much as costly 

top-tier speakers do—but at a budget-friendly price. ➤ 

PREAMPS UNDER $10,000 AND 

ANALOG SOURCES 

DON SALTZMAN 

Ithought I had the plum assignment with analog 

sources—report on a few turntables, maybe a random cassette 

player or 8-track, then kick back and enjoy the Las 

Vegas nightlife. Not. There was a turntable here, turntable 

there, everywhere a turntable. I had to scramble all four 

days just to try to cover them all. Vacation, anyone? 

No CES in recent memory had had a better showing of analog 

sources, including new vinyl. That’s the good news. The 

not-so-good news: Statement turntables are now priced like 

cars, and I’m not talking about that most musical of vehicles, 

the Hyundai Sonata. Let’s see, do I buy that new M-B 500S or 

a Continuum Caliburn turntable? Maybe that shiny Carrera S 

I’ve spied at my local dealer, or a Blue Pearl Audio JEM? 

Perhaps an easy decision for most folks, but, sadly, if you’ve got 

the analog bug you’ll decide there’s really nothing wrong with 

the Civic you’ve been driving for the last 10 years. 

To be fair, there was no shortage of affordable turntables, 

either. Let’s start with those manufacturers who showed continuing 

devotion to making analog accessible to the masses. 

Sumiko showcased a static display of stylish new Pro-Ject 

turntables that should make it easy for those presently without 

analog to see what they’ve been missing. At only $299, the 

Debut III includes a pre-mounted Ortofon OM-5E movingmagnet 

cartridge and, for a slight upcharge, is available in one of 

eight different colors. The Xpression II ($499) includes a carbonfiber 

arm with pre-mounted Sumiko Oyster cartridge, while a 

handy feature on the Xperience ($999) is a plinth-mounted 

phono-input jack which allows use of connecting cables of your 

choice. Rounding out the new offerings are the space-efficient 

RM-5 ($649, carbon-fiber arm, quick VTA and azimuth adjustment) 

and RM-9.1 ($1499, acrylic platter, single-piece carbonfiber 

arm and headshell). Pro-Ject also introduced a tiny phono 

preamp with up to 60dB of gain and a matching turntable speed 

controller, each priced at only $119, about 5% of the sales tax on 

Sumiko’s superb SME 30/2 turntable. If that isn’t attractive to 

the vinyl lover on a budget, what is? 

The friendly folks at Roksan were showing their very 

attractive Radius 5 turntable which features a frosted acrylic 

platter and a plinth available in acrylic, walnut, or maple. 

Roksan also has an updated Artemiz tonearm ($2495) and a 

too-cool electronic tracking force gauge that reads to the hundredth 

of a gram for only $199. 

Clearaudio had an entire room devoted to turntables, 

arms, cartridges, record cleaning machines, and fascinating 

accessories including “The Vinyl Doctor,” a device that looks 

like a laptop until you open it up to discover it is designed to 

bake (safely, Clearaudio assures me) the warps out of records. As 

always, Clearaudio showed an amazing array of beautiful tables 

and arms at all price points, simply too many to cover in this 

report—but it was the incredible new “Statement” turntable 

that had the visitors buzzing, more about which later. 

In the “mid-price” category I found the new SE-1 recordplaying 

system from Sound Engineering of Nashville, 

Tennessee. Since it came from Nashville, I shouldn’t have been 

surprised to see it sporting a precision platter made of wood 

similar to that used in Gibson guitars. With a custom Tom 

Roksan’s Radius 5; Immedia’s “Spiral Groove” SG1; 

Continuum's $90,000 Caliburn 'table and Cobra arm 



Evans-designed DC motor-controller, beautifully 

machined center weight, and periphery 

clamp, the SE-1C retails for a still-reasonable 

$7450. Unfortunately, I did not get to hear this 

’table because an amplifier had failed just before 

I visited the room, but it sure looked like it was 

worth a serious audition. 

Venerable turntable manufacturer Thorens 

had its new TD350 on static display. With a 

floating sub-chassis, belt-drive, motor controller, 

and TP250 arm, it should offer typically 

outstanding Thorens performance at an affordable 

$3599. 

DON SALTZMAN’S Best of Show 


A four-way tie to new turntables that attempt to 

advance the state of the art—the Caliburn by 

Continuum, the Statement by Clearaudio, the JEM 

by Blue Pearl Audio, and the top models from Transrotor. All use 

magnetic suspension as part of their design philosophy. 


A tie between the Roksan digital stylus force gauge and The Vinyl 

Doctor from Clearaudio. 


Selections from Harry Belafonte and Ray Charles. 


Epiphany 6-6 Plus. At $10,900, these speakers added two 8" 

bass drivers, self-powered, to the six midrange/bass cones and 

six ribbon tweeters of their 6-6 model. I thought the speakers 

were a knockout. Open and spacious like other Epiphany models, 

they now have true bass slam and extension and need make no 

apology whatsoever for their low-frequency performance. I also 

must add the lower-priced turntable/tonearm combinations from 

Pro-Ject, Clearaudio, and Basis, which offer high performance at 

a reasonable cost. 


I didn’t catch a cold—first time for a CES. Other than that, I was 

pleasantly shocked at the great proliferation of analog sources. 


The first was the room showing the Continuum turntable, Boulder 

preamplifier, Wavac amplification and Venture Grand Excellence 

Signature loudspeakers. While the sound varied day to day, at its 

best it was extremely direct with great body, tonal color, and pacing. 

For once, you could forget about the equipment. 

Kharmas have been speakers I admired but could not quite 

see bringing home. They didn’t seem to fully flesh out large-scale 

orchestral music, although they certainly excelled at the presentation 

of almost everything else. But the combination of the 

Kharma Midi-Exquisites ($75,000), ASR Emitter II amplifier, and 

MBL CD player took me over the top. The soundstaging and 

imaging were truly phenomenal; the speakers disappeared, as did 

the walls of the demonstration room. While they still did not quite 

deliver the majesty of a full orchestra, they came close enough 

so it wasn’t a distraction. 

Clearaudio’s 770-pound 

“Statement” 

Very intriguing was 

the new Monaco turntable 

from noted equipmentstand 

manufacturer Grand 

Prix Audio. The result of 

substantial research and 

development, the Monaco 

features a beautifully designed 

carbon-fiber plinth, 

active-feedback speed control 

for its DC motor, a 

magnesium platter and 

bronze flywheel supported 

by a pressurized film of oil, 

and magnetic drive. This 

’table looks fully raceready, 

in a Ferrari sort of way, and I want a test drive! I refuse 

to let the $15,000 price set me back—my wife can work two 

jobs if necessary. 

MusicDirect exhibited the sexy Avid Acutus which, at 

$13,000 with motor controller and suspended 22-pound platter, 

represents the top of the Avid line of turntables. Gracing the 

armboard was a Dynavector DV-507 arm ($4200) that features 

a pivot in the vertical plane located right behind the headshell. 

Not to be outdone by Clearaudio, Grand Prix Audio, or 

Avid on the all-important sexiness front, the entire line of 

Transrotor turntables was simply dazzling in the AXISS 

room. It was hard to take my eyes off the Tourbillon (about 

$35,000), with its three drive motors, thick clear acrylic plinth 

to accommodate up to three tonearms, and frosted acrylic platter 

with chrome or gold outer weights. After only two or three 

minutes of gazing at the spinning Tourbillon, your spouse will 

be hypnotized into agreeing you really need one. Equally enticing 

was the Apollon TMD ($15,000), constructed of polished 

aluminum and black acrylic and also capable of holding three 

tonearms. “TMD” stands for Transrotor Magnetic Drive, while 

the new FMD Magnetic Drive System featured on the Orion 

and several other Transrotor models drives the platter through 

a separate flywheel with magnetic coupling. 

Big news at the show came from Allen Perkins of Immedia 

Distribution. No, he has not left Immedia. But he has started a 

new company, “Spiral Groove,” devoted to the manufacture of 

new turntables and arms. He showed two new ’tables at CES. 

The SG1 (about $20,000) is a compact design constructed 

largely of stainless steel, aluminum, and layers of damping 

agents. The turntable base is extremely dense—I was shocked 

when I tried to lift one corner of the table and discovered it 

weighs 70 pounds. A very cool feature is a bayonet mount for 

the arm board, allowing quick changes of tonearms. The SG1 

also has a stainless-steel periphery ring at the bottom of the 

platter for increased speed stability. Similar in design, the less 



expensive SG2 (about $12,500) has lower mass than the SG1 

and gives up the bayonet mount for a removable arm board. 

The new Spiral Groove arm was not on display. 

And now, something completely different—Garrard, yes 

Garrard, still lives. The British manufacturer of fine recordcleaning 

machines, Loricraft, is distributing a modern version 

of the Garrard table utilizing a drive system whereby an idler 

wheel directly drives the inside of the platter. The new Garrard 

501, at approximately $20,000, looks a little retro but uses the 

finest parts. The manufacturer claims that idler drive eliminates 

the minute, but audible, speed fluctuations of most beltdrive 

turntables. 

Which brings us to the Big Boys of the show, the cost-noobject 

contenders for state of the art in turntable technology. 

Continuum Audio Laboratories of Australia mounted a 

compelling demonstration of its Caliburn turntable, Cobra 

arm, and Castellon isolation stand (all for approximately 

$90,000, give or take). Space does not permit a detailed 

description of these technological wonders, but in a nutshell 

the Caliburn is driven by a battery-powered DC motor and provides 

vacuum hold-down via a small and silent pump, while the 

Cobra (about $12,000 separately) has a computer-designed 

shape like no other tonearm and is built of organic materials. 

The Castellon features two heavy, opposing magnetic plates 

that are said to completely isolate the Caliburn from external 

vibrations. An exciting package that produced exciting sound 

(see “Best of Show” on p. 38). The show sample was purchased 

(before the show) by a friend who lives near me—I’m sure I’ll 

get to know the ’table better in the next few months. 

Also falling squarely within the second mortgage category is 

the incredible new “Statement” turntable from Clearaudio 

(approximately $90,000), shown in static display at CES. 

Weighing 770 pounds (!) and standing over four feet tall on its 

dedicated stand, this ’table too is a technological tour de force. I 

can’t possibly describe all of its features here. Indeed, I don’t fully 

understand how it all works. What I can tell you is that the huge 

frosted acrylic platter rests entirely on a cushion of air created by 

opposing magnetic forces. The platter is magnetically driven by 

a sub platter, a magnetic clutch so to speak, with no physical 

contact between the two. The main chassis is oil damped, and the 

motor drive is controlled by a high-speed processor. But wait— 

there’s more. Hanging from the sub platter is a long metal tube 

with a very heavy weight at the bottom, like a pendulum. As I 

understand it, the tube rides in a gyroscopic-type bearing so that 

the weight of the pendulum keeps the top platform (and therefore 

the platter) level at all times, with no air pumps or compressors. 

The new Statement TQI linear tracking arm was in prototype 

form, with the production version anticipated in a few 

months. The turntable will hold up to four different arms. I 

already have a call in to my mortgage broker. 

Also using a magnetically suspended platter, the Britishbuilt 

Blue Pearl Audio JEM turntable is a relative bargain at 

only $82,000—its 103-pound platter is supported by a beautiful, 

floorstanding base that appears to be made of granite. 

Shown with an SME arm, the JEM was an exquisite sight to 

behold. This was at the end of the show on Sunday, and by this 

time I was delirious and actually considering the possibility of 

a third mortgage (or heading to the casinos). Mercifully, the 

manufacturer saved me by informing me that HP had already 

laid claim to the JEM. 

With too many turntables and too little time, I apologize to 

those manufacturers with new products I may not have mentioned 

in this overview. Any omission was purely unintentional. 

Two channel is still very much alive and well, as witnessed 

by a number of new stereo preamplifier entries in the under- 

$10,000 category. Balanced Audio Technology displayed its 

new reference solid-state preamplifier, the VK-42SE (approximately 

$6000). Using a topology similar to its acclaimed tube 

preamplifiers, with proprietary oil capacitors in a new power supply, 

this unit promises the delicacy of BAT’s tube preamps 

with the bass extension and slam of solid-state. 

Also promising to deliver more than a little of the 

great sound of the 6010 D that JV has raved about, 

MBL displayed its full remote 5011 stereo preamplifer 

($8382). This should offer a great amplification 

system when paired with one of MBL’s Noble line of 

amplifiers. 

Rogue Audio displayed two new tube preamplifiers, 

the 99 and the 66. Surprisingly well finished at 

their price points, the 66 Magnum ($1495) can be 

configured as a linestage or a preamplifier with 

phono. The 99 Magnum ($2495 linestage, $2995 

Edge GM 8 Statement amps (bottom); Kharma 

Matrix MP150-SE amps (top) 



with phono) offers a larger power supply, additional flexibility, 

and higher-quality components. Both preamps have separate 

power supplies and an analog remote volume control. While I 

have not heard either of these preamps, Rogue Audio has a 

good reputation for quality sound at reasonable prices, and I 

would expect both to further that reputation. 

Simaudio introduced the Moon P-7 preamplifer, the 

newest addition to its Evolution Series. This $5500 preamp 

offers elegant cosmetics, individual gain trim for each input, 

ROBERT HARLEY’S Best of Show 


Rather than follow traditional methods of improving loudspeaker-driver performance, 

Jim Thiel has forged his own path in the radical new Thiel 

CS3.7. This new speaker’s corrugated metal diaphragms and coaxial 

midrange-tweeter are just the start of the CS3.7’s innovations. 

Coolest New Product 

Imagine the sound quality of a freestanding loudspeaker coming from a 

small speaker mounted on a shelf or in a cabinet against a wall. That’s 

exactly what Wilson Audio’s new Duette promised—and delivered, based 

on the demonstration I heard. 


The new line of Pro-Ject LP-playback products, 

which share a tiny yet sturdy chassis, 

were the coolest—and cutest—accessories. 

The Head-Box II is a headphone amplifier; 

the Phono Box II is a miniature outboard 

phono preamp; and the Speed Box II 

turntable speed regulator allows you to 

switch from 33rpm to 45rpm without moving 

a belt. The units are priced at $119 each. 

Most Frequently Heard Demo 

Music 

Bizarrely, Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms. 


Although not demonstrated, the M3 integrated 

amplifier, part of NAD’s new 

Masters Series, looks like a winner. The 

M3 sports gorgeous metalwork along with 

interior parts and build-quality that would 

be at home in a product costing $10k. 


Without question, the biggest surprise was the move toward super-expensive 

products, along with the introduction of lots of very high-end turntables. 

The industry has apparently decided to pursue customers who are 

upgrading rather than those just getting into high-end audio. 


The MAGICO Mini didn’t have quite the size and scale of some of the 

show’s behemoth loudspeakers, but this stand-mounted two-way bowled 

me over with its staggeringly realistic rendering of timbre, huge and 

nuanced spatial presentation, and wonderfully direct musical communication. 

I’m going to cheat and also mention the Aerial 20t and its fabulous 

top-to-bottom coherence and super-sweet yet detailed treble. 

precision volume control, and great flexibility for stereo and/or 

home-theater use. 

Thorens displayed its new TEP 302 phono preamp 

($2000). This attractive and nicely finished solid-state unit 

offers 60dB of gain (MC) and adjustable input capacitance and 

input impedance. ➤ 

POWER AMPLIFIERS UNDER $10,000 

JIM HANNON 

Twenty-five years ago I attended my first CES. I 

recall that the main floor was awash in a sea of 

white shoes, white belts, gold chains, and polyester, 

and I felt like I had traveled to another planet. 

However, quietly ensconced in a separate hotel were 

a group of high-end audio companies with representatives 

with strikingly different demeanors and clothing. 

Here were some of the titans of the industry, easily accessible to 

all who walked through the doors of their hotel 

suites. While the main hall has changed considerably, 

I still enjoyed some of the same vibe at the 

audio venues that I had many years before. 

Perhaps in response to the soaring prices of 

years past, I noted three trends in the under-$10K 

segment. First, many of the big boys—you know, 

the ones who produce products you covet but can’t 

afford—introduced products that are more within 

reach but have some of the same sonic attributes as 

their more costly brethren. New entries from Edge, 

Boulder, Musical Fidelity, and MBL definitely 

caught my attention and were included in systems 

that produced some of the best sounds of the show. 

The new Edge GM 8 Statement amps (introductory 

price of $8488) are dual-channel amps in 

two chassis. They are rated at 575Wpc into 8 

ohms but lack the laser-biasing of Edge’s more 

expensive amps. They were driving a new luxury 

speaker system, the Precision Acoustic Labs 

Model 27, on extremely demanding material, 

with terrific control and explosive dynamics, and without the 

faintest hint of clipping, transistor brightness, or grain. I am 

one admitted tube lover who could happily live with them. For 

those on tighter budgets, Edge displayed the two-channel GS 8 

Statement ($5288) at 150 watts a side, as well as the 100Wpc 

G.5 ($2488). 

The MBL 8006 B ($3500) is a new 180Wpc stereo power 

amplifier that was effortlessly driving the 82dB-sensitive MBL 

121 monitors. This combo offered surprisingly good resolution, 

imaging, and freedom from distortion, as well as the ability to 

start one’s toes tapping. 

Boulder introduced the 850 mono power amplifier, the 

Jim Thiel with the 

radical new CS3.7 



Bardone’s Music Server 

company’s first $10,000 amplifier offering 

“in a long, long time,” according to a 

Boulder spokesperson. The 200-watt-perchannel, 

all-analog 850 draws on technology 

developed for Boulder’s 1000 and 

2000 series amplifiers. I was impressed by 

its crystalline highs and ability to reproduce 

subtle details when driving B&W 

802D speakers. 

Another attractive alternative at the 

$10k price point is the Musical Fidelity 

kW 750. This all-choke-regulated powerhouse 

was ultra-quiet, with nice timbre 

and focus. Driving a pair of B&W 

Signature 800Ds, it produced some of the 

best, most-tightly-controlled-and-defined 

bass at the show—Jaco Pastorius’ bass guitar 

sounded terrific. 

Another high-power amplifier, the 

Cary 500 MB ($7000/pair), is a 500Wpc 

monoblock (into 8 ohms) that offers traditional Cary musicality 

in a true balanced, solid-state design. The piano on a recording 

of Beethoven’s Appassionata sonata sounded quite natural 

with particularly impressive bass on the Dynaudio C4s. 

Another trend among new power amplifier entries is the 

use of Class D/switching technology. Designers seem to have 

really attacked the noise, distortion, and dynamic-limiting 

problems associated with previous Class D amps. The 

Kharma Matrix MP150-SE monoblocks ($6800) were producing 

lovely, nuanced sound from the Kharma Mini- 

Exquisite loudspeakers, and soundstaging fans will likely go 

nuts over this combo. The 150s use a unique pulse-control 

scheme yielding extremely low output impedance over their 

entire bandwidth. 

In passive displays, Halcro was showing its low-distortion 

MC20 amplifier ($4600) using its patented LYRUS technology, 

and Rowland was premiering its diminutive Model 

102 ($1490), a 100Wpc stereo amp milled from a single piece 

of aluminum. It uses ICEpower technology and sports balanced 

inputs (adaptors are available for single-ended use). 

Not to be outdone, one of the pioneers in producing 

musical Class D amplifiers, John Ulrick of Spectron, was 

showing his Musician III stereo power amplifier ($5495) 

rated at 600Wpc into 8 ohms. It seemed to have a bit more 

refinement in the highs and mids than some of the less expensive 

Class D amps I heard at the show. 

Another good performer among Class D amps was 

Channel Island’s new D200 Class D monoblocks ($2300). 

The final trend is that several companies are offering 

power amplifiers with price/performance capabilities unheard 

of a few years ago, typically through off-shore manufacture. 

For those of you who always 

wanted a Threshold S/350e but 

couldn’t afford the $3900 price 

tag more than a decade ago, the 

reissue is practically half the price 

at $2000. 

I walked into the Hyperion 

room and spotted some 845-based 

amps, thinking they were approximately 

$10k, but they were less 

than half of that. The HT-845s 

($4600) are rated at 25 watts of 

pure Class A, have point-to-point 

wiring, and use hand-wound transformers. 

They were mated to the 

new HPS-986 loudspeakers; the 

DCS Verdi Encore 



combo had transient quickness, coherence, and surprisingly 

controlled deep bass. 

Antique Sound Lab introduced the bargain-priced 

Explorer 805 DT amps ($2995), which produced a seductive 

and musical sound driving the Reference 3A Veenas. 

Continuing its welcome tradition of offering high-value 

tube products, PrimaLuna introduced two new 70Wpc 

monoblock amplifiers in the Upscale Audio suite: the EL34- 

based ProLogue Six ($2295) and KT-88-based ProLogue Seven 

($2695). These monoblocks feature PrimaLuna’s adaptive autobias 

and soft-start capabilities, as well as wideband, low-loss output 

transformers that are built to handle difficult loads. Both 

amps sounded great, and I’d love to try them on my Quads. 

A few noteworthy amps do not fit into any of these categories. 

The Muse Model 200 ($3275) starts life as a power 

amp, but with the addition of optional modules can become an 

integrated amplifier. 

For single-ended fans, the new Wavelength Jupiter 50 

($6000) is the first commercially available amplifier that is based 

on the RCA 50 tube (RCA’s answer to the WE300B). If you can 

get by with 5-watts/channel, you could be in heaven. ➤ 

DIGITAL SOURCES AND 

MULTICHANNEL ELECTRONICS 

ALAN TAFFEL 

Olive Opus 

At this year’s CES, everything old was new again. 

Peggy Lee’s chestnut “Fever” wafted through the 

Alexis Park and St. Tropez corridors. Stereo experienced 

a renaissance, as not a single audio system 

I saw boasted more than two channels. The resolution 

of source material—universally CDs or 

LPs—never exceeded the level available twenty years ago. 

Conventional solid-state or tubed electronics drove, for the 

most part, conventional cone or even horn speakers. And in one 

of the show’s biggest announcements, Classic Records unveiled 

its plan to release a slew of early Everest recordings—in mono. 

This is the cutting edge of audio? Yes, it is, if sonics is your 

yardstick. Though the ingredients were old-fashioned, the 

sound cooked up at this year’s CES was impressively consistent 

in its excellence. Determining the best sound of the show 

entailed real deliberation. 

ALAN TAFFEL’S 

Best of Show 


Olive Opus ($3000). A fully networked 

high-resolution media server, with wireless 

connectivity to multiple listening zones, the Opus also plays 

and burns good old CDs. But beyond features, the Opus is 

significant as a harbinger of what such devices can and will 

achieve sonically. 


Goldmund Logos Active Speaker ($10,000). This satellite 

speaker, a steal considering its built-in twin 200W amps 

plus Goldmund’s excellent DAC, accepts either digital or 

line-level analog signals. Small though the Logos’ aluminum 

enclosure may be, it delivered towering dynamics and a 

rhythmic insight sorely lacking in many of the show’s “statement” 

products. 


Stello HP100 headphone amp ($595). In a revelatory 

demo, this amp goosed a pair of Sennheiser 600 headphones 

to unsuspected sonic heights—highly detailed, 

open, and dynamic. 


Peggy Lee’s “Fever.” 


Resolution Opus 21 CD player. Three grand for a CD player 

seemed cheap at this show, but the Resolution’s performance 

belied its sane price. Not to be missed. 


The Kharma Mini-Exquisite/mbl/Kubala-Sosna Room. An 

exceedingly difficult choice this year, but the finalists came 

down to the Lamm room, with its impeccable setup of the 

Wilson Maxx2’s, and the two Kharma suites. The system 

that kept calling me back featured the new Mini-Exquisite 

speakers, the entry level for diamond-tweetered Kharmas. I 

preferred its purity and coherence over even the larger, 

costlier Midi-Exquisites next door. No doubt the associated 

equipment played a major part in this system’s effortless 

ability to conjure the magic of real music. 

Stello HP100 headphone amp 



Still, a novice visitor might be excused for 

wondering whether recent innovations such as 

multichannel audio, high-resolution media, 

Class D amplification, or post-Fifties music 

ever existed. Next year, I predict, the availability 

of Blu-ray and HD DVD—with their 

associated hi-res Dolby and DTS digital audio 

formats—will prompt a metamorphosis of the 

venerable audio architecture. In the meantime, 

there were still some noteworthy trends on 

display at CES 2006. 

Cost is (Apparently) No Object 

One thing truly new at this year’s show was 

the shockingly stratospheric prices to which 

functionally humble, technologically mature 

components have climbed. Imagine an auto 

show at which every car on display is some 

variation of a Bentley, and you have the equivalent 

of this CES. Perhaps manufacturers were 

convinced that a Nineties-like economic juggernaut 

will materialize to mint thousands of 

new millionaires. Or maybe, given the current 

limbo between old and new sonic frontiers, 

they simply saw few options other than 

maximizing quality (and thus cost). For whatever 

reason, manufacturers abandoned affordability 

in droves. 

I lost count of the bonanza in new 

$40,000+ speaker models—how many people 

can really afford such things?—and a surprising 

number of CD playback systems emerged 

in similar territory. These included the 

$43,000 dCS stack consisting of the new 

Verdi Encore transport ($17,995) plus 

$25,000 worth of existing clocks and DACs; a 

resurgent Wadia’s $38,000 rig that includes 

its new 781 transport (est. $10,000); and 

mbl’s exquisite 1622 transport (est. 

$24,000), designed for use with its $21,450 

1611 DAC. In the context of such extravagant 

introductions, the plethora of new 

$5000 CD players—occupying a price point 

once considered fairly lofty—resembled 

downright bargains. 

CD Strikes Back 

Last year, even two-channel systems took 

advantage of high-resolution formats such as 

SACD. Not so this year, as CD and CD-playing 

equipment made a triumphant comeback. 

The announced players sported several 

features that elevated them above Plain Jane 

status. For instance, while universal players 

were virtually extinct, nearly every new CD 

player could also accommodate SACDs. This 

puzzled me, since that format, along with 

DVD-A, is essentially dead. However, several 

manufacturers explained that CD and 

SACD are technologically “friendlier” to 

each other, at the design and implementation 

level, than are CD and any other format. All 

three of the aforementioned flagship models 

play SACD, but the trend was evident at 

every price point, as exemplified by 

Esoteric’s new X-01 Limited ($14,000) and 

SZ-1 ($5600) players, as well as 

Goldmund’s Eidos 18 ($5450). 

While CD player prices climbed—five 

grand qualifying as “entry-level” at this 

show—many of them partially offset that 

increase by obviating the need for a separate 

linestage. To accomplish this, several players 

featured digital inputs and/or digital volume 

controls, enabling them to serve as a 

system’s control point. Typifying this trend, 

which began last year with Meridian’s 808i ($14,950), was 

Wadia’s 581i ($8450) and Burmester’s 052 (est. $8000). 

Many players, including the dCS, Burmester, and Wadia units, 

also included upsampling circuitry, once the exclusive 

province of outboard DACs. 

Music-Minded Media Servers 

Media servers are no longer novel, but CES demonstrated that these 

devices are beginning to take sound quality more seriously. In general, 

servers fell into two categories: those utilizing a PC platform, 

and those aimed at mitigating the need for a PC. In the first camp 

is Bardaudio, whose hardware, along with the user’s choice of PC 

music software (iTunes, etc.) turns one’s computer into the front end 

of a 2.4GHz wireless, whole-house music system. 

Ofra and Eli Gershman displayed the impressive 

Black Swan speaker; Sonicweld’s aluminum speaker 



ROBERT E. GREENE’S Best of Show 


The Avega Wireless System and the Lyngdorf Audio “Room 

Perfect” correction device and algorithm. The Avega seems to the 

way of the future. Meanwhile, kudos to Lyngdorf and inventor J.A. 

Pedersen for their efforts on the big frontier: room-correction algorithms 

that give natural, truthful sound. 


Morch anisotropic arm (prototype). At long last, a pivoted arm that 

plays the bass of records right (bigger moment of inertia horizontally 

than vertically, for deep bass and warp tracking both at once). 

[Note: I was an informal, unpaid consultant on this project.] 

At the PC sits the BardUSB, a thumb-sized transmitter of 

content that resides on either the PC’s hard drive or on a CD 

inserted into the computer. Significantly, music is sent in uncompressed 

44.1kHz/16-bit format, providing full CD-quality sound. 

At the receiving end, users can choose either a Bardone receiver/DAC, 

which then connects to a traditional audio system’s analog 

input, or a Bardthree, which includes a 25-watt stereo amplifier 

for direct connection to speakers. Refreshingly, both options 

are eminently affordable; a BardUSB/Bardone set lists for $599, 

while a BardUSB/ Bardthree combo sells for just $1295. 

Olive Media represented the music-server camp. The 

Symphony ($899) and Musica ($1099) models look like traditional 

CD players—indeed, they can play CDs normally—but 

are actually ultra-quiet, ultra-intuitive, 80- and 160-gigabyte 

servers, respectively. Olive offers a simple wireless receiver, the 

Sonata ($199), which employs the 802.11g Wi-Fi standard. 

The forthcoming Melody receiver ($499, April availability) 

will also include a built-in amplifier and small speakers. 

Olive’s most noteworthy show introduction was the Opus 

($3000), a 400-gigabyte server that raises the stakes on sound 

quality. Built around Burr-Brown DACs, the Opus can download 

music from the Internet in virtually any format. For example, 

Opus can receive 96kHz/24-bit material from, say, MusicGiants, 

then transmit that content losslessly to any system in the house. 

Compared to a $40,000 standalone, non-networked CD player 

with inherently lower resolution, the Opus and its ilk make more 

sense all the time. ➤ 

DSP AT CES 

Morch prototype arm 


Isol-Pads. This small, inexpensive isolation device (set of four for 

$25) does a lot of what the far more awkward and expensive 

ones do. 


A category, not a single recording—the miserably recorded, male, pseudo-blues 

vocal accompanied by sound without acoustic antecedents. 

(Multiples of a middle-class monthly salary to hear this?) 


Tyler Acoustics PD 20. Imaging, natural voices, clarity, bass 

extension, and big dynamics for $2800. Some horn artifacts, but 

so what, at the price? 


So much DSP! 

Best (DSP) Sound at CES 

Sonicweld, in a room exhibited with enough damping, very close to 

the reality of the recordings. Honorable mention: the Lyngdorf system. 

And for bass: Wisdom Audio/Edge electronics (analog EQ’d). 

ROBERT E. GREENE 

This was the breakout year for the use of digital signal 

processing (DSP) in high-end speaker design. 

There have been DSP-based speakers earlier, from 

Philips, more than ten years ago, Meridian on an 

ongoing basis for a long time, and the conspicuously 

successful NHT design of a year or so ago. But 

this CES seemed the moment when DSP became a “go to” 

thing for new designs aspiring to the proverbial state of the art. 

Products from Sonicweld, Wasatch, and MSB represented allout 

attempts to compete at the highest level. Digital room correction 

also continued apace, with new developments from 

Lyngdorf Audio (formerly TacT Europe), from TacT USA, and 

DEQX. DSP room correction also continued to expand its presence 

in the lower-priced world, with developments from 

Denon/Audyssey and Harman. 

Perhaps the most striking of all, however, was the Avega 

system. The Avega involves actual products—a DSP speaker 

called the Oyster, for example—but it is preeminently a vision 

of the digital future. It is based on wireless data transmission 

from computer source to speakers (if you insist, though, you 

can wire a CD player to it). This is no doubt a convenience, but 

more importantly the system is based around the idea that once 

music is made digital, it becomes natural to treat it as computer 

data. In its ultimate form, the Avega system will allow the 



user not only to do equalization for room correction or just to 

taste, it will also allow manufacturers and perhaps eventually 

consumers to change the crossover settings—frequencies 

and slopes/alignment—of the speakers, or indeed of any 

speaker which is using the DSP and amplification provided. 

Wireless data transmission is fast enough with room to spare 

to do uncompressed digital audio in real time (16-bit words 

at 44.1kHz require 706kbps, while Wi-Fi is on the order of 

several Megabits/sec, depending on the standard used). And, 

of course, computers are plenty fast enough to do crossover 

and room-correction calculations in real time. But somehow 

no one had put it all together until Avega. The days of the 

stand-alone audio systems may well be numbered. Only 

speakers, the actual mechanism of making sound, will be 

anything but a computer peripheral in this brave new world. 

Stand by for the revolution! 

In the world of conventional standalone speaker designs, 

DSP speakers from Sonicweld and Wasatch were using the 

DEQX digital box to good advantage. Both systems used 

crossover slopes much steeper than usual, taking advantage of 

digital filters with steep slopes but linear phase. Both speakers 

have very flat frequency response and excellent phase behavior. 

They also have a very wide radiation pattern, which implies 

some considerable dependence of the sound on the room characteristics 

(above the bass, where DEQX room correction was 

being used). As it happened, the Sonicweld was in a large, heavily 

curtained room. It sounded very smooth all the way up, and 

indeed offered quite stunning performance. Neil Gader called 

it “lovely,” and it seems an apt word. I had the sense of hearing 

very exactly what was on the recordings. Listening to my own 

playing (from REG Plays Dvorák, available on regonaudio.com) 

was like looking in a mirror, sonically speaking, so exactly did 

it sound like my own instrument. The Wasatch, in a smaller 

and less damped room, was also superb in the bass and 

midrange, with altogether remarkable reproduction of 

Reference Recordings’ Rutter Requiem. But to my ears, the 

speakers would have benefited in the top end from a “softer” 

environment. In the treble, the room still counts, even when 

the bass is DSP corrected! 

The MSB S8 speaker, a DSP design using a custom digital 

crossover, with an enclosure of an unusual spherical shape, was 

sounding very natural on vocal material. All three, MSB, 

Wasatch, Sonicweld, are remarkable—at a price. (All three systems 

were in the $40,000–$65,000 bracket.) 

Lyngdorf Audio demonstrated a new room-correction system 

developed by Jan A. Pedersen called “Room Perfect,” 

which is based not only on measurements at the listening position 

but also on overall room behavior. Demonstrated with corner 

woofers, it sounded really excellent in the bass and 

midrange, in spite of the small room, though the target curve 

was set a bit “hot” to my ears in the top end (this is useradjustable, 

though the initial choice of target curve is automated). 

This system may well be a major advance in room correction, 

where the real DSP action is to my mind. (Analog speakers 

already work quite well, but their interaction with the room 

usually does not.) 

Tact USA was silent when I visited due to speakers being 

damaged in transit, but it had on visual display a digital, PCbased, 

“while it plays,” tone-control system—just point at the 

screen and click to change the tonal balance—and an interesting 

system of “loudness controls,” with personalized Fletcher- 

Munson-type equi-loudness curves for unusual listening levels 

(e.g., low, one hopes). Really good ideas here. 

Interestingly, the best bass I heard at the show was from 

Wisdom (with Edge amplification)—Wisdom adjusts bass to 

the room by analog electronics, not DSP. Stunning bass sound, 

with power and superb definition combined. 

Analog design in more affordable price ranges was not neglected, 

though I did not do a systematic survey. 

At entry-level prices, Tyler Acoustics new 

PD20 gave excellent imaging (controlled dispersion 

really works), loudness without strain, and 

something overall a lot like music in a pro monitor 

context (Eminence drivers)—not perfect (a 

few horn artifacts), but at $2800 and drivethem-with-anything-at-all 

sensitivity, one 

impressive system. 

Two of my perennial favorites, Harbeth, 

with a prototype floorstander with superbly natural 

midband, and Gradient, with an improved 

woofer system offering the room independence 

that only controlled radiation pattern can provide, 

were sounding fine, indeed. Even in an 

increasingly DSP world, analog sound was alive 

and well and living in Las Vegas in 2006. ➤ 

Hannl record cleaning machine 



HIGH-END LOUDSPEAKERS AND 

ELECTRONICS—THIS AND THAT 

WAYNE GARCIA 

My assignment for this year’s show was to cover 

speakers and electronics between $10,000 and 

$20,000, and my pal Jon Valin was to cover the 

same items priced above $20,000. Problem 

was, as Jonathan and I made the rounds together, 

it quickly became clear that most of the 

rooms at the Alexis Park and St. Tropez fell into his half of the 

draw, or, at the other extreme, well below both our designated 

ranges. And because his report later in this section is so thorough 

and straddles both our categories, I’ve decided to focus on 

what I found to be the best-sounding and most interesting 

items regardless of cost. 

Elite Audio Video Distribution displayed a system comprising 

the Kuzma Stabi XL Turntable and Airline arm 

($27k), an ASR Basis Exclusive phonostage, the Plinius M8 

linestage ($3695) and SA-Reference amps ($14,495), and the 

$12,000 Nola Viper Reference speakers (all very fine items but 

for some reason Nola speakers don’t seem to sound their best at 

shows). What captured my fancy were three relatively 

compact, remarkably quiet, and beautifully 

made record-cleaning machines from 

Germany’s Hannl—the Micro ($1399), 

the Mera ($1999), and the top-of-the-line 

Aragon ($2999). The Mera is on the way 

for review, so I’ll report back. 

I believe I was more impressed by the 

sound in Von Schweikert Audio’s display 

than Jonathan was, but then I didn’t 

have his experience with this same setup 

at the Rocky Mountain show, which I 

missed due to illness. Plus, as anyone 

who has been to any audio show can 

tell you, between horrid acoustics, 

marginal AC, and a host of other 

potential disasters, good sound at 

these things is a rarity; great sound is 

a combination of luck, know-how, 

and something like a miracle, and we 

must cut manufacturers a healthy bit 

of slack if their sound isn’t up to 

snuff. On Tom Brosseau’s What I 

Mean To Say Is Goodbye CD, the 

$60,000 Von Schweikert VR9-SEs 

displayed a good balance, natural 

sounding vocals, and very (overly?) 

sweet violin sound. And with JV’s LP 

of Prokofiev’s First Violin Sonata, the Andante sounded lovely, 

with lilting microdynamics during a pizzicato passage. The system 

was fleshed out by the Swiss-made Dartzeel NHB-18NS 

preamplifier and NHB-108 Model One amps ($18,000), which 

are red-hot these days, the EMM Labs CDSD and DAC6, and 

the $15,000 Grand Prix Monaco, a carbon-fiber composite 

direct-drive(!) turntable, and Tri-Planar VII arm ($3900). 

Importer/distributor Music Hall was showing its wide 

range of goodies, but the three that stood out for me were the 

new Whest Audio Reference V phonostage with outboard 

power supply (est. $7k–$8k), and Music Hall’s own rdr-1 table 

radio and Takahashi One Box, a mini stereo CD player. 

Whest’s James Henriot (one hell of a sweet guy) was a bit 

sheepish when we met each other, as he’s been promising me a 

review sample of the MC Reference for the past several months 

(designs usually take longer than expected to complete). In any 

case, it appears to be worth the wait and is not simply a hotrodded 

version of the company’s acclaimed PS.20 (a review of 

that one is in the works) but a totally fresh design. As for the 

Music Hall items, how refreshing it is to see a guy with Roy 

Hall’s high-end standards think “outside the box.” The $189 

rdr-1 (stands for “radio done right”) is a compact table radio 

with remote control that, while on static display only, should 

be one sweet-sounding item, given its pedigree. The $699 

Takahashi One Box was also on static display, and in a rainbow 

of available colors appears to be something of a high-enders 

mini-stereo—a pair of 3" speakers sit just a 

few inches apart in the unit’s lower section. 

Whatever else it does well, a wallto-wall 

soundstage is probably not 

something one should expect. 

Distributor Aydn displayed a very 

fine sounding system comprising the 

Artemis Labs SP-1 amplifier 

($11,400) as well as the $2850 LA-1 

linestage and $3350 PL-1 phonostage 

I reviewed so favorably last year. 

Speakers were the $5800 Triangle 

Australe, which were open, sweet on 

violins, and rich sounding with piano 

(if not the last word in deep bass), 

while a Galibier Stelvio ’table and 

Schroeder Reference Arm combo 

($17,550) provided the signals. 

As they usually do, Coincident 

Technology and Manley Labs 

showed together, and fun was had by 

all. This is easily the most down-toearth 

room at the show, in large part 

due to EveAnna Manley’s party-girl 

spirit, which bubbles over all who 

visit. Manley’s outstanding Steelhead 

Von Schweikert VR9-SE 



phono preamp ($7300) and Snapper 

monoblocks ($4250/pair)—fed by VPI’s 

HRX turntable and a Helikon cartridge, as 

well as an Audio Aero Prestige CD/SACD 

player—were driving Israel Bloom’s Coincident 

Technology Total Victory II speakers ($13k). The sound was 

lively, quite coherent, tonally warm, and musically inviting. 

Alon Wolf and his MAGICO line are generating a great 

deal of positive buzz (see last issue’s feature on this exciting 

young company), and over at the St. Tropez Alon’s near-field 

setup with an Esoteric digital player, Edge Signature One 

linestage, and Convergent Audio Technology JC-1 monoblocks 

sent chills down my spine. Whether it was the Barber Violin 

Concerto [Stern on Sony CD] or Wilco’s “Jesus, Don’t Cry” the 

sound was incredibly open, detailed, and lively, with beautiful 

textures and lots of air. JV is slated to get the Mini, so expect 

more on this little sweetheart in a future issue. 

Also at the St. Tropez was Peter Clark of Redpoint—another 

of my recent favorites—who was showing his newest 

turntable, the Model D ($16,000) with a Tri-Planar MK VII arm 

and Transfiguration Temper cartridge ($4k each) with a comparatively 

modest system made up of the Naim NAP 112 preamp 

Valin and Garcia relaxing with Roy Hall 

Music Hall’s rdr-1 radio 

($1350) and NAP 200 amp ($3495), and a new, 

yet-to-be-priced-or-named Harbeth floorstanding 

speaker. Though the sound was not as airy, detailed, 

or dynamic as I’m used to hearing from the 

Redpoint Model B and Tri-Planar at home, it still 

exemplified what a great front-end can do by creating 

sounds so inherently beautiful, inviting, and 

musically pleasurable from very good but modestly-priced 

speakers and electronics. 

Back at the AP, Hovland was playing a particularly 

lovely sounding system using its $9500 

HP-200 tube preamplifier (which I’m in the process of reviewing), 

the newly introduced $34,000 Stratos solid-state mono 

amps, a modified Kenwood LO-7D turntable/Grado Statement 

cartridge, a Mac Mini-based digital source feeding a prototype 

USB DAC, and Avalon Eidolon Diamond speakers. The sound 

here was consistently elegant, detailed, and natural, with 

WAYNE GARCIA’S Best of Show 


Too many to choose just one: I would cite two newly revised horncone-hybrid 

speakers as raising the bar for their type—the new 

Avantgarde Duo Omega and the Acapella Arts High Violin MkIII. 

Both are from Germany, both hover just above $25k the pair, and 

both are exceptionally low in horn coloration, unusually coherent, 

and possess the immediacy and lifelike dynamics horns excel at. 

I’d also have to mention the new ARC Ref 3 preamp, and the new 

affordable analog goodies from Pro-Ject. 


Kharma’s Mini-Exquisite speaker…cooler than cool. 


The Hannl record cleaners distributed by Elite Audio Video. 


Since JV and I walked most of the show together—does that make us 

Brokeback audiophiles?—I heard everything on his list plus Nine Inch 

Nails’ With Teeth [Innerscope], David Bowie’s Earthling [Sony], 

and my own pop and jazz discs: Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot 

[Nonesuch], Tom Brosseau’s What I Mean To Say Is Goodbye 

[Loveless], Bright Eyes’ I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning [Saddle 

Creek], and James Carter’s Chasin’ the Gypsy [Atlantic]. 


Music Hall rdr-1 radio. 

Biggest Surprises at CES 

Stratospheric prices, fewer exhibitors, so many (really good 

sounding) horns, and so much more analog stuff than even 

last year. 


Being a sucker for a great two-way, I’m going to give a close 

runner’s up nod the to the MAGICO Mini, with my best sound 

at the show reserved for the Kharma Mini Exquisite. And 

exquisite is the right word for this speaker’s sound, look, and 

build-quality. 



Hovland’s own musical selections and also 

with Wilco, Bright Eyes, and Jon Valin’s 

LP of the Prokofiev sonata. 

Canada’s Pierre Gabriel showed 

his speakers and cables with a bevy of 

Jadis electronics, and after several 

years’ absence in the U.S. it’s nice to 

see Jadis back. 

No real listening was done, but we 

did get a run down on the French tube 

maker’s extensive line of gear, which 

now includes many affordable components. 

We’re lining up review samples 

for future issues. 

AXISS Distribution had its 

extensive line of goods on hand, from 

Accuphase to Air Tight to Shelter to 

Transrotor. Among the new offerings 

were a lovely sounding new Koetsu 

cartridge called the Bloodstone ($7k), 

which during a brief listen sounded 

very Koetsu-like—beautiful, tonally 

rich, and highly seductive—and the first cartridge 

from Air Tight. 

As per usual, distributor GTT Audio was making some of 

the best sounds at the show, and was I ever smitten by the new 

Kharma Mini-Exquisite, which is an aptly named two-way 

floorstanding design ($45k) of exceptional musicality. 

Essentially a super-duper version of my reference Kharma 3.2 

with a newly fashioned cabinet, crossover, ceramic mid/bass 

driver, and diamond tweeter, it swept me away with the purity, 

detail, and sheer beauty of its sound. I listened to it with a wide 

range of music and could barely tear myself away. Luckily, I’ll 

soon be getting a pair for review. And if I’m even luckier, I’ll 

get the same system GTT’s Bill Parish and the Kubla-Sosna 

cable boys were playing. Along with the K-S cables it comprised 

MBL’s 6010 D solid-state preamp ($19k), 1611-E 

Reference DAC ($21.5k), and Reference CD transport ($21k), 

as well as the diminutive and terrific sounding Kharma 

MP150-SE monoblock amplifiers ($6800). ➤ 

A 

All 

Hovland’s new 

Stratos mono 

amps 

ULTRA-HIGH-END 

LOUDSPEAKERS 

AND ELECTRONICS 

JONATHAN VALIN 

things considered, this was the 

most interesting CES I’ve been to—not 

just because the sound was on average 

better than usual, but because of three 

trends that together add up to a seismic 

shift in what got shown at the world’s 

biggest high-end audio expo. 

Trend number one was the reduced 

number of exhibitors at the Alexis Park 

and St. Tropez. Usually, virtually every 

room on every level of the AP and ST 

houses a display. This year there was more 

of a “gap-toothed” distribution of exhibits, 

with empty rooms (and empty floors) 

galore. The reason for this is simple: With a 

few exceptions, home-theater systems 

weren’t being shown alongside traditional stereo systems. This 

show was about old-fashioned two-channel audio, above all else. 

Trend two rather proves the point. This year there was more 

analog to be found at both the AP and ST than at any time 

since the early 1980s. It seemed as if everyone was demo’ing 

with vinyl (or, at least, with vinyl and CD), once again reinforcing 

the traditionalist high-end bent of this year’s CES. 

Need more proof? Trend three: There was a lot more veryhigh-priced, 

very-hardcore-high-end two-channel gear at this 

CES than in years past. It was almost as if the middle ground— 

which had been largely taken up by multichannel and dualpurpose 

home-theater rigs—had disappeared. The goodies on 

display here were for the very-well-heeled, analog-loving, twochannel 

audiophile. 

Put all three trends together and what you get, I think, is 

the end of an identity crisis that has been plaguing high-end 

audio shows since the advent of home theater. It’s almost as if 

everyone decided at once that dual-purpose theater systems just 

weren’t what the monied hi-fi buyer wanted to see at a highend 

expo. It was time, instead, to return to two-channel roots, 

and admit that the customers high-end dealers 

really want to court are wealthy audiophiles 

old enough (or young enough) to 

appreciate the glories of analog and the 

superb reproduction of music via 

stereo. I will leave it to others to speculate 

on how this trend jibes with the 

Jadis Orchestra integrated amp 



Time to get off the soapbox and on with the show, 

which was, as noted, mighty good sounding. My 

assignment this year was to report on speakers and 

electronics above $20k. Little did I know that there 

would be so much of both. Below you will find a selection 

of what I heard; my apologies in advance to 

exhibitors I didn’t get the chance to visit or I didn’t 

have the space to comment on. 

I have organized my report by room, listing the 

system and then commenting on it. Remember: This 

is a report on the sound of rooms at a trade show, not 

a series of formal reviews of equipment. 

A multi-armed Transrotor w/Koetsu Bloodline 

Bush economy and the current conservative spirit of this country, 

but there is clearly some sort of fit. 

Other sub-trends which fed this larger one were the ascendance 

of high-priced European high-end gear, 

especially gear from Germany (two-and-a-half 

of my Best Sounds at CES were German systems). 

Given the premium Americans must 

pay for foreign goods, it is clear again that, at 

least at this year’s CES, price was not the 

deterrent it has been at previous shows. Also, 

we are seeing more horn speakers than ever 

before—or speakers that make use of horn 

drivers. Once again, it takes a committed 

audiophile to buy a horn-loaded speaker. 

Handsome though they may be, horns take 

up room and, generally, cost a lot. 

There is an obvious downside to the 

trends at this year’s CES, as well. Lasertargeting 

the very-well-heeled traditionalist 

audiophile is also a tacit concession 

that the high-end market is aging and is 

or will, alas and alack, soon be shrinking. 

But then the high-end market has 

always been small and select—and in 

this economy they are plenty of young 

monied folks who may catch the highend 

fever, just as we did when we were 

young. The reduced number of displays 

may also be a sign of show-exhaustion. 

With CES, CEDIA, Rocky 

Mountain, the two Primedia 

shows, and the innumerable 

Canadian, British, European, and 

Asian expos, resources have to be shepherded in what 

is, after all, a small specialty market. 

Nola I 

Nola Viper Reference ($12k) 

Kuzma Stabi XL Turntable ($18k) 

Kuzma Airline tonearm ($9k) 

Plinius SA-Reference amps ($14.5k) 

Plinius M8 linestage ($7k) 

ASR Basis Exclusiv phonostage ($5690) 

The relatively diminutive Nola Vipers were transparent, but 

brighter than and not as detailed nor as incisively dynamic as 

what I’m used to hearing on the Shostakovich Second Piano 

Concerto LP and other discs. Perhaps the Plinius 

electronics were holding them back because 

the Vipers sounded great with deHavilland 

tube gear at the Rocky Mountain show. 

Von Schweikert I 

Von Schweikert VR-9 SE ($60k) 

Dartzeel amp and preamp ($18k apiece) 

Monaco turntable and Tri-Planar arm 

($18,900) 

This system was one of the great hits of the 

Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. At CES, it 

was less impressive. Part of the reason had 

to be the room, which was about a quarter 

the size of the one in Denver. In any event 

it is clear that these very large speakers 

need space around and behind them to 

show their best. In Vegas, they sounded a 

little “hi-fi” and considerably more forward 

and less expansive and alive than in Denver, 

but still warm, sweet, and solid, though 

they did have a bit of a “cupped hands” coloration 

in the mids and were a little closedin 

on top. Overall, the Von Ses were just 

too syrupy for my taste, at least in the room 

they were in at the AP. 

Kharma’s Mini-Exquisite 



Wisdom Audio/Edge 

Wisdom Audio M-75s ribbons line-source with separate 

cone subwoofers ($52k) 

Edge G CD player ($4788) 

Edge G 2 solid-state preamp ($4788) 

Edge G 8 stereo amplifier ($6588)—subs 

Edge NL12.1 stereo amplifier ($18.5k)—panels 

The M-75s were a little reticent dynamically (which has 

always been the case with Wisdom speakers driven by 

Edge electronics), but had good openness, bloom, and 

neutrality (all of which are also typical of the 

Wisdom/Edge pairing). This year, I thought the integration 

of the outboard subwoofer and the ribbon panel was 

considerably less than ideal. (OTOH, REG thought it 

was the best bass at the show! Go figure.) 

Kuzma Stabi XL turntable and Airline arm 

Calix 

Calix Venus Phoenix Grand horn-loaded loudspeaker ($13k) 

Chord CPM integrated amp 

Chord CD player 

A dynamic horn speaker system, the Calixes are, ultimately, 

prettier to look at than to listen to because of driver integration 

and localization problems. 

TAD 

TAD Model 3 three-way floorstander with concentric 

beryllium mid/tweet and 10" bass drivers ($40k) 

Pass Labs XA600.5 for bass ($12k) 

Pass Labs XA150 for concentric mid/tweet ($20k) 

Keith Johnson custom DAC and TEAC Esoteric transport ($TBD) 

This fancy TAD loudspeaker, with technology borrowed from 

Andrew Jones’ top-of-the-line Model 1, had good focus, con- 

Hiroyasu Kondo, Rest in Peace 

It is with considerable sadness that we report the death of 

Hiroyasu Kondo, founder of Audio Note Japan, who passed 

away in his sleep on January 8, 2006, while attending CES in 

Las Vegas. He is survived by his wife Kazuko, his son Yuji, and 

his daughter Hisae. 

The son of a Buddhist priest, Kondo San was a professor of 

electronic engineering and molecular metallurgy before founding 

Audio Note in Japan in 1976. Famous for his revolutionary use of 

silver in audio equipment, Kondo almost single-handedly revived 

the single-ended-triode amplifier; his 211-based SET, the Ongaku, 

remains the exemplar of Japanese high-end audio. 

TAS Associate Editor Jonathan Valin, who reviewed Audio 

Note’s Neiro and Kegon amplifiers in Fi, says: “It’s both appropriate 

and ironic that Kondo San passed away at the Consumer 

Electronics Show—appropriate because high-end audio was his 

art and ironic because he was as far from making ‘consumer 

electronics’ as a human being could get. He was an artisan like 

Fabergé and Tiffany, and the beautiful things he made, like theirs, 

were fit for czars and kings.” 

Audio Note Japan reports that Kondo San had been in ill health 

for some time. In order to ensure that his standards would be maintained, 

he appointed his close colleague and chief designer Masaki 

Ashizawa as President of Audio Note Japan six months ago. 

Andrew Jones describes the TAD Model 3 



trol, and coherence and very good tight bass. 

Though plenty lively, the Model 3 was not as 

abrasive as TAD speakers have sounded at 

other shows. (But then I wasn’t listening at the 

rocket-launch levels I’ve heard TADs play at in 

other shows.) I was very impressed by the Pass 

electronics, which were neutral and detailed 

and civilized without being polite, making 

these sometimes too-aggressive speakers sound 

less “shouty” than usual. 

Acapella Arts 

Acapella Arts High Violin MkIII three-way 

horn-loaded/hybrid floorstander ($26k) 

Einstein “The Tube” preamplifier ($13.5k) 

Einstein “The Final Cut” monoblock tube 

amplifiers ($25,250/pair) 

To my ear, these gorgeous horn speakers (with 

dynamic woofer) from Germany, driven by gorgeous-looking 

(and sounding) Einstein tube 

electronics, sounded far more like electrostats 

than horns: extremely delicate, beautiful, open, 

transparent, and detailed. Though perhaps a 

little “dark” in overall balance, they were one of 

the better sounds of the show—very close to 

one of the best. Coincidentally, they also represent 

a mini-trend. Although Acapella has been 

making horns for better than thirty years (it 

pioneered the spherical horn), the show saw 

more and more manufacturers using the oldest 

of loudspeaker technologies, the horn driver, as 

a component in some of the newest and most sophisticated 

designs. 

AAA Audio 

AAA Audio XLH Ref 1812 three-way horn-loaded/dynamic 

loudspeaker system ($50k) 

XLH SL-11XS dual-mono preamp ($5k) 

XLH M-2000 monoblock amplifier ($20k/pair) 

Original Leonardo A9.3 CD player ($3k) 

These remarkable-looking speakers from China combine a huge 

horn tweeter (working from 1.8kHz up) with high-quality treated-paper 

midrange and woofer drivers. The sound they produced 

was very live, open, and transparent. I could hear a little localization 

of the horn (unlike the Acapella), and the bass from the 

18" woofer (!) was considerably overblown. The midrange, however, 

was great. On the whole, a promising design. 

Lumen White 

Lumen White Silverflame Precision Monitors ($27,750/pair) 

Ayon Spheris tube preamplifier ($24k) 

Ayon Reference monoblock SET amplifiers ($30k/pair) 

Blue Pearl Audio JEM turntable ($80k) 

Graham Phantom tonearm ($4.4k) 

Lumen 

White 

Silverflame 

Precision 

Lyra Titan cartridge 

Though the presentation on several 

familiar recordings was not quite as spacious 

as what I’m used to, and a little 

closed in on top and dark overall, these 

beautiful jigsaw-piece Austrian speakers 

and superb Austrian tube electronics 

were nevertheless gorgeously detailed 

and gorgeously rich in tone color. One of 

the better sounds of the show, they 

illustrate yet another trend in hi-fi: the 

ascendance of European (particularly 

Austro-German) high end to a position of 

equality with—and in some cases outright 

superiority to—American products. 

Harbeth 

Harbeth “Untitled” floorstanding 

loudspeakers ($TBA) 

Red Point Model D turntable ($16k) 

Tri-Planar MkVII tonearm ($4k) 

Transfiguration Temper cartridge ($4k) 

Naim NAP 112 preamp ($1350) 

Naim NAP 200 amp ($3495) 

A little lacking in dynamics with imaging 

that is slightly miniaturized and flatter 

than life, these new, as yet unnamed multiway 

loudspeakers from Harbeth were 

still strikingly lovely sounding—so 

voluptuous in tone color they reminded 

me of mini-Sonus Faber Stradivarii. The 

Harbeth room illustrated yet another 

trend at CES—the triumphant return of 

analog. No more than a year or two ago, 

you would only find turntables in one out of twenty or thirty 

rooms. This year the digital-only-room was the exception. 

Analog was everywhere, which either means that retailers are 

selling it far more briskly or that the folks who run show demos 

have recovered their hearing. Either way, ain’t it grand! 

Hansen’s newly crowned “The Prince” 



Hansen Audio 

Hansen “The Prince” loudspeaker ($27k) 

VAC Reference preamp ($10k) 

VAC Phi 300 power amp ($15k) 

Redpoint MG turntable ($20k) 

Tri-Planar tonearm ($4k) with Phasteck cartridge 

DCS P-8i CD/SACD player ($14k) 

Dynalab MD109 tuner (approx. $10k) 

Lars Hansen introduced “The Prince” floorstanders, 

slightly smaller versions of the excellent-sounding 

“The Kings” he demo’d at RMAF. 

Immedia 

Sonics PassionS loudspeakers ($27k) 

Alan Perkins Spiral Groove turntable with Immedia 

arm ($20k) 

Lyra Titan cartridge ($4k) 

Lyra Connoisseur 4-2L linestage preamp ($25k) 

Lyra Connoisseur 4-2P phonostage preamp ($25k) 

German designer Joachim Gerhard’s PassionS—a 

modular three-way D’Appolito floorstander that 

looked a bit like a segmented orange slice— 

sounded open but also a bit bright and stressedout 

on heavily modulated passages. The electronics, 

originally designed by Mares Design 

of California, were from the Japanese cartridge-design 

firm Lyra. 

Ridley Audio 

Ridley Audio powered loudspeaker ($TBA) 

Ridley Audio One full-function preamp 

(ca. $15k) 

Ridley Turntable with modified Well-Tempered 

Arm ($TBA) 

These self-powered ribbon/cone hybrid linesource 

loudspeakers were undoubtedly the 

The Sonic 

PassionS 

Up and 

coming— 

Ray Ridley 

best sound I heard at the show from equipment 

that wasn’t yet for sale. The whole system— 

from speakers to amps to preamp to 

turntable—was a prototype designed by 

British engineer Dr. Ray Ridley. The selfpowered 

speakers were particularly fascinating. 

The amp sits atop the columnar speaker 

and is designed to look like an integral element. 

What makes it so fascinating (and 

perhaps part of what made the system so 

good) was a little stroke of genius that, like 

most great ideas, is so simple you wonder 

why no one else thought of it. It dawned on 

Dr. Ridley that all amplifiers—tube and 

solid-state—sound better after their parts 

have “warmed up.” So why not warm them up 

immediately? To this end he literally heats, 

via internal elements, the amp so that the 

components will operate from startup at precisely 

the right temperatures to function optimally. 

I assume the heating element is sensitive 

to ambient temperatures, so that the amount of 

heating depends on the warmth of your room. 

Fanfare International 

Pearl Evolution four-way loudspeaker ($20k) 

ASR Emitter 1 ($15.5k) 

Stibbert Blue Note Mk II CD player ($4950) 

The Pearl/ASR/Stibbert combo was very 

detailed with nice sparkle on the upper octave 

of piano in the Rachmaninoff Third, but it was 

also a little light in the bass and, I thought, slightly 

too homogenized overall. I will have more to say on this 

subject when we come to the ASR Emitter 2/Nola Pegasus 

room later in the report. 

Zanden Audio 

Peak Consult Empress three-way loudspeaker ($25k) 

Zanden 3000 5687-based tube preamp ($15k) 

Zanden 9500 845-based monoblock amplifiers ($40k) 

Zanden 5000 MkIV Signature DAC ($15.5k) 

Zanden 2000P Premium transport ($28k) 

The most analog-like digital I heard at CES. Spacious, lively, 

extraordinarily airy, wonderfully detailed and neutral, 

Zanden electronics from Japanese guru Yamada San (in combination 

with these very nice floorstanding three-ways from 

Denmark, which sound like slightly-more-hooded Kharma 

Reference Monitor 3.2s) are in a class of their own (the Weiss 

Medea DAC excepted) when it comes to making Red Book 

CD sound like LP. Like all digital the presentation was a little 

less three-dimensional in the midband than analog 

(though the room may not have helped here or in the bass, 

which was a little lightweight). One of the better sounds of 

the show. 



E.A.R. 

Martin Miles III loudspeakers ($12.5k) 

E.A.R. 913 preamp ($10k) 

E.A.R. 810 amplifier ($5595) 

E.A.R. Discmaster turntable ($13.5k) 

Helius Omega tonearm Deluxe ($4k) 

Tim de Paravacini’s latest amp and preamp were just plain 

beautiful-sounding. Very detailed and defined, the E.A.R. gear 

was at once the slightest bit dark and bright in balance and perhaps 

a little reticent on really hard transients; nonetheless, tone 

colors were ravishing. 

Acoustic Precision 

Venture CR One loudspeaker ($15k) 

Lamm ML 2.1 SET monoblock amplifiers ($30k) 

Lamm L2 Reference preamp ($15k) 

Metronome Kalista Reference CD transport/C2A 

Signature DAC ($37k) 

Very spacious and detailed (heck, Acoustic Precision was using 

the world’s best low-powered amp with their French speakers 

and French CD player). Like the E.A.R. gear, this wasn’t the 

bloomiest sound I heard from CD (for which see Zanden above 

or Weiss below), but it was still mighty damn fine. 

Zanden 9500 amplifier 

Talon/Joule Electra 

Talon Firehawk Diamond loudspeakers ($32k) 

Joule Electra Rite of Passage OTL monoblock amplifiers ($28k) 

Joule Electra LA150 preamplifier ($5250) 

Joule Electra OPS2 phonostage ($4100) 

In the past I’ve very much liked the Talons, which (like 

Kharma speakers) use high-quality diamond tweeters and 

Accuton ceramic drivers in a three-way configuration. I am 

also a fan of the always-beautiful-sounding Joule Electra electronics. 

While the sound this year was as gorgeous as ever, 

and spacious and nicely detailed to boot, there was a definite 

peak in the midbass (and some glare in the upper mids, too) 

that made for a disappointing presentation. Too bad, because 

this gear is first-rate. 

Nola II 

Nola Pegasus loudspeakers ($50k) 

ASR Emitter II amplifier ($30k) 

Lector CD player ($8500) 

Nola’s new Pegasi were notable for their openness, neutrality, 

and tonal accuracy in the mids. That said, they, like every 

other large Nola I’ve heard at shows, have a bass-driver integration 

problem that simply swamps the speakers’ otherwiseexcellent 

sonics. I need to say something here about the ASR 

Emitter amplifier that was driving the Pegasus. I heard it (or 

versions of it) in several rooms, including several rooms that I 

liked. It is a very low-noise, very detailed device, with worldclass 

reproduction of low-level dynamic and harmonic information. 

It is not, however, in any of the rooms in which I 

heard it on any of the speakers I heard it with, a world-beater 

when it comes to large-scale dynamics and the reproduction 

of bass. It is, in fact, like many battery-powered products (it 

has a battery-powered input stage), rather polite in both these 

regards. I realize that in saying this I am contradicting my 

mentor, HP, whose opinions about audio I value most highly. 

But I think I know why HP doesn’t hear the ASR as I do: In 

his system (and in others), the ASR Emitter II may be com- 

Designer Tim de Paravacini 



Eben Loudspeakers/Radho 

Eben XCentric planar/cone two-way, stand-mounted loudspeaker ($12k) 

Chapter Précis integrated amp ($6800) 

Electroaccompaniet CD player ($5k) 

These cute Danish two-ways from designer Michael Boerresen 

sounded lively and lovely and freed-up in the mids, a little soft 

in the treble, and a little muffled in the bass. The integration 

between planar tweeter and cone mid/bass, though not perfect, 

was acceptably good. Designed to be used as a stand-alone mini 

or the center channel of a surround system. 

E.A.R. Discmaster and Helius Omega arm 

pensating for an excess of Nola bass, its slight politeness 

going unnoticed or actually playing to the strengths of the 

overall presentation. 

Burmester Audiosysteme 

Burmester B100 loudspeaker ($, mucho) 

Burmester 808 MkV preamp ($, see above) 

Burmester 909 monoblock power amp ($, see below) 

Burmester 969 CD transport ($, go to top) 

Burmester 970 SRC DAC ($, see above) 

This very costly, entirely Burmester-designed-and-manufactured 

system was, along with the MBL room, the best all-digital 

display at CES. Though I’ve not been a fan of previous 

Burmester loudspeakers, the B100s sounded terrific this 

year—exceptionally open, extraordinarily detailed, and neutral 

without the customary Burmester chill or bite. Soundstaging 

was superb. Though Burmester digital does not sound analog, 

like Zanden’s and Weiss’ great CD players do, neither does it 

sound dark or lifeless like virtually every other digital device 

on earth. It is its own, quite realistic thing. One of the better 

sounds of the show. 

Coincident Technology/Manley 

Coincident Technology Total Victory II ($13k) 

Manley Steelhead phono preamp ($7300) 

Manley Snapper EL34-based monoblock amplifiers ($4250/pair) 

VPI HRX turntable with Helikon 

cartridge ($10k) 

Audio Aero Prestige CD/SACD player ($14.8k) 

The Total Victory IIs, powered by Manley, were extremely coherentsounding 

at very loud levels, though lacking the deepest bass. 

Jim Wang of Harmonic Technology 

Party Girl EveAnna Manley 



Sound Lab 

Sound Lab M1-PX full-range electrostatic 

loudspeaker ($22,770) 

Parasound amp, preamp, and CD player 

($, affordable) 

Simply gorgeous-sounding, this latest, updated 

version of the Sound Lab M-1 was the best fullrange 

’stat at CES, with incomparably beautiful 

tone color and superb inner detail. Even the bass, 

which has been a touch overblown in past M-1s, sounded 

“right,” though the M-1s are not the kinds of speakers that 

stage outside the “box.” You need space for these babies and 

height, too. As in past demos, the affordable Parasound electronics 

the M-1s were paired with drove these ’stats extremely 

well, proving that you don’t have to spend a fortune on amps, 

preamps, and CD players to get a world-class system. One of 

the better sounds of the show. 

Artemis Labs 

Triangle Australe loudspeaker ($5800) 

Artemis Lab LA-1 linestage preamp ($2850) 

Artemis Lab PL-1 phonostage preamp ($3550) 

Artemis Labs SP-1 amplifier ($11,400) 

Galibier Design Stelvio turntable with Schroeder Reference 

arm ($17,550) 

The Triangle loudspeakers were neutral, open, and transparent, 

with very nice bass down to 50Hz but a slight (probably roominduced) 

discontinuity in the upper bass. The Galibier 

turntable, which sounded terrific at the Rocky Mountain show, 

was again impressive, as were the 

Artemis electronics. 

Chapter Précis 

integrated amp 

MAGICO 

MAGICO Mini ($22k) 

Convergent Audio Technology JC-1 

monoblock amplifiers ($20k) 

Edge Signature One battery-powered 

linestage preamp ($15k) 

We come now to the first of my Best 

Sound at CES award-winners. These 

exquisitely made, stand-mounted twoways 

from ultra-perfectionist designer 

Alon Wolf have everything I most prize 

about loudspeakers: liveliness, neutrality, 

openness, bloom, presence, natural size 

and scale, and seamless, single-driver 

coherence. On top of their Kharma-grade 

disappearing act and soundstaging, the 

Minis have terrific bass for a two-way (down to 

about 50Hz, I’d reckon) and extraordinarily natural 

tone color (the most realistic vocals I heard 

at the show on Wayne Garcia’s Wilco CD). I have 

to say a word or two about the electronics, as 

well. Alon happened to be using “my” Edge preamp 

(the review sample I shipped to CES), which, as I’ve 

noted, is a wonder when it comes to reproducing tone colors 

and the natural size and bloom of instruments and voices, but 

isn’t (like all battery-powered stuff) the last word in dynamics 

or bass. Happily, he was also using Ken Stevens’ JC-1 

monoblocks, which are close to the last words in each. 

Simultaneously among the most dynamic and most delicate of 

pentode tube amplifiers, the JC-1s were able, in combination 

with the preamp and speakers, to reproduce the physical scale 

and “action” of the real thing. A truly wonderful stereo system. 

Audio Research Corporation 

Wilson Audio Specialties Sophia Series 2 ($12k) 

ARC Reference 3 tube linestage preamp ($10k) 

ARC Reference 210 monoblock tube amplifiers ($20k/pair) 

ARC Reference PH-7 phonostage 

preamp ($5995) 

VPI Super Scoutmaster turntable/JMW arm 

The three words I wrote down, after 

hearing a trio of my favorite LPs played 

back on the ARC/Wilson system, were 

“gorgeous-ity,” “bloom,” and “depth,” 

all of which this system had in spades. 

Indeed, the Audio Research/Wilson gear 

was the only combo that reproduced the 

piano in my Prokofiev LP at the proper 

depth and distance from the violin. 

Were it not for the fact that I am not 

wild about the Sophias’ tonal palette, 

the ARC system would’ve been a shoein 

for one of my Best Sound at CES 

awards. But the speakers were just a little 

too dark and opaque for my taste. 

Even at that, they couldn’t conceal the 

glory of the electronics. So, for its quality 

alone, the ARC Ref 3/210/PH-7 phono combo 

earns one of my Best Electronics at CES awards. 

(BTW, that Super Scoutmaster is a helluva turntable!) 

MAGICO Mini 



Ascendo 

Ascendo Systems M/S three-way ribbon/cone hybrid 

loudspeaker ($45k) 

Convergent Audio Technology SL-1 Ultimate preamplifier ($9k) 

Convergent Audio Technology JL-3 Signature monoblock 

amplifiers ($36k) 

Reimyo CD player ($13k) 

Though these ingeniously time-aligned ribbon/cone 

hybrids from Germany didn’t image much outside their 

boxes, spreading sounds between the speakers but not 

far beyond them, they still evinced gorgeous tone color 

with simply marvelous reproduction of strings (both 

the string itself and the body of the instrument) on the 

Barber Violin Concerto, tremendous dynamic power, 

and great low-level detail. Part of their excellence, I’m convinced, 

was due to the driving electronics from Ken 

Stevens, who, for his showing here and in the MAGICO 

room, earns my second Best Electronics at CES award. 

Despite the slightly curtailed soundstage, the Ascendos 

were certainly one of the better sounds of the show, narrowly 

missing a Best Sound award. (P.S. The Reimyo CD 

player was also fabulous.) 

Avalon/Hovland 

Avalon Acoustics Eidolon Diamond loudspeakers ($33k) 

Hovland HP-200 full-function tube preamplifier ($9500) 

Hovland Stratos solid-state monoblock amplifiers ($34k) 

Hovland-modified 

Kenwood LO-7D 

turntable with Grado 

Statement cartridge 

I haven’t been a fan of 

Avalon Eidolon Diamonds, 

but they certainly 

showed well this 

year driven by Hovland 

electronics. Light in 

balance, they were airy, 

nimble, articulate, and 

fast-sounding. On the 

Prokofiev sonata LP, 

they came very close to 

the lifelike sound I hear 

in my own system at 

home. Cooler than the 

Ascendos and not as 

voluptuous in tone 

color, they are 

realistic in their own 

right, with wonderful integration 

of their drivers. Certainly, 

one of the better sounds at CES 

Eben XCentric 

Convergent 

Audio 

Technology JC-1 

and, like the Sound Labs, Lumen Whites, and Ascendos, razorclose 

to one of the very best. 

Signals-SuperFi 

Peak Consult Zoltan loudspeaker ($37k) 

Continuum Audio Labs Caliburn turntable/tonearm/isolation-rack 

system ($90k) 

Wavac HE-833 v1.3 SET amplifiers 

Boulder 2008 phonostage preamp 

Boulder 2010 linestage preamp 

This 90 grand turntable/tonearm didn’t sound sixty grand better 

than a Walker Proscenium Gold, IMO. 

Jeff Rowland Design Group 

MAGICO Minis ($22k) 

Rowland 302 solid-state stereo amplifier ($14.8k) 

Rowland Synergy full-function solid-state preamplifier ($6200) 

SME Model 20 turntable with SME 4 arm and some farchachdat 

strain-gauge cartridge 

Jeff Rowland was having some trouble with his strain-gauge cartridge, 

which may have contributed to the slightly smoothedout, 

less lively, more homogeneous sound of the MAGICO Minis 

in this room. For instance, while the violin and piano of the 

Prokofiev sonata LP had good meat on their bones, they didn’t 

have the life they should have had—and did have—in other 

exhibits. Nor did the speakers seem to have the same reach and 

coherence in the bass that they had in Alon Wolf’s room. 

DALI Loudspeakers 

DALI Megalines ($40k) 

McIntosh electronics ($God only knows) 

This room was a true disappointment, since the ribbon/cone 

hybrid Megalines are among my favorite linesource loudspeakers. 

With McIntosh driving them, they sounded wiry, flat, and boomy 

on the Barber Violin Concerto—a hard feat to accomplish with a 



Avantgarde Acoustic 

Avantgarde Duo Omega two-way spherical-horn loudspeakers with 

dynamic subwoofer ($27k) 

Avantgarde One.A solid-state monoblock amps ($40k) 

Avantgarde One.P solid-state preamp ($30k) 

Weiss Medea DAC ($18k) 

In the past, the only Avantgarde spherical-horn/dynamic-sub 

loudspeakers I’ve truly liked have been the three-way Trios. This 

year, however, I was absolutely floored by the two-way Duo 

Audio 

Research 

Reference 610T 

disc this gorgeous, but DALI, Mc, and AP sonics managed it. 

Ayre Acoustics Inc. 

JBL K2 S9800se loudspeakers ($30k) 

Ayre P-5xe phono preamp ($2350) 

Ayre K-1xe linestage preamp ($7k) 

Ayre MX-R monoblock power amps ($TBA) 

Ayre C-5xe universal disc-player ($TBA) 

SME Model 20 turntable with SME Model IV.Vi tonearm and SME 

Celebration cartridge ($15k) 

Seeing JBL loudspeakers at the Alexis Park certainly took me 

by surprise. But these numbers are rarities, usually available 

only in Japan—three-way floorstanders with horn-loaded 

supertweeters and horn-loaded mid/tweeters and 15" ported 

woofers. The sound was surprisingly smooth and well integrated, 

but, alas, not very alive. 

Chord CPA 4000 preamplifier 

JONATHAN VALIN’S Best of Show 


The ARC PH-7 Phono and Reference CD-7, which (along with the 

Reference 3 preamp and Reference 210/610T amps) completes 

ARC’s fabulous new suite of Reference electronics, and the 

Avantgarde One.A amp and One.P preamp, which worked wonders 

with Avantgarde’s Duo Omega horn loudspeakers. 


Though I was greatly impressed with Lumen White Precision loudspeakers 

and the Ayon electronics, the Ascendo ribbon/cone 

hybrid loudspeakers, and the Sound Lab M1-PX electrostats, the 

Mini-Exquisite two-way loudspeakers from Kharma would get the 

nod from me. 


The good old 33rpm long-playing vinyl record. New, used, or reissued 

it just comes closer to the sound of the real deal. 


The Andante of Prokofiev’s First Violin Sonata [Salerno- 

Sonnenberg/Rivers, Musicmasters LP], the Andante of 

Shostakovich’s Second Piano Concerto [Ogdon/Foster, EMI LP], 

the Allegro of Kodály’s Duo for Violin and Cello [Hajdu/Déri, 

Hungaraton LP], “All My Trials” from PP&M’s In the Wind [Warner 

LP], “All the Love in the World” from Nine Inch Nails’ With Teeth 

[Halo LP]—all discs that I brought to the show. 


The best value system I heard (and remember because my 

assignment was the ultra-high end, I didn’t hear a lot of lowerpriced 

gear) comprised the Tonian Acoustics TL-D1 ribbon/cone 

hybrid two-way floorstanding loudspeakers ($1500) driven by 

Stellavox (Goldmund/JOB) monoblock amplifiers ($3000) and a 

Marantz PM17 player ($1700). The sound was simply swell for 

about $6k. 


As noted, the amount of very pricey two-channel-only gear and the 

number of rooms equipped with analog playback equipment were 

the biggest surprises. 


Perhaps it is a testament to the general quality of the show, but 

there wasn’t one system that stood head-and-shoulders above all 

other (as for instance, the MBL 101 Es did last year). My four best 

sounds—the MAGICO Minis driven by Edge/CAT electronics, the 

Avantgarde Duo Omegas driven by Avantgarde electronics, the 

Kharma Mini-Exquisites driven by MBL/Kharma gear, and the MBL 

116 Elegances driven by MBL components—were all stand-outs. 



Reimyo CD player; Avantgarde’s Duo Omega 

Omegas, driven by 

Avantgarde’s superb electronics 

and fed by “my” 

Weiss Medea DAC (the 

review sample I shipped 

to the show). Either the 

new Avant-garde electronics 

are eliminating 

previous coherence and 

coloration issues or the 

speakers themselves have 

been greatly improved or 

both, because past problems 

with woofer/horn 

integration didn’t crop up, 

nor did driver-localization 

troubles (wherein sounds 

seem to be pinned to individual 

horns), nor did 

“cupped-hand” horn colorations. 

The presentation 

was, in fact, superb: lively 

as hell, transparent as 

glass, detailed as all 

get-out, and as 

neutral as you can 

find in a horn-loaded 

JBL K2 

speaker (short of MAGICO’s 

monsters). Avantgarde’s 

owner Holger Fromme and 

his ace-designer Matthias Ruff have clearly outdone 

themselves, reaching a new plateau of horn-loudspeaker 

excellence, for which they earn my second 

Best Sound at CES award and, also, one of my Best 

Electronics at CES awards for the tremendous improvements 

their phenomenal preamp and amp have made to 

the sound of their speakers. (The preamp is battery-powered, 

BTW, but with speakers as inherently dynamic as the Duo 

Omegas any slight politeness—coupled with the extremely low 

noise floor of the battery-powered One.P—only worked in this 

high-sensitivity system’s favor.) 

Von Schweikert II 

Von Schweikert VR-7 SE loudspeakers ($36k) 

VAC Renaissance MkII full-function tube preamplifier ($9k) 

VAC Renaissance Signature 140 triode-tube monoblock 

amplifiers ($14k) 

Oracle Delphi Mk V turntable with SME 345 tonearm ($10k) 

This Von S/VAC system had lovely presence on the Prokofiev 

sonata LP, with very good attack and adequate decay on the 

lower octaves of the piano. Though a little thick in the midbass 

and a little down on top, it had nice midband transparency, 

too. Like the E.A.R system, this was among the 

most gorgeous of sounds at the AP; it was, nonetheless, not 

among the most realistic, being a bit prettier than life and 

not as wide-range. 

Genesis Advanced 

Technologies 

Genesis G3 ribbon/cone 

hybrid linesource loudspeaker 

($30k) 

It was a pleasure to 

see Arnie 

Nudell’s work 

back at the 

show—with 

the old familiar 

circular ribbon 

tweeters, 

newly designed 

midbass couplers, 

and sidemounted 

servo-woofers. 

Bass, as you would 

expect from Genesis, 

was very deep 

and powerful 

and, as you 

might not 

expect, fairly well 

integrated. Depth 

was good; width 

somewhat constricted. 

Overall 

balance was 

problematical, 

with a bit too 

much tweet 

and woof for 

my taste. 



MBL’s 116 Elegance 

GTT Audio 

Kharma Mini-Exquisite two-way floorstanding 

loudspeaker ($45k) 

MBL 6010 D solid-state stereo preamplifier 

($19k) 

MBL 1611-E Reference DAC ($21.5k) 

MBL 1621 Reference CD transport ($21k) 

Kharma MP150-SE monoblock amplifiers 

($6800) 

We come now to my third Best Sound at 

CES award winner and it happens to be 

another two-way. (Curious, ain’t it?) Though 

its tonal balance is nothing like that of the 

MAGICO Mini, it shares with that remarkable 

stand-mounter those virtues that I most 

prize in speakers, which, once again, are: 

liveliness, neutrality, openness, bloom, presence, 

natural size and scale, and seamless, 

single-driver coherence. The Mini-Exquisites 

are improved-upon versions of the Kharma 

Reference Monitor 3.2s that were my reference 

speakers for two years and are currently 

Wayne Garcia’s reference speakers. Since I 

know the sound of the 3.2s almost by heart, 

I can assure you that these are, in fact, 

improved. Equipped with diamond tweeters, 

an even better ceramic mid/bass driver, and 

an Exquisite-level cabinet, they were stunning 

to hear. A more detailed loudspeaker 

will be hard to find and so, in this case, will 

be a more beautiful-sounding one. Driven by 

what I consider to be the world’s best solidstate 

preamp, the MBL 6010 D (for which, 

see below), and Kharma’s own superb Class 

D monoblocks, this was a sound I could live 

with and Wayne Garcia (lucky man) will, as 

he is slated to review the Mini-Exquisites. 

Brace yourselves for a rave. 

MBL of America 

MBL 116 Elegance 4-way loudspeakers ($20k) 

MBL 5011 solid-state preamp ($8.4k) 

MBL 9007 solid-state stereo amplifier ($13.3k) 

MBL 1521 A ($8.9k)/1511 E DAC ($9.1k) 



As I hear them every day and know their incredible virtues, 

I didn’t audition my own reference speakers—the 101 Es— 

which MBL had set up in an adjoining room. (I’m told that 

they weren’t quite as mind-boggling this year as they have 

been for the last two in a row, but I’m sure they were still 

plenty boggling.) Instead, I listened long and hard to MBL’s 

second line of gear and all I can say, again, is “Wow!” Even 

upon coming from room after room of very fine gear generating 

very fine sonics, as soon as I heard the 116s start to play 

I felt as if I’d stepped from a hi-fi store into a concert hall. To 

my ears, even at this slightly reduced quality level, MBL is 

still high among the fullest-range, most alive-sounding 

music-reproducing equipment that money can buy. The 

116s’ bass was through the floor, its midrange was just plain 

realistic, and its treble was, as all Radialstrahler treble is, 

nonpareil. So, my final Best Sound at CES award goes to the 

MBL 116 room and my final Best Electronics at CES award 

also goes to MBL, not only for the gear I heard playing in its 

own display but for the phenomenal 6010 D that I heard in 

Bill Parish’s GTT Audio room. 

& 

Photographs by Leonard Norwitz (www.lensphoto.com), with supplementary 

shots in their sections by RH, JH, CM, DS, and AT.

T A S J O U R N A L 

Basic Repertoire 

Southern African and West African Pop 

Derk Richardson 

The third in an occasional series that highlights the “basic 

repertoire” of a particular music by identifying the recorded 

essentials. 

While thousands, if not millions, of 

pop music fans in the United 

States gained their initial exposure 

to African pop music in 

1986 through the vehicle of Paul 

Simon’s Grammy-winning Graceland album, the 

taste provided by the globetrotting singer-songwriter’s 

groundbreaking disc and subsequent tour 

was not only diluted in Simon’s shimmering 

and ethnically eclectic folk-pop, but 

was also as narrow as it was buoyant and 

emotionally uplifting. The primary African 

influence on Graceland was South African, 

represented most prominently by the male 

vocal ensemble Ladysmith Black 

Mambazo. (Senegalese superstar Youssou 

N’Dour was overdubbed onto “Diamonds on the Soles of Her 

Shoes,” but it would take a collaborative 1987 tour with that 

even more ambitious pop promoter of world music, Peter 

Gabriel, to break N’Dour onto the international scene.) 

If listeners had strictly followed Simon’s lead, they might 

have rediscovered the resurgent Miriam Makeba and Hugh 

Masekela, who both joined the Graceland tour, and might have 

made further investigations into South African pop music rooted 

in the Zulu a cappella singing (isicathamiya) of Ladysmith 

Black Mambazo—plus such styles as marabi and kwela, the precursors 

that led to mbaqanga and township jive. That, of course, 

would have yielded plenty to enjoy, including music by 

Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens, the Boyoyo Boys, and 

others. But just as Graceland was neither the first nor last 

attempt to fuse African and Western musical styles, so even a 

deep dip into South African popular music hardly penetrates 

the surface of what the African continent has to offer. 

African pop music was being disseminated to the West well 

before Simon scored a cassette copy of Gumboots: Accordion Jive 

Hits, Volume II from a friend. Musicologist John Storm Roberts 

had been studying and gathering the Afro-pop sounds that originated 

in the 1950s, and founded his seminal Original Music 

record label in the 1970s; Fela Anikulapo Kuti made his first 

trip from Lagos, Nigeria, to Los Angeles in 1971, hipping the 

hipsters to his funky and political Afrobeat sounds; and by 

1982, the potentate of Nigerian juju music, King Sunny Adé, 

had been signed to Chris Blackwell’s Mango label 

and was poised to break big—by virtue of albums 

and tours—in the U.S. 

In the 20 years since the release of Graceland, the 

many genres and subgenre variations of African pop 

have become ever more familiar to the growing 

legions of “world music” fans in the West. When you 

consider that even in a somewhat more politically 

and socially cohesive country like the United States you have 

great disparities in popular music styles—from Memphis soul 

to Seattle grunge, Delta blues to Southern California surf, to 

name but a few—the task of building a representative repertoire 

of African pop is daunting. Even confining a survey of 

essential recordings to southern and western Africa (for the 

time being sidestepping the fertile cultures of the northern, 

eastern, and central regions) yields a plethora of bright, bubbling, 

poignant, and politicized regional genres, styles, and 

artists as crucial cornerstones for any African pop collection. 

SOUTHERN AFRICA 

Largely because of the long and ultimately victorious struggle 

against apartheid, South Africa has been in the cultural spotlight 

longer and more consistently than most other African 

nations. Its music industry is nearly 100 years old, with commercial 

recording dawning in 1912, and Eric Gallo founding 

the country’s first professional studio in the 1930s. By then, 

African-American musicians were already making the transatlantic 

voyage to entertain in South African cities, and gospel 

and jazz influences were merging with the indigenous traditions 

of the Zulu, Sothos, and Xhosa peoples—a tendency that 

would continue with the assimilation of rock, soul, disco, reggae, 

and hip-hop as the century progressed. 

South African jazz artists—including trumpeter Masekela, 

singer Makeba, pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, and saxophonist 

Dudu Pukwana—were among the first to travel (and exile themselves) 

to the U.S. and Europe in the early 1960s. Makeba—a.k.a. 

“Mama Africa,” whose life journey included playing for President 

Kennedy, testifying against apartheid at the U.N., collaborating 


with Harry Belafonte, and marrying and living in Guinea with 

black-power leader Stokely Carmichael—reconciled with her 

folk heritage on the enthralling 1988 comeback album Sangoma 

[Warner Bros.]. Although the production seems to 

strive more for the gloss of mainstream ’80s pop, and 

Makeba’s seasoned and sometimes raspy vocals are 

overdubbed into choral tapestries that don’t always 

ring true, the singing, punctuated by sharp, surprising, 

and sonically crisp tongue clicks, is nothing less 

than inspirational. 

The vocal arrangements on Sangoma are indebted 

to mbube, a choral style rooted in the male vocal groups that 

competed with one another in Zulu mining communities. The 

four-part harmonies crossed over into the pop realm on 

Soloman Linda’s 1939 hit song that the U.S. came to know as 

“Wimoweh,” as recorded by the Weavers in 1950, and “The 

Lion Sleep Tonight,” the Tokens’ hit of 1961. As the tradition 

grew more refined, it came to be known as isicathamiya (meaning 

“to step lightly on one’s toes”). Under the leadership of 

Joseph Shabalala, it was Ladysmith Black Mambazo that 

became—and still remains—the most renowned promulgator 

of the lush ensemble style. Though the group has released more 

than 40 albums—plus a string of high-profile collaborations, 

with Bill Withers, the English Chamber Orchestra, Emmylou 

Harris, Taj Mahal, and others—1999’s superbly recorded Live 

at the Royal Albert Hall [Shanachie] stands out for its delightfully 

spirited and sonically generous representation 

of the simultaneously rugged and velvety textures of 

the men’s layered voices. 

On the gruffer end of the vocal spectrum, Simon 

“Mahlathini” Nkabinde earned his moniker—“the 

Lion of Soweto”—by virtue of his deep “groaning” 

style and forbidding stage presence. Recruited in 

1965 by producer Rupert Bopape to front the powerful 

Makhona Tsohle band, with the Mahotella Queens added 

for entertaining dance moves and harmony vocals, the former 

church choir and township band singer rode the new, harddriving 

mbaqanga sound to stardom. Mahlathini and the 

Mahotella Queens dubbed their dance-augmented style 

mqashiyo (“to bounce”), and Mahlathini’s contributions to 

1986’s indispensable landmark anthology The Indestructible Beat 

of Soweto [Shanachie/Earthworks] burned their way into western 

listeners’ consciousness. As the Graceland juggernaut got 

rolling, and older township styles gained new credibility with 

younger audiences, Mahlathini, the Mahotella Queens, and a 

reunited Makhona Tsohle band (featuring phenomenal guitarist 


Marks Mankwane and rock-solid bassist Joseph Makwela) hit 

the international touring circuit and in 1989, ten years before 

“the Lion” died, recorded Paris: Soweto [Polydor], an album that 

benefits more than it suffers from its high-sheen audio, which 

enhances the dance drive while polishing the edges. 

South Africa gained independence from England in 1934, 

but white minority rule was not overthrown until 1994. 

Zimbabwe, South Africa’s neighbor to the north, declared independence 

from English colonial rule in 1965, and another 15 

years of struggle by the Shona and Ndebele was necessary to dislodge 

the minority leadership. The liberation movement gave 

rise to cultural nationalism that sought to recover long-suppressed 

tribal traditions. In music, the players most 

audible to western ears have been Thomas Mapfumo 

and Oliver Mtukudzi. Before forming his band 

Blacks Unlimited, Mapfumo absorbed a tremendous 

array of musical influences—the Shona mbira (metal 

thumb piano) music of his rural upbringing, South 

African jazz, Congolese rumba, and English and 

American rock and soul. With Blacks Unlimited, 

Mapfumo transposed mbira lines to electric guitars and sang 

rebellious songs with such titles as “Mothers, Send Your 

Children to War.” He called his sound chimurenga, after the 

Shona word for struggle. His singles became virtual anthems 

during the civil war and have been reissued on several anthologies, 

including 1984’s rousing Chimurenga Singles [Shanachie]. 

The recording quality is inconsistent, but message and danceability 

ring loud and clear. A restless and continually outspoken 

spirit, Mapfumo eventually reintroduced mbiras into his band, 

continued to denounce corrupt political leaders after independence, 

and finally exiled himself to the northwestern United 

States, broadening his collaborations to include avant-garde 

trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and guitarist Henry Kaiser. 

Where Mapfumo’s music immediately interested Western 

world-beat fans who responded to the potent mix of political 

content and updated traditional elements, 

Mtukudzi has enjoyed a broader cross-cultural 

appeal since the worldwide release of his 1999 

album, Tuku Music. Thematically, he takes a lowerkey 

approach than Mapfumo when addressing the 

travails of everyday life in Zimbabwe. Musically, he 

is more catholic in his resources, which include 

South African pop, gospel vocal harmonies, and 

R&B. Above all, Mtukudzi (“Tuku,” for short) is a soul man, a 

singer-songwriter/guitarist with an appealingly rough voice 

that draws frequent comparisons to Otis Redding and Toots 


Hibbert. His ethos of interconnectedness manifests most radiantly 

on 2002’s Vhunze Moto [Putumayo], notable for its successful 

keyboard-buoyed crossover moves, crisp and 

richly textured sound, and ready-for-radio sonics 

that convey tightness but not compression. 

The cross-fertilization of styles between 

Zimbabwe and South Africa is a common phenomenon 

across the continent, where national boundaries 

are rarely more than crude demarcations that don’t 

necessarily correspond to the cultural geography of 

tribal history and tradition. The island nation of Madagascar 

does have natural borders, and isolated as it is off the eastern 

coast of southern Africa in the Indian Ocean, it is home to 

thousands of endemic plant and animal species. But 

Madagascar also harbors a multiculturalism that should make 

any American activist think twice about using the word. The 

island’s 16 million people (and 18 ethnic groups) descend from 

continental Africans, Polynesians, Malaysians, Southeast 

Asians, and Arabs, and their music reflects this mix. While lilting 

melodies and complex interlocking rhythms seem common 

to most of the folk and commercial styles rounded up on Henry 

Kaiser and David Lindley’s comprehensive three-volume series, 

A World Out of Time: Henry Kaiser & David Lindley in Madagascar 

[Shanachie], shockingly well-recorded in 1992, the instrumentation 

ranges from acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards, and 

percussion to valiha (zither), the mandolin-like kabosy, and sodina 

(flute). Although some of the bigger stars have 

toured off the island since their recordings became 

internationally available, the names Rossy, Dama 

Mahaleo, Rakoto Frah, D’Gary, and Tarika Sammy 

have hardly ensconced themselves on the western 

radar in any way commensurate with the tremendous 

marvels of their music. 

Bandleader/guitarist Jaojoby has a slightly better 

chance, partly because his few recordings have been picked up 

for European and international distribution, and partly because 

his magnetic personality and magnetic lead vocals, the 

enthralling backup singing by family members and friends, and 

the unshowy virtuosity of his guitar-heavy band, make his 12/8- 

time salagy dance music sound less complex than it really is. The 

full-bodied 2004 recording Malagasy [World Village], with its 

sparkling and well-rounded sonics, captures much of the excitement 

and all of the endearing sweetness of a Jaojoby concert. 

WEST AFRICA 

When a homegrown world-beat movement started to materialize 

in the U.S. in the early 1980s, many of its practitioners, such 

as the Looters and Big City in the San Francisco Bay Area, found 


their inspiration in the pop music of West Africa, especially the 

politically charged Afro-Beat of Nigerian superstar Fela 

Anikulapo Kuti. Itself a hybrid of the indigenous and the 

imported—the longstanding West African pop form known as 

“highlife” plus the hardcore African- 

American funk of James Brown—Fela’s 

Afro-Beat was characterized by deep, 

extended grooves driven by electric guitars, 

keyboards, bass, drums, and hand percussion, 

and punctuated with crisp horn section 

blasts and jazzy saxophone solos. Fela, 

who was born in 1938, had dozens of wives, 

and died in 1997 (from complications attributed to AIDS), 

sharpened the edge of his fundamentally dance-oriented music 

with lyrics that challenged his country’s political and economic 

leadership, and represented the interests of his region’s poor 

and disenfranchised. As a consequence, he experienced severe 

persecution, including raids on his family compound and 

imprisonment. Fela’s big bands, under such names as Africa 

70 and Egypt 80, often swelled to as many as 30 members and 

indulged in extended jazz-inflected jams that could occasionally 

grind down into boring ruts or, more often, maintain a 

thrillingly high level of explosive tension. 

Although he has been succeeded on the international music 

scene by his son Femi Kuti, and his musical legacy continues to 

thrive stateside, most notably in the New York-based Antibalas 

Afrobeat Orchestra, Fela was a unique force, and his musical 

innovations should be experienced in their original form. 

Fortunately, MCA’s massive turn-of-the-century Fela reissue 

program included 2000’s The Best of Fela Kuti, a two-CD set 

that squeezes 13 songs (some edited down from half-hour versions) 

into just over an hour and a half. Cornerstones of Fela’s 

repertoire such as “Lady,” “Zombie,” “No Agreement,” and 

“Army Arrangement” are represented, and though they 

embody 17 years of recording, from 1972 through 1989, and 

are of slightly varying sound quality, most tracks boast clean 

definition of the critical elements: guitars, 

horns, percussion, and the leader’s inflammatory 

vocals. 

The highlife music out of which Fela’s 

Afro-Beat grew was a seminal fusion of traditional 

African rhythms (rooted in the 

drumming of the Yoruba, Ashanti, and 

Ewe peoples) and modern western sounds. 

Military brass band music, calypso, and Cuban son were among 

the first ingredients stirred into the pot by such practitioners as 

Ghana trumpeter E.T. Mensah. American swing entered the 

mix during World War II, and highlife remained the dominant 


Youssou N'Dour 

dance music in Ghana and Nigeria until new variations arose in the 1970s. One of the 

most endearing and popular progeny of highlife was juju—dance music with layers of 

interlocking guitar parts weaving in and out of powerful polyrhythms churned up by 

a percussion section that usually has Yoruban talking drums at the forefront. Although 

juju music’s roots extend back to the 1920s and ’30s, the ability to plug in and amplify 

guitars in the 1950s made all the difference—a difference first exploited by I.K. 

Dairo, the father of the modern large juju ensemble. (He called his the Morning Star 

Orchestra, and later, the Blue Spots.) 

But it was the competition between two popular giants of Nigerian juju in the 

1970s that ignited the music’s explosion onto the international scene. Chief 

Commander Ebenezer Obey and King Sunny Adé (born Sunday Adéniyi in 1946) vied 

to dominate the Nigerian marketplace, cranking out several recordings annually. And 

while Obey reached far-flung audiences with his 1980 LP Current Affairs, Adé enjoyed 

the patronage of Island Records impresario Chris Blackwell, who issued 1982’s breakthrough 

overview, Juju Music, and cast the charismatic Adé as the West African successor 

to reggae hero Bob Marley. 

With its insistent pulse, lilting melodies, chant-like choral singing, and instrumental 

subtleties (accordion, keyboards, and even pedal-steel guitar add intriguing 

colors and textures to the mix), juju music is especially infectious. That of Adé and His 

African Beats is the most beguiling of all. Purists can debate the “compromises” he 

made to sell himself to non-African listeners (and they will find much satisfaction in 

the 2003 Shanachie Records anthology of tunes from 1967-74, The Best of the Classic 

Years), but as universally appealing pop music, it’s hard to beat 1983’s Synchro System 

[Mango]. Consolidating the success of his now-legendary 1982 U.S. tour, Adé hooked 

up with French keyboardist/producer Martin Meissonnier and made an album that is 

sonically sizzling and sophisticated, with drums, guitars, and harmony singers buoying 

Adé’s sweet, enchanting lead vocals. 

While Nigeria and South Africa produced the pop music that most successfully 

penetrated the global consciousness in the 1980s, less populous nations whose bloodlines 

extend back to the great Empire of Mali of the 13 th , 14 th , and 15 th centuries 

spawned the biggest international stars of the 1990s and the early 21 st century. Of the 

15 countries that make up modern West Africa, Senegal, Guinea, and Mali have catapulted 

an extraordinary number of musicians to superstardom. Some descend from 

Sundjata Keita—the founder of the Malian empire and cultural hero of the Mande (or 

Mandinka, Manding, or Malinke) people—and others from the griots (a caste of professional 

oral historians in the Mali Empire) whom he inspired to develop and pass 

down the oral tradition of bearing witness to history, singing the praises of benefactors, 

and providing entertainment. The pivotal traditional instruments—the xylophone-like 

balafon, the lute-like n’goni, and the harp-like kora—have sustained their presence over 


the centuries, and the griot (or jeli) tradition of declamatory 

singing is carried on to spine-tingling effect by many of the 

most popular contemporary performers. Between the modern 

griot-tradition vocalists and the virtuoso instrumentalists (especially 

guitarists and kora players), West 

Africans have stepped forward to claim a 

predominant position in African pop. 

The most recognizable voice belongs to 

Senegal’s Youssou N’Dour, who followed up 

his world tour with Peter Gabriel by joining 

the Amnesty International Human Rights 

Now! Tour in 1988 and releasing albums 

that succeeded in internationalizing the mbalax pop music he 

made with his Super Étoiles band. A stirring, flexible singer 

with command of five languages (including his native Wolof, 

French, and English), N’Dour has sometimes gone overboard in 

catering to western tastes, but he made what has now become 

an almost obligatory return to roots on 2002’s Nothing’s in Vain 

(Coono du Reer) [Nonesuch], an album that succeeds in showcasing 

his amazing band and spectacular singing. Airy, punchy 

sonics do justice to every instrument and complex grooves. 

Unlike N’Dour, who descended from griots on his mother’s 

side, Salif Keita was born into noble lineage in Mali, but 

he nonetheless chose a career as a professional singer. Like 

N’Dour, he soon distinguished himself with his powerful 

voice, a sometimes-raw sounding instrument, akin to that of a 

high-pitched blues shouter. In 1970, he joined the legendary 

Rail Band, which featured the masterful guitarist Djelimady 

Tounkara and was sponsored by the Malian Railway 

Company to provide stewardship for Mali’s indigenous kora 

and balafon music. Keita left two years later (succeeded by 

another future superstar, Mory Kanté) and founded Les 

Ambassadeurs, taking a plunge into fusion that became full 

immersion when he moved to Paris in 1984. If some of 

Keita’s recordings—such as 1992’s Amen, a collaboration 

with Weather Report’s Joe Zawinul, and 1999’s Papa, coproduced 

by Vernon Reid—sound more 

like jazz and rock than African pop despite 

a consistent thread of the Arabic influences 

present in the Wassoulou region of southern 

Mali, they still garnered Grammy 

nominations and helped build an international 

following that one hopes stuck with 

him for 2002’s transcendently beautiful 

Moffou [Universal]. Though not a total return to roots, the 

record’s toned-down dynamics (captured with clean, spacious 

21 st century high fidelity) give Keita’s singing a luminous 

presence, even amidst 23 instrumentalists and singers. 


N’Dour and Keita’s younger distaff counterpart in vocal 

brilliance, Oumou Sangaré, rose to stardom in 1990 when she 

sold more than a quarter-million copies of her album Moussolou. 

Born in the Malian capital of Bamako, Sangaré used the 

Wassoulou musical idioms of her family heritage to express the 

social and cultural concerns of modern African women. On 

1996’s international breakthrough, Worotan [Nonesuch], 

Sangaré brought soul-jazz saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis and a horn 

section into an essentially acoustic mix. The two-CD anthology 

Oumou [Nonesuch] includes songs from Moussolou, 1993’s Ko 

Sira, Worotan, and the Malian-only 2003 cassette release Laban. 

Predominantly featuring kamalengoni (six-string “young person’s 

harp”), dejembe (hand drum), flute, and traditional violin, Oumou 

has a vibe and tempos that are more contemplative than those of 

even the acoustic N’Dour and Keita. But the feminist themes 

(sung in call-and-response style), contemporary studio touches, 

and generally superb audio separation and definition 

belie any oversimplified notion of Sangaré 

as a folkloric musician. 

Young performers such as 31-year-old 

singer/composer Rokia Traore, who takes 

Sangare’s social concerns and musical experiments 

to the next level on Wanita [Indigo] and 

Bowmboi [Nonesuch], and relatively new Amadou & Mariam 


arrivals on the global scene—including charismatic guitarist 

Habib Koite and his band Bamada and Benin’s exciting 

Gangbé Brass Band—are West Africa’s future cultural ambassadors. 

Currently, “the Blind Couple of Mali” and a band of 

guitar-playing nomadic tribespeople are the most prominent 

musical diplomats. 

Amadou Bagayoko, a former guitarist with Les 

Ambassadeurs, and singer Mariam Doumbia met at 

the Institute for Young Blind People in Bamako. 

Making music together over the past 20 or so years 

as Amadou & Mariam, their widening travels took 

them to Paris, where their musical palette broadened 

to include Cuban son, blues, and reggae—a mix 

nowhere more evident than on last year’s remarkable Dimanche 

a Bamako [Nonesuch]. Produced by Manu Chao, as eclectic and 

studio savvy as American pop maestro Joe Henry and Brazilian 

legend Caetano Veloso combined, the album is a joyous, subversive 

riot of unpredictable arrangements and special effects 

that celebrate Chao’s experimentalism and Amadou and 

Mariam’s sweet sensitivity. Guitars and the couple’s voices 

remain prominent, although you may not always be able to discern 

their Malian origins in this finely spun aural candy. The 

sonics are sumptuous enough—warm, translucent, and smooth 

throughout the spectrum—to make this a major studio event, 

yet there’s more heart in this music than you’d find in a decade’s 

worth of most disco-doomed French productions of African 

crossover pop. 

The members of Tinariwen, a guitar band born of the 

struggles of the Touareg people at the oft-brutal Saharan edge 

of Mali and Algeria, may not be as theatrical and universally 

entertaining as Amadou & Mariam, but their sound is far more 

grounded in a particular sense of place—or at least a longing 

for home. Their “guitar revolution” began in the 1970s among 

young Touaregs seeking refuge as far from home as Libya, and 

it reaches a thrilling climax on 2004’s Amassakoul [World 

Village], Tinariwen’s second internationally distributed CD. 

Trancelike tensions build from a half-dozen guitarists overlapping 

riffs that are part Ali Farke Toure blues, part Bo Diddley 

and Chuck Berry rock and roll, and part Jimi Hendrix overdrive, 

and singers moaning, chanting, and rapping their plaints 

and protests, with little more than handclaps, percussion, and 

flute stippling additional texture. Simple, unfussy, and direct, 

the sonics are almost as raw as the passions and true to the rock 

’n’ rebellion spirit of this important music. 

The vanguard features fresh faces, but plenty of elders, 

including such revived veteran bands from the 1960s and ’70s 

as Guinea’s Bembeya Jazz (featuring the dazzling Sekou 

“Diamond Fingers” Diabate on guitar) and Senegal’s multicultural 

Orchestra Baobab, are holding or reclaiming their positions 

as pillars of West African pop. Fifty-two-year-old Baaba 

Maal catapulted himself out of Senegal’s fisherman caste and 

onto the world stage with a vibrant, punchy electric fusion of 

pop, reggae, and rock styles as played by his band Daande 

Lenol. But although his star rose with the crossover-savvy 

1990s albums Wango, Firin’ in Fouta, and Nomad Soul, his 

“nightingale” singing (in the Pulaar language of the nomadic 

Fula people) has always been most affecting in minimalist settings 

that emphasize the interplay of his and longtime musical 

partner Mansour Seck’s guitars and vocals over percolating percussion. 

That’s what Maal got back to on 2001’s 

wonderful Missing You (Mi Yeewnii) [Palm], ten 

years after the release of the similarly hypnotically 

spiritual Baayo. But the place to start is where many 

westerners discovered Baaba Maal and Mansour 

Seck—1989’s Djam Leelii [Mango], an informalfeeling 

session quietly bristling with complex but 

casually rendered acoustic guitar filigrees, absorbing 

vocals, and light accents of hand percussion and electric guitar. 

The sonics may not be as pristine and dramatic as later Maal 

recordings, but everything you need to hear is present and 

clearly accounted for. 

Ali Farka Toure was nearly 50 before westerners en masse 

connected the dots between his droning fingerpicked guitar 

patterns and the snaky boogie of African-American bluesman 

John Lee Hooker, making Toure the most celebrated guitarist 

not only of Mali but perhaps the entire African continent. 

Self-consciously embodying and giving voice to the multiple 

historic cultures of his native Niafunke, Toure is at his best 

when his tersely eloquent acoustic and electric guitar lines 

and conversational vocals are least adorned, although he did 

win a Grammy for his collaboration with Ry Cooder on 

1994’s Talking Timbuktu [Hannibal] and was paired to gorgeous 

effect with kora player Toumani Diabate on last year’s 

mesmerizing In the Heart of the Moon [World 

Circuit/Nonesuch]. Since the 1998 release of his eponymous 

album for Mango made him an overnight sensation, the farming 

guitarist has gone in and out of retirement. Important retrospective 

compilations of historic stripped-down tracks, such 

as Radio Mali [World Circuit] and Red & Green [World 

Circuit/Nonesuch], have filled the gaps between new studio 

recordings. But start with 1999’s Niafunke [Hannibal], which 

rewards the curious with superior sonics and soulful performances. 

Recorded with a state-of-the-art mobile studio in his 

home village, it captures Toure singing and playing guitars, 

violin, and percussion with judicious accompaniment (guitar, 

violin, percussion, and vocals). The production is welldefined, 

warm, and airy. Void of anything more technologically 

modern than an amplified guitar (and all the invisible 

microphones and recording gear necessary for such realistic 

audio), Niafunke is nonetheless a pinnacle of West African 

popular music, with a sensibility that combines deep spirituality 

and musical exploration. 

Toure’s brief liner notes come to a conclusion that applies to 

more than just his personal and regional permutations of what 

the Art Ensemble of Chicago has called “Great Black Music— 

Ancient to Future.” He writes, “In the West perhaps this music 

is just entertainment and I don’t expect people to understand. 

But I hope some might take the time to listen and learn.” & 


equipment 

report 

Sonus Faber Concerto Domus Loudspeaker 

Making You Feel Right At Home. 

Neil Gader 

Since the word “domus” is 

Latin for house or home, it 

is safe to conclude that 

Sonus Faber’s new Domus 

Series of loudspeakers has 

been designed for any media habitat, 

the aim being to please both music 

(stereo or multichannel) and home-theater 

aficionados. 1 Although technically 

positioned as Sonus Faber’s entry-level 

line, the Domus speakers are imbued 

with so many of the physical and sonic 

virtues of the Italian speaker-maker’s 

more expensive Classic and Homage 

Series offerings that even the faithful will 

likely be fooled. I was. 

Like any of the fine Sonus Faber 

speakers from founder/designer Franco 

Serblin, the new Domus Series builds 

upon its predecessors’ strengths. 

Along with increases in interior volume it 

borrows the Concert line’s decoupling of the 

side panels for cabinet-resonance control, 

while the elegant arching of its solid walnut panels 

are clearly inspired by the Cremona line. 

Fitted out with Sonus’ trademark leather-effect 

material on the front and top panels, the Domus 

comes to market richly appointed technically, 

and ripe with the charisma that Sonus Faber and 

Serblin have cultivated—an Old World aesthetic replete with 

classical forms and shapely allusions to the art of the master 

violin and lute builders of Cremona. Its cabinet is “tuned” by 

the same means that the great stringed-instrument builders 

used to create the characteristic sound of their prized instruments—with 

bracing, varying wood thicknesses, and varnishes. 

Mystique or marketing, to gaze upon a Sonus Faber loudspeaker 

is to almost smell the pungent aroma of golden varnish 

or feel the fine grit of ebony dust on your fingertips. 

The Concerto Domus is the smaller of two floorstanders in 

the Domus Series. It’s a two-way bass-reflex design with a forward-firing 

port. Like all Sonus Faber speakers, the 

Scandinavian-sourced drivers are manufactured to Serblin’s specs 

In short, the 

Concerto Domus 

has the soul of 

the Romantic. 

and further tricked out at the factory. In a 

clever bit of engineering, Sonus Faber has 

ensured smooth driver integration by 

physically scalloping the tweeter’s mounting 

plate where it abuts the mid/bass driver’s 

frame. The semi-gloss cabinet-work 

is exemplary, the gently arched side panels 

terminating in smoothly radiussed edges 

at the rear. Domus also features the ventedphase-plug 

design premiered in Sonus’ 

Stradavari Homage flagship—a design 

that boasts exceptionally low compression 

characteristics. The single pair of binding 

posts is top notch. For added stability, a 

heavy, black-crackle, steel pedestal bolts to 

the bottom of the speaker. Adjustable 

spikes let you angle the Concerto back a 

few degrees to mechanically time-align 

the silk ring-radiator tweeter with the 

mid/bass transducer. 

This was the first Sonus I’ve had for evaluation 

since my visit to the factory a couple of 

years ago for the debut of its flagship, the 

Stradavarius. At a tenth the cost of the Strad you’d 

expect some epic sonic differences in the area of 

dynamics and extension, and you wouldn’t be 

entirely wrong. But in terms of the Concerto 

Domus’ voice, the bloodline was unmistakable. 

That voice was an expressive one, a hint darker in 

character with a seductive overall warmth that was utterly nonfatiguing 

across the octaves. The Concerto is virtually incapable 

of reproducing a sterile-sounding note. The bass, which extends 

confidently into the upper 30Hz range, was well defined and 

generally well controlled with a warmth in the midbass that, at 

its best, enriched acoustic bass lines, bassoons, and bass drums. 

The treble frequencies, while not ruler-flat, were unprickly and 

had an inherent sweetness that plainly speaks to the quality of 

the ring-radiator tweeter. Overall, its spectral balance was comparatively 

even, marked by benign undulations in a couple of 

frequency bands—a shallow dip in the presence region, and a 

bump or resonance in the midbass—that the ear easily integrates 

into the listening experience. 

1 The Domus line also includes the Grand Piano floorstander, the stand-mounted Concertino, its wall-mount cousin the Wall Domus, the Center Domus, and a subwoofer, Gravis 

Domus. The entire line is magnetically shielded. 


equipment 

report 

Like its forbears, the Concerto 

Domus doesn’t study sound through the 

lens of a clinician. Rather, it treats music 

in a holistic way, not segmented into a 

SPECIFICATIONS 

Type: Two-way floorstanding loudspeaker 

Driver complement: 1" ring-radiator tweeter, 

7" coated-paper mid/bass 

Frequency response: 35Hz–20kHz 

Sensitivity: 88dB 

Impedance: 4 ohms 

Dimensions: 8.25" x 39" x 12.25" 

Weight: 50 lbs. 

ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT 

Sota Cosmos Series III turntable; SME V 

pick-up arm; Shure V15VxMR cartridge; 

Sony DVP-9000ES, Simaudio Moon 

Supernova; Plinius 9200 integrated amplifier: 

REL Britannia B3 subwoofer; Nordost 

Blue Heaven and Kimber Kable BiFocal XL, 

and Wireworld Equinox III cables; Wireworld 

Silver Electra & Kimber Palladian power 

cords; Richard Gray line conditioners 

dry checklist of audiophile criteria. In 

short, the Concerto Domus has the soul 

of the Romantic. The result is a sensation 

that frequencies across the bandwidth 

are in harmony with one another 

and dynamically open. 

The most obvious beneficiaries of this 

were vocals of all stripes. For example, the 

deep sonorities of a bass-baritone like 

Bryn Terfel singing “Shenandoah” [Sings 

Favourites, DG] were lush and expressive. 

Similarly Claire Martin’s “Black Coffee” 

[Too Darn Hot, Linn SACD] revealed a 

full-bodied vocal presence with all the 

sizzle of a live performance. 

The Concerto Domus’ soundstage 

was wide with better than average 

dimensionality—a listening perspective 

that was relaxed but not distant. 

Although it’s not a physically large 

speaker by any means, its sonic images 

do not undergo death-ray miniaturization. 

During Lisa Gerard’s “Who Are 

We To Say” [A Thousand Roads, Wide 

Blue Sky], the Concerto produced a 

wide, vibrant soundstage where the output 

from surging string crescendos kept 

increasing in volume but remained firmly 

rooted in position on stage. Images 

were cleanly delineated without the 

deadly etch of artificiality. Similarly, the 

Domus recovered low-level details without 

drama. During Jackson Browne’s 

“Color of the Sun” [Greatest Hits, 

Asylum] there’s an alternating high-hat 

figure that varies in intensity and character 

with each strike—distinctions that 

go along way to conjuring up the live 

listening experience. Hearing details 

like these were one of the great pleasures 

of spending time with the Concerto. As 

I expected from a Serblin-designed twoway, 

driver integration was superior, the 

sweetspot comfortably large. You’d 

think this issue would be a slam-dunk 

with contemporary two-ways but driver 

discontinuities continue to plague many 

so-called high-end designs. 


equipment 

report 

However, topping my lengthy list 

of positive impressions was the 

Concerto’s cool combination of midband 

dynamic liveliness and lowerrange 

oomph—muscular attributes that 

I don’t normally associate with Sonus 

speakers in the way that I might with, 

say, a Revel or a Krell. I know it sounds 

odd, but this is a Sonus that does Slayer 

as well as Schubert—Korn as well as 

Korngold. Take as examples the propulsive 

kick-drum intro of The Police’s 

“Murder By Numbers” [Synchronicity, 

A&M] or the bottomless, flat-pick electric 

bass of Mary Chapin-Carpenter’s 

live version of “Stones in the Road” 

[Party Doll, Columbia], and you’ll hear 

how the elegant little Concerto hides a 

bit of the beast beneath all the beauty. 

And more to the point, its gutsiness in 

the low end rarely interferes with the 

finer points of bass pitch and definition. 

At least some of the credit must go to 

the inert enclosure—throughout my 

evaluations it was for all intents and 

purposes invisible. 

Ultimately, however, even the most 

grandiloquent two-way hits the dynamic 

wall. At its limits there was a sense of the 

port shouldering more of the burden and 

of the otherwise-well-disciplined bottom 

end growing a bit underdamped. But 

only moderately. There was never any 

conspicuous chuffing or overhang to give 

away the location of the speaker. Of 

greater significance was the slight softness 

of leading-edge dynamics in the 

uppermids/lower treble—an occasional 

lack of zip and attack on transients. No 

doubt an effect intertwined with the 

pinch of brilliance in the mid-treble, it 

was most often characterized by a subtle 

rounding of the edges of percussion 

instruments—i.e., the initial tick of the 

stick on the high-hat or the tickle of the 

upper-octave ivories on piano. 

This trait can be an enhancement, 

however. On the Bryn Terfel recording, 

for example, the Concerto sweetens edgy 

moments by rounding off Terfel’s more 

aggressive vocal peaks. By the same 

token, it can also cast some shade over the 

ultimate transparency of great recordings. 

In a market where viability literally 

depends on catching the ear of the consumer, 

the Concerto Domus neither 

points, punctuates, underlines, nor 

exclaims its merits. Rather, it achieves 

an exquisite equilibrium of virtues. The 

Sonus Faber Domus Concerto is about 

refinement and balance and musicality. 

It’s a speaker that I would be proud to 

welcome into my home, any time. & 

DISTRIBUTIOR INFORMATION 

SUMIKO AUDIO 

2431 Fifth Street 

Berkeley, California 94710 

(510) 841-4500 

sumikoaudio.net 

Price: $3595 


equipment 

report 

Thule Audio Spirit IA350B Integrated Amplifier 

and Space DVA250B DVD/CD Player 

A report on two sweet performers from Denmark. 

Sallie Reynolds 

In the past two decades, a slow evolution 

has taken place in audio, as 

top-notch designers come more 

and more to understand the nature 

of the beasts they are working 

with. Today it is not hard to put together 

a system that is clean and musical, 

and extremely well built, for a moderate 

price. My reference system—modest by 

reviewer standards—retails for about 

$13,000. It is cleaner, clearer, more 

extended at the frequency extremes, 

more exciting—more musical—than 

one costing three times that in the mid- 

1980s. It is also a reviewer’s system. That 

is, it accommodates changes. Different 

technologies in a plethora of review gear 

pass through it with grace and accuracy, 

so that most visitors can strut their various 

stuffs. It is forgiving in many 

ways—placement of speakers, power 

capabilities, “system matching,” and the 

like—and a strict taskmaster in others. 

It suffers frequency imbalances not at 

all, shows up badly recorded CDs, and 

shudders at “hi-fi” sizzle and boom. The 

weak point in the system now is the 

room. Since I live in it, I hesitate to 

make it a laboratory of acoustic treatment 

devices. (Of course, most consumers 

probably have that same hesitation, 

and will be happy to learn that 

some speaker designs interact less with 

room resonances than others.) 

This is not entirely the system I 

might buy for pure listening pleasure, 

although I love its sound. Buying for 

pleasure, I might opt for a pinch more 

sweetness (forgiving of bad digital 

recordings). A point that brings me to 

the present items—the Danish Thule 

(pronounced “toola”) Spirit IA350B 2- 

/5-channel integrated amplifier and 

Space DVA250B DVD/CD player, both 

of which are truly sweet, in that word’s 

best possible light. They offer, together 

and apart, extended frequency response, 

rich bass, subtle and startlingly transparent 

midranges, and shimmering 

beautiful highs. They are simple to use, 

good looking, reasonable in price. The 

amp goes for $4000, the player for 

$2200. I could be quite happy with 

them as permanent lodgers in my system, 

and they would lower that system 

considerably in price (with Spendor S8e 

loudspeakers at $3000, and Nordost 

Blue Heaven cabling at about $1000 in 

my configuration, the total would drop 

to around $11,000). The Thules are simple 

black boxes that make musical 

magic. If you pair them with good 

speakers and cables, you’ll have a fine 

system that needs no subwoofer, no powerline 

conditioner, and no fancy resonance-control 

feet or other tweaks. 

The silvery high harmonics touched the ears like 

eldritch chimes. 

So much for the verdict. Now the 

evidence. With the Thule player in a 

system based on Musical Fidelity’s 

kW500 integrated, Vienna Acoustics’ 

Mozart Grand loudspeakers, and REL’s 

108Q subwoofer, the luscious midrange 

opened like a flower. I had not expected 

that, since that musical range was 

already quite wonderful. But the added 

clarities of the Thule made lyrics, for 

example, come through with new intelligibility; 

violins had added rosiny bite; 

mid-tones in the gamelan shimmered 

and rang. All this on Lou Harrison’s 


equipment 

report 

Gamelan Music [Music Masters Classic]. 

The first cut, “Philemon and Baukis,” 

begins with a soft figure on the liquid 

xylophone-sounding part of the gamelan 

(an orchestra of wonderful percussivetype 

Indonesian instruments), touched 

with a deep bell tone. A few seconds 

later, the violin softly comes in with a 

melodic theme, the xylophone figure 

ongoing behind it, and that soft, yet 

deep and reverberant “bong” of the bell 

or gong an occasional reminder of the 

Dark. About ten years ago, when I got 

this CD, a system had to be extraordinary 

(and expensive) to get the subtleties 

of the soft tones and the drama of the 

depths, at once. The gong was swallowed 

up if you played the piece at a low 

enough level to get the delicious 

nuances of the soft themes, so you 

turned up the volume. But even just a 

little of that made the gong overwhelm 

that soft little figure. And when the full 

gamelan orchestra came in about two 

minutes further on, you ran for the volume 

knob. (In those days, a remote’s circuitry 

was thought to contaminate the 

purity of high-end sound.) Today, illustrating 

my theme that audio designers 

have solved many old problems, I’ve 

heard a number of systems that get this 

piece dynamically right, or nearly so. 

On the Thule player, in the first configuration 

(with the MF amp and Vienna 

Acoustics speakers subwoofed), the opening 

subtleties were lovely, and the low 

gong haunting yet clean and shapely, 

receding slowly into silence while the 

music swirled on around it. The remaining 

pieces on this recording have always 

been difficult for me. Harrison uses chorus 

and solo voices in many of the cuts, and I 

never really liked them. The harmonies 

bordered on harsh, and the songs slipped 

so far into atonality they lost me. But that 

Thule clarity in the midrange brought out 

the lyrics and some subtle vocal tones. I 

found myself entranced. Also there was 

sparkling air and light among the separate 

instruments of the gamelan. Those elements 

I’d found harsh now revealed subtle 

musical rapprochements. The swelling and 

decay of the various gamelan tones 

became sheer enchantment. The room 

filled with the quick onset then slow fade 

of boom, under—not swimming over— 

the rest, and the silvery high harmonics 

touched the ears like eldritch chimes. 

All good equipment, in my experience, 

brings out different elements of a 

good recording. If the gear really is basically 

well designed, choosing becomes a 

matter of musical and sonic taste and 

system capabilities. These are areas 

where the listener will make his choices. 

An old-time engineer said to me recently 

that he couldn’t understand how we 

reviewers continue to hear differences in 

digital equipment, when in theory no 

differences can exist. Perhaps he’s right, 

in theory. But in truth, I hear differences. 

And so do other reviewers. We’re not 

making this up, you know, as Anna 

Russell once hilariously said. Differences 

subtle and not so exist. Where they 

come from, if theory denies them, I 

couldn’t begin to say. But if you don’t 

believe me, listen to the clarity in the 

voice range with the Thule player. This 

is real, because real is what is in the ears. 

Next I hooked up my reference 

Spendor S8e, taking out the subwoofer 

too, and listened again to the whole 

recording. The Spendors don’t need a 

subwoofer (in theory, they go no lower 

than the Viennas, but see “theory” above). 

You will feel, not hear a 16–20Hz note; 

you will get good, clean, solid bass that 

maintains its character throughout—no 

muffling or fattening. The overall fabric 


IA350B Integrated Amplifier 

Power output: Two channels x 350 watts/ 

five channels x 120 Watts, at 8 ohms 

Inputs: Four line-level stereo inputs (via 

RCA jacks), one balanced stereo input 

(via XLR connectors), one 6-channel 

multichannel input (via RCA jacks) 

Outputs: One stereo tape output (via RCA 

jacks), one stereo preamp output (via 

RCA jacks), two subwoofer outputs (via 

RCA jacks), five speaker taps (via WBT 

binding posts) 

Dimensions: 16.5" x 4.7" x 14.75" 

Weight: 46.3 lbs. 

DVD250B DVD/CD Player 

Formats: MP3, HDCD, CD, CD-R, CD-RW, 

CD-DA, VCD, SVCD, DVD-Video and 

DVD-Audio 

Dimensions: 16.5" x 3.5" x 11.8" 

Weight: 14.3 lbs. 


Spendor S8e and Vienna Acoustics 

Mozart Grand loudspeakers; Musical 

Fidelity k500 integrated amplifier and A5 

CD player; Nordost Blue Heaven cabling 


equipment 

report 

An old-time engineer said to me recently that he 

couldn’t understand how we reviewers continue 

to hear differences in digital equipment, when in 

theory no differences can exist. 

of the music remained much the same, 

except that since there might have been 

some added emphasis in the midrange of 

the Viennas, the frequency balance 

sounded better to my ears. 

Finally, I replaced my reference amp 

with the Thule IA350B integrated (running 

two-channel), and listened some 

more. I was worried that without the 

sub and the sheer power of the kW500, 

the sound would be thin. But this amp 

has bass—noticeable bass, yet without 

the sense of being “bass weighted.” 

What this means, technically, again I 

haven’t a clue. The low frequencies are 

full and low, clear and largely satisfying. 

And the amp has what I suppose to be 

the Thule earmarks of sweetness, clarity, 

and richness in the midrange. The highs 

are transparent, smooth (ragged where 

they must be, musically—as in some 

non-beautiful high notes of the violin), 

and sparkling. 

This amp does not, however, have 

the power of my big reference Musical 

Fidelity, nor should that be a surprise. It 

costs less than half as much. Still the 

overall feel is noticeably lighter. Clean, 

good, reaching deep into the musical 

fabric, even in the lows, light in comparison 

to a bigger unit. This showed up 

throughout. At its worst, as on ”In 

Honor of Mr. Mark Twain” on the 

Harrison CD, where bells or chimes 

come in behind the chorus, the Thule 

simply loses a bit of steam. On the MF, 

the sheet of bell sound rises, threatens to 

surround the voices (singing in unison), 

then retreats. Through the Thule, these 

high tones faded in strength unless I 

turned the volume up higher than was 

“right” for this music. The ringing was 

still there, musically, but its dramatic 

power was gone. At this effect’s mildest, 

which is most of the time, you may not 

notice the lack of the “air,” “force,” and 

“feel” that you’d get from lots of power 

cleanly done. But in immediate comparisons, 

you will. The Thule is clean, clear, 

balanced. But it does not have the sheer 

presence of a beefier unit. 

Aside from this one thing, the Thule 

amp is more than satisfying with all types 

of music. I played Diana Krall and 

Patricia Barber and got intimate, closemiked, 

in-the-jazz-club clarity, and luscious 

vocal nuances—and bass and smallensemble 

power in spades and diamonds. 

With Vaughan Williams’ A Sea 

Symphony’s [Telarc], full orchestral sound 

also came through, as much, that is, as a 

non-mega-multi-driver system in an ordinary 

room can provide. The Thule player 

is a jewel, and the combo is extraordinarily 

good. And both play well with others. 

In addition, they can do double duty: two 

channel and multi. They are, indeed, a 

wonderful bridge between the worlds of 

pure audio and home theater. 

The Thule amp provides line-level 

subwoofer outputs driving the low-level 

inputs found on most powered subwoofers. 

Because the Thule is a balanced 

amp, technicians recommend against 

using it with subs that require speakerlevel 

inputs. 1 

In fiddling with the sub setup, I 

ended up taking it out completely, just 

for a listen. To my surprise, the sound 

was fine. Then I went on a simplification 

journey. I also took out the powerline 

conditioner. Listened some more. The 

sound was fine. In fact—it was better. 

One never plugs amps into line conditioners, 

but digital players had always 

sounded clearer. Well, two new designs 

so far sound oceans better just into the 

wall outlet. The AC fluctuations and 

1 Henrik, Thule’s Technical Support person, wrote, in answer to my query about sub hook up: “…this is a balanced 

amplifier, so the negative (black) terminal is not ground, as it would be on a normal amplifier. In a balanced amplifier, 

the output signal is the difference between the red terminal and black terminal, and there’s no reference to ground (the 

audio system is 100% separated from ground and the usual noise running ground). This means that it is also not possible 

to use a chassis bolt as ground [for the sub].” 

noise problems I probably still have are 

not audible to me any longer. And the 

constriction of the soundstage and the 

timbral veiling I was expecting, sans 

conditioning, just didn’t happen. 

I began to suspect that I was still 

going on ideas developed in 1980s and 

’90s. This made me really rampageous, 

and I stripped the system to its bare 

bones. Sub and conditioner already out; 

I now removed all isolation feet. 

Listened. Put back only those under the 

speakers. I took off all damping rings 

and such from old CDs. With each 

change—taking out “refinements”—the 

sound got better and better. And yes, I 

believe this reveals another advance in 

modern audio design: Much of the new 

gear is so cleanly designed, with knowledge 

of circuitry garnered over the 

decades, it sounds better naked. 

So, as I hinted at the beginning, 

today is a good day to buy a high-end system. 

You can get beauty, accuracy, depth, 

and excitement for a modest sum. And 

you may be able to simplify: no subwoofer, 

no powerline conditioner, few isolation 

devices. A system of well-designed, 

solidly built gear needs little makeup. 

Try it, at least as a starting point. 

Complications you can always add later. 

So how will you choose this clean, 

solid stuff? Well, by listening first, and 

thinking about your druthers. If you have 

good, clean speakers and you like sound 

that is clear, yet rich in depth and dynamics, 

and possesses great midrange magic, I 

wager you will love the Thule IA350B 

integrated amp. The DVA250B DVD- 

CD player will enchant you. The amp 

offers 2 or 5 channels, and the combo will 

give you a fine system for home-theater or 

multichannel listening, to boot. 

Magic and practicality—the mark of 

modern sonic miracles. 

& 

DISTRIBUTOR INFORMATION 

CRAIG ACOUSTICS, INC. 

1006 West 20th Street 

Santa Ana, California 92706 

(714) 648-0983 

info@craigacoustics.com 

thule-audio.com 

Prices: IA350B, $3995; DVD250B, $2195 


equipment 

report 

Esoteric X-03 CD/SACD Player 

The latest disc-spinner from TEAC’s high-end division. 

Jacob Heilbrunn 

It’s an old story that the more revealing 

an audio system becomes, the 

faster it can teeter on the edge of 

abrasiveness. In the audiophile 

quest for detail, highs can become 

searing and mids thinned out. The effect 

may initially be enthralling, but soon 

results in a serious case of listener 

fatigue—and may even deter the novice 

from venturing into high-end waters at 

all. A case in point came for me a few 

years ago when, after lurching out of a 

room featuring a super-duper, megabuck 

system with the excellent 

Avantgarde Trios and all the obligatory 

audio doo-dads, I wondered, “How can a 

system that expensive sound that lousy?” 

Nowhere is this danger more pronounced 

than in digital recordings, 

which have long had a tendency towards 

stridency. Whip out a recording from the 

matutinal years of CD in the early 1980s 

and you may well find yourself crying 

uncle. In recent years, however, matters 

have begun to improve and the perils 

recede as CD recordings get better and 

new formats such as SACD and DVD-A 

take another step in the direction of a 

more inviting sound. The difference 

remains real, but there’s no denying the 

fact that it’s becoming increasingly difficult 

to distinguish CDs from vinyl, and 

that the digital format is sometimes 

markedly superior, both because of better 

equipment and recording techniques. 

Enter the TEAC Esoteric X-03. It 

produces one of the most natural, 

refined, luminous, and above all, sophisticated 

sounds that I have ever heard 

from a digital player. Forget the three 

Gs: glare, grunge, and grit. Those terms 

Topping the scales at 

over fifty pounds, this 

heavyweight is built 

like the Fort Knox of 

CD players. 

are utterly foreign to the Esoteric. This 

is a mellow and full-sounding two-channel 

unit, but with excellent transparency. 

The Esoteric is interested in the big 

picture rather than spotlighting details, 

which, incidentally, is closer to what you 

actually hear at a concert. 

Seldom has a product been more misnamed. 

The Esoteric isn’t in the least esoteric. 

Its virtues aren’t hidden, but in 

plain sight. In fact, no small part of the 

Esoteric’s superlative performance, I’m 

certain, can be ascribed to its phenomenal 

build-quality. I don’t know how it is with 

you, but I’m fairly indifferent to the way 

most audio equipment looks. What I’m 

more interested in is resonance control. 

I’ve found most isolation devices to be 

something of a mixed bag and have lost 

the desire and energy to do much tweaking 

over the years, so I tend to place a premium 

on well-constructed equipment. 

Does the top case ring when you rap it? 

When it comes to digital, immunity to 

vibration means that the laser can track 

the CD more precisely. This is why the 

lightweight, reverberant quality of some 

expensive gear never ceases to confound 

me. Not so with the Esoteric. 

The designers of the Esoteric have 

made Herculean efforts to ensure that both 

the tray and the casing of the unit are close 

to impregnable. Topping the scales at over 

fifty pounds, this heavyweight is built like 

the Fort Knox of CD players, and, considering 

the musical treasures it can unlock, 

so it should be. Another nice touch is that 

the unit only features three feet, which, in 

theory, should help further isolate it from 


equipment 

report 

any nasty vibrations. There’s also a little 

hole cut into the CD tray for your thumb, 

so that you can easily seat and unseat discs. 

And speaking of the CD tray—it’s a special 

sled that’s been designed with an 

internal clamping system that essentially 

holds the disc in a vise. No stupid pucks 

placed on top of the CD that can wiggle 

and bounce around inside—these guys at 

TEAC are dead serious about excavating 

the last drop of performance. To its credit, 

TEAC has clearly put a lot of thought, 

effort, and TLC into this baby. 

While some audiophiles get hung up 

on the nuances of SACD versus CD. I don’t 

and neither does the Esoteric, which plays 

them both beautifully. In fact, the Esoteric 

never balked at playing any disc—burned, 

scorched, seared, or otherwise. The 

machine is mechanically as unflappable as 

it sounds. It never loses its serenity. Far too 

many players suffer transport breakdowns 

or balk, for often inscrutable reasons, at 

playing certain discs. 

No doubt the Esoteric’s virtues come 

at a stiff tariff. At $7700 the Esoteric is 

not inexpensive, but to acquire this kind 

of sound five years ago would have 

required the fortune of a Croesus. It’s 

important to say upfront, however, that 

this is not a player for the headbanging 

crowd. It doesn’t draw attention to itself 

and lacks the slam that rock aficionados 

not only crave, but also deserve. Rather, 

the Esoteric seduces you with its wonderful 

palette of tonal colors, bloom, and 

capacious soundstage. 

The first and most immediate 

impression that the Esoteric makes is 

how fully it reproduces the musical line. 

In visual terms, to me it’s the difference 

between a balloon that’s sagging or bursting 

with air. On one of my favorite 

recordings of the Handel Trio Sonatas 

[Convivium Ensemble, Hyperion], the 

mellowness of the oboe and the amount 

of tube-like air surrounding it were 

enchanting. I can’t get that beautifully 

woody oboe out of my head. Overall, the 

sound was full and warm with each 

instrument carefully reproduced in its 

own space. Hearing all four instruments 

like this, particularly the cello with its 

rich resonance, bumbling along together, 

each easily distinguished, each limpidly 

communicating with the other to create a 

coherent musical message, is always a 

thrill for me. Isn’t that what this hobby 

is, or is supposed to be, about? 

The truth is that the Esoteric is so 

mellifluous that it simply floats out the 

music, tugging at your heartstrings rather 

than bellowing, “Listen to me!” On “I 

Deserve It” [Warner], Madonna’s voice 

simply sounded immaculate—relaxed, 

luscious, and heart-rending—while the 

accompaniment, especially the drums, 

was perfectly in place, with nary a trace of 

harshness. It’s the kind of sound, I’m convinced, 

that would instantly make any 

non-audiophile, if not capitulate to the 

siren song of high-end audio, at least 

understand why a table radio may not 

always be the right answer. A friend of 

mine who is an experienced listener discerned 

the Esoteric’s gentle qualities within 

seconds, and it was certainly fun to 

watch his eyes bulge at the refined sound. 

Don’t get me wrong. The Esoteric 

does not smudge or blur transients. Quite 

the contrary. The Esoteric lingers over 

notes, giving them their full value. Its 

sound is not effervescent, but stately with 

extremely measured and regular pacing. 

This makes for a convincingly whole 

presentation, unruffled and unhurried, 

where the notes simply unfold instead of 

colliding with each other. 

Indeed, what makes the Esoteric so 

enjoyable is the combination of articulateness 

and bloom. The things that 

audiophiles crave—the reproduction of 

quavers, vibratos, and shadings within a 

phrase—are what make the rise and fall of 

a passage more than just a rote recapitulation 

of a series of pitches. The ability to 

deliver these qualities is what distinguishes 

what the Germans like to call the 

Liebhaber, or amateur, from the Kenner, or 

expert, musician. The Esoteric, you 

might say, is a Kenner. 

After weeks and weeks of listening to 

the Esoteric, I returned to my regular 

Meitner digital gear. It reinforced the 

virtues of listening to different gear for me. 

The Meitner threw the Esoteric’s qualities 

into even starker relief. The Meitner was 

more detailed, complex, and transparent, 

revealing more lines of music. In addition, 

it was more energetic, particularly in the 

bass and treble. The Esoteric’s octave-tooctave 

balance is irreproachable, but it 

sounds slightly shrunken next to the 

Meitner. It’s simply not quite as big. It 

seems to me that the Esoteric is a piece 

that you love, excusing any deficiencies, 

however minor, because you love it, whereas 

the Meitner is the King Kong of digital. 

It simply commands awesome respect for 

its power and sweep. Ultimately, however, 

the similarities rather than the differences 

between the players are what stood out. I 

could easily live with either with no 

regrets. Of course, audiophiles like to place 

enormous importance on small distinctions, 

which is their right. Fine. One person’s 

diminishing returns is another’s minimum 

requirement. But both the Esoteric 

and the Meitner offer stratospheric performance, 

an embarrassment of riches, by 

any standards. 

Top-notch digital playback is becoming 

scary stuff and breathing in this rarefied 

air can be a dizzying, even intoxicating, 

experience. The Esoteric draws 

you into the sound to such an extent that 

you tend to forget about the nuts and 

bolts of the player and simply wallow in 

the music. If you haven’t guessed by now, 

I did a not insubstantial amount of wallowing. 

Yup, I liked it. A lot. And so, I 

bet, will you. If you’re in the market for a 

top-notch player and your budget permits 

the likes of the sumptuous Esoteric, 

I suspect that, after listening to it, you 

may decide not to waste much time looking 

elsewhere. 

& 


Transport outputs: One optical, one coaxial, 

one i.LINK terminal 

Analog outputs: Balanced (XLR) and 

unbalanced (RCA) 

Dimensions: 17.5" x 6" x 13.75" 


MANUFACTURER INFORMATION 

TEAC AMERICA, INC. 

7733 Telegraph Road 

Montebello, California 90460 

(323) 726-0303 

teac.com 

Price: $7700 


equipment 

report 

Channel Islands Audio D-200 

Monoblock Amplifier 

Another offering in a rapidly growing area of amplifier design. 

Chris Martens 

Imet Dusty Vawter, President of 

Channel Islands Audio (often 

abbreviated to CIAudio), on a shuttle-bus 

ride to the Denver airport 

as we returned home from the 

Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. Mr. 

Vawter, I learned, had been head of customer 

service at now-defunct Audio 

Alchemy before founding CIAudio, and 

the experience left him with a refreshingly 

different slant on high-end design. 

Like any serious manufacturer of audio 

products, he is passionate about sound 

quality, but more than many he believes 

Class D amplifiers are light, but the D-200s weigh 

in at a comparatively chunky 15 pounds apiece. 

components should offer solid buildquality 

and should be rigorously 

designed and tested to provide troublefree 

performance and reliability at sensible 

prices. Amen to that. 

CIAudio offers a range of audio components 

that includes a family of Class D 

amplifiers, some of which I’d heard in 

speaker manufacturers’ demonstration 

suites at RMAF. CIAudio amplifiers are 

based on the comparatively new 

Philips/Hypex UcD (Universal class D) 

modules, rather than on the earlier 

Tripath or Bang & Olufsen/ICEpower 

technologies used in many other Class D 

designs. Like the NuForce amplifiers 

recently reviewed in TAS, the CIAudios 

are analog switching amplifiers, not “digital” 

amplifiers—an approach that proponents 

say gives Class D amps a more 

open and detailed sound. With the current 

proliferation of new Class D amplifiers 

on the market, many TAS readers 

(and writers) are curious to learn how the 

latest designs sound, and for this review 

we chose a pair of CIAudio’s newest 

model, the D-200 monoblocks. The D- 

200s are small, cube-shaped units that 

deliver 200Wpc at 8 ohms and sell for 

$2299 per pair. At that price, the D- 

200s offer two options: either 26 or 

32dB of gain (the latter intended primarily 

for use with passive level-controls), 


equipment 

report 

and single-ended or balanced inputs. 

Typically, Class D amplifiers are 

light, but the D-200s weigh in at a comparatively 

chunky 15 pounds apiece— 

heft that reflects both a beefy chassis on 

the outside and an even beefier powersupply 

on the inside. Early on, I discovered 

the CIAudio amps, in contrast to 

the NuForce Reference 9s, were utterly 

quirk-free. There were no power-on 

“pops,” no subtle increases in background 

noise with muted inputs, and— 

says CIAudio—no sensitivities to noload 

or dead-short conditions. Vawter 

has zero tolerance for finicky products. 

The D-200s also offer a feature I came to 

love: a play/mute switch in lieu of a traditional 

power switch. This feature 

enables users to keep the amplifiers 

warmed up and ready to play, while 

allowing output muting when switching 

associated preamps on or off. At 

Vawter’s suggestion, I gave the D-200s 

about 100 hours of burn-in before listening 

critically, and during burn-in 

observed small, gradual improvements 

in bass solidity, midrange smoothness, 

and treble resolution. 

When I review components, I try to 

identify their dominant sonic characteristics, 

and what first struck me about the 

D-200s was the sweetness and delicacy of 

their midrange, the warmth and quickness 

of their midbass, and an overall presentation 

that, paradoxically, sounded at 

once detailed yet very smooth—almost 

to the point of sonic politeness. 

To zoom in: The midrange sweetness 

is the sort that makes both male and 

female voices sound graceful and rich, 

even if some rough edges are ever so 

slightly smoothed out in the process. A 

good example is Dave Alvin’s voice on 

“California Snow” from Blackjack David 

[MFSL SACD]; Alvin’s dark, smoky, storyteller’s 

voice comes through vividly, 

but with its typical gritty and gravelly 

textures planed down just a bit. 

Similarly, the D-200’s midrange makes 

strings in general and solo violins in particular 

sound achingly beautiful, albeit 

with their uppermost harmonics and the 

inner textures of bowing and finger 

changes diffused just a little. Listen to 

the Heifetz performance of the Sibelius 

Violin Concerto [RCA Living Stereo, 

SACD] through the D-200s, and see if 

you aren’t flat bowled over by the glory 

of Heifetz’s string tone. 

Still, the question of the D-200s’ 

handling of high-frequency details and 

textures remains. My observation was 

that the amps reproduce low-level 

details well up to a point, and that their 

high-frequency response is not rolled off. 

However, as high-frequency details 


equipment 

report 


Power output: 200 watts @ 8 ohms, 325 

watts @ 4 ohms 

Inputs: One single-ended, or alternatively 

(at buyer’s option) one balanced 

Dimensions: 6.25" x 5.5" x 8" 



Kuzma Stabi S/Stogi S turntable/arm; 

Clearaudio Discovery cartridge; Supex 

SDT-722 transformer; Musical 

Surroundings Phonomena phonostage; 

Musical Fidelity kW500 integrated amplifier 

and Tri-Vista SACD player; Rogue Audio 

Metis preamplifier; NuForce Reference 9 

and Audio Research 300.2 power amplifiers; 

Magnepan MG1.6/QR and Wilson- 

Benesch Curve loudspeakers; PNF Audio 

and Cardas interconnects and speaker 

cables; RGPC 1200S power conditioner 

become progressively finer and subtler, 

the D-200s eventually allow their contours 

to melt into a soft diffuseness—the 

sonic equivalent of a cinematic dissolve 

to white. In fairness, I should say this 

blurring affects only the very-lowestlevel 

details, but when it occurs, key 

ingredients of transparency and of great 

soundstaging are, to some degree, lost. 

This leaves me of two minds. On the one 

hand, the D-200s are never guilty of the 

sort of overwrought transient excesses 

that drive many of us nuts, which is a 

very good thing. On the other, they fall 

short of the profound transparency and 

three-dimensionality that amplifiers 

such as the NuForce Reference 9s offer. 

The D-200s’ midbass is pleasingly 

warm and weighty, with a good measure 

of transient snap that helps make basses 

(acoustic, electric, and human) and low 

percussion instruments sound articulate 

and expressive. Listeners will particularly 

appreciate these qualities on recordings 

such as bassist Charlie Haden’s 

Nocturnes [Verve], where the ever-tasteful 

Haden makes his musical points not 

through flashy pyrotechnics, but 

through delicate variations in the attack, 

sustain, and voicing of his well-chosen 

notes. Overall, I found the D-200s 

offered midbass clarity on a par with 

that of the considerably more powerful 

and expensive Audio Research 300.2 

power amplifier and Musical Fidelity 

kW500 integrated that I had on hand 

for comparison. Alongside the NuForce 

Reference 9s, the D-200s delivered 

slightly warmer and more prominent 

midbass, while the Reference 9s offered 

more potent and extended low bass and 

an even greater degree of overall bass 

control and definition. 

Finally, the D-200s sound unfailingly 

smooth, even on complicated, 

densely layered material such as 


equipment 

report 

Respighi’s Pina di Roma [Deutsche 

Grammophon, LP], which can make 

some components sound frazzled or distressed. 

Provided you don’t crank the D- 

200s to levels where they start to run out 

of power (something I’d not recommend 

with this or any amplifier), they’ll sound 

graceful and self-assured. But this selfassurance 

carries, I think, a small but 

audible sonic price, namely, a tendency 

toward sonic “politeness” that—in a 

very subtle way—softens the vividness 

and liveliness of reproduced music. It’s 

not that the Channel Islands amplifiers 

sound dull or compressed; they don’t. In 

fact, the D-200s sound very expressive 

in comparison to well-regarded traditional 

linear amplifiers such as the current 

generation McCormacks. It’s just 

that there is an elusive layer of dynamic 

accuracy, or intensity if you will, that 

the D-200s can’t quite reach. After you 

play a selection of reference recordings 

on the D-200s, the first word that would 

come to mind might be “smooth.” After 

you hear the same selection on the 

NuForce Reference 9s, the one-word 

description might change to “alive.” 

The Channel Islands Audio D-200s 

are very good amplifiers, and they show 

every sign of being a polished, thoroughly 

tested, trouble-free design 

(would that every high-end manufacturer 

took product reliability and testing as 

seriously as Channel Island does). The 

CIAudios earn high marks sonically, as 

well, sounding noticeably better than 

many old-school linear amplifiers and 

offering sound that is on a par with that 

of contemporary Class D amps such as 

the Audio Research 300.2. But the D- 

200s’ most direct competitors are the 

NuForce Reference 9s, and a comparison 

forces the issue. The fact is that the D- 

200s sound very good and have no vices 

whatsoever, while the slightly more 

costly Reference 9s offer elements of true 

sonic greatness, but at the expense of 

some annoying quirks and foibles. The 

sonic differences between the amplifiers 

are such that I could imagine listeners 

choosing one or the other purely as a 

matter of taste, and both offer exceptional 

value for money. If you like amplifiers 

that combine detail, smoothness, 

warmth, and clarity, then the D-200s 

could be perfect for you; but for greater 

overall transparency and three-dimensionality, 

and more lifelike dynamics, 

the Reference 9 would get my nod. & 


CHANNEL ISLANDS AUDIO 

567 W. Channel Islands Blvd., PMB #300 

Hueneme, California 93041 

(805) 984-8282 

ciaudio.com 

Price: $2299 


equipment 

report 

Krell SACD Standard CD/SACD Player 

How one player changed a critic’s mind about the SACD format. 

Fred Kaplan 

At the turn of the decade, 

when the first SACD players 

made their debuts at 

the hi-fi shows, I remember 

wondering what the 

fuss was about. The specs looked great, 

but the discs sounded weirdly antiseptic. 

As recently as a couple years ago, a manufacturer 

whose expensive amp I was 

reviewing loaned me the same company’s 

five-figure SACD player. I thought: 

Better, but the high frequencies are still 

odd. They were smooth but flat, uninflected; 

cymbals, for instance, all sounded 

the same. Around this time, TAS 

published a forum, in which some critics 

wondered if this was an inherent flaw in 

the format, which offers vast bandwidth 

and ultra-fast sampling speed but single-bit 

signals. 

I wondered so, too, until I heard the 

Krell SACD Standard. Is it flawless? No, 

but its sonic shortcomings are extremely 

slight. At the very least, it redeems the 

format’s technical promise. It makes 

recorded music a pleasurable experience, 

to a degree that few digital machines in 

this price-range approach. 

About those oft-problematic high 

frequencies, listen to the piercing purity 

of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s excursions 

on Handel arias [Avie] or the shimmer 

of Philly Joe Jones’ cymbals on the Miles 

Davis quintet’s Relaxin’ [Acoustic 

Sounds SACD]; they’re airy, even ethereal; 

you hear their distinct tones and resonances, 

and the ambience around them. 

The highs don’t stick out—neither as 

too bright nor too veiled—as digital 

highs often do. 

I was about to write 

“sensationally,” but 

that’s not right; it does 

so naturally, seamlessly, 

without calling 

attention to itself. 

The midrange is also sweet and natural, 

if a bit on the warm side (which I don’t 

mind). The bass goes staggeringly deep 

and stays tuneful. If your speakers are fairly 

seamless from top to bottom, this digital 

machine won’t spoil the illusion. 

The main appeal of most SACD 

players (even the cheap ones, for instance 

Sony’s first-generation model, which I 

bought for $200 a few years ago) is that 

they project the sound into your room; 

you sense the music breathing forth 

from the speakers, three-dimensionally, 

in a way that PCM digital just can’t 

manage (and in a way that good analog 

does routinely). The Krell Standard 

pulls off this feat…I was about to write 

“sensationally,” but that’s not right; it 

does so naturally, seamlessly, without 

calling attention to itself. 

On the Academy of Ancient Music’s 

SACD of Bach solo and double violin 

concertos, Andrew Manze and Rachel 

Podger’s violins waft into your room on 

a wave and their overtones float up to 

the ceiling. The level of detail is extraordinary, 

including the “inner detail” of 

specific instruments. You can distinguish 

the thickness of the six guitar 

strings that Gene Bertoncini picks and 

strums on Quiet Now [Ambient Music]. I 

hadn’t realized the cellist was bowing 

every beat on “Ruby Tuesday,” until I 

listened through the Krell to the 

Rolling Stones’ Hot Rocks SACD. 

The Krell Standard also tosses up a 

soundstage as wide and as deep as the 

recording and the rest of your equipment 

allow. Listening to Michael Tilson 


equipment 

report 

Thomas’ series of Mahler symphonies, 

especially the Ninth, on the San 

Francisco Symphony’s own label, you 

can “see” precisely the position of the 

various instruments and sections. 

It’s fair to ask why you should buy an 

SACD player at all. Only a small number 

of labels are still producing in the format. 

The rush of jazz and pop SACDs, which 

so excited audiophiles a few years ago (the 

multi-disc series of the Stones, Dylan, 

and so forth), has slowed to a near-halt. I 

have two replies. First, the labels still 

putting them out—Harmonia Mundi, 

SFSA, Telarc, Deutsche Grammophon, 

Songlines, Acoustic Sounds, among others—put 

out quite a lot of great recordings. 

Second, and more to the point here, 

the Krell Standard also does a superb job 

of playing standard Red Book CDs. 

Everything I’ve said about it as an SACD 

player also holds for its performance as a 

CD player (allowing, of course, for the 

differences between the two formats). 

How does the Krell hold up to 

vinyl? Not at all badly, but, hey, it’s not 

a miracle worker. Listen to Acoustic 

Sounds’ reissues of Bill Evans’ Waltz for 

Debby. On the title tune, Paul Motian’s 

hard-brushed snare-slaps sound a bit less 

dynamic, a bit more softly slapped, on 

the SACD than on the 180-gram LP. In 

general, transients are softened, dynamic 

contrasts are shaded—noticeably, but 

not dramatically, not much more than 

the effect you’d hear by lowering a 

phono cartridge’s VTA by a few hairs. 

When TAS editor Jonathan Valin 

reviewed an earlier version of the 

Standard a couple years ago, in Issue 145 

(more later on what’s different about this 

revised version), he praised, in particular, 

its “exceptionally rich and powerful bass” 

as well as its “midband bloom and sweetness.” 

At the same time, he compared it 

unfavorably with two much costlier models 

(EMM Labs’ DAC6e and EMM’s modified 

Philips 1000), finding the Krell 

“less extended and incisive in the treble” 

and for softening transients “more than a 

tad, as if it were…a tube unit.” 

I haven’t heard the EMM units 

(except at a Consumer Electronics Show 

too long ago to remember). But I have 

heard the old and new versions of the 

Krell Standard, side by side, and can 

report that I agree with JV (as this review 

bears out), although the new model is 

still deeper and tighter in the bass and 

slightly crisper on the treble transients. 

What is different about the new 

model—which, on the outside, looks 

exactly like the old one—is where some 

qualms come into play, though they’re 

strictly ergonomic qualms. The main 

difference between the two is a new 

servo-drive—a change necessitated 

when the supplier, Philips, suddenly 

stopped producing the old one. In most 

ways, this turned out to be good news. 

Judging from a few online high-end 

chat sites, the old drive had notorious 

reliability problems. (An earlier version 

of the unit, which I started to review, 

went haywire, as did one purchased by a 

friend.) However, by all accounts, the 

Inside the SACD Standard 

The Standard’s servo-mechanism—including separate lasers for CDs and 

SACDs—is unusually stable, so as to focus the beam onto a disc’s pits with 

minimal error. The chassis is actually a chassis-within-a-chassis—a steel 

plate inside an aluminum enclosure—to dampen vibrations. (This is one of the few 

CD players, or pieces of electronic gear generally, that doesn’t benefit from TipToetype 

cones or pucks.) The transport and the analog circuits draw on separate power 

supplies; the analog stage’s is a hefty toroidal transformer. As with much of Krell’s 

electronics line, the Standard’s circuitry employs a balanced topology, which boosts 

the signal-to-noise ratio by 6dB. It also manipulates current instead of voltage all the 

way through the signal chain up to the output stage, a possibly unique approach 

that, Krell’s tech people say, expands bandwidth, increases speed, and greatly minimizes 

distortions caused by impedance interactions. 

FK 

new model is functioning fine. Still it, 

too, has some idiosyncrasies. It’s noisy, 

though not noisy enough to be heard 

when music is playing, as long as you’re 

sitting at least five feet away (except I 

should add for two discs in my collection 

that for some reason produce a very 

loud grinding). It takes a long time to 

load a disc (15 seconds for SACDs, 25 

seconds for CDs). And after the first few 

seconds of a track, the track number disappears 

from the display panel. (If you 

like what you’re hearing on a CD and 

wonder which song it is, you’ll have to 

start the track over to find out.) 

Apparently, these problems are built 

into the drive; there’s nothing to be 

done. Krell’s technical people say they 

decided to use this drive anyway, 

because it sounds so much better than 

any other they’ve tried. I have no reason 

to doubt them. The machine is a bit of a 

drag, like cuff links on a sleeve. But, at 

least to my mind (yours may be to calculate 

costs and benefits differently), the 

pleasures outweigh the foibles. & 


Stereo and multichannel CD and SACD 

player with 24-bit/192kHz DACs on 

each channel 

Analog outputs: One balanced XLR connectors, 

six single-ended RCA connectors 

Digital outputs: One S/PDIF RCA connector, 

one EIAI optical TosLink connector 

Dimensions 17.3" x 5.72" x 16.5" 



Krell KAV-280p linestage and FPB400cx 

amplifier; Verity Audio Parsifal Ovation and 

Krell Resolution 2 speakers; Nirvana 

cables; Bybee Technologies Signature 

power purifier and Monster Cable AVS-2000 

voltage-regulator (though not for amp) 


KRELL INDUSTRIES, INC. 

45 Connair Road 

Orange, Connecticut 06477 

(203) 799-9954 

krellonline.com 

sales@krellonline.com 

Price: $4000 


E X P L O R I N G T H E A R T A N D T E C H N O L O G Y 

The Cutting Edge 

Mark Levinson N o. 326S Preamplifier 

and N o. 432 Power Amplifier 

A tradition of excellence, not just 

upheld but improved upon. 

Robert Harley 

Today’s Mark Levinson brand of electronics traces it lineage back to 1972 when Mark Levinson 

(the man) founded Mark Levinson Audio Systems (MLAS). The company’s first product, the JC- 

1 preamp (named after its designer, the great John Curl), jump-started the entire American 

high-end renaissance in the early-to-mid 1970s. Along with Audio Research and Magnepan, 

MLAS paved the way for the creativity and innovation in high-performance audio design that 

continues more than thirty years later. 



Unlike those two other pioneers of the American high end, 

which to this day are owned and operated by their respective 

founders, the Mark Levinson brand has been produced under a 

succession of corporate umbrellas. Founder Mark Levinson left 

the company in the early 1980s to start Cello. Madrigal Audio 

Laboratories, the parent company that owned the brand for 

much of its existence (1984 to 1995), sold part of the company 

to the giant Harman International in 1993. (By chance, I was 

at the factory on a tour the day the announcement was made to 

the employees.) The link between Madrigal and Harman was 

no accident; Madrigal CEO Sandy Berlin had been Sidney 

Harman’s right-hand man during the decades that Harman 

became a behemoth by buying smaller audio companies. 

Madrigal continued to operate independently until 1995 when 

Harman bought the remaining interest in the company. The 

Mark Levinson brand is now part of the Harman Specialty 

Group, which comprises Mark Levinson, Lexicon, and Revel. 

Perhaps the biggest shakeup in the company’s history 

occurred in October, 2003, when Harman closed Madrigal’s 

venerable Middletown, Connecticut, factory and moved all production 

to the Lexicon factory in Massachusetts. This move 

took dealers and customers by surprise, and resulted in a complete 

cessation of production for several months. Some products 

were out of production for more than a year as the new factory 

ramped up. By mid-2005, however, the company was back in 

full swing. 

The question on everyone’s mind was whether the Mark 

Levinson products made in the new factory were true to the 

original intent of its founders, as well as to the engineers and 

product-development managers who made the brand iconic 

during the 1980s and 1990s. 

Which brings us to the subject of this review, the Mark 

Levinson N o. 326S preamplifier and N o. 432 power amplifier. My 

aim is to not only evaluate these products in and of themselves, 

but to discover whether the traditional Mark Levinson design 

and build-quality, meticulous attention to every detail (down to 

the shipping boxes), and distinctive sonic signature are embodied 

in the new products. Has this venerable marque become 

merely a boutique brand under Harman? Or does Harman’s 

financial stability provide a platform for a new era in creativity 

and innovation that is true to the brand’s great legacy? 

This project is of particular interest to me; I lived with and 

reviewed a number of Mark Levinson products starting in the 

late 1980s and became quite familiar with their designs and 

sonic signature, as well as with the company ethos. Madrigal 

Audio Laboratories was second to none in explaining to the 

press the intricacies of its products, the meticulousness with 

which it built its components, and the passion that drove new 

development. 

The $10,000 N o. 326S is a single-chassis preamp based on 

the highly acclaimed N o. 32 Reference preamplifier, a $15,950 

two-box unit introduced in 1999. The N o. 32 was, astonishingly, 

the first preamplifier to which the then-27-year-old company 

applied the designation “Reference.” Unlike other audio 

companies that use the term for marketing purposes, Mark 

Levinson reserved that special word for products that embodied 

the company’s best possible effort. Levinson Reference gear 

served as an internal benchmark for what could be done in a 

product category, and as an ideal to which to aspire in subsequent, 

less-costly designs. Levinson had introduced Reference 

power amplifiers, digital processors, and transports, but never a 

preamplifier until the N o. 32. 

The N o. 326S’s chassis is smaller than that of most components, 

but the styling cues (curved front panel, matte aluminum 

buttons, red LED display) are unmistakably Mark 

Levinson. Interesting features include the ability to customize 

the unit by naming each input, deactivating unused inputs, 

adjusting the gain-offset of each input, and assigning the 

record-out jacks to an input. A unity-gain bypass mode (called 

Has this venerable marque 

become merely a boutique 

brand under Harman? Or does 

Harman’s financial stability 

provide a platform for a new era 

in creativity and innovation that is 

true to the brand’s great legacy? 

“SSP” for surround-sound processor) allows the N o. 326S to be 

used with a home-theater controller. The controller’s left and 

right outputs feed one of the 326S’s line inputs. With the 326S 

in SSP mode, it’s as though the preamp isn’t in the signal path. 

This connection method, which I use in my system, allows you 

to have a two-channel signal path completely separate and 

uncorrupted by a surround-sound system. In a nice touch, 

switching inputs or absolute polarity causes the volume to 

quickly ramp down before switching, and then ramp up to the 

previous level, preventing pops or other noises from reaching 

your loudspeakers. Optional phono boards ($1400) convert the 

N o. 326S from a linestage to a full-function preamplifier. 



The 326S’s fundamental design is dual-mono, with the left 

and right audio channels physically separated in the chassis and 

powered from completely separate supplies. Only the AC 

power cord is shared between channels. The internal topology 

is fully balanced, which requires that an unbalanced input signal 

be converted to balanced by a phase splitter at the input. A 

differential amplifier at the output converts balanced signals 

back to unbalanced. This topology adds additional circuitry to 

the signal path for unbalanced signals. The upside is that balanced 

signals remain balanced from input to output. Note that 

a truly balanced preamplifier, such as the N o. 326S, employs 

four signal paths (+/– left, +/– right) and four volume-control 

elements rather than two. 

The N o. 326S’s volume control is a work of art. Identical in 

design and execution to that developed for the N o. 32 

Reference, it is a stepped attenuator using a discrete-resistor 

array. The front-panel volume knob’s motion is converted into 

digital data which then engages the resistor network to achieve 

the desired attenuation. Volume can be adjusted in 1dB increments 

up to 23dB, and 0.1dB increments above 23dB. 

Levinson introduced the switched-resistor volume control in 

the N o. 38 preamplifier, but that unit employed an MDAC 

(multiplying digital-to-analog-converter), an IC that provided 

digital control over analog signals. The N o. 326S’s volume control 

is significantly more sophisticated, employing discrete 

resistors rather than resistive elements in an IC. Advantages of 

a switched-resistor network over a traditional volume control 

are that the audio signal is never subjected to the wiper and 

resistive element in a potentiometer, and that high precision 

can be achieved between the left and right channel gain. 

Even more important in a fully balanced preamplifier, 

perfect gain matching is possible between 

the + and – phases of the balanced signal. 

From a user’s point of view, 

the switched-resistor network 

and front-panel volume display 

allow precise level setting and 

matching—a feature of even more utility 

to a reviewer. 

The N o. 326S’s circuit boards are made 

from Arlon, a material developed for circuit 

boards used in microwave and radar applications. 

It reportedly has ideal properties for 

audio, including low dielectric loss and exceptionally 

low conduction between traces. Because Arlon is 

extremely expensive it is reserved for Mark Levinson’s more 

costly products. 

The remote control is a beautifully made oval with nice 

button layout and enough functions to be useful without 

becoming cluttered. The owner’s manual is also superb. 

The parts and build-quality are all comparable to the standards 

set previously by Mark Levinson products. I have, however, 

two very small nits to pick. The first is that the N o. 326S’s 

front-panel power button is a different size, color, and material 

than all the other front-panel buttons. Given that the N o. 326S 

is meant to be left in standby mode, the power button could 

have been mounted on the rear panel. The second is that the 

remote control’s battery-access panel sticks out slightly, disrupting 

the remote’s continuous curve on the back. These are 

admittedly minor issues, but the company is famous for being 

maniacal about such details. 

Looking next at the N o. 432, the power amplifier continues 

a trend started about ten years ago by Madrigal to make Mark 

Levinson amplifiers more installation-friendly. Among these 

measures are internal heat sinks, rack-mounting capability, and 

the ability to integrate the amplifier into a system with control 

and communication ports. 

The N o. 432 shares the circuit topology of the company’s 

flagship N o. 33H monoblocks. The unit features a massive 

power supply with separate toroidal transformers for each channel. 

Indeed, the N o. 432 is rated at 400Wpc into 

8 ohms, and can double that figure into 4 

ohms. Any amplifier that doubles its output 

power as the load impedance is halved 

must have a massive power supply, a 

robust output stage, and serious 

heatsinks. High-level signals are 

routed through the amplifier on 

large buss bars rather than via 

wiring. The DC-servo’d 

input and driver stages are 

fully balanced. As with the 

N o. 326S, the power amplifier 

employs Arlon circuit 

boards. 

I started the evaluations by inserting 

the N o. 432 power amplifier into my reference 

system and immediately recognized the 



familiar Mark Levinson presentation. That sound is characterized 

by an extremely sophisticated, cool, and polite rendering 

that doesn’t try to impress by hi-fi fireworks. Instead, the 

N o. 432 presented a finely woven fabric of musical subtleties 

that invited me into the music. Although laid-back, the 

N o. 432 had tremendous resolving power, but in a much more 

subtle way than that of most power amplifiers. The sound had 

an easy-going and relaxed quality that fostered an immediate 

involvement in the performance. To draw an analogy with 

pianists, the N o. 432 was like Bill Evans; no flash, but a wealth 

of subtlety and expression if you take the time to listen. 

The N o. 432 presented a wonderful impression of space, 

depth, and dimensionality. This was one of the amplifier’s 

defining—and best—qualities. The overall perspective was 

characteristically Mark Levinson—that is, with a feeling of sitting 

a little farther back in the hall. The soundstage was beautifully 

rendered, with a tremendous sense of size, air, and 

bloom. The soundstage had the unusual (unusual in an audio 


N o. 326S 

Type: Solid-state, two-channel preamplifier 

Inputs: Three balanced stereo line inputs on XLR, four unbalanced 

stereo line inputs on RCA (phono input optional) 

Outputs: One stereo balanced on XLR (main), one stereo balanced 

on RCA (main), two stereo record-out on RCA 

Dimensions: 13.62" x 2.66" x 13.58" 


N o. 432 

Type: Solid-state, two-channel power amplifier 

Output power: 400Wpc into 8 ohms, 800Wpc into 4 ohms 

(20Hz–20kHz at


component to resolve space between instrumental images. 

Dimensionality is that quality of an audio system that provides 

the impression of an instrument’s size, shape, texture, 

and precise position in the soundstage. Lots of hi-fi components 

throw images between the loudspeakers, but very few 

project a convincing illusion of the instrument’s body hanging 

in three-dimensional space before you. Dimensionality 

is also related to a component’s ability to differentiate tone 

colors, allowing the listener to pick out a single instrument 

from within a dense orchestration. This particular quality 

was apparent on the JVC XRCD resissue of Holst’s The 

Planets during the loud and brash multiple brass lines on 

“Mars.” I heard no smearing, no congestion, and no congealing 

of instrumental textures, just a sound very much 

closer to what one hears in the concert hall. (I had the benefit 

of hearing The Planets performed recently.) 

Interestingly, counterpoint was well served by the N o. 326S’s 

dimensionality, particularly its ability to keep left- and 

right-hand piano lines distinct. Listen to the Bach 

Passacaglia and Fugue as transcribed for piano and performed 

by Junichi Steven Sato [Sato Music Editions] on a 

fabulous new recording. The N o. 326S simply made the 

counterpoint more interesting and engaging. 

Dimensionality is of course dependent on cues encoded in 

the signal, but is actually created by the brain. The signals 

driving the left and right loudspeakers are two-dimensional 

in nature—merely voltages that vary over time. These signals 

are converted to two patterns of compression and rarefaction 

in the air. From this pair of two-dimensional signals, the 

brain creates the illusion of objects (musical instruments) 

existing in space before us. How miniscule the difference in 

signals must be between a preamp that delivers dimensionality 

and one that doesn’t—but how important to the musical 

experience. Dimensionality gives music a natural sense of 

vividness and life without resorting to hi-fi trickery. Some 

components attempt to make up for lack of dimensionality 

by sounding forward, forced, and aggressive. This sonic 

vividness quickly becomes fatiguing, but natural dimensionality 

has the opposite effect, drawing the listener into the 

presentation in a completely relaxed way that encourages 

long listening sessions. 

The N o. 326S had a remarkable transparency, not just sonically 

(lack of veiling), but to the musical expression. For example, 

when I listened to guitarist John McLaughlin’s Que Alegria 

[Verve] from start to finish, the wide spectrum of expression on 

this album seemed to be heightened. The pensive, almost meditative 

tracks such as “Reincarnation” seemed even more introspective, 

and the exuberant “1 Nite Stand” conveyed a stronger 

feeling of this amazing trio locking into a groove and having a 

blast. I had this impression every time I listened to the system 



with the N o. 326S and N o. 432—of the system conveying the 

musical values on the recording. 

Bass extension, definition, and dynamics were another of the 

N o. 326S’s great strengths. Whether it was an orchestra’s double-bass 

section or an electric bass and kick drum working 

together, the bottom end had a solidity and power that anchored 

the music. 

The N o. 326S had a very clean, precise sound, presenting 

the music against an utterly silent and velvet-black backdrop. 

Musical dynamics seemed to emerge suddenly from this inky 

blackness, with deep silences between notes. There was a distinctive 

lack of haze, both in the background and overlaying 

musical textures. This quality, combined with the dimensionality 

described earlier, fostered a deep feeling of engagement 

and involvement with the music. 

CONCLUSION 

The Mark Levinson N o. 432 power amplifier is a worthy successor 

to the company’s previous efforts in power-amplifier 

design. It combines brute-force output power with remarkable 

delicacy and resolution, and embodies the company’s aesthetic 

of subtlety in presentation. If you know and like the classic 

Mark Levinson sound, the N o. 432 won’t disappoint. 

The N o. 326S preamp is a huge step forward for Mark 

Levinson preamplifiers in resolution, transparency, and dimensionality. 

With less of an identifiable sonic signature, the 

N o. 326S is truer to the source, musically and sonically, than 

any previous ML preamp. There’s much to like about the 

N o. 326S, including its jet-black background, unconstricted 

dynamic expression, bottom-end punch and extension, and 

clean, grain-free rendering of timbres. It’s also beautifully built 

and a joy to use. But what really makes the N o. 326S special is 

its remarkable dimensionality. This preamp goes beyond conventional 

soundstaging to throw a convincing illusion of threedimensional 

instruments in a three-dimensional space. 

Based on my experience with the N o. 326S and N o. 432, the 

Mark Levinson brand under Harman International not only 

upholds the sterling tradition it spent 35 years developing, it 

has, in my view, actually expanded the reputation of one of the 

great marques of high-end audio. 

& 


MARK LEVINSON 

3 Oak Park Drive 

Bedford, Massachusetts 01730 

(781) 280-0300 

marklevinson.com 

Prices: $10,000 (No.326S), $8000 (No.432) 


HP’S WORKSHOP 

Memoirs of CES: 

What Happened in Las Vegas Doesn’t Stay 

in Las Vegas—This Time Around 

Harry Pearson 

There are so many things about the Consumer 

Electronics Show and Las Vegas that they don’t tell 

you in the usual show report, which this one isn’t 

going to be. They don’t tell you about the dry heat, 

and how it dehydrates you—to the point you’ll get 

new meaning out of the phrase brick, uh, outhouse. 

So you’ll see most everyone lugging bottled water 

around, and tubes of what we now call lip “balm.” Oddly 

enough, with all the swimming pools and incessant waterings 

of the endless golf courses here in the desert, the air manages to 

be both dry and sweat-sticky at the same time. 

They probably don’t have to tell you that the area itself is 

the fastest growing in the United States. And that this has 

brought with it, mushroom-like fields of box housing and 

thickening traffic where lickety-split is the driving speed at any 

hour. Its hooker population now exceeds the taxi fleets in number—and 

there even appeared to be members of its “sisterhood” 

hired to entice the innocent into sparsely attended exhibits at 

the Alexis Park, the main high-end audio venue. They probably 

don’t tell you that taxis are at premium during “rush” hours 

(the hookers, of course, at any time) and that you may have to 

wait in line a half-hour to go where you could walk in the same 

or less time. Or that, if you want to see more than just the esoterica 

of audio—say the more grandiloquent audio manufacturers 

and the big-time video guys—you’d have to tote yourself all 

over town; that’s how spread out the show is, how, really, 

impossible it is to get more than a taster’s sampling. 

It isn’t even possible in the four full days of demos to 

see/hear all that the high-end establishment has to show (off), 

for even the most indefatigable. The Alexis Park is packed 

with exhibitors and next door, in a rat’s maze known as the St. 

(Saint? Really?) Tropez, there is something called T.H.E. 

show, the T.H.E. standing for, not “the high end,” but rather 

“the home entertainment” experience, where the even more 

esoteric tended to congregate. In all, between the two hotels, 

there were in excess of 450 high-end audio companies 

exhibiting. As for me, I hadn’t darkened the show’s doors in 

seven years and so, like Maine taffy (as opposed to Coons) I 

got yanked in all kinds of directions by all sorts of people and 

wound up feeling as if I had hardly skimmed the surface. But, 

what I did get was, I think, choice. 

Another thing you probably could surmise, but that almost 

no one writes about, is the social aspect of the show, at least in 

high-end-audio terms. This is a small industry, albeit with an 

increasingly international flavoring, in which almost everybody 

either knows or is acquainted with everybody else, and this 

works in sometimes unexpected ways. And, oh, what a talkathon 

it can be, with more than a bit of nasty backbiting, especially 

when “sacred cows” are the topic. 

They talk over breakfast convocations, where the search is 

always on for the best (preferably, and often in this town, free) 

buffet. (The one at Steve Wynn’s new pleasure dome got the 

highest ratings.) Keep in mind that audiophiles tend to the 

sensory pleasures, so the serious fooding, partying, and drinking 

is done evenings, especially now that most of America’s 

most famous chefs have set up shop in Lost Wages. Now let it 

be said that these self-same stars are virtually never personally 

in attendance, so there is a pig-in-the-poke kind of gamble 

involved in striving for a reservation in a “name” place. In certain 

circles, there’s a hot competition to see who can go to and 

rave, bitch, or moan about these starless (nighttime) establishments. 

And it would be for naught if there weren’t a largerthan-life 

aspect to all this, so typical of Vegasanary inflations. 

For example, Picasso, in the Bellagio, has nothing but original 

Pablo Picassos lining its walls, making for what just maybe the 

world’s most expensive wallpaper. And in some places, the old 

LV hustle yet abounds. At a “deluxe” sushi joint, Shibuya in the 

MGM Grand, where my birthday was celebrated, the quality of 

the fish, which started out a breathtaking level (along to be sure 

with the prices), descended as our consumption of sake ascended 

until the last course one my pussies would have given an “F” 

rating—a true demonstration of the PPDD, the Pearson 

Principle of Descending Discrimination, in this case the theory 

here was that one’s discrimination descended as one’s sake 

intake ascended, an inverse proportion rule that definitely does 

not apply to this writer. 

One can only wonder at what this fiesta of sound must cost 

the small companies who have to pay for it all—the hotel 

rooms (never acoustically heavenly), the cost of shipping the 

gear back and forth to Nevada, and the man-hours spent in the 

process, not to mention the not-inconsiderable “extras,” like 

food, transportation—well, you get the picture. And we 

haven’t even begun to wonder at the totals the foreign manufacturers 

must run up. And I have no way to estimating what 

might be lost at the gaming tables, which are ubiquitous, but, 

perhaps happily, not at the two high-end show sites. 



And there are disasters too numerous to count. Since it is 

high-end gear, 1 there are breakdowns, especially with the power 

surges that plagued the Alexis Park. Sometimes a perfectly 

good display of gear is either ruined or seriously compromised 

by mismatches in the system or clumsy setup. One particularly 

noxious episode occurred in the big Von Schweikert room at 

the St. Tropez, where the firm (minus Albert when I was there) 

was demonstrating the VR-7 SE Reference, an ambitious fourway 

system, complete with a pure ribbon supertweeter and a 

dual-woofer system said to reach down into the 15Hz region. 

Four of Kevin Hayes’ 140-watt amplifiers were driving the two 

speakers, and the soundfield was both expansive and eerily 

“right.” But, the Oracle ’table setup, complete with the 

Dynavector XV-1S, was off. The cartridge’s vertical tracking 

angle was set too low, which robbed the highs of air and bloom, 

and made the midbass fatter than I think, based on what I’ve 

heard from Von Schweikert’s earlier works, that it should have 

been, obviously, to these ears, obscuring the very bottom 

octave. And the tracking pressure was too light. But despite my 

protestations and Kevin Hayes’ intervention on my behalf, the 

guy in control would not change the settings, saying it would 

take 20 minutes to do. Well, it wouldn’t have taken me 20 

minutes to make those adjustments. And so, rather than listen 

to colorations that ought not to have been there, I walked out. 

Similarly, I was invited for a private demonstration of the 

new Zanden equipment, being imported here from Japan. The 

CD player and decoder were the very same units I’ve had for 

evaluation (and loaned back to the company for the show), and 

they are honeys. So, to my ears, were the visually stunning electronics 

2 designed by Kazutoshi Yamada, their quite proud 

papa. But, to hear the strengths of the electronics, I had to listen 

around the speakers, which were not of Yamada design, and 

whose ringing tweeters reminded me of those Focal units in the 

Wilson MAXX IIs. Once you’ve heard enough combinations of 

components, you can hear past an obvious irritant to see the 

magic that’s happening underneath, and this is exactly what 

happened to me here. 

I was surprised that there was such an abundance of turntables 

at the show. I’m not objecting, of course, but it does seem 

someone is doing the time warp again, as the number of new 

recordings on LP approach zero (disregarding, for the moment, 

the proliferation and increasing abundance of remasterings of 

the Oldie Goldie hits from the past) and the prices of many 

turntables rise toward mania. The $100,000 pricing of the 

Australian-made Continuum was, negatively speaking, the 

talk of the show—would I ever like to get my hands on this to 

see if it could be, let’s say, 20 times better in sound that the 

circa-$5000 Super Scoutmaster. But, as the manufacturer let 

me know, that’s not bloody likely. I did, I think, manage to 

wrangle a promise from the guys behind the British Blue Pearl 

table (circa $90,000) for an evaluation sample. Roy Gregory, 

editor of Hi-Fi+, a magazine I admired long before AMI 

acquired it, wrote an impressive review of this that sparked my 

interest. Given the conglomeration of equipment in the room 

where the Blue Pearl was being demonstrated (with the wonderful 

new Graham Phantom arm), I could make no judgments 

about its sound. 

There was a turntable that I could “hear,” and it was the 

Baron Tim de Paravicini’s “magnetic” suspension DiscMaster 

(priced at a measly $16k—it’s a joke, Maude, a joke). There 

looks to be no “connection” between the drive mechanism and 

the platter, and, within about five seconds, it was obvious to me 

that something special had been achieved in the reduction of 

inherent turntable noise pollution. (Happily, they had on hand 

one of my reference recordings for LP testing, the Bartók 

Hungarian Sketches, with Reiner and the Chicago, and this, 

friends, told the tale.) That I intend to test. The sound in this 

room was, in its way, as good as anything else I heard—and I 

heard at least three other setups that were, putting it mildly, 

stunning (and that in a hotel room no less). FYI: The other gear 

was the Esoteric Audio Research (the Baron’s company) 912, 

the 890 amplifier, and his new CD player, the Acute—about 

which more very shortly—the Marten Design Miles III speaker 

system, Jorma Design One interconnects, and Acro-Link 

power cords. 

Now, that CD player. I can’t be sure of this, without hearing 

it in my reference setup in Sea Cliff, but, with the Howard 

Hanson Composer and His Orchestra, I heard what I thought was 

the cleanest high-frequency reproduction and extension I had 

encountered from a CD. By the time you read this deathless 

prose, I should have the unit in hand and be better able to see 

whether it was the excellent setup in Dan Meinwald’s suite or 

the player or my fevered imagination. 

Another most excellent setup was at the Hovland suite, an 

acoustic the Hovland folks have mastered since they insisted on 

the same room for three years running. The sound was a coherent 

and nearly flawless entity, smooth, extended, and lush in all 

the right ways. The biggest surprise for me were the Avalon 

Ediolon Diamonds (at $33,000 the pair), which far surpass (at 

last) the original Avalons that so endeared themselves to JWC 

(and me) many a moon ago. The sound was so coherent that I, 

for once, couldn’t be quite sure what was contributing what. I 

would have, that said, been curious to hear an analog source 

other than their own modified version of the Kenwood L0-7D 

playback system, with the Grado Statement moving-magnet 

cartridge. But, for the record, the system consisted of the HP- 

200 (weird initials those, n’est ce pas?) preamplifier, which is 

available as a linestage without the phonostage, the yet-to-be 

1 Pearson’s Second Law of High End: The more vital it is for the gear to work perfectly, the less chance it will. 

2 For example, the 845 push-pull mono blocks, the 1200 phonostage, the 3000 preamplifier, and 300 passive linestage were on display. 



released Stratos solid-state monoblock amps—and, boy, do they 

ever have looks to drool over—Hovland interconnects, and a 

prototype USB digital-to-analog converter, and I quote “to 

become part of a complete computer-connectable CD player 

with a new technology data-extraction transport,” set for 

December release. In this instance, we heard most undigital 

and convincing digital sounds from a transport that was the 

Apple Mac Mini and iTunes “loaded,” it is said “with uncompressed 

CDs.” 

I don’t think anything quite prepared me for the show’s 

sonic ballbusters. I stopped by Jeff Rowland’s suite because I 

was curious to know why he had dropped off the sonic map 

for a while—I didn’t find out. But we did discuss his new 

line of Class D amplification, which he said was neither digital 

nor switching in its design. While there I heard two 

quite small two-way speakers with voices bigger than a 

Metropolitan Opera star’s and inquired after them. “They’re 

called MAGICOS,” the guy said, with the requisite sneer 

about the Wal-Mart sound of its name. Then, later, one of 

our writers—pretty sure it was Valinosky, who had already 

managed to bag an evaluation pair—said if I thought they 

sounded good at Rowland’s place, I ought to go over to the 

St. Tropez and check out MAGICO’s own suite, to which, 

you can be sure, I hied me thither. 

I encountered the resident singularity behind what he calls 

the Mini’s, Alon Wolf, who came to the U.S. from Israel 17 

years ago with $324 in his pocket and has come to this. He had 

the Edge linestage and Ken Stevens’ imposing looking (and 

impressive-sounding) Convergent Audio Technology JL-3s. (I 

didn’t care much for the TEAC Esoteric player he was using, 

because I knew he could have done better, given the great 

strides forward in CD player design. But the Esoteric’s top-end 

digitis wasn’t fatal to the sound of the speakers). 

The speakers really took me by surprise, by storm even. You 

wouldn’t expect drivers this small (they are bonded to the rock 

solid cabinet) to have wide frequency response, particularly 

down low, or a dynamic response that illustrates better than 

anything I’ve heard of late, the concept of “jump,” i.e., the ability 

of a speaker to respond, instantly, to microdynamic variations, 

and, in this case, not just microdynamics, but the macros 

as well. The sound is big, big, big. Not in the bloated sense, 

but big like lifelike sound is. More than one person visiting the 

suite wondered where Wolf was hiding the non-existent 

woofers. I heard no obvious colorations during the session 

(which, included, you can be sure, some unamplified classical 

cuts). 

To me, it was almost—I said almost—worth putting up 

with Vegas to make discoveries like this one, and the Baron’s 

“magnetic” drive turntable. It puts that old thrill back in highend 

audio. 

& 

Manufacturer’s Comments 

Krell SACD Standard 

I would like to thank Fred Kaplan for his very thorough 

review of the Krell SACD Standard. There are two points that 

need to be reinforced. 

Since we are not a transport manufacturer, we are at the 

mercy of our OEM manufacturer of this part. As a company 

that places sound reproduction first and foremost, we selected 

the Philips transport because it best met our performance 

criteria. The inherent drawbacks of this device, as Fred points 

out, are a necessary evil. 

Not everyone is able to take full advantage of the latest 

high resolution SACD software. For us, it was extremely 

important to produce a machine that would give exemplary 

performance on Red Book CDs as well. We appreciate Fred’s 

careful listening and critical evaluation of the SACD 

Standard with CDs in this format. 

Dan D’Agostino 

Chief Executive Officer, Krell Industries, Inc. 

Mark Levinson N o. 432 Amplifier and N o. 326S 

Preamplifier 

To say that we are pleased with Robert Harley’s commentary 

on the N o. 432 amplifier and N o. 326S preamplifier would 

simply be stating the obvious. We offer a heartfelt “thank 

you” for the time and effort that led to his review. 

Beyond that, we’d like to offer your readers an observation. 

Both products benefited from significant work by the 

Mark Levinson team (HSG). Specifically, the N o. 432 underwent 

some circuit and manufacturing changes to enhance 

reliability. The N o. 326S was revised even more thoroughly. 

Although based in part on the N o. 320 preamplifier (a product 

that existed only in prototype form when Mark Levinson 

moved to MA), the 326S underwent extensive listening tests, 

parts selection, and voicing. Mr. Harley’s comments show 

just how successful those efforts were. 

The point is that the passion and aural sensitivity that 

was so instrumental in establishing the Mark Levinson brand 

over the last three decades is, if anything, even stronger today 

than it was several years ago. In addition, the resources we 

can now tap through Harman’s world-wide technology network 

ensure that Mark Levinson products will continue to 

lead the industry in sonic accuracy. 

Walter Schofield 

Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Mark Levinson 


m u s i c POPULAR 

Rock, Etc. 

RECORDING OF THE ISSUE 

Mogwai: Mr. Beast. Tony Doogan and 

Mogwai, producers. Matador 681 (CD and 

two-LP). Music: ★★★★ Sonics: ★★★★ 

Since releasing 

the eye-opening 

Young Team 

nine years ago, 

Mogwai has been 

hounded by lofty 

expectations even 

as its subsequent creations have helped 

lay the foundation for the flowering 

instrumental and cosmic-rock outgrowths, 

ambitious developments that 

are commonly tucked under the descriptively 

vacant “post-rock” moniker. 

After consciously turning away from 

the soft-loud dynamic it veritably patented 

on its previous efforts, the Scottish 

quintet returns to but doesn’t simply 

recycle the strategy on Mr. Beast. Rather, 

the group makes it a subplot to noisier, 

heavier currents flowing throughout the 

seismographic work. The gorgeous 

fragility that lightened 2003’s Songs for 

Happy People hasn’t disappeared, but is 

enveloped in piano-based soundscapes 

that convey lyrical episodes, the darklight 

tonal contrasts serving as speech 

even when words are present. 

Part of this secretive communication 

resides in Mogwai’s song titles, which 

here range from the mysterious “Folk 

Death 95” to the more overt “Travel is 

Dangerous.” With its treated piano intro 

and harmonium glow, the latter fades 

into view as a black-and-white photo, its 

mood of subdued glory suggesting that of 

a dignitary’s funeral. “Emergency Trap” is 

similarly meditative, crawling piano 

strides doubling as locked gates barely 

able to hold off intruders—in this case, 

welling waves of guitar-feedback that 

resemble string orchestras madly striking 

Mogwai 

their instruments. Mogwai also ventures 

into other musical disciplines. “I Chose 

Horses” is jump-started with fingerpicked 

spiritual tremolo patterns before 

giving way to underwater synthesizer 

washes over which Envy member Tetsuya 

Fukagawa drapes words. “Acid Food” 

glides on sunny western motifs, pedalsteel 

lines, and faintly whip-cracked electrobeats 

that elicit Daniel Lanois’ salted 

atmospherics. Again, while present, spoken 

language struggles to be deciphered 

over a submerging rhythmic drone. 

Words don’t even dare enter most 

realms, and while this approach is nothing 

new for Mogwai, the album’s weighty 

din and clamorous crescendos are an integral 

part of Mr. Beast’s unspoken premise—that 

there’s a monster raging inside 

all of us, and while it can’t be tamed, it 

can occasionally be harnessed. But more 

often, it roams freely. In response, 

Mogwai increase the volume and physical 

mass on the record’s most thrilling tracks, 

those in which the quintet seems to crash 

through glass-brick houses, ransack the 

premises, and move on for more. That the 

production allows for a multi-dimensional 

palette in which hues, volume, scales, 

and pitches are properly varied and monumentally 

presented does wonders for the 

music’s impact on the senses, particularly 

on attacking passages that grow to enormous 

heights without ever simply 

devolving into empty threats. 

Hence, “Glasgow Mega-snake” 

writhes against wall upon wall upon wall 

of guitar distortion, the bass notes swaying 

like a four-ton I-beam being precariously 

dangled from a crane. Warrior 

drums and low-end thunder mushroom 

on “Auto Rock,” the tune’s deadly outro 

mimicking the claustrophobic sensation 

of ice pelting against a car windshield. 

Brake-screeching feedback is offset by 

lean, melancholic chords on “We’re No 

Here,” a battering-ram of a bender that 

feeds off the denial in the title. Rubbing 

Star Ratings Key: ★ Poor ★★ Fair ★★★ Good ★★★★ Excellent ★★★★★ Extraordinary 


m u s i c popular 

together like charged ions, the band’s 

instruments dissolve into a melodic hail, 

the overdriven psychedelic cacophony 

pointing towards the fall of a civilization 

and implicating that the monster lives, 

and there ain’t a damn thing we can do 

about it. 

BOB GENDRON 

FURTHER LISTENING: Pelican: The Fire In 

Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw; Mono: 

Walking Cloud and Deep Red Sky 

Loose Fur: Born Again In the USA. No producer 

credit. Drag City 309 (CD and LP). 

Music: ★★★★ Sonics: ★★★★ 

A 

side project 

for producer, 

occasional filmmaker, 

and former 

Sonic Youth 

member Jim 

O’Rourke and 

Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche, 

Loose Fur is three exceptionally simpatico 

musicians playing with, off, and for 

each other, and obviously having a ball in 

the process. Unlike the group’s 2003 selftitled 

debut—a quite good if rather disjointed 

effort—Born Again In the USA has 

a greater feeling of cohesion. Granted, 

these are three very experimental musicians. 

So don’t be surprised when 

“Wreckroom,” one of Tweedy’s songs (he 

and O’Rourke split the lyric writing 

duties while the band takes credit for all 

the music), begins as a tongue-in-cheek, 

vaguely John Lennon-ish pop song that’s 

interrupted by occasional slashes of noise 

before unfolding into a sonic dreamscape 

that lasts for much longer than you might 

anticipate. Song titles like that one as 

well as the opening “Hey Chicken,” a 

nice rocker with a powerful backbeat, 

indicate that Loose Fur doesn’t take itself 

too seriously, though there is some seriously 

good music making at work. 

“The Ruling Class” contains some of 

Tweedy’s wilder lyrics about current 

American society and saunters along at a 

country-waltz pace that’s bridged by 

hands-in-pockets whistling. Changing 

gears, O’Rourke’s “Answers To Your 

Questions” features his beautiful 

acoustic finger picking, filigreed textures, 

and ringing vibes against Kotche’s 

throbbing bass drum, while the latter’s 

carefully syncopated stick work on 

“Apostolic” demonstrates why he’s 

arguably rock’s tastiest and most musically 

adventurous drummer. The 

record’s 10 tracks are equally strong, and 

as with its first recording, the trio slips 

in a jazzy instrumental number, “An 

Ecumenical Matter.” 

The sound is first-rate, with a lovely 

overall balance and a warm, open, and 

easy nature that allows for a remarkable 

sense of space around the instruments 



Loose Fur 

(even if many of them are overdubbed). 

Given those involved and where it was 

recorded, Sear Sound and Wilco’s loft, 

I’d venture that this is an all-analog 

recording. Great stuff here—for the 

musically adventurous, of course. 

WAYNE GARCIA 

FURTHER LISTENING: Loose Fur: Loose 

Fur; The Minus 5: Down With Wilco 

Drive-By Truckers: A Blessing and a Curse. 

David Barbe, producer. New West 3016. 

Music: ★★★★ Sonics: ★★★ 1/2 

“T 

o love is 

to feel 

pain,” solemnly 

states Patterson 

Hood during “A 

World of Hurt,” 

the raw, barebones 

ballad that closes his band’s seventh 

album. The spoke-sung conclusion—as 

well as several other adages 

about emotion, persistence, and perception 

Hood utters matter-of-factly, as if 

reading from a post-suicidal diary 

entry—are the core themes surrounding 

A Blessing and a Curse, a work whose central 

tenet holds that without tenacious 

struggle and both good and bad times, 

life isn’t really lived at all. 

Having gutted it out as a welltraveled 

group for a decade straight, 

Drive-By Truckers know of what they 

speak. The quintet’s last trio of records 

has been as brilliant as those of any 

other contemporary band, no small 

praise given the current streaks of 

Wilco, Radiohead, and Flaming Lips. 

On those three prior efforts, the 

Truckers took on challenging Southern 

topics—the duplicitous history and 

legacy of its music and culture; the 

darker sides of its people and traditions; 

the customs and mythical figures—that 

universally resonate, yet 

nonetheless are regionally grounded in 

Southern gothic. More worldly, the 

songwriting here reflects a greater 

degree of geographical independence. 

Guitarists Hood, Mike Cooley, and 

Jason Isbell again contribute originals, 

each member bringing distinctive tones 

and angles to the material, much of 

which cranks. Isbell offers cautionary 

advice on “Easy On Yourself,” his wispy 

voice nearly getting caught underneath 

the meaty grind and cowbell plunks that 

stamp the tune with a ’70s bent. 

Hustled and hoodwinked, Hood 

nonetheless remains resilient and relaxed 

on “Aftermath USA,” a twistingthrough-the-brambles 

hangover anthem 

that, narratively, is Southern rock’s 

unambiguous version of the Grateful 

Dead hit “Touch of Grey.” 

While the Truckers represent rock 

and roll’s free spirit in all its glory when 

they have the amps moaning and drums 

stomping, a la the lonely “Wednesday” 

and punk-shot “Feb 14,” their unflinching 

approach to serious issues and intelligent 

lyrical signature are why they are 

among music’s elite. An acoustic shuffle 

shot through with a rippling electric 

twang, Cooley’s pull-no-punches 

“Gravity’s Gone” depicts a protagonist 

who’s tired of champagne, hand jobs, 

and cocaine but still hasn’t yet hit bottom. 

Ruminations on the deceptive 

pulls of nostalgia, guilty consciences, 

and permanence shroud “Goodbye,” a 

soulful tale of a busted friendship, the 

memories wallowing in a Hammond 

organ’s afterglow. Pacing as if it were 

keeping time to a ticking grandfather 

clock, “Space City” pictures life though 

the eyes of an elderly man who recently 

lost his wife, all of his machismo pretending 

worthless in the face of death’s 

aftermath. Somber and poignant, the 

insightful character sketches and poetic 

movements force listeners to think. 

Reflection is not just a premise but a 

purpose of this impacting record. 

Handled by the band’s longtime 

producer, David Barbe, the sonics are 

typical of the Truckers—raw, simple, 

dynamically present, and alert. When 

sticks hit drum skins, the beats resonate 

with realistic kickback vibrations; when 

members scrape an acoustic string for 

added texture, the extra finger pressure 

is ascertained. Above all, the music is at 

it should be—unadorned, honest, 

declarative. 

BG 

FURTHER LISTENING: Slobberbone: 

Everything You Thought Was Right Was 

Wrong Today; Merle Haggard: Down Every 

Road 

Cat Power: The Greatest. Stuart Sikes, 

producer. Matador 626 (CD and LP). 


Chan Marshall, 

a.k.a. Cat 

Power, is notoriously 

shy, shunning 

interviews 

and turning concert 

performances 

into high theater—complete with tearful 

meltdowns, deer-in-the-headlights 

bouts with stage fright, and abrupt 

walkouts. That makes the title of the 

singer’s seventh album, The Greatest, all 

the more out-of-character, like former 

Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy 

Corgan naming a record Oh, Modest Me. 

Fortunately, the reference isn’t the 

result of newfound ego, but a nod to 

never-realized dreams (“Once I wanted 

to be the greatest,” Marshall coos on the 

title track), a theme that haunts the 

album’s twelve cuts. Recorded at 

Ardent Studios in Memphis with an 

assist from several Southern soul architects—among 

them guitarist Mabon 

“Teenie” Hodges and bassist Leroy 



“Flick” Hodges from the Hi Rhythm 

band and drummer Steve Potts from 

Booker T. & the MG’s—The Greatest is 

clearly Marshall’s most mature record. 

It might also be her best. 

“Where Is My Love” is a tender ballad 

buoyed by graceful strings and a 

sympathetic piano line that dips and 

darts like a butterfly in a spring garden. 

“Lived In Bars” finds love long after last 

call, Marshall’s ethereal croon waltzing 

the night away with Jim Spake’s sumptuous 

saxophone. “The Moon” offers a 

rudimentary astronomy lesson that doubles 

as a metaphor for emotional distance. 

Best of all is the frantic “Love & 

Communication,” Psycho strings and 

Marshall’s on-edge lyrics creating a 

growing paranoia as the song lurches to 

a devastating close. 

Marshall’s voice, which on past 

albums made even Norah Jones seem 

like a Broadway belter, sounds warmer 

and more soulful. Much of this change is 

due to the delicate production, which 

keeps the focus on the vocals, allowing 

the record to maintain the feel of a living-room 

jam session. Even when horns 

make an appearance on “Could We,” 

they sound distant, as if coming from 

somewhere down the street. Overall 

dynamics are excellent, with clear separation 

between the instruments and a 

wide soundstage, though the drums do 

slightly lack impact—a minor complaint 

on album that manages to deliver 

on its brazen title. ANDY DOWNING 

FURTHER LISTENING: Bonnie “Prince” Billy: 

I See A Darkness; Edith Frost: It’s a Game 

Rosanne Cash: Black Cadillac. Bill Bottrell 

and John Leventhal, producers. Capitol 

43381. Music: ★★★★ 1/2 Sonics: ★★★★ 

Steeped 

in 

anger, confusion, 

melancholy, 

and existential 

angst, the challenging 

songs on 

Black Cadillac 

chronicle a wrenching two-year period 

in which Rosanne Cash lost her stepmother, 

her natural mother, and her 

father. In response to tragedy multiplied 

threefold, she turned to song to work 

out her conflicted emotions, and then 

enlisted not one but two producers—her 

musical collaborator/husband John 

Leventhal, and Bill Bottrell, whose 

resume includes sterling work with 

Sheryl Crow and some exquisite soundscapes 

for Shelby Lynne. 

With Bottrell, Cash is backed by a 

harder-edged, rock-centric band whose 

members include another former collaborator, 

the Heartbreakers’ estimable 

keyboard master Benmont Tench. The 

Leventhal-produced tracks favor a rustic, 

earthy, largely acoustic atmosphere in 

which some sounds are rather suggested 

than actually there. Regardless of the 

exquisitely balanced instrumental support, 

both producers keep Cash’s husky, 

plaintive, and exceedingly searching 

voice close to the listener’s ear, as if to 

emphasize the supremacy of the text as 

well as the intimacy of these revelations. 

Whether the track gets into a driving, 

rocking mode, a la the Bottrell-produced 

“Burn Down This Town,” or 

offers a somber, folk-based, cabaret-intimate 

musing via the Leventhal-produced 

“God Is In the Roses,” the instruments 

are in perfect proportion to shadow—nay, 

illuminate—lyrical passages 

that startle with unabashed frankness 

and vulnerability, even by Cash’s standards, 

as the singer struggles to find her 

balance when there seems to be no place 

to fall. “Black-hearted pain…suits me 

just fine,” she offers in an anguished 

memoir to her father, “Black Cadillac.” 

“Someone tell me how to live/now that 

we must live apart,” she pleads in “Like 

Fugitives,” a song she wrote after her 

mother’s passing, in which she also excoriates 

the church and lawyers for their 

insensitivity to the human condition. 

It’s not like there’s no fanciful 

moments amidst all the agonizing, 

though. A snippet of melody from “As 

Tears Go By” tantalizingly surfaces in 

“Like a Wave.” “The World Unseen” 

finds her copping the phrase “westward 

leading/still proceeding” from the 

Christmas carol “We Three Kings,” the 

carol’s melody closing the song in an austere, 

piano-and-organ instrumental outro 

that bleeds into and is then later reprised 

at the end of “Like Fugitives.” But there’s 

nothing easy about this journey or the 

philosophical howls fueling it. 

Signing off with 71 seconds of total 

silence, each second a tribute to each 

year of her natural parents’ time on 

earth, Cash’s mute exit suggests neither 

acceptance, nor resignation, nor denial, 

but rather a soul that’s free floating, at 

loose on the land, searching for a reason 

to believe. 

DAVID MCGEE 

FURTHER LISTENING: Rodney Crowell: The 

Houston Kid; Joe South: Midnight Rainbows 

Sarah Harmer: I’m A Mountain. Harmer, 

producer. Zoë/Rounder 01143-1084. 

Music: ★★★ 1/2 Sonics: ★★★ 

I 

’m A Mountain, 

the third 

release from 

Canadian singersongwriter 

Sarah 

Harmer, settles 

upon the ear as 

soothing as a soft southern Ontario 

breeze. Arriving on the heels of 2005’s 

Juno-awarded All Of Our Names, the lilting 

11-track collection bridges old and 

new country, folk, and bluegrass. 

Comprised of eight originals and three 

covers, the tunes have a spontaneous living-room 

candor that’s rarely bottled in 

the cold environs of the recording studio. 

All the better to allow Harmer’s 

assured voice, filled with tonal strains of 

Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton, as 

well as some of Rosanne Cash’s throatiness, 

to come through. 

In songs like the bluegrass-inspired 

“I Am Aglow,” “The Ring,” and 

“Oleander,” Harmer sings of second 

chances and possibilities with the clarity 

of a mature optimist. The Appalachianderived 

“Goin Out” rings true as a lullaby 

of abiding faith. A tender cover of 

Parton’s “Will He Be Waiting For Me” 

touches on the complex emotional layers 

of restlessness, regret, and longing. And 

on “Escarpment Blues” and the title 

track, Harmer demonstrates the sharptongued 

wit of an environmentalist outsider. 

Although I’m A Mountain is not 



agenda heavy, hot-button topics like 

shopping-mall consumerism and global 

warming aren’t off of the radar screen. 

For those old enough to remember, fellow 

Canadian Joni Mitchell’s “Big 

Yellow Taxi” will easily come to mind. 

Recorded at her Ontario home, the 

mix of mandolin, banjo, and guitar 

almost sounds like a live radio program—real 

musicians enjoying a real 

time exchange. And aside from the clatter 

of a flat-pick or scratch of rosin on a 

fiddle bow, there is little percussion. 

The sonics are pleasantly soft, like an old 

home studio that relied on its own 

acoustics with the odd mattress pinned 

to the wall for added damping. Harmer’s 

vocals are unvarnished without a hint of 

sibilance; the bass is fairly extended and 

decidedly wooly. Overall, a fine effort 

from a very promising artist. NEIL GADER 

FURTHER LISTENING: Dolly Parton: Little Sparrow, 

Emmylou Harris: Stumble Into Grace 

Swearing At Motorists: Last Night 

Becomes This Morning. Dave Doughman, 

producer. Secretly Canadian 99 (CD and 

LP). Music: ★★★ 1/2 Sonics: ★★ 1/2 

In the press 

release that 

accompanies 

Swearing at 

Motorists’ sixth 

a l b u m , 

singer/guitarist 

Dave Doughman defends the “10 years 

and 2 million miles” the Dayton, Ohio 

two-piece has spent under the radar, writing, 

“For What? To be in debt? For the 

glory of 27 paid in Lawrence, KS? No, it’s 

because it’s because there’s no choice. It’s 

not what we do, it’s who we are.” 

Last Night Becomes This Morning is 

the culmination of all those lonely years 

on the road, Doughman’s lo-fi pop 

nuggets conjuring empty hotel rooms, 

missed romantic connections, and midnight 

drives down endless highways. 

The album veers between stripped-down 

confessionals such as “Time Zones and 

Area Codes,” an acoustic dirge that plays 

like the flip side to Ludacris’ “Area 

Codes,” to the pop-perfection of 

“Timing Is Everything,” which builds to 

a rapturous, horn-driven climax, the 

boozy, Doughman-led choir singing, 

“Why do I do the things I do?” 

The frontman doesn’t waste any 

time soul-searching to find an answer (“I 

don’t know, how ‘bout you?,” he quickly 

surmises), but that short attention 

span is what frequently makes his tunes 

so compelling. The album has the effect 

of flipping through a manic journal that 

details everything from how ten dollars 

could best be spent (on drugs, apparently) 

to thoughts of ending it all (on 

“Done in a Hurry,” the singer pictures 

the tour bus plunging into the sea). 

While not everything works—”Slave to 

the Kettle,” in particular, is a one-note 

joke—there’s rarely a dull moment. 

Most of the arrangements are sparse, 

whereby sawtooth guitars and Joseph 

Siwinski’s hollow snare provide the backdrop 

for Doughman’s musings. The production, 

as with most Swearing At 

Motorist albums, is comfortably lo-tech, 

the sound echoing the bedroom intimacy 

of early Meat Puppets. This approach 

brings out the best in the acoustic numbers, 

especially “This Is Not How Forever 

Begins,” where the soft hum of 

Doughman’s guitar makes it sound as if 

he’s trying not to rouse a sleeping lover. 

Meatier tunes, like the menacing “You 

Will Not Die Tonight (Probably),” aren’t 

handled quite so deftly, the soft-touch sacrificed 

in favor of a thunderous rumble. AD 

FURTHER LISTENING: Guided By Voices: 

Bee Thousand; Beulah: Yoko 

Tom Zé: Estudando O Pagode. Jair 

Oliveira, producer. Luaka Bop 350. 

Music: ★★★ 1/2 Sonics: ★★★ 

At age 69, 

Brazilian pop 

wizard Tom Zé 

has taken up the 

cause of feminism, 

adding a 

new radical twist 

to the cultural role he has previously 

described as “spoken and sung journalism.” 

Dedicated to 18 th century writer 

Mary Wollstonecraft (author of A 

Vindication of the Rights of Women), 

Estudando O Pagode was crafted as a 16- 

song operetta in three movements, 

musically unified by Zé’s postmodern 



extrapolations of pagode, a style that began life in improvised 

samba songwriting gatherings but which later evolved into a 

popular street-dance music with often misogynist overtones. 

Zé “takes on” pagode in both meanings of the term. By 

adopting an idiom he identifies with Brazil’s urban underclass, 

he continues to subvert bourgeois decorum, a project he’s pursued 

for more than 40 years as a founding member of the tropicalia 

movement with Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, 

and others. And by lyrically exploring the metaphorical and literal 

connections between property ownership and the oppression 

of women, he challenges pagode’s backward assumptions 

about gender roles and relationships. 

The songs are sung in Portuguese by Zé, Luciana Mello, 

and Suzana Salles, so English speakers may have to take the 

Dadaist story line—which moves from a murder trial to 

Aphrodite’s garden to slave ships, the U.N. Security Council, 

and an ambiguous conclusion about the redeeming qualities of 

love—on faith, or on its musical merits. Like the previous 

work of this Bahia native who found international fame late in 

life thanks to his “discovery” by David Byrne, Estudando O 

Pagode is a pastiche of folk and urban music, traditional and 

invented instruments, acoustic and electronic sounds. 

Fractured and jittery, with layered vocals, acoustic guitars, 

percussion, sampled beats, homemade instruments (chainsaws, 

ficus leaves), and an infinite number of effects, the 63-minute 

album is charming and unnerving, part bossa nova and choro, 

part Beck-ology. 

Though the overall sound feels brittle and bright at the high 

end, the lows have a solid punch, and the often-processed vocals 

boast beguiling textures. Meanwhile, the dancing of myriad 

manipulated noises all over the broad aural panorama keeps listeners 

delightfully off-balance and engaged. DERK RICHARDSON 

FURTHER LISTENING: Tom Zé: Com Defecto de Fabricacao 

(Fabrication Defect); Hermeto Pascoal: Slaves Mass 

The Gibson Brothers: Red Letter Day. Eric Gibson, Leigh Gibson, 

and Mike Barber, producers. Sugar Hill 4002. Music: ★★★ 1/2 

Sonics: ★★★ 1/2 

The brother duo has an honored place 

in bluegrass history, starting at the 

very beginning with the Monroe 

Brothers and later, embracing giants 

such as the Stanley Brothers and Jim 

and Jesse. With their startling third 

album, the Gibson Brothers join the 

party, the promise of their first two albums realized here in a 

fully formed work of art. 

The original songs are as meticulously crafted and as lyrically 

resonant as the vibrant covers they’ve chosen—no small feat 

that, given that the Gibsons tackle “Lonesome Number One” by 

Don Gibson, “I Got a Woman” by Ray Charles, and Bobby and 

Shirley Jean Womack’s “The Last Time,” an early Rolling Stones 

hit. The playing is precise, intricately woven, and impassioned, 

and the stripped-down sound has straightforward high-lonesome 

rusticity, the vocals close-miked and intimately framed by the 

various acoustic instruments, with Mike Barber’s steadily pulsing 

bass providing an unwavering rhythmic lifeline. It doesn’t hurt 

that the instrumental lineup is rounded out on occasion by 

ringers Ronnie McCoury on mandolin and Jason Carter on fiddle, 

both on loan from the Del McCoury Band. 

As writers and singers, Eric and Leigh Gibson have elevated 

their game to an inspired plateau. Teamed with evocative 

instrumental shadowing from his sprightly banjo and Carter’s 

soaring, triumphant fiddle, Eric’s reedy vocal on his self-penned 

strutter “Walking with Joanna” is the ideal vehicle with which 

to make a listener feel the urgency of a sinner trying to change 

his ways to win the gal of his dreams just as Leigh’s sturdy, 

emotive tenor could not have been better cast to add the 

poignant edge to his steady shuffling reminiscence of days long 

past, “The Barn Song.” Tenderness, heartache, triumph, 

tragedy, salvation, redemption—the stuff of life informs Red 

Letter Day’s texts, and the musicians’ commitment to the cause 

makes this exactly what the album title proclaims for both the 

Gibsons and contemporary bluegrass. 

DM 

FURTHER LISTENING: The Monroe Brothers: What Would You Give 

in Exchange for Your Soul?; Keith Whitley & Ricky Skaggs: Second 

Generation Bluegrass 

quarter page ad 

2/2 

RENO 



Marty Stuart and his Fabulous 

Superlatives: Live at the Ryman. Stuart 

and Harry Stinson producers. 

Superlatone/Universal South 02670. 

Music: ★★★ Sonics: ★★★ 

Nothing if not 

prolific, 

Marty Stuart and 

his Fabulous 

Superlatones 

return with their 

third album in 

less than a year, and it’s as different from 

this past fall’s Native American-themed 

Badlands: Ballads of the Lakota Sioux as 

that one was from the summer’s foray into 

deep south gospel, Soul’s Chapel. This 

time, the setting the shrine of country 

music, Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, 

the theme is bluegrass, and the modus 

operandi is a blend of new and old, with 

some of Stuart’s country hits retooled and 

meshing perfectly with timeless texts 

from the bluegrass cannon. 

Judging from the lively response— 

which isn’t cranked up to make it seem 

more than it was—Stuart and company 

get themselves and their audience all fired 

up from the start and don’t let up. “The 

Whiskey Ain’t Working,” originally a 

duet smash with Travis Tritt, is transformed 

into a languid, old-timey backwoods 

drinkin’ song with ample room for 

mandolin and fiddle sorties, while the 

stomping “Hillbilly Rock” gets a frenetic 

makeover as a rambunctious breakdown 

with decided locomotive overtones. In 

assaying “Orange Blossom Special,” fiddler 

Stuart Duncan burns up the box with 

ferociously fiery soloing that so energizes 

HOT WAX 

The Strokes: First Impressions of Earth. David Kahne, producer. 

RCA 82876 73177 (LP and CD). Music: ★★★ 1/2 

Sonics: ★★★ 1/2 

Back before The White Stripes hit it 

big, The Strokes’ 2001 debut Is This 

It ushered in a new era of straightforward 

garage rock. But the New York City 

quintet’s second outing, Room On Fire, was 

a letdown, viewed by many as a retread. 

Having something of statement to make, 

the band teamed up with noted producer David Kahne (Paul 

McCartney, Tony Bennett) for First Impressions of Earth. And 

the results are mostly excellent. 

In many ways, First Impressions maps The Strokes’ history 

over the past five years—the joys, dismays, expectations, 

illusions, fleeting fame, and mixed emotions that come with 

the job. “On the Other Side” begins with Nikolai Fraiture’s 

chugging bass grooves and a few minor chords from guitarists 

Albert Hamley Jr. and Nick Valensi before Julian 

Casablancas’ ennui-soaked voice intones, “I hate them all/I 

hate them all/I hate myself for hating them/so I’ll drink 

some more/I love them all/so I’ll drink even more.” 

Although The Strokes are plenty capable of crafting 

pretty pop melodies, as the opener “You Only Live Once” 

demonstrates, and a cursory listen may indicate a lack of 

structural and thematic variety, the more you hear this 

album, the richer it gets. “Vision of Division” at first sounds 

like a few proceeding numbers, but before you know it the 

music, buoyed by drummer Fab Moretti, surges beneath 

Casablancas, who repeatedly screams, “How long must I 

wait?” “Ask Me Anything” finds the world-weary vocalist 

channeling Lou Reed atop a burping synth. There are times, 

as in “Razor Blade,” where the yawning hipness seems like 

posturing, but such moments are relatively rare. 

The vinyl pressing’s sound is quite good. Super studioclean 

and -polished, it’s dimensionally flat but dynamically 

lively. Clear and articulate, Casablancas’ vocals never 

breakup, even when he’s shredding the mic. The bottom end 

has a terrific solidity, and instrumentals are richly textured, 

with everything shining through the well-balanced mix. 

WAYNE GARCIA 

FURTHER LISTENING: The Strokes: Is This It; The White Stripes: 

De Stijl 

Lightnin’ Hopkins: Lightnin’. Rudy Van Gelder, original producer. 

Analogue Productions/Bluesville 1019 (two 200-gram 45rpm 

LPs). Music: ★★★ Sonics: ★★★★ 1/2 

Lightnin’ Hopkins: Lightnin’ in New York. Bob d’Orleans, engineer. 

Pure Pleasure/Candid 9010 (180-gram LP). 


Otis Spann: Otis Spann Is the Blues. George Piros, engineer. 

Pure Pleasure/Candid 9001 (180-gram LP). 

Music: ★★★★ 1/2 Sonics: ★★★★ 

Otis Spann: The Biggest Thing Since Colossus... Warren Slaten, 

engineer. Pure Pleasure/Blue Horizon 63217 (180-gram LP). 

Music: ★★ 1/2 Sonics: ★★★ 

Blues Jam at Chess. Mike Vernon and Marshall Chess, producers. 

Pure Pleasure/Blue Horizon 66227 (two 180-gram LPs). 

Music: ★★★ 1/2 Sonics: ★★★★ 

Acoustic Sounds proprietor Chad Kassem has got the 

blues, and to prove it, he’s back with another sparkling 

Fantasy 45rpm title and a distribution deal with Londonbased 

audiophile reissue label Pure Pleasure, whose latest LP 

titles include several outstanding finds. 

Lightnin’ Hopkins has twice before been superbly documented 

on Analogue Productions’ extraordinarily expensive 

but ridiculously lifelike-sounding 45rpm series. Lightnin’ is 

no different. Recorded in November 1960 by the inestimable 

Rudy Van Gelder, the affair reflects the simplicity 

inherent in the record’s title. Hopkins is backed by bassist 



his mates that one of them cries out, “Git 

it, boy!” before letting out a whoop in 

response to the resulting fury. “The Great 

Speckled Bird,” one of the show’s few 

solemn moments, is defined by “Uncle 

Josh” Graves’ beautifully textured dobro 

solo, the passage eloquently and wordlessly 

speaking to the song’s mystery. 

Bearing in mind that Stuart did not go 

into the show intending to cut a live 

album, the production gets the job done. 

There’s a slight dead spot here and there 

when someone wanders off the mike, and 

what it might lack in vibrancy it more than 

makes up for with infectious energy. DM 

FURTHER LISTENING: Bill Monroe and 

Various Artists: Bean Blossom; Ricky 

Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder: Live At the 

Charleston Music Hall 

The Flaming Lips: At War With the 

Mystics. Dave Fridmann and Flaming Lips, 

producers. Warner Brothers. 


When 

the 

Flaming 

Lips released 

Yoshimi Battles 

the Pink Robots in 

July 2002, the 

ensuing culturealtering 

effects weren’t yet in sight. 

Many critics (including yours truly) 

lauded it as the band’s third landmark 

album, but no one expected it would 

attain platinum status, land the Lips 

prominent exposure, fuel grand touring 

spectacles that culminated with singer 

Wayne Coyne rolling around Coachella 

in a transparent bubble, and at long last, 

solidify the group’s place as one of pop’s 

most influential and ingenious artists— 

an achievement cast in stone by the 

2005 documentary The Fearless Freaks 

and journalist Jim Derogatis’ new biography, 

Staring at Sound. Of course, the 

storybook success didn’t come easily or 

by mistake. In 23 years, the Oklahoma 

band has never lost sight of its oddball 

visions, pulled back on the reigns of 

enthusiasm, or satisfied its insatiable 

craving for the unknown. 

While to the naked eye Coyne and 

company may seem silly and overly 

theatrical, the group has always 

responded to its surroundings by criti- 

Leonard Gaskin and drummer Belton Evans, both of whom 

provide inconspicuous small-combo jazz accompaniment. 

Sticking to his acoustic guitar, Hopkins deals country blues 

and lazy Texas shuffles, occasionally upping the pace for a 

get-down boogie such as the romping “You Better Watch 

Yourself,” a rural talking-blues that cautions against excessive 

drinking. “Shinin’ Moon” meanders a bit, allowing its 

narrator to share his peeping-tom observations 

while the musicians lock into and 

rock the groove as if it were an automatic 

transmission. That’s the only problem 

here. At times, Hopkins is too laid back, 

the songs coming too easily. That said, 

every musical grain is vividly present— 

Evans’ weightless sticks-on-skin drum rolls, Hopkins’ deep 

hull-of-a-ship vocals, the purity of the natural acoustic. Not 

essential, but worthy of deluxe treatment. 

Made six days later, Lightnin’ In New 

York offers a more fascinating perspective 

of the Houston-based singer-guitarist. By 

the mid ’50s, Hopkins had commercially 

peaked with his earlier electric sides. But 

his career got a boost from the burgeoning 

folk movement, with which he came to be associated. This 

outing is a solo affair, the music offering a wide-angle snapshot 

of Hopkins’ Texas vernacular. Expectedly, Hopkins 

dazzles with two-finger picking techniques while keeping 

one digit free to pluck a bass line. But the biggest surprise 

is Hopkins’ turns on piano, particularly on tracks where he 

simultaneously strikes keys, strums chords, and sings. 

Rarely has Hopkins sounded so free, loose, open, relaxed, 

and willing. Consider his ad libbing on “Mighty Crazy.” Or 

the stomping “Your Own Fault,” an unhurried New 

Orleans jaunt in which spidery piano lines cast voodoo 

spells. And the moaning and crying “I’ve Had My Fun If I 

Don’t Get Well No More,” a prayer on which Hopkins’ guitar 

doubles as a backing choir. The emotions range from 

lonely to romantic, the delivery sincere to playful to stern. 

Fittingly, the album closes with the carefree “Black Cat,” 

Hopkins staging a conversation between a black man and a 

white man who are drinking Thunderbird wine. Outside of 

some upper-end crackle when Hopkins raises his voice to a 

near-shout, the sonics are glorious, with tremendous presence 

and a control-room view of a thrilling performance. 

Pure Pleasure also unearthed Otis Spann Is the Blues, 

another treasure from 1960. The son of a blues guitarist (his 

mother) and pianist (his father), Spann learned to play by ear 

and made a name for himself as part of Muddy Waters’ 

pathfinding band. Here, on his debut, he turns the electricity 

down and works just with guitarist Robert Lockwood Jr. 

The results are a veritable blueprint of post-WWII Chicago 

piano blues, the chemistry between the players as close to 

perfect as one can get. Spann is a heavy hitter whose bold 

strokes induce tremors and whose hands are equally capable 

of forceful chords or loose boogie-based bars, his left hand 

jiggering repetitive two- and three-note patterns that 

respond to Lockwood’s milky licks. Both bluesmen possess 

riveting voices, Spann’s slightly lighter and containing a 

pinch of Mississippi drawl and Lockwood’s 

a darker-hued call that howls in the night. 

There’s an abundance on-the-spot playfulness, 

the pair locking horns on the country 

blues “Beat Up Team” and drifting off 

into their own worlds before crossing 

paths on “I Got Rambling On My Mind.” 

Throughout, Spann hypnotizes. On the uptempo “Great 



cally thinking about superior possibilities, 

and on the base level, circumventing 

the mundane by delivering 

happiness and optimism to audiences 

eager to go along for the ride. At War 

With the Mystics lacks the conceptrecord 

schematic of its predecessor but 

finds the trio threading large and small 

ideas through song. It’s an album that 

could be interpreted as an anti-war 

statement, though the stakes are much 

higher and themes too complex for 

such a simple reading. 

Where Yoshimi had our heroes battling 

machines over the future of 

humanity, the quest at hand takes on 

the very-real Powers That Be via existentialism 

and perception. For the Lips, 

imagination and melody remain the 

most expressive, effective, and accessible 

weapons. The psychic will and 

means to make change is outlined in 

“The W.A.N.D.,” a fuzz-blasted slice of 

pop magic that takes by the horns questions 

presented in the guitar-talk-box 

lathered “Yeah Yeah Yeah Song” and 

puts decision-making authority back in 

the peoples’ hands. Contemplations of 

humankind’s place in the universe 

(“Vein of Stars”), acknowledgements of 

that which we don’t grasp but strive to 

understand (“The Sound of Failure”), 

life-affirming admittances of mortality 

(“Mr. Ambulance Driver”), and cheerful 

proclamations in the face of pessimism 

(“My Cosmic Autumn 

Rebellion”) inhabit a moody galaxy 

that isn’t without sadness or frustration. 

Yet the Lips’ ambition isn’t to 

steer anyone away from reality but to 

demonstrate that we can alter its detrimental 

parts, transform mindsets without 

resorting to violence, and at the 

least, confront our doubts by embracing 

a sense of wonder. 

Expanding their musical palette, 

the Lips get down with funk, soul, and 

disco, all of which are stirred into a 

melting pot along with their trademark 

space-rock excursions. With Dave 

Fridmann at the controls, the concoctions 

again make for an advanced study 

in mind-popping psychedelic arrangement. 

Choral crescendos, Rhodes 

pianos, synthesized-flute instrumentals, 

string-laden orchestrations, skittering 

percussion, blurping electronics, 

splashy cymbals—all expertly played 

and composed by Steven Drozd and 

Michael Ivins—are layered, placed, and 

stretched across warm sonic canvasses, 

the production three-dimensional and 

aglow with textures. 

In that journeys occasionally meander 

and cosmic waltzes sometimes lead 

to unspectacular ends, Mystics sets its 

sights high but ultimately falls short of 

the tallest Lips summits. But these few 

missteps are minor blips in a work 

where blaxploitation funk, soul-jazz 

grooves, wordless vocal harmonies, aciddipped 

guitar riffs, bubbling bass lines, 

and bobbing hooks unite to meaningfully 

deal with the hurt of the present while 

simultaneously tapping a spiritual and 

emotional currency that rewards persistence 

and gives reason to believe in a 

brighter future. 

BG 

FURTHER LISTENING: Sly & The Family 

Stone: There’s A Riot Goin’ On; Bobby 

Conn: Homeland 

Northern Stomp,” a jitterbug of touchand-go 

rhythms and fluid melodies, 

Spann’s two hands sound like four, the 

clickety-clack of the keys bringing a taste 

of the Southern cotton fields up to the 

Midwestern plains. The LP lacks the final 

word in presence, but separation between 

instruments is fine, the vocals centered and Lockwood’s 

guitar off to the right. It’s missing the firm reach-out-andgrab-you 

hold of Kassem’s 45s, but this is a very wellrecorded 

piece. 

Spann also plays on The Biggest Thing Since Colossus and 

Blues Jam at Chess, both recorded in January 1969 and featuring 

the original (read: genuine) Fleetwood Mac lineup. 

The former is just Spann and Mac (sans Jeremy Spencer). 

Peter Green’s knife-sharp guitar fills and lashing hooks are 

plenty nasty, but Spann is buried behind splashy drums and 

middling arrangements that owe more to rock than blues. 

Several songs, including the funky “It Was A Big Thing,” 

are either dated or instantly forgettable. And even on the 

minimalist, mournful read of the evergreen “Ain’t Nobody’s 

Business,” Spann seems like he’s playing down to the band 

rather than with them. In addition, sonics are bogged down 

by muddled passages and a cloistered soundstage. 

A much better example of the Spann-Fleetwood Mac 

pairing is gleaned from Blues Jam at Chess, an informal 

studio blowout recorded in Chicago that also counts 

Walter Horton, Willie Dixon, and J.T. Brown among the 

rotating cast of participants. What it lacks in focus it 

makes up for in fun, via straightforward grooves, shuffleboard 

riffs, huff-and-puff harmonica 

solos, and jive-and-wail throwdowns. 

Dixon is especially hot, slapping and 

thumping his stand-up bass with soulful 

passion. Mac slide guitarist Jeremy 

Spencer does make this date. His contributions 

are knockoffs of Elmore James 

and JB Lenoir standards, but the tunes jump, honk, and sway 

with R&B delight. The Brits don’t let infatuation get the 

best of them, and while they seldom force the blues greats to 

break a sweat, the cross-cultural connection and creative 

sparks make for an enjoyably lively experience. Speaking of 

which, the sonics nail the detail and pluck of Dixon’s bass. 

There’s a bit of vocal congestion, but the soundstage opens up 

and allows the big-band rush to get the room hopping. 

BOB GENDRON 


m u s i c CLASSICAL 

Classical Caps 

Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1; Cello 

Sonata. Han-Na Chang, cello; London 

Symphony Orchestra, Antonio Pappano, 

conductor. David Groves, producer; 

Jonathan Allen, engineer. EMI 32422. 

Music: ★★★★ 1/2 Sonics: ★★★★ 

Korean cellist 

Han-Na 

Chang was a 

teenage prodigy; 

today, she’s an 

artist. As evidence, 

here’s her 

outstanding version of Shostakovich’s 

first Cello Concerto, a work conceived 

on a broad, symphonic scale and written 

for Rostropovich in 1959. Chang 

is joined by conductor Antonio 

Pappano and the London Symphony at 

the top if its considerable form, the 

important horn solos brilliantly 

played by Tim Jones. 

But Chang is the star of this show. 

Without neglecting the composer’s sly 

humor, she’s vigorous in the virtuoso 

first movement and really lets go in the 

Finale, full of Shostakovich’s trademark 

orchestral grotesqueries, flashy solo 

work, and earthy rhythms. In the long 

slow movement, Chang mesmerizes 

with her caressing tenderness and ghostly, 

hushed harmonics. In the following 

melancholy, six-minute-long solo cadenza, 

her outstanding technique and ability 

to infuse each note with expressive 

content are riveting. 

The disc’s other half is given over to 

a vastly different, earlier Shostakovich 

piece, the Cello Sonata. Written in 

1934, at about the time that Stalin’s 

minions promulgated the notorious 

“socialist realism” dogma for the arts, 

it’s far more conservative in form and 

content than his earlier, cheekier works. 

But you can’t keep a good man down, 

and there’s much lovely music here. The 

long first movement gives Chang opportunities 

to flaunt her big-toned lyricism, 

and in the Largo she projects the longlimbed 

melody with sympathetic 

inwardness. Here, conductor Pappano 

puts down the baton and skillfully joins 

her on the piano. 

With its vivid sound and powerful 

bass, this is one of the best-sounding 

versions of both works. The engineering 

realistically captures the different timbres 

of the horn solos—brazen at first, 

warmer later on—with exactitude. In 

the cadenza, the wide dynamics are 

thrilling, the cello moving from roars to 

whispers, with infinite gradations in 

between. EMI’s also taken care to provide 

venues that yield appropriate 

acoustics for each work. DAN DAVIS 

FURTHER LISTENING: Shostakovich: Cello 

Concerto (Rostropovich); Prokofiev: 

Symphony-Concerto for Cello and 

Orchestra (Chang) 

Shostakovich: Piano Trios Nos. 1 & 2. 

Seven Romances on Verses by Alexander 

Blok. Beaux Arts Trio; Joan Rodgers, 

soprano. Da-Hong Seetoo, producer and 

engineer. Warner 2564 62514. 


When 

the 

Beaux Arts 

Trio first performed 

at the 

Berkshire Music 

Festival in 1955, 

the pianist was 

Menahem Pressler. He still is. I saw the 

Trio in December 2005, and the 82 yearold 

Pressler—now playing with two seasoned 

chamber musicians (violinist Daniel 

Hope and cellist Antonio Meneses) who 

weren’t born when the Beaux Arts was 

formed—has lost little of his technical 

edge and none of his musical insight. 

On its second Warner release, the 

BAT takes on three Shostakovich works 

that span the composer’s career. The concise 

Trio No. 1 was written when 

Shostakovich was only 17 but is easily 

recognizable as his music, despite the 

more traditionally Romantic-era feel of 

the harmonies and ensemble textures. 

The Second Trio, from 1943-44, is 

among Shostakovich’s greatest—and 

grimmest—works. Inspired by both the 

premature death of a close friend and the 

emerging details of the Holocaust, the 

piece has a decidedly haunted quality. In 

the finale, Shostakovich vividly represents 

accounts he’d heard of Jews being 

forced to dance before open graves prior 

to being shot. The Beaux Arts doesn’t 

sensationalize the horror but instead creates 

an aura of cold cruelty. 

Lastly, there’s the Alexander Blok 

Romances, composed in the 1960s when 

Shostakovich was already a sick man. 

Each of the seven movements has the 

singer accompanied by a different combination 

of the three instruments— 

singly, in pairs, and as a full trio. The 

music, in the composer’s stark and concentrated 

late style, is extraordinarily 

evocative. Joan Rodgers’ creamy soprano 

matches the sonority of the two string 

players’, and she’s exceptionally responsive 

to the texts. 

The audio quality is superb, thanks 

to Da-Hong Seetoo, to whom the 

Emerson String Quartet entrusts its 

sound. The piano is placed behind the 

strings, allowing for a natural scaling of 

the three instruments. Tonally, the 

recording is exquisite. There’s no question, 

for instance, that the spectral line 

opening the Second Trio is the cello playing 

high harmonics, rather than the violin 

in its upper register. ANDREW QUINT 

FURTHER LISTENING: Shostakovich: String 

Quartets (Emerson); Dvorák/ 

Mendelssohn: Piano Trios (Beaux Arts) 


m u s i c classical 

Handel: Delirio – Solo Cantatas. Natalie 

Dessay, soprano; Le Concert d’Astrée, 

Emmanuelle Haïm, conductor. Daniel 

Zalay and Laurence Heym, producers; 

Michel Pierre, engineer. Virgin 332624. 


Natalie Dessay 

is a coloratura-lyric 

soprano 

with a great 

voice, who also 

delivers material 

with rare intelligence 

and passion. Here she joins leading 

lights of the new wave of period 

instrument specialists, Le Concert 

d’Astrée and Emmanuelle Haïm, in a 

pair of Handel’s cantatas and an oratorio 

aria, all written during an Italian 

sojourn the composer took in his 20s. 

The works are typical of the period: 

figures from mythology dwell on the 

torments of love; the protagonist, an 

abandoned woman who veers between 

pleading with her lover and going ballistic 

with rage. The longest and most 

substantial work is Delirio amoroso, 

whose three long arias, recitatives, and 

orchestral sections add up to a meaty 37 

minutes of terrific playing and singing. 

The orchestra of about 30 players is 

superb, with special mention due to 

oboe soloist Patrick Beaugiraud, whose 

rounded juicy tone and lively phrasing 

are exemplary in the work’s orchestral 

sections and in duet with Dessay. The 

latter is splendid, tossing off flashy coloratura 

runs with ease, investing the 

hopeful parts of the narrative with 

bright-voiced emotion, the dramatic 

sections with fiery ardor. Her pianissimos 

are ravishing too, and she matches 

her voice to perfectly suit the accompaniments, 

an important part of what 

makes this such a fine work since the 

singer engages in wonderful duets with 

oboe, violin, and, in the longest aria, 

“Per te lascia la luce,” the cello. 

The disc is filled out with an aria 

from Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, and a 

chamber cantata for soprano, oboe, and 

basso continuo, Mi palpita il cor, which 

gets the same deluxe treatment, albeit 

on a more fitting smaller scale. The 

sound is admirable—plenty of texture 

and body to voice and instruments, a 

touch of the reverberant space around 

them, and excellent balances. The voice 

and accompanying instruments are 

depicted naturally, yielding a transparent 

stage picture. 

DD 

FURTHER LISTENING: Handel: Aci, Galatea 

e Polifemo; Dessay: Mozart Arias 

Williams: Munich. John Williams, conductor. 

Williams, producer; Shawn Murphy, 

engineer. Decca B0006093. 

Music: ★★★ 1/2 Sonics: ★★★ 1/2 

Williams: Memoirs of a Geisha. Yo-Yo Ma, 

cello; Itzhak Perlman, violin. John 

Williams, conductor. Williams, producer; 

Shawn Murphy, engineer. Sony Classical 

82876747082. Music: ★★★★ 

Sonics: ★★★★ 

Howard: King Kong. Pete Anthony, Mike 

Nowak, Bruce Babcock, conductors. 

James Newton Howard and Jim Weidman, 

producers; Joel Iwataki and Alan 

Meyerson, engineers. Decca B0005715. 

Music: ★★★ Sonics: ★★ 1/2 

The Oscars are upon us, and the winner 

is…. Well, as of this writing it’s too 

early to say who the winners will be, but 

not too early to note that 2005 was some 

kind of year in filmmaking and film 

scoring. By himself, John Williams, the 

dean of Hollywood soundtrackers, composed, 

conducted and produced the 

recordings of four feature-length 

scores—Star Wars: Episode Three—Revenge 

of the Sith, War of the Worlds, Memoirs of a 

Geisha, and Munich. At the age of 74, 

which he will be by the time this review 

appears, he is scarcely slowing down. 

Nor is he losing his touch. While people 

have long complained that when he isn’t 

parroting someone else’s music— 

Walton’s, or Prokofiev’s, or Holst’s—he’s 

repeating himself, in fact he is still finding 

interesting ways of making music an 

integral and emotionally telling element 

of the films he works on. The scores to 

both Munich and Memoirs of a Geisha 

show that he is very much at the top of 

his game. 

Williams has long been unsurpassed 

at limning the character, the emotional 

terrain, of a film, through the application 

of orchestral color and distinctive 

rhythmic and harmonic inflections in 

his music. One of his tricks is finding 

the right “voice” to go with the subject 

and mood of a film. In Schindler’s List it 

was the violin, in The Terminal, the clarinet. 

For Munich, another in the long 

line of Spielberg films he has scored, he 

chose a real voice, the voice of Lisbeth 

Scott, whose haunting, exposed vocals 

contribute powerfully to the sense of 

anguish and suspense that pervades the 

score. The ideas Williams works with 

are rich and intriguing, the “Israeli” 

accent convincing but not too thick. 

Best of all, he gives the strings real stuff 

to do (as in the touching “A Prayer for 

Peace”), and they respond. The recording, 

made at Sony Pictures Studios with 

the usual topflight 

band of L.A. studio 

musicians, is 

better than 

decent—tonally 

natural and with a 

plausible reverb. 

But Williams’ best work of the year 

(which would be a lifetime best for 

many a Hollywood journeyman) may 

well be the score he produced for Rob 

Marshall’s Memoirs of a Geisha. 

Aphoristic, contemplative, and powerfully 

evocative, it features major solos by 

cellist Yo-Yo Ma (with whom Williams 

also worked on Seven Years in Tibet) and a 

couple of cameos from Itzhak Perlman 

(featured in Willams’ music for 

Schindler’s List, but their collaboration 

goes all the way back to 1971’s Fiddler on 

the Roof, for which Williams won his 

first Oscar). The score relies on drones 



and spare textures, with Japanese accents 

provided by koto, a plethora of exotic 

percussion, and prominent use of 

shakuhachi—a breathy “bamboo” flute. 

This is a vein Williams has been mining 

for a long time, but he comes up strong 

here: effortlessly sustaining long sections 

of music, he recaptures some of the magic 

he found in E.T. and Hook, and some of 

the suspense he achieved in Close 

Encounters, especially in the spectral, suspenseful 

“The Rooftops of the 

Hanamachi.” Most of the recording was 

done at UCLA’s Royce Hall, where the 

Los Angeles Philharmonic used to record 

for Decca, and that really helps the sound. 

The imaging is solid, with excellent 

front-to-back depth, the orchestral sound 

well balanced, with appropriate body, and 

the solos immediate and nicely integrated 

into the whole. 

Finally, to Peter Jackson’s King Kong. 

But first, some precedent. Max Steiner’s 

score for RKO’s 1933 King Kong was the 

first full-length film score, and established 

the model for the adventure/horror 

genre that in many ways Hollywood 

still follows today. In the case of James 

Newton Howard’s score for the new King 

Kong, “follows” is indeed the operative 

word. Howard certainly knows his craft, 

and he knows what others have done, 

almost too well. He gets it all in: the 

tremulous rustlings and eerie harmonics 

in the strings; the meditative solo piano 

and guitar obbligato; the pounding percussion 

and ominous brass; and, at 

moments of greatest urgency, the awed 

choral overlay. All the clichés in the 

book, piled high as the jungle canopy, 

but, let’s admit it, masterfully handled. 

Most of the score is in what used to be 

called “the key of woe minor,” and there 

are little tips of the hat to Bernard 

Herrmann and John Williams just to 

make sure you get it. Not very original, 

but undoubtedly effective. The main 

drawback is the sound. The score was 

recorded piecemeal in numerous venues, 

some of them pretty dry and “studioish,” 

and mixed and processed to a fare-theewell. 

The result sounds way too artificial 

to listen to, unless you happen to be 

watching the movie at the same time. 

Which, for King Kong, is clearly the 

point—it’s about the ape, stupid! 

TED LIBBEY 

FURTHER LISTENING: Williams: 

Schindler’s List; Howard: The Sixth Sense 

Philip Glass/Allen Ginsberg: Symphony 

No. 6, Plutonian Ode. Bruckner Orchester 

Linz, Dennis Russell Davies, conductor; 

Lauren Flanigan, soprano. Michael 

Riesman and Kurt Munkacsi, producers; 

Dan Bora, Ichiho Nishiki, and Dave Perry, 

engineers. Orange Mountain Music 0020. 

Music: ★★★★ 1/2 Sonics: ★★★★ 

Bongos 

be 

damned. 

When the great 

beat poet Allen 

Ginsberg chose to 

read to music, he 

eschewed “conventional” 

bohemian trappings associated 

with folk and bebop music of the ’50s and 

’60s. Especially later in life, he preferred 

either the downtown Manhattan cuttingedge 

fusions masterminded by producer 

Hal Willner or avant-classical settings 

crafted most notably by fellow Buddhist 

Philip Glass. On the occasion of his 65 th 

birthday, the latter was commissioned by 

Carnegie Hall and Austria’s 

Brucknerhaus Linz to compose his sixth 

symphony, using Ginsberg’s epic 1978 

poem as the libretto. By the time the poet 

died in 1997, he had recorded several 

readings of the work, which decries the 

“radioactive nemesis,” envisions an idyllic 

threat-free world of “sunlit mountain 

meadows sloped to rust-red sandstone 

cliffs above brick townhouse roofs,” and 

calls on like-minded dissenters, artists, 

and spiritual fellow travelers to “take this 

inhalation of black poison to your heart, 

breathe out this blessing from your breast 

on our creation.” 

To realize Ginsberg’s tripartite vision, 

Glass, who originally conceived of the 

project as piano music, wrote three corresponding 

orchestral movements, performed 

here by the Bruckner Orchester 

Linz and the daring lyric soprano Lauren 

Flanigan. Conducted by Dennis Russell 

Davies, the orchestra invests Glass’ trademark 

arpeggios with robust energy, and 

Flanigan adds piercing intensity above 

the two-against-three pulses that almost 

invariably drive Glass’ music. The dark 

drama of the work, even if often rings alltoo 

familiar, suits Ginsberg’s foreboding 

and embodies the message when the 

words are not clearly discernible in 

Flanigan’s delivery. 

Smooth through the entire instrumental 

range, the sonics are rich in the 

lows and mids and sparkling in the range 

of brass and bells, grandly pushing the 

pure, clear tones of Flanigan’s voice to the 

fore. On the second disc, Ginsberg’s reading 

of the poem is overdubbed out in 

front of the symphony and soprano performance. 

He adds warm, gritty emotionalism 

that some may find mismatched to 

the lofty art music, but it makes the 

humanity of his concerns more palpable 

and reminds us how inspirational his 

unique, homey, and greatly missed voice 

could be. 

DERK RICHARDSON 

FURTHER LISTENING: Philip Glass/Allen 

Ginsberg: Hydrogen Jukebox; Kronos 

Quartet: Howl, U.S.A. 

Orlando Consort: The Rose, the Lily & the 

Whortleberry. Nicholas Parker, producer 

and engineer. Harmonia Mundi 907398. 


On The Rose, the 

Lily & the 

Whortleberry, the 

Orlandos give us 

24 motets and 

chansons written 

between 1250 and 

1565 whose texts reference flower and 

garden imagery. Lest you think this 

makes for a disc full of pastoral boredom, 

be advised that many of the selections are 

full of X-rated sexual innuendos and double 

entendres. A 15 th century English 

motet, for example, compares a beauty’s 

breast to clusters of grapes, and a chanson 

from Burgundy has the lady singing “I 

was sprinkled … by the loving dew,” and 

I don’t think she had a light drizzle in 

mind. Tame by current standards, but 


Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 250 th 

birthday year has only just begun, 

but worthy new SACD recordings of the 

Austrian master’s music have been 

appearing for months. 

Andrew Manze, the baroque violinist 

par excellence, is joined by his usual 

accompanist Richard Egarr on fortepiano 

to offer stunning performances of 

four sonatas for keyboard and violin. 

The two works in F and the one in E- 

flat were among the very first pieces 

Mozart composed after moving to 

Vienna in 1781, finally escaping the 

stifling environment of Prince 

Archbishop Colloredo’s court in 

Salzburg. The pieces exude a sense of 

liberation and a progressive spirit that 

is fully evident in these fresh, exuberant 

readings. On pianoforte, Egarr 

plays full out without overwhelming 

the violinist, and Manze’s vibratoless 

but very appealing tone makes the 

material sound especially vivid and 

adventuresome, thanks to the bracing, 

earthy colors of the period instruments. 

The disc also holds the Sonata in C 

major, two movements completed by 

Mozart with a finale idiomatically finished 

up by Maximilian Stadler, who 

knew the composer well. Recorded in a 

Dutch church, the SACD doesn’t provide 

much suggestion of a reverberant 

acoustic, even in surround, but the characteristic 

sonorities of the violin and 

keyboard are faithfully captured. 

Likewise, Manze’s approach to three 

of the Mozart violin concertos is emotionally 

direct. The impression of a dialogue 

between soloist and orchestra is 

strong, reflecting the close working relationship 

between Manze and The 

English Concert. (The violinist took 

over the directorship of the renowned 

original instrument group from Trevor 

Pinnock in 2003.) Manze’s technique 

may not possess the steely perfection of 

an Anne-Sophie Mutter but neither is it 

threadbare. These are self-effacing interm 

u s i c classical 

Andrew Manze 

then again, we live in coarser times. 

The four-man Consort sings with 

ideal purity, their well-blended voices 

weaving in and out of the complex contrapuntal 

lines. In a French chanson 

about a maid’s deflowering, they sing 

with a rhythmic zest you could dance to, 

and an English selection opens with a 

hypnotically melismatic opening that 

leads to an early example of the round, 

with each voice taking the lead in turn. 

Not surprisingly, many of the texts are 

drawn from the Biblical Song of Songs, 

either directly or by inference. An Agnus 

Dei from a Mass by Frye makes a surprising 

appearance due to its use of the 

melody of the secular motet on the preceding 

track. Other composers include 

such luminaries as Machaut, Brunel, 

Gombert, and our old friend, 

Anonymous. 

Performances are first rate, the music 

attractive though perhaps best heard in 

chunks of several tracks unless you’re a 

devotee of this period’s dense counterpoint. 

At over 76 minutes, timing is generous. 

And the packaging is downright 

opulent: a 116-page book with copious 

color illustrations, texts, and translations, 

even a design for a “new medieval garden” 

with recommended grasses, trees, 

hedges and flowers. 

The engineering is ideal. Voices have 

body, timbres are true, and the ensemble 

singing is transparent. Despite a resonant 

church venue that lends warmth to the 

sound, the clarity is such that you can 

trace each of the complex vocal lines as 

they dip and bob and soar, essential in 

music that otherwise might sound congealed. 

DD 

FURTHER LISTENING: Orlando Consort: 

The Toledo Summit; Orlando Consort: 

Food, Wine and Song 

SACD 

Mozart: Violin Sonatas in F, K. 376; F, K. 

377; E-flat, K. 380; C, K. 403. Andrew 

Manze, violin; Richard Egarr, fortepiano. 

Robina G. Young, producer; Brad Michel, 

engineer. Hybrid multichannel. Harmonia 

Mundi 807380. Music: ★★★★ 1/2 

Sonics: ★★★ 

Mozart: Violin Concertos Nos. 3, 4 & 5. 

Andrew Manze, violin; The English 

Concert. Robina G. Young, producer; Brad 

Michel, engineer. Hybrid multichannel. 

Harmonia Mundi 807385. 

Music: ★★★★ Sonics: ★★★ 1/2 

Mozart: Violin Concertos 3 & 4. Adagio, K. 

261. Rondo, K. 269. Julia Fischer, violin; 

Netherlands Chamber Orchestra; Yakov 

Kreizberg, conductor. Job Maarse, producer; 

Sebastian Stein and Jean-Marie 

Geijsen, engineers. Hybrid multichannel. 

PentaTone 5186 064. Music: ★★★★ 

Sonics: ★★★ 1/2 

Mozart: Wind Concertos: for Horn (No. 1); 

for Flute (No. 1); for Bassoon; for Oboe. 

Soloists; Concertgebouw Chamber 

Orchestra. Everett Porter, producer; Jean- 

Marie Geijsen, engineer. Hybrid multichannel. 

PentaTone 5186 079. 

Music: ★★ 1/2 Sonics: ★★★ 1/2 



HOT WAX 

Grieg: Peer Gynt Suites 1 and 2, Lyric Suite. Eileen Farrell 

(soloist); Boston Pops Orchestra, Arthur Fiedler, conductor. 

Cisco/RCA LSC 2125. Music: ★ 1/2 Sonics: ★★★ 

Areissue like this one rather makes 

me wonder what level of the barrel 

we’ve come to. It’s not that 

Fiedler and the Pops don’t play the 

dickens out of Grieg’s three suites, or 

that the sound from this relatively 

early RCA Shaded Dog isn’t up to 

snuff. The Boston Pops, than whom none was better at this 

sort of fare when Fiedler was at the helm, do their customary 

ebullient job, and Cisco’s repressing is a great improvement 

over the original in every regard. The weakish bass, in 

particular, has undergone a sea change, gaining considerable 

power, color, and solidity (though it still isn’t the most 

floor-shaking I’ve heard—for instance, on the celebrated 

bass drum thwacks at the finish of “In the Hall of the 

Mountain King”). String, wind, and brass tone are gorgeous. 

Nonetheless, given all the marvelous, little-known 

repertory that hasn’t been sold and resold on LP scores of 

times, I’m still left wondering whether the world needs 

another vinyl reissue of the Peer Gynt Suites, even one as 

well-played and good-sounding as this is. 

A few months ago, I actually had to sit through the 

Suites, which made up the post-intermission half of a 

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra concert. (The first half was, 

believe it or not, Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and 

Celesta!) I couldn’t leave for political reasons (though I saw 

my friend Mark Lehman sneaking out) and perforce had to 

endure “Ase’s Death” and “Anitra’s Dance” and “Ingrid’s 

Lament” for what seemed like days. My point is: You don’t. 

Unless you’re a Grieg completist, a Fiedler fan, or an RCA 

collector (and barring the off chance that you’ve never heard 

this music before in some elevator), my advice would be to 

steer clear. And my advice to my friend Robert Pincus at 

Cisco is that it is time to turn the page on bottom-of-thebarrel 

RCAs. There is a veritable universe of EMIs, Argos, 

Decca Heads, L’Oiseau Lyres, Novas, Hungarotons, 

Supraphons, MusicMasters, Pantons, Caprices, 

Contemporary Music Series, Epics, and Columbias out there 

that no one has touched. Be a little daring. JONATHAN VALIN 

FURTHER LISTENING: Ernst H. Meyer: Symphonie für Streicher; 

Viktor Kalabis: Sonáta pro Housle a Klavír 

pretations devoted to serving the composer’s 

expressive voice rather than to 

mere virtuosic display. The soloist wrote 

the stylistically apt cadenzas himself. 

The concertos were recorded at Air 

Studios’ Lyndhurst Hall in London, and 

the sound is intimate and relaxed— 

perfect for this music and Manze’s 

approach to it. The orchestra’s slapping 

of bows on strings during the “Turkish” 

episode of No. 5’s finale is striking in 

dynamic immediacy. 

I certainly have no problem with 

Mozart—or Haydn, Bach, Handel, or 

Vivaldi—executed on modern instruments, 

though the two PentaTone 

SACDs demonstrate the range of possible 

outcomes. Julia Fischer’s renderings 

of Concertos Nos. 3 and 4 are big, bold, 

and extroverted. She plays with graceful, 

lithe musicality and a sweetness of 

tone reminiscent of Hilary Hahn, who’s 

just a few years her senior. Yakov 

Kreizberg supports her sensitively, providing 

a wonderful ease and flow to the 

orchestral contribution. The disc is 

filled out with “substitute” movements 

from two other Mozart concertos, a 

lovely Adagio and a sprightly Rondo. 

Like Manze, Fischer plays her own 

cadenzas for most of the eight movements 

on the program. 

There can be no complaints about 

the technical capacities of the four 

soloists on the Wind Concerto album. 

Jacob Slagter (French horn), Emily 

Beynon (flute), Gustavo Núñez (bassoon), 

and Alexei Ogrintchouk (oboe) 

are, after all, first-chair players in the 

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. But 

these performances, beautiful as they 

are, are wrong in scale, overly ripe and 

plush. As a result, some of the operalike 

drama is missing, and they begin to 

take on the flavor of nineteenth-century 

confections. The conductorless orchestra—again, 

all RCO members—plays 

well, if a bit blandly. Both the Wind 

Concerto disc and the Fischer program 

were recorded in Amsterdam’s Waalse 

Kerk; multichannel presents a very 

atmospheric feel for the venue. Fischer 

sounds to be positioned very close to the 

orchestra, and balances between soloist 

and ensemble are excellent on the Wind 

Concerto disc. 

AQ 

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m u s i c JAZZ 

Jazz Caps 

Manu Katche: Neighbourhood. Manfred 

Eicher, producer. ECM 1896 350. 


Attentive pop 

fans will recognize 

the name 

Manu Katche 

from the French 

drummer’s associations 

with 

Peter Gabriel, Sting, Joni Mitchell, Dire 

Straits, Robbie Robertson, and Youssou 

N’Dour. Some might have tracked down 

his 1992 BMG France recording as a 

leader, It’s About Time, with its all-star 

fusion lineup that featured Gabriel, 

Daniel Lanois, Branford Marsalis, David 

Sancious, and others. Jazz aficionados 

with ears tuned towards the distinctive 

European elegance of the ECM imprint 

probably know Katche’s work with saxophonist 

Jan Garbarek on such albums 

as Twelve Moons, In Praise of Dreams, and 

Ragas and Sagas. 

For this work, ECM impresario 

Manfred Eicher negotiated a merger 

between the Katche-Garbarek partnership 

and one of his label’s latest franchise 

players, trumpeter Tomasz Stanko, 

who brought along his pianist, Marcin 

Wasilewski, and bassist, Slawomir 

Kurkiewicz, to complete the band for 

Katche’s ECM debut as a leader. The 

moves paid off. Katche, a 37-year-old 

Conservatory-trained Parisian with 

family roots in Ivory Coast, makes himself 

at home in the ECM aesthetic of 

cool emotions, warm undercurrents, and 

spacious sonics. 

Neighbourhood often sounds like it 

could have been Garbarek’s or Stanko’s 

date. Both saxophonist and trumpeter 

take characteristic solo turns marked by 

bittersweet melodies, carefully constrained 

passions, and impeccable 

tones. And Wasilewski, who anchors 

the Stanko rhythm section (which has 

recorded impressively as Trio), gets 

ample room to exercise his nimble and 

graceful touch. Still, by virtue of 

Katche’s all-original compositions and 

his certain guidance of the insistent 

governing pulses and deceptively simple-sounding 

rhythmic configurations, 

it’s clear that everyone is playing in the 

drummer’s house. Unlike many of the 

drummers Eicher favors, Katche is 

more prone to set up a very musical, 

almost melodic, pattern on toms and 

snares rather than spreading the 

rhythm until it almost dissolves. As he 

manipulates it in place, the other musicians 

meditate on closely bound 

melodies that have a 1960s 

Miles/Hancock/Shorter feel. 

With lots of air and space, the sonics 

grant an exquisite realism to every 

instrument, especially the wood, skin, 

and metal of Katche’s kit, to point where 

you can actually luxuriate in a cymbal 

splash. 

DERK RICHARDSON 

FURTHER LISTENING: Jan Garbarek: In 

Praise of Dreams; Tomasz Stanko: 

Suspended Night 

Ken Hatfield: String Theory. Hatfield, producer; 

Jim Clouse, engineer. Arthur Circle 

Music 7502. Music: ★★★★ Sonics: ★★★★ 

This is the 

most satisfying 

solo guitar 

album I’ve heard 

in a long time. I 

don’t know 

whether to call it 

jazz—it’s as much classical, folk, gypsy, 

and blues—but Ken Hatfield has such a 

command of all these genres, in technique 

and idiom, that he can call it 

whatever he wants. 

A confession: I usually find solo 

jazz guitar a bit boring and, when it’s 

imbued with classical influences, a bit 

precious to boot. But there’s something 

different about Hatfield, whose 

name I’d never run across until his 

publicist sent me this CD; it’s a name 

we’d all be seeing, if justice ruled the 

music biz. 

Listen to his 12 “Snowhill 

Variations,” each about a minute long, 

covering the same theme as, varyingly, 

baroque, Renaissance, Irish, Spanish, 

pop, bluegrass, finally ending with an 

infectiously rhythmic samba—none 

gimmicky, each style convincing, elegant, 

even passionate on its own terms. 

On half the album, Hatfield plays 

nylon-string guitar; on the other half, 

he plays overdubbed duets with dobro 

or mandolin. Since his music tends 

toward the polyphonic on his own, 

these duets are head-shakingly rich. 

But there’s nothing self-conscious 

about his virtuosity; there’s even a casualness, 

which lets in an airy swing. 

Hatfield, who lives in Queens but grew 

up in Virginia, can also stir a backwoods 

wit when he wants. His threepart 

opener, “The Gospel According to 

Sam,” is an ironic tribute to his 

Southern homily-reciting dad, not 

some righteous meditation. The disc’s 

final seven tracks, under the heading 

“Borges & I,” are named after stories by 

the Argentine surrealist Jorge Luis 

Borges, and they share some of his 

knotty playfulness. 

String Theory was recorded in a tilefloored 

basement-turned-studio through 

a stereo pair of Earthworks QTC-1 and 

QTC-30 omni microphones (known for 

their extended high frequencies and fast 

response to transients) with no EQ or 

compression. And that’s how this album 

sounds: live, spacious, naturally reverberant, 

and finely detailed. Had the session 

been taken down on analog tape or 

Direct Stream Digital, instead of a conventional 

hard drive, sonics might have 

been close to perfect; as is, the sound is 

damn fine. 

FRED KAPLAN 

Further Listening: Marc Ribot: Saints; 

Gene Bertoncini: Quiet Now 


m u s i c jazz 

Paul Motian Band: Garden of Eden. 

Manfred Eicher, producer. ECM 1917. 


Given his historic 

associations 

with Bill 

Evans and Keith 

Jarrett, as well as 

his recent intimate 

working 

relationship with Marilyn Crispell and a 

track record that extends all the way 

back to Lennie Tristano and up through 

Carla Bley, Mose Allison, and Gonzalo 

Rubalcaba, it would be easy to think of 

Paul Motian as “a pianist’s drummer.” 

But as a leader, Motian has favored electric 

guitars over keyboards, probably 

because their tonal elasticity so naturally 

suits his supple approach to time and 

his emphasis on color and texture over 

relentless drive. 

Last year, after long stints recording 

for JMT and Winter and Winter, Motian 

returned to ECM (the label where he 

made his debut as a leader in 1972) in a 

trio with longtime collaborators Bill 

Frisell and Joe Lovano on I Have the Room 

Above Her. For Garden of Eden, he builds 

on the larger Electric Bebop Band format 

he introduced in the early ’90s with 

three guitarists (Jacob Bro, Steve 

Cardenas, and Ben Monder), two saxophonists 

(Tony Malaby and Chris 

Cheek), and electric bass (Jerome 

Harris). The septet context and relative 

brevity of the pieces keep the solos 

reined in and further emphasize the 

tonal-watercolor aspect of the ensemble 

sound. After opening with two Charles 

Mingus classics, “Pithecanthropus 

Erectus” and “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” 

the program concentrates on moody, 

mostly contemplative originals (seven 

by Motian and one each by Cheek and 

Cardenas) on the way to a boppish conclusion 

with Monk’s “Evidence” and 

Charlie Parker’s “Cheryl.” 

With solos deemphasized between 

the opener and closers, Garden of Eden 

unfolds as a series of intertwined melodic 

lines and pastoral harmonic washes. 

Paul Motian 

Although the lush and crystalline sonics 

give precise definition to individual 

instruments, the snap of Motian’s skins 

and the ticks, soft crashes, and purrs of 

his cymbals are especially pristine in the 

midrange-dominant mix. 

DR 

FURTHER LISTENING: Paul Motian and the 

Electric Bebop Band: Reincarnation of a 

Love Bird; Jerry Granelli: A Song I Thought 

I Heard Buddy Sing 

Nina Simone: The Soul of Nina Simone. 

RCA/Legacy 71973. Music: ★★★★ 


Nina Simone: Forever Young, Gifted & 

Black. RCA/Legacy 74413. 

Music: ★★★★ Sonics: ★★★ 

Nina Simone: Nina Simone Sings the 

Blues. RCA/Legacy 73334. Music: ★★★ 

Sonics: ★★ 

Nina Simone: Silk & Soul. RCA/Legacy 

73335. Music: ★★ Sonics: ★★ 

For The Soul of Nina Simone: Barry 

Feldman, producer. For all others: Danny 

Davis, original producer; Richard Seidel, 

reissue producer. 

You need only listen to the way Nina 

Simone transforms the British 

Invasion ballad “Don’t Let Me Be 

Misunderstood” into a simmering spiritual 

to know that she’s something special. 

No wonder she’s regarded as the 

High Priestess of Soul and an inspiration 

to a new generation of strong female 

singers and songwriters, including Alicia 

Keys, Lauryn Hill, and Norah Jones. Yet 

for many, Simone, who died in 2003 at 

the age of 70, remains a mystery. 

The Juilliard-trained pianist started 

vocalizing as a way to expand her role as 

an instrumental accompanist. Blessed 

with a reedy voice and a no-nonsense 

attitude, Simone is a bold song interpreter 

who defies categorization. Her 

albums have spanned blues, soul, jazz, 

gospel, folk, show tunes, pop, and 

protest songs—a multi-faceted career 

that baffles those eager to pigeonhole 

someone who has described these seemingly 

far-flung styles simply as black 

classical music. 

This quartet of newly reissued discs 

includes expanded editions of her first 

two RCA LPs, Nina Simone Sings the 

Blues and Silk & Soul, and a pair of new 

compilations, Forever Young, Gifted & 

Black: Songs of Freedom and Spirit and the 

DualDisc anthology The Soul of Nina 

Simone, all steps toward restoring 

Simone’s catalogue and helping put this 

unique singer’s gifts in sharper focus. 

1967’s Nina Simone Sings the Blues, 

released eight years after her debut on 

the small Bethlehem label scored a Top 

20 hit with “I Loves You Porgy,” introduced 

Simone to a wider audience. The 



album ranges from the gritty urban 

blues of “Do I Move You” to the uptempo 

soul of “Real Deal.” At times these 

studio arrangements are maddeningly 

generic, but the players (especially guitarist 

Eric Gale) and Simone’s own excellent 

piano work spark plenty of magic. 

All that, two bonus tracks, and the sassy 

“I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl”— 

not too shabby. 

Less soulful than its bluesy predecessor, 

the uneven Silk & Soul suffers from a 

slick studio sound and forgettable covers—a 

so-so reading of Burt Bacharach’s 

“The Look of Love,” a sappy take on the 

Association’s “Cherish.” Simone is best 

when left to her own design. Check out 

the stripped-down blues ballad “Love ’o 

Love,” written by husband/manager 

Andy Stroud, or the defiant “I Wish I 

Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free.” 

Simone hit her stride in 1969 with 

the release of “Young, Gifted and 

Black,” an inspirational Black Power 

salute that was a hit for Aretha Franklin 

in 1972. The song lends its name to a 

new compilation that gathers such 

civil-rights-era anthems as “I Wish I 

Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” 

and Simone’s powerful “Mississippi 

Goddam,” heard here wracked with 

pain and pathos and recorded the night 

after the assassination of Martin Luther 

King. The title track is included in 

both studio and live versions. This moving 

collection also features an unedited 

live version of “Why (The King of Love 

is Dead),” a heart-wrenching MLK tribute 

penned by bassist Gene Taylor and 

performed the next night. 

Arrangements are sparse, thus allowing 

songs to soar on the wings of Simone’s 

barely contained rage. 

For the uninitiated, The Soul of Nina 

Simone is a good primer. Her transcendent 

take on the Anthony Newly pop 

tune “Feeling Good” alone is worth the 

price of admission. The collection also 

includes the aforementioned “Don’t Let 

Me Be Misunderstood,” the bluesy 

lover’s lament “In the Dark,” an emotionally 

naked spin on Randy 

Newman’s “I Think It’s Going to Rain 

Today,” and the gleeful “My Baby Just 

The Best in New-Format Software 

(All titles multichannel unless otherwise noted) 

SACD 

Bach: The Four Great Toccatas and Fugues. Biggs, organ. Sony 87983 (★★★★ 1/2) (TAS 143) 

Baltic Voices 3. Harmonia Mundi 80739 (★★★★★) (TAS 160) 

Patricia Barber: Modern Cool. Mobile Fidelity Hybrid Stereo 2003 (★★★★) (TAS 137) 

Beck: Sea Change. Geffen 0694935372 (★★★★ 1/2) (TAS 141) 

John Coltrane: Soultrane. Mobile Fidelity 2020 (★★★★) (TAS 143) 

Dvorák: Symphonies 8 and 9 (Fischer). Philips 470 617 (★★★★ 1/2) (TAS 142) 

Love & Lament (Cappella Figuralis). Channel Classics 17002 (★★★★ 1/2) (TAS 137) 

Mahler: Symphony No. 1 (Tilson Thomas). SFS Media 0002 (★★★★★) (TAS 139) 

Music for Organ, Brass, and Timpani. Sonoma 001 (★★★★★) (TAS 159) 

Music of Turina & Debussy (Lopez-Cobos). Telarc 60574 (★★★★ 1/2) (TAS 135) 

Nine Inch Nails: The Downward Spiral. Interscope 3739 (★★★★ 1/2) (TAS 152) 

Popov: Symphony No. 1. Shostakovich: Theme and Variations. Telarc 60642 (★★★★★) (TAS 152) 

Poulenc: Concerto for Organ. Linn Records CKD 180 (★★★★ 1/2) (TAS 138) 

Rainbow Body. Barber. Copland. Theofanidis. Telarc 60596 (★★★★ 1/2) (TAS 144) 

Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2 (Jarvi). Telarc 60601 (★★★★ 1/2) (TAS 149) 

Ravel: Orchestral Music (Skrowaczewski). Mobile Fidelity 4002 (★★★★ 1/2) (TAS 146) 

Rózsa: Three Choral Suites (Kunzel). Telarc 60631 (★★★★★) (TAS 154) 

Rossini: Famous Overtures (Marriner). PentaTone 5186 106 (★★★★ 1/2) (TAS 142) 

Roxy Music: Avalon. Virgin 83871 (★★★★ 1/2) 

Saint-Saëns/Tchaikovsky/Bruch: Cello Works. Channel (★★★★★) (TAS 133) 

Steiner: The Adventures of Mark Twain. Naxos 6.110087 (★★★★ 1/2) (TAS 153) 

Stravinsky: L’Histoire du soldat. Ragtime. PentaTone 5186 046 (★★★★★) (TAS 149) 

Vivaldi: La Stravaganza. (Podger) Channel Classics 19504 (★★★★★) (TAS 145) 

DVD-A 

Beethoven: The Nine Symphonies (Abbado). DG 01462/3/4/5/6 (★★★★ 1/2) (TAS 148) 

Deacon John’s Jump Blues. AIX 81004 (★★★★ 1/2) (TAS 144) 

The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Warner Brothers (★★★★★) (TAS 145) 

Grateful Dead: Workingman’s Dead. Warner Brothers 78356 (★★★★ 1/2) (TAS 135) 

Mickey Hart: Best Of: Over the Edge and Back. Rykodisc 10494 (★★★★★) (TAS 137) 

John Williams: A.I. Warner Brothers 48096 (★★★★ 1/2) (TAS 135) 

Frank Zappa: QuAUDIOPHILIAc. DTS Entertainment (★★★★ 1/2) (TAS 151) 

Zephyr: Voices Unbound. AIX 80012 (★★★★★) (TAS 139) 



Cares for Me,” which put Simone back 

on the UK pop charts in 1987 after it 

was used in a Chanel No. 5 TV ad. The 

DualDiscs’s DVD side features nine 

stunning performances from the Ed 

Sullivan Show (1960), the Bitter End 

nightclub (1968), and the Harlem 

Festival (1969), all of which capture the 

powerhouse performer’s frank stage persona 

and musical acumen. 

Although remastered, sonically, the 

discs are a mixed bag. The two 1967 

reissues are bright and harsh. But Forever 

Young, Gifted & Black fares much better, 

and the DualDisc offers an “enhanced 

stereo” that smoothes out the rough 

edges. All four discs offer good stereo 

separation, with Simone placed clearly 

on a wide soundstage. The DVD footage 

is a marvel; Simone intensity radiates 

with a white heat few performers have 

ever matched. 

GREG CAHILL 

FURTHER LISTENING: Abbey Lincoln: The 

World is Falling Down; Lauryn Hill: The 

Miseducation of Lauryn Hill 

Vince Guaraldi Trio: A Charlie Brown 

Christmas. Noel Lee and John Burk, reissue 

producers; Stephen Hart, reissue 

engineer. Monster Music (two discs: one 

stereo CD; one 5.1 DTS DVD with Dolby 

headphone surround). Music: ★★★★ 1/2 


M onster 

Cable, manufacturer 

of fine 

cables and power 

conditioners, is 

getting into 

audiophile music 

in an odd way. It’s licensed a handful of 

hits and reissued them as multiple surround-sound 

“experiences.” With the 

Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown 

Christmas—the most musically worthy of 

Monster’s releases—you get two discs. 

One is a stereo CD mastered from the 

original 1965 three-track analog tapes. 

The other is a DVD (audio only), playable 

as Dolby Digital or as 96/24 DTS, in any 

of three different surround-sound perspectives—“Front 

Row,” “On Stage Jazz 

Club,” or “On Stage Concert Hall.” (This 

disc can also be downloaded onto an iPod 

and heard as simulated surround through 

conventional headphones.) 

The stereo CD sounds quite nice; 

the piano is up front and particularly 

resonant, though the drums are off in a 

corner and seem isolation-booth compressed. 

The DVD is another story. 

“Front Row” is fine, especially in DTS, a 

nice left-to-right stereo spread (the 

drums sound a bit louder and crisper) 

with a subtle ambience from the rear 

channels—just enough for a hint of 

envelopment, which is the whole point 

of surround sound. 

But the “On Stage” mixes, alas, are 

as the name implies. They try to put you 

in the middle of the band—the piano in 

front of you, the drums behind you. “On 

Stage Concert Hall” is the same, but 

with tons of artificial echo pumped in, 

to make those who have never been in a 

concert hall feel like they might be. For 

those who like this sort of thing, this is 

just the sort of thing they like (as Max 

Beerbohm once put it), but who are 

these people and why do they like this 

sort of thing? And why is Monster Cable 

pandering to them, just as a fair number 

of recording labels are finally beginning 

to get surround sound right? 

The music, of course, is irresistibly 

charming—breezy, sweet, and quietly 

swinging. Like Fantasy Records’ commercial 

CD, the disc also contains a bonus 

track, from a different session: a liltingly 

off-centered take of “Greensleeves” that’s 

masterful by any standard. 

FK 

FURTHER LISTENING: Vince Guaraldi Trio: 

A Boy Named Charlie Brown; Wynton 

Marsalis: Crescent City Christmas Card 

SACD 

Quinsin Nachoff: Magic Numbers. Nachoff 

and Tony Reif, producers; David Travers- 

Smith, engineer. Hybrid multichannel. 

Songlines 1556. Music: ★★★ 1/2 

Sonics: ★★★★ 

Magic Numbers 

doesn’t seem 

to be a promising 

album on the face 

of things. A 

moody soprano 

saxophone, freestyle 

bass, and R&B-inflected drums, 

joined by a string quartet—what New 

Age fusion hell is this? But Magic 

Numbers turns out to be something else 

entirely: a heady delight, complex but 

immediately engaging, brooding but 

also swinging. 

Quinsin Nachoff, a Canadian saxophone 

player who’s new to me, has apparently 

learned much from Wayne Shorter, and 

learned it well—those sweet, darting high 

notes mixed in with dark, dissonant intervals. 

The string arrangements are a kick: 

inventive harmonies, unexpected cadences, a 

dash of Bartók to spice the blues. Bassist 

Mark Helias and drummer Jim Black are 

lively staples of New York’s “downtown” 

jazz scene, where eclecticism is the norm; 

they know just when to play into, off, and 

against this music’s multiple strands. 

The sonics, in stereo or multichannel, 

are excellent. The soundstage is a bit 

dark—you don’t get the luminous seethrough 

effect of the best SACD recordings—but 

each individual instrument 

shines. The strings sound properly lush 

and resonant; the horn is clearly made of 

brass and reed, and you can practically 

see its size and shape. The bass and 

drums snap, bang, and sizzle. FK 

FURTHER LISTENING: Lee Konitz: Strings 

for Holiday; Art Pepper: Winter Moon 

MUSIC EDITOR BOB GENDRON’S SYSTEM 

BAT VK-300x integrated amplifier; Gallo Nucleus Reference3 loudspeakers; Rotel RSX-1065 receiver; Sony SCD-CE775 SACD player; 

Panasonic DVD-RP91 DVD-A player; Clearaudio Champion turntable; Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood cartridge; Bright Star Audio IsoRock 

GR3 speaker supports; Synergistic Research, MIT, Monster Cable, and Audioquest cables and interconnects; SolidSteel 5.5 rack 


TAS Retrospective 

Harman Kardon Citation 16 Power Amplifier 

Sue Kraft 

“Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory.” –Franklin P. Adams 

It would seem the more we revisit the past, the 

better it gets. The component HP deemed as “a 

major disappointment” back in 1976 (Volume 

2, Number 8) has now become a fairly popular 

commodity on the used-high-end-audio market. 

EBay watchers can verify that a Harman Kardon 

Citation 16 power amplifier in working condition still 

fetches up to $400 at auction. That’s not bad considering 

the unit sold for $795 new. 

Of course, that was 30 years and a couple of lifetimes 

ago. For most of us, anything with a window sticker 

approaching eight bills was a pipe dream back then, especially 

when it came to “frivolities” such as stereo. I was 

barely out of high school in the mid ’70s and pulling in 

a whopping $55 per week after taxes, $54 of which was 

spent maintaining a ’74 Chevy Nova with a hopped-up 

small-block 350 under the hood. It wasn’t until the mid 

’80s that I gave up weekend drag racing in favor of audio, 

as I thought it would be easier on the wallet. (Little did 

I know that a power cord would someday sell for more 

than a new car.) 

In a recent fit of nostalgic curiosity, I ran across a 

Citation 16 on eBay with one channel out, and was high 

bidder at $150. The amp arrived in otherwise good condition 

with retro-chic multicolored LED output meters, 

front-panel handles, and captive power cord. (The word 

“detachable” hadn’t been invented yet.) Upon contacting 

Harman Kardon for possible technical assistance, I 

received word back via e-mail that because the company 

had changed hands so many times, I was basically SOL. 

Luckily for me technical manuals are readily available on 

eBay as well. 

With schematic in hand, I brought the HK to a techie 

friend who diagnosed a burned out op-amp on the driver 

board. While in the shop, I also had the large filter caps 

replaced, and a speaker protection circuit installed. 

Although the Citation 16 has a DC filter network on the 

input side, there’s no factory fail-safe in the event of 

major meltdown on the output side. I didn’t even want to 

imagine what the B&W 800D would look like with 

woofer cones strewn about the floor. I should also note 

that at some point prior to my purchase it appeared the 

output transistors were also replaced. 

In the original TAS capsule review KJL concluded 

(with HP concurring in a follow-up) that the Citation 16 

“lacks openness, is hollow in the midrange and is too 

bright up top.” While I’m not about to question what 

anybody (especially HP) heard so many years ago, I’d say 

that I’ve somehow managed to stumble into one of those 

“opposite universe” things I saw on an episode of Star 

Trek. Upon listening, the first thing I noted about the HK 

was its remarkable openness, transparency, and wall-towall 

soundstaging. The highs were extended, perhaps 

more so than even the Meridian G57 amplifier I’m using, 

but not overly bright. And I’d describe the midrange as 

being sweet, not hollow. The bottom end was also tight 

and well defined, the pace quick and energetic. I wasn’t 

disappointed at all. 

When all was said and done, the Harman Kardon 

Citation 16 set me back roughly in the neighborhood of 

$300. That’s a heck of a nice neighborhood when you’re 

talking about a 150W “twin-powered” (dual-mono) 

solid-state amp in a bulletproof chassis. I wouldn’t call 

this vintage piece a giant-killer, but even with its primitive 

design, it still performs surprisingly well against the 

amplifiers of today. As for the transformation in sound 

from the original reviewed back in 1976, who knows? 

Certainly modern-day speaker technology and a few new 

parts under the hood didn’t hurt. A fellow audiophile old 

timer tells me (with a smile) that age has a tendency to 

dull the senses a bit. That could be true. Or perhaps the 

Citation 16 just needed 30 years to finally break in.

in this issue

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