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a few pictures from HE2007

Posted by Rob Doorack (A) on May 12, 2007 at 22:32:46

If there was a theme for HE2007, it seemed to be alcohol. People waiting in line for the Cinepro demo were offered vodka and orange juice. I heard that KEF had a model / bartender making martinis for visitors to their room. New distributor Sjofn Hi Fi offered their guests Gevalia coffee, Swedish cakes and finger sandwiches in the morning; by 4:30 they were giving away beer and Absolut. I didn't see everything at the show, nor did I photograph everything I listened to, but here a few photos of things that interested or amused or annoyed me.

Retailers like Music Direct, Elusive Disc, and Acoustic Sounds were in Ballroom E. If you were looking for vinyl in Manhattan this weekend this was the place to be. I bought the Love Beatles remix LP and Mobile Fidelity's SACD of Little Richard's first album. I can't imagine many audiophiles listening to "Tutti Fruiti" but I'm glad MoFi is cool enough to do a perfectionist mastering of this deathless trash.

This is the Scaena speaker that impressed another inmate. I couldn't get a sense of what the speakers were capable of since the manufacturer played only twee female vocalists that wouldn't strain a mini - monitor.

One of the Scaena's two woofers that had little to do because of the dainty demo music. I didn't catch the name of the power amp with the obnoxious ring of LEDs but it's from Germany.

The Zu Speakers room with the $2800/pair Druid on the left. That thing behind it that looks like an old radio is a subwoofer that wasn't hooked up. I'd never heard the Druids before and was quite impressed. They were powered by a Melody integrated amp making 18 watts from a pair of push - pull 2A3s in each channel. The Zu guys were blasting Led Zeppelin when I walked into their room.

This is Cayin's H-80A hybrid integrated amp. It does 80 watts / channel in class A and double that in class AB, weighs 77 pounds, and costs all of $3000. I liked the retro 70s - Phase Linear styling. Note also the high tech stand under it.

The Cayin / VAS / Aurum Cantus room.

This is Soundsmith's strain guage cartridge. It's not obvious in this picture but the cartridge has headlights - six little elements in the front of the body light up in blue when the cartridge is powered up. The cartridge and entry level power supply are $6K. The top o' the line power supply / preamp has displays that show groove deflection and vertical tracking force as a record is played!

These are the Lominchay "Mandarin Supreme" speakers. They start at $80,000 and go up from there depending on finish and whether you want the optional digital crossover. That's a 12" woofer.

This is Cabasse's "Le Sphere" speaker and its integrated stand. A pair of these will cost you $150,000! Inside the big ball is a 22" woofer and 3 other concentric drivers. The speakers must be quad - amped via a digital crossover so Cabasse demonstrated them with 4 pairs of Bel Canto switching amps for a total of 8 kilowatts of amplification. As I recall the Cabasse rep said the speakers went down to about 20Hz in the medium sized demo room but will typically go down to 12Hz in a customer's home. One of their music selections was a close - miked drum solo which probably didn't make their neighbors happy. The speakers could literally shake the floor and walls in the room and sound unstrained doing it. There was a certain hedonistic pleasure in hearing a lot of air moving.

TAD's Reference 1 speakers, powered by 4 MSB mono amps.

TAD's Anthony Jones demonstrated his speakers with a first - generation reel to reel copy of a Patricia Barber master tapes. Ms. Barber's recordings are omnipresent at hi fi shows.

Unfortunately I neglected to get a picture of the single most impressive thing I heard at the show, the Guru QM-10 speaker in the above - mentioned Sjofn Hi Fi room. The Guru is a seemingly unremarkable little box maybe a half cubic foot in volume with a 4" "woofer" and a dome tweeter and port slot across the lower front. The Guru was placed close to the back wall in the small demo room. The rest of the system was a CD player and amp from hitherto unknown Swedish firms; the whole system was priced at $3000 (the speakers are $1850). To be honest I wasn't expecting much from the room, I went in mostly because I saw people coming out with glasses of soda and pastries and I was thirsty. When I sat down the Gurus were playing a jazz CD which sounded surprisingly good. "Aha, another sub / satellite system," I thought. I looked around for the woofer and not spotting one I asked where it was. The guy doing the demo said "if you can find a subwoofer in here you can have it - everything is coming from those speakers" and pointed at the Gurus. Another visitor asked to hear something with some more bass, so our host looked through his collection, said "this should do it," and loaded a CD-R and turned up the volume a little. He'd put on a track by Rammstein, a German industrial metal band with a roaring lead singer who sounds like a diesel truck engine. Oh my god! I was completely stunned by the big punchy sound coming out of the diminutive Gurus and especially by their bass. No speaker with a driver smaller than the one in my bedside clock radio should be able to go as low as the QM-10s did (Sjofn claims the speaker is flat to 35Hz and only 10dB down at 25Hz!). The QM-10s also imaged pretty well too. I've been going to audio shows for over 3 decades and I don't ever remember being so impressed. According to Sjofn the Guru QM-10 has been around for a number of years in Sweden and is something of a cult fave in Swedish audio circles. I wasn't alone in my astonishment at the speaker. When I went back later in the day the room was jammed (and not just for the free booze) and guys were filling out forms to get on Sjofn's mailing list as fast as one of the reps could hand them out.

Miscellany: Music Hall as usual had a terrific - sounding - for - the - money Epos / Creek system. I owned a pair of the original DCM Time Window speakers (almost 30 years ago!) and was happy to see that the company is not only still in existence but continues to make good value speakers. Their $1000 / pair TFE200 speaker sounded quite good. Clearaudio announced a new turntable with a platter levitated by a "ceramic magnetic bearing" but I didn't get to see it. For analog fans the most interesting news at the show might be the new entry - level turntable and arm from Continuum. OK, it's entry level if $50K is small change to you. Expect a Fremer review in a few months.

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