Floor
+1
Rooms 128-130-133-134: Audio Reference
Audio
Reference featured their agencies in four mid-sized rooms;
most of their demonstrations were two channels only, even
if this was the multichannel part of the show…
In
the first room on the left, one of the best reasonably priced
systems of the show was featured, in my opinion the best
one in this category. It was composed by a full row of Micromega
Minium products and by ProAc Response One SC speakers. Ok,
no new products, but a great sound from such a system in
one of the notoriously bad Quark Hotel rooms. The bass extension
of the One SC speakers surprised all those who didn’t know
thespeakers, and I owe a personal thank to Sebastien Schar,
who played a cut from Michel Jonasz "La Fabuleuse Histoire
de Mr. Swing", a beautiful piece of music which happens
to be well recorded instead of the show standards (which
are mainly well recorded stuff which happens to almost sound
like music…)
In
the first room on the right, driven by a Lexicon universal
player and Bryston processor/preamp and amps, there was
one of the technical innovations present at the show, the
440Hz speakers. In particular, those which, at first looks,
seemed to be room treatment panels, were subwoofers featuring
a new technology: the drivers are used below their resonance
frequency, as it is around 440Hz. This, according to the
designer, allows him to overcome all of the usual subwoofer
problems, as the usual booming at the woofer’s resonance
frequency.
The
other problem which, according to the designer, is overcome
by his design, is the backward wave propagated from the
speaker to the amp (the reflected electromotive force),
so that the amp’s task is much easier, as it only has to
give current (lots of that, probably, but without fighting
against the loudspeaker). You can calculate how many subwoofer
arrays you need, you just need room dimensions; the interesting
thing is that, if you close the door, you hear no resonance
nor boom effects, as the designer was happy to demonstrate.
Disadvantages are the fact that the system must be bi-amped
(as the subwoofers need an equalizer to contour their response)
and the price, which is no way cheap (a single subwoofer
array is 10000 Euro, a system composed by a woofer array,
a crossover-equalizer and two satellites – a floorstanding
ribbon tweeter, cone midrange array – is about 20000 Euro).
I’d really like to see if the woofer system can be partnered
with different satellites. The satellites showed some excessive
tendency to become overpowering from the higher midrange
and above; maybe they needed some acoustic treatment…
In
the second room on the left a full Pass X-series system,
partnered with Clearaudio’s turntable and phono preamps
– the turntables were the Master Reference and the new,
affordable Emotion – were driving the top model in ProAc’s
Response range, the D80. Sound quality was really satisfying,
the speakers, while being able to move a lot of air, weren’t
exciting the room’s modes, thanks to a well judged positioning
and to the level choice. Alternatively, the small Tablette
Reference 8 were used.
In
the last Audioreference room, there were two systems, one
with a full range of Gryphon products driving ProAc’s Studio
125, the other one a full Cary system driving Castle floorstanders.
I preferred the Gryphon/ProAc system, personally; anyway,
the room confirmed this distributor’s ability to compose
well assorted, coherent systems from his range of products.
The choice of musical program was tasty, too.
On
a tabe there was the Michell Tecnodec turntable; this new,
promising unsuspended system is the new entry product in
Michell’s range of turntables.
Room
117 - Roksan/High Fidelity Italia
This
room was fully dedicated to Roksan; a stereo and a multichannel
system were playing alternatively. Most notable was the
Roksan turntables exhibition,featuring the wonderful TMS2
and the new version (the fifth one!) of the affordable Radius,
finally featuring a dedicated tonearm, the Nima.
Rooms 105 and 111 - Sony
The
most interesting things in Sony’s exhibits were the new
SACD/CD players and the multichannel dedicated amps. The
SCD-XA9000ES player (Sony, could we please have less confusion-inducing
model names? This one is the same name, only an added "XA",
the SACD/DVD player of three years ago had, which isn’t
helping the customers…), is replacing the SCD-XA777ES, adding
some other DA converters and the eagerly awaited IEEE1394
digital full resolution output; this output is designed
to work at its best with the dedicated top multichannel
integrated amp, which includes the innovative S-Master output
stages. Here in Italy the price of the player is the same
of the model it is replacing.
A
new lower cost player was introduced, the SCD-XA3000ES,
which is equipped with a lower number of DAC chips and doesn’t
sport the IEEE1394 output. Its price is less than a third
of the SCD-XA9000ES, and, judging from its build quality,
it might be a bargain.
Yes,
judging from its build quality, as, because of the Sony
loudspeakers which were used, it was impossible to tell
how the components were sounding. The loudspeakers were
far from being audiophile products; I know that, at least
in the Japanese and in the USA market, Sony sells audiophile
speaker systems – it seems they don’t think we are worth
of them, down here.
Room
109 - Newtec Audio Systems
This
newcomer was introducing his compact, omni-directional speaker
systems, featuring proprietary drivers. The speakers seemed
to be placed casually and the designer moved them around
while they were playing, showing that a soundstage was reproduced
even with improbably asymmetrical positioning. These speakers
are certainly to consider for rooms where a traditional
system can’t be installed. The speakers were greeted by
a good success, as they were voted in the first places of
the Top Audio Awards.
