When roaming the halls of the first floor, I found my wife, Becky, with Cookie Marenco of Blue Coast Records and Eamonn Flynn, a Blue Coast recording artist. Becky interviewed several of the Blue Coast team at the show, and you’ll see those posts soon.
The TriangleArt / Angel City Audio room sounded incredible for the first day. The speakers were the Angel City Audio Seraphim Prime speakers ($25,000/pair). TriangleArt was using their Apollo moving-coil cartridge ($8,000), and both the TriangleArt Maestro turntable ($7,500) and TriangleArt Master Reference turntable system ($39,999) with TriangleArt Osiris II tonearms ($6,800).
The electronics were also from TriangleArt starting with the Reference Tube Phono stage ($12,999) and the TriangleArt Reference Tube preamp ($18,999). When I was in the room, they were using the TriangleArt Reference tube monoblocks ($18,998/pair). The cables were the TriangleArt Rhea Reference cable system.
The Destination Audio room was one that several other reviewers said they were looking forward to hearing. Destination Audio Horn speakers ($95,000/pair) are very interesting with a vintage-looking cabinet and a huge, funky horn. The speakers were being driven by a pair of Destination Audio 45 tube monoblock amplifiers ($24,000/pair) when I was in the room, they also had a pair of 50 tube monoblock amplifiers ($29,500/pair) in the room.
The source was a TriangleArt Master Reference turntable system ($39,999) with a Destination Audio 417A tube phono stage ($24,000), and a Destination Audio 76 tube preamplifier ($15,000).
Another room I heard a lot of people talking about was the Unisinger Inc. of Cupertino, California. In their room, they were debuting the Unisinger UIA-2 Silver Speakers ($6,999/pair), the Unisinger UIA-2 Gold Speaker ($10,990/pair) and the Unisinger UIA-2 Platinum Speaker ($28,880/pair). They also make their amplification. This is a room I will definitely be going back to for a longer listen.
Dave MacPherson of Studio Electric brought two pairs of speakers to the show The little and very special M4 monitors that I recently reviewed, and the S4 floor-standers, which will be coming to my house from the show to review. The electronics were from Wyred 4 Sound, the turntable was a debut product from Project, the Carbon Esprit. They didn’t have a price list yet, but they were hoping to have one Saturday.
Napa Acoustic was showing the final production model of their Cellar Series All-In-One: Wall mounted transmission line speaker system. The starting price is $1,000. We reviewed their previous system here last year.
The Sierra Nevada Audiophile Society brought quite a system featuring Quicksilver Audio / Bernhagen Porter / Syncopation equipment. The source was a Funk Firm Turntable Vector V with FX3-9″ captive ($4,895) and a Transfiguration Phoenix Cartridge ($6,000). The digital source was a Heed Abacus 5 Input DAC ($1,395) with a Heed Thesis Delta Transport/Player ($4,200). Amplification was from Quicksilver Moving Coil Stage ($695), Quicksilver Phono Stage Preamplifier ($1,595), Quicksilver Line Preamp ($995), and Quicksilver V4 monoblocks ($6,495/pair). Everything was plugged into a PS Audio DirectStream P20 Power Plant ($9,999) The speakers were the Bernhagen Porter Model 10/12 speakers ($50,000/pair).
The last room I went to on Friday was the Eigen Audio room featuring the new Von Schweikert Audio E3 MkII ($8,000/pair) with the MasterBuilt Audio Reference Line cables system and a Critical Mass Systems MAXXUM rack and Center Stage footers. Sources were the Aurender N10 Caching Music Server with the EMM Labs DAC2X V2. The electronics were from Ypsilon, the PST-100 MkII combo valve/transformer preamp ($37,000) and the Ypsilon Aelius II push-pull hybrid monoblocks ($39,000/pair).
