Thanks for the feedback on LSAF 2018, I believe those of us exhibiting and the attendees alike had a good time.
Denny, it was great seeing and hearing your Brown Audio Labs SP-1B full function preamp. The SP-1B fronted system sound was quite good and I am very impressed with the product’s layout and casework execution. Well done tube preamps in that affordable price range are one of the highest performances per dollar ratio segments in Hi-Fi. In the SP-1B you certainly have a strong contender.
Making the rounds I was pleased how this year in a couple of the major performance segments LSAF offered the chance to hear a wide range of sonic options on offer by the practitioners of the art.
In the horn niche auditioning the offerings from Pi Speakers, Volti Audio, Austin Acoustic, and Van Zyl Audio was informative. Saturated emotional intensity is available from Austin Acoustic’s where both the sound and equipment are room filling. Fun factor off the charts along with stunning build quality kept me revisiting the Volti Audio room to hear both the double bass bin Vittora and production configured Vittora systems. Van Zyl Audio had made further improvements in their 1812 Backfire horns that continue to impress with how effortlessly they deal with complex orchestral works driven by just a few triode watts. And Pi Speakers again demonstrates for those with a DIY inclination very high performance is available for modest dollar outlay.
In box speakers aspiring to state of the art (SOTA) segment using moving coil drivers in reflex and sealed enclosure architectures the arc of the Magico A3, YG Acoustics Carmels, Rosso Fiorentino Siena, JWM Acoustics Alyson ALM II, and Legacy Focus SE was very interesting. All of those systems are operating at the state of our art and I found it very informative how individual designers (or design teams) yielded results with different sonic flavors. Specifically the Magico and YG Acoustics based systems were holographic and hyper detailed with bass transient response I am confident one can use to crack walnuts. JWM Acoustics and Legacy occupied the other end of the spectrum presenting all kinds of detail, wide frequency bandwidth, and dynamic range in a more organic holistic fashion. The Rosso basically split the difference yielding a nice compromise between the hyper clean and clear Fi delivered by the metal enclosure + composite / metal driver systems and the organic sounding paper drivers based systems.
For both the horn and box speaker based systems what I found informative and fun was the ability to experience firsthand how the complex mix of each system’s components and design aesthetic yielded the given results.
Of course any audio show is about the Hi-Fi components and systems but when one gets into it a bit deeper it is the people and their human contributions that come to fore. In that light meeting Barry and Rona Thornton was for me one of the highlights of LSAF 2018. Barry, our two conversations in your exhibit room and at happy hour were educational, entertaining, and big fun. Alas, I missed all the presentations as I used Sunday to hear more rooms for my journalistic duties.
I will correct you regarding “only one I know of playing vinyl”, I “know of” a few more. JWM Acoustics’ Karen turntables were featured in both Joshua’s room and the Raven/Legacy room. I missed hearing the Karen 12 table with 12” arm in JWM Acoustics (never enough hours at LSAF) but when Dave played L.A. Woman (and if I need to add “by The Doors” we are not from the same planet) on the JSW Karen/Raven/Legacy system we had another peak Hi-Fi experience. And thanks to Phillip Holmes’
www.mockingbirddistribution.com we got our first look at the new Sorane ZA-1.2B tonearm (triggering Norman’s gear lust
BAD) on hot-rodded Thornes TD124. Add to the mix Kevin Kennedy’s
KTA-hifi.net KTA Muscovite phono stage
Muscovite and the Austin Acoustic Uber-Fi demo system finally had an LP front end consummate with the rest of that system.
Back to Barry’s demo
www.austinaudioworks.com again the clock and calendar are cruel mistresses and I missed hearing your Black Swan phono stage. I did audition the Austin Audio Works prototype DAC feeding the Black Amp headphone amplifier, very, very impressed. Of course you need to fix the ‘pops’ from the prototype DAC as it loses and reacquires SPDIF signal from the transport getting stopped. When the music is playing the transparency is outstanding leading me to believe you have distortion and noise well in hand. The drive your amp supplied to the famously inefficient Audeze LCD-3 planar headphones in use is also most impressive. The reproduction had that ease one enjoys when an amplifier is well within its comfortable operating range, very electrically quiet, and has a stable bandwidth well in excess of 20-20k Hz.
Basically I believe one and all had a good time, I am already looking forward to LSAF 2019.