New Los Angeles audio show

Discussion in 'The Meeting Place' started by AllanMarcus, Sep 22, 2016.

  1. bazelio

    bazelio Friend

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    If either of you want to meet up, Brencho and I will be there all day. Low attendance is fine by me!

    PS The Pranafidelity guy, I feel, has mastered the crossover design. Apparently the Wilson guys were asking how he got that response in that room from those speakers. I think the drivers are at best secondary to the crossover. And there's a good chance Prana speakers will show up in the Baz living room soon... ;-)
     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2017
  2. bazelio

    bazelio Friend

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    Small sample size yesterday, but my two favorite rooms thus far:

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  3. burnspbesq

    burnspbesq Friend

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    Anyone who was there on Friday notice whether Chord had a working Poly to play with?
     
  4. brencho

    brencho Friend

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    Had a great time with @bazelio at the LA Audio Show this weekend. We also ran into @Wfojas and @Bill-P at the show! The nicest surprise was the Amber Rubarth performance, totally unexpected (at least to me because I'm incapable of planning ahead apparently).

    One of the big highlights was hanging out with bazelio at my place, where we compared a couple different tubes for the EAR 890 amp, and also got to switch back and forth between the Zesto Andros 1.2 and the EAR 324 phonostages. Really fun, eye opening and informative. It really made it clear that any sight-unseen (or unheard) changes to a 2 channel vinyl system are not recommended. In the system as I have it setup now, the Zesto fit better, but the EAR 324 was really good and had a more present bass response and was a bit more resolving from what I could tell (at the expensive of a more fatiguing and bright sound in my system).

    In terms of the show, some good some bad some ugly and lots unobtanium. Wish I were able to go for 2 days rather than just 1 since there were a few rooms that I never made it to (e.g., Gamut, Spendor+Jadis). Very few things felt good in almost every way; some things were good with caveats, lots of forgettable and not-great rooms. I'll just list some random impressions and tidbits. I also found it tricky to really isolate what each part of a chain was bringing to the table in most cases. Beware, garbage impressions ahead...

    The Good:

    PranaFidelity: These were really really nice. Full bodied, natural sound, realistic sounding, and not insanely priced. The guy who makes them built in a switch so you can hear different resistor materials if the song calls for it (ceramic vs. carbon film, etc). Really cool guy that was fun to talk to, learned a lot. That room had a Kuzma Stabi M turntable with a 14" tonearm and a EAR acute CD player. He was using his own Pranafidelity Phono stage and amp, all solid state but not solid-state-sounding. Really really nice room. (Check out bazelio's nice picture right above for this system).

    Harbeth and Naim: This was my second favorite room probably, along with the Pranafidelity one above. The harbeth SHL5 plus were really natural and full sounding, probably not the final word on resolution but really really nice and involving. These were paired with all solid-state Naim gear that was impressive as well, didn't have the classic solid state sound signature. Probably a great choice for a no-fuss integrated amp with headphone jack.

    IMG_4915.JPG

    Zesto/Marten: George is a great guy, and his gear is equally great. This room had lots of potential but came up sounding too soft and polite to me. Maybe the fault of the Merril-Williams table and tonearm combo, cause I've heard the Zesto chain and Marten speakers (though not the Djangos) in other systems and they didn't sound polite or soft in those other ones. Got to hear the Zesto Tesera phonostage and it was amazing, just so quiet and dynamic but priced really really high so unobtanium to me. Also had a Zesto Leto and Zesto Eros (or Bia?) monoblocks driving the Djangos. Check out bazelio's post above for a pic of the Zesto gear.

    TAD Labs/ Spiral Groove: This room sounded pretty good too. Nice tonality, maybe not the most resolving but pretty nice. The Spiral Groove table had a Koetsu Rosewood cart that seemed like a good match.

    IMG_4907.JPG

    TW Acustic/ Horning speakers: Nice sounding room. The TW Acustic turntable seems like a really great and super well engineered german turntable. I think the phono stage was also from TW acustics, but the amps were these weird wooden arte forma mono blocks that I haven't ever seen before. The Horning speakers from denmark were pretty nice sounding. Also heard a TW Acustic table with an all copper platter that weighs like 70 lbs in a different room that was way more "hi-fi" sounding with Verity audio gear in it, still fun but I'd take the other room over it. The TW Acustic guy lives in NYC with his wife in a warehouse filled with audio gear, motorcycle parts, and an inflatable bed.

    IMG_4936.JPG


    The Not So Good or the Train That Almost Could:

    Upscale audio room: Stopped by to peak at what weird old uncle Kevin was up to. His room had a VPI table with a kiseki purple heart cartridge, a Zesto Tessera stage, and a PrimaLuna integrated amp driving Focal speakers. This system sounded full bodied, really really dynamic (maybe too dynamic) and in your face and sorta bright and fatiguing (the fault of the Focal speakers I'm sure). I would've liked to hear the rest of the chain with different speakers. The subwoofer was horribly integrated though.

    EAR/ Dragonfire: Really wanted to hear the EAR room cause I love EAR and what they achieve. But very sad that the room wasn't sounding good this year, primarily cause those Dragonfire speakers were pretty bad (why not just use any Marten speaker?!?), and second cause the representatives in the room were just talking loudly, alternating between arguing/bickering and laughing the whole time. We left after a minute of trying to listen to radiohead on a Helios turntable with a Kiseki cart.

    Raidho: I think ribbon tweeters are not my thing. This echoed in other rooms with ribbon tweeters. The highs got to me pretty quickly and felt fatiguing.

    Lumenwhite: Would've liked to hear these in a different room, but this room was so shallow that these massive speakers with ceramic drivers just inches from your face. Each speaker was driven by massive ayon monoblocks with 10- KT-150 tubes per channel LOL

    IMG_4940.JPG

    Vinnie Rossi/ Spatial Audio: i really like My Cousin Vinnie starring Danny DeVito so what the hell. Turns out Vinnie Rossi makes these modular 1 box solutions that has an integrated amp that can drive speakers, can have a dac, or a phono stage or whatever. The Spatial Audio speakers looked like something out of Alice in Wonderland, like speakers that had been exaggerated by a laser gun or a funny cartoon.

    Artos/ Audio valve: These sounded alright, but not at the height of Marten's ceramic driver speakers. These were driven by some crazy 300W audio valve mono blocks.

    The Bad aka Not For Me:

    Voxativ: The other room I wanted to leave immediately was the Voxativ room. These speakers were just sooooo far away from what I'm looking for. They're extremely technically gifted speakers, no doubt about it. But I felt like little miniature gnomes were cumming titanium-plated sand pellets into my ear drums, or like little tiny angels cutting my ears with little tiny sheets of paper. Over and over again. It also didn't help that the subs in the room didn't feel integrated at all, so it was just sand paper cuts along with a deep and rumbly sub-bass. Come to think of it, most (or all) of the rooms with subs sounded disjointed to me.

    IMG_4910.JPG

    Rethm: These looked like they teamed up with Apple in cupertino to design these speakers. They're fully encased in brushed metal. At first I thought it was placebo or some other trick played on my mind, but then i closed my eyes and listened for a while, and nope, they just sound metallic and zingy and not all that pleasant.


    The Ugly:

    Ampsandsound: I get that ampsandsound make headphone amps. They even make headphone amps that some sbaf-friends like. But their amp and speaker combo was really bad to me. Sometimes even in bad rooms I could still rescue a positive note or understand the thing being strived for...but not so here. We later found out that the ampsandsound speakers are $30k msrp, which almost made me fall out of my chair. f'ing insane is an understatement. Some epic quotes that I won't repeat in public.

    The Oil Barons:

    darTZeel / Evolution acoustics / Wave kinetics: This takes the oil baron award cause there was at least $500k in gear here. Turntable was a wave kinetics with a durand tonearm, the Evolution speakers were crazy looking, and each had a big ass box next to it with the crossovers. The darTZeel mono blocks and phono stage alone would cost you $210,000 american shekels.

    IMG_4942.JPG

    Wilson Benesch: Ok maybe the cousin of an Oil baron. Imaging and stage were really deep and pinpoint, but sounded boring and polite and really didn't do anything to involve me in the music. This was with a Thales table and a really f'ing nice Ypsilon phono stage.

    Einstein / TechDAS: Brian and I ran into Michael Fremer in this room. He was sitting in a chair liking posts on facebook (reads: "ugghh i hate poison ivy"...reacts: "strong like!"). This room was kinda nuts, hundreds of thousands in gear. The Techdas Airforce turntable looked like a futuristic machine that could maybe even 3d print you a figurine of the milenium falcon and make you a capuccino. Cool room to experience, but not really grabbing me by the heart strings or the cojones or anything. Classic hifi sound.

    IMG_4903.JPG


    And cause she was the best part of the show:

    IMG_4954.JPG
     

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    Last edited: Jun 5, 2017
  5. boynamedsue

    boynamedsue New

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    +1 on the Zesto/Marten room. They played vinyl tracks from LA4 Just Friends and Nat King Cole and the sound was so engaging and natural. My second favorite was the room with the Harbeth Super HL5's. The imaging of the Emerald Physics speakers were amazing, and was impressed by the bass output of the Raidho's book shelves (I thought there were subwoofer's in the room). The Magico and Vapor audio rooms sounded good, but a bit hifi for me (Not like for everyday listening).

    Besides the ones listed above, most other rooms were surprisingly disappointing, but this may have been due to selection of tracks, system synergy, and environmental noise.
     
  6. bazelio

    bazelio Friend

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    Amber Rubarth was great. She wears her passion and emotions on her sleeve. She described the meaning of and inspiration for most of her songs, and was moved to tears briefly at least twice. And as I sat there listening, somehow the memory of the late Jimmy V's "3 Things You Should Do Every Day" speech came to mind. Because isn't that why many of us are passionate about audio in the first place - it has the power to evoke emotional response, deep thought, and tremendous enjoyment all in one sitting.

    Back to the show...

    Purpose: As I've begun to de-emphasize headphones and personal audio oriented gear, I wanted to wanted to utilize the show to confirm a few things before going all in. (1) There are very few options in the otherwise vast sea of high end audio that are truly special. (2) However, there is more than one way to skin a cat. (3) It's very easy to make good gear sound bad, so you must know what you're doing (and even many exhibitors obviously do not). So I actually came to the show with a purpose rather than just for fun, but had plenty of it in the process.

    Let's get the bad out of the way (there was a lot more bad than good here for me):
    • Voxativ. What the hell. My central nervous system is simply not capable of withstanding that sound for very long. It sure seems to me that with those specs, 4W of glorious DHT SET power would have been more than enough to fill the available space and would have done so orders of magnitude more effectively. Why you would drive those speakers with KT120s is beyond me, especially given the acoustic challenge presented by these smallish soffited suites. I'll give these things another chance, but despite the bad setup I still suspect their innate hifi super high resolution character is still going to fall under the category of fatiguing for me.
    • EAR. Perfect example of how to make good gear sound like shit. Sadly, if I didn't already know better thanks to the likes of @shaizada @drfindley and others, I'd never give EAR another look if that had been my first and only experience. And the level of professionalism, particular of Dan's friend, made for a downright lousy experience in every way. I GTFO within minutes, and without any question in my mind, those Dragonfire speakers they featured are never worth a second look ... by anyone. Pretty sad given how good EAR can sound.
    • Upscale Audio. Featuring the Primaluna integrated amp with headphone jack driving Focal speakers and running an Avenger with Purpleheart cart. The Focal speakers aren't my thing, but at the same time probably not as awful as I'd been led to believe. However they had dual subs in the room that weren't crossed over nor leveled correctly at all, and they overpowered the room and the rest of the frequency range. Just a horrible integration, and I suspect the sound would have taken a nice step in the right direction by simply cutting out the subs all together. The Primaluna seems good, but not great as a speaker amp. Tonal balance was very impossible to evaluate with those subs in play. And I'd certainly not want it as a headphone option in close proximity due to the tremendous heat it puts off. Also guys ... your turntable was visibly out of level. Come on.
    • Rethm. I think I might have helped to save @Xecuter some big disappointment here. I don't know what's going on with those speakers, but I suspect that somehow the metal cabinet is resonating and literally coloring the sound with a distinctly metallic timber. It's just not possible to live with. I've never heard Damien Rice sound so wrong. And these things are big, big money. Yuck.
    • The guys using Joseph Audio speakers to demonstrate low cost electronics. Yikes! Love these speakers, but this gear made them sound bland and lifeless. What a shame. They shouldn't be allowed to do that to great speakers at an audio show!
    • Vivd giant snail speakers. Nice vinyl selection in that room, but I just don't think those things do much very well. It'd still have been fun to walk those past @brencho 's wife in to his living room and enjoy the reaction. ;-) Haha.
    • Ampsandsound. Wow. Worst in show in my opinion. All kinds of problems, and a $30k price tag. 'Nuff said.
    The interesting:
    • Esoteric. I quite liked the Esoteric chain driving those Canton speakers. Enough to give the network streamer and DAC unit a consideration if some sort of deal on Audiogon fell in my lap one day. But at retail pricing, it'd be a no go.
    • Lumenwhite. So you're toting around ginormous $70000 speakers and amps that could power a hockey rink PA system, but you're not going to spring for one of the larger suites to show them off? In any event, I got the impression that this rig could be quite good but the room wasn't setup to make a determination either way. And the dude sitting next to me had some nasty BO (and it wasn't @brencho ), so I had to jet. But I walked out with the impression that done right, this could be very good ... price tag not withstanding.
    • Evolution Acoustics. They're on to something for sure. We were listening to maybe $600k worth of equipment. But alas I think I was subconsciously trying to convince myself that it was better than it actually was. I couldn't love it, but I could see this getting better in the future.
    • Zesto Audio. I'm already quite familiar with their line, and have heard it sound better elsewhere. Here, George was using a damped table with a Triplanar arm and Benz cart. I feel a 4 point with perhaps a Transfiguration Proteus would do wonders, instead. The table used, I believe, softened up the sound too much. But that engaging tonal balance (yes a tad warm) and pinpoint image precision of George's Tessera phono stage, along with the fantastic sound scape produced by those monoblocks were on full display.
    • TW Acustics tables and associated gear is the bomb!
    • The Naim, Harbeth room was very pleasing and certainly worthy of consideration as a different flavor that caters to specific musical genres. Female vocals and so forth. However, I'd probably find it less flexible across all the music I listen to, and less preferable as a main system than my personal show favorite...
    • EDIT: Total DAC. This thing seemed to be doing digital about as well as I've heard. Ungodly expensive, and certainly other options exist at far lesser cost. But nevertheless, I felt this thing was very good.
    My favorite at this show:
    • Pranafidelity. Steve Norber designs the preamp with phono stage and the amp, as well as the speakers. He's got something like 30 years of crossover design tweaking under his belt, and strives to produce an organic soulful sound. He has succeeded. Apparently the Wilson Audio guys had come around asking how he was able to get such good response under the challenging conditions of the suite with the stand mount speakers he was using. The sound was stunning, in my estimation. One nitpick would certainly be the lack of absolute inner detail. Though I suspect some alteration in the cart and the phono could easily compensate. Nevertheless, this suite just sounded right. On Friday, I attended the show for the last two hours and spent an hour here. Now, don't read "natural and soulful" as being a Brit-fi midrange tuning ala Harbeth. It is not. And in fact, Steve recognizes that people might want to tune the midrange themselves. So he provides a qualitative tuning mechanism for doing so via a toggle switch on the back of the speaker which switches in or out different resistors in the RC network. The available choices were non-inductive wirewound (the default neutral choice), Kiwame carbon film (the euphonic choice), and Cermaic (the punchy, edgy choice). So, same resistor values but different resistor types, and the differences on the midrange character were readily apparent in the suite. Further, he provides a mechanism to quantitatively (measurably) alter the highs via another toggle switch that alters the rolloff point. Frankly, I preferred most songs in the default settings, while a select few did noticeably benefit from earlier high frequency rolloff and warmer mids. Cool stuff.
    Anyhow, a lot was gained by going to the show. Speakers are my focus area right now, and I've determined there are probably two ways I could go in order to arrive in roughly the same spot. I'm not a hifi sound, detail and resolution first guy. So for me, one option is to utilize a well-executed ceramic driver and tune the electronics to prevent fatigue while trying not to create a noticeable veil. Another is to go with a less inherently resolving driver and tune with highly resolving electronics to bring out inner detail while trying not to go too far and create an unnatural manufactured sound. Not quite sure yet which way to go. The journey is a lot of fun in the meantime, though!!

    @brencho - Tons of fun! Let's do it again!!

    @Bill-P @Wfojas - Great seeing you briefly!!
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2017
  7. Daveheart

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    @brencho @bazelio I'm pretty sure Prana Fidelity uses the Hypex NCore class D modules (NC1200 I think) with their own input board and power supply. A lot of the NCore stuff has been getting good buzz, but it's nice to hear good things about them from someone outside of a "professional" review.
     
  8. bazelio

    bazelio Friend

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    Yes, indeed. I shouldn't have said he designed the amp per se because he did say that he was using the NCore modules. He was, however, the low level circuit designer for the phono and pre. Color me impressed. I really want to hear his speakers with my phono and amp now.
     
  9. bazelio

    bazelio Friend

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    Oh one other thing. I listened to the WA33 with Utopias. This was the first time I'd ever heard any Woo product, and .... I liked it. Briefly I'd say it's quite good in detail, resolution, timber. Not overly warm. Good image precision, generous soundstage. Not at the level of what I heard from Stellaris, but I do think the Woo was at a disadvantage because I think the source was a USB DAC vs the Stellaris at the LA Meet using a Sonic Frontiers tube CD player. So, not bad at all from Woo in my opinion after about 3 minutes and 30 seconds of listening!!
     
  10. brencho

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    Yeah I have expected the Woo amp to sound like warmed over pillowy chewy wet bread but it was definitely nice and natural sounding. No idea the cost but I'm sure it's super expensivo so like I'm not too interested. If you've got the clams though, would be cool to AB vs other amps...(Aficionado, DNA, etc)
     

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