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Vegas07 Biggest Boat Anchors: Ypsilon
The biggest amps at the show and definitely some of the biggest in the world, Ypsilon Electronic's SET 100 amps aren't your garden variety solid state monsters. The Ypsilons put out only 120 watts of hybrid power with tubes in the input stage and mosfets for the juice. Like the name SET-100 implies, the amps are completely single ended. When you go for single ended in solid state, the amps gotta be huge.
Ypsilon is out of Greece and is looking for an American distributor to pick up the brand. And like anything milled out of solid blocks of aluminum, prices aren't cheap. In Euros: 53k for the SET-100 amps, 30k for the PST-100 preamp, 20k for the DAC-100 and 15K for the CDT-100. More pics next page...
COMMENTS (3) | Permalink | Amplifiers $20k and up , Disc players $10k and up , Pre-Amps $20k and up | Posted by Josh Ray on Jan 12 '07
HE2006: Sonics, Lyra, Spiral Groove
So you have Eames lounge chairs, lamps with spindly lights and a Design Within Reach membership card, but your high-performance speakers look like soccer shin guards. What's a mid century audiophile to do? Joachim Gerhard to the rescue. Under the Sonics brand name, Joachim does modern design justice with sharp angles and trendy wood for his new Allegria speakers. He also does modern design justice with a $15,000 price tag for the pair.
Vanity shot of the Sonics Allegria next page. Below is the $25,000 Lyra 4-2LSE preamplifier, another product that does equipment design justice. And on the next page, the Spiral Groove SGI, the world's most modest $20,000 turntable. A Lyra phono stage and $4500 Ayre V5XE amp rounded out the package.
With a system like this, a bachelor has a chance of actually talking about his audio rig and coming off as a cultured music patron instead of Dr. Evil. Of course, you have to be Dr. Evil to actually afford this system, unless, of course, you're in the employment of Her Majesty's secret service.
COMMENTS (4) | Permalink | Amplifiers $3k to 6k , Pre-Amps $20k and up , Shows and Expos , Speakers $10k-20k | Posted by Josh Ray on Jun 20 '06
Wadia Ultra Tech
If you've been to any audio website in the last month, you've no doubt seen the Wadia ads. With an ad campaign so prevalent, they deserve a mention. So who is this Wadia? Wadia is like the Ferrari of digital, a company built around building extremely expensive equipment to push the limits of those little 1s and 0s, or so their marketing material tells me. But like any audio company, they've gone in and out of the limelight for the last decade or so. This time around, their marketing push is for their new series 9, starting with a preamp and eventually moving towards a full bevy of world-class components.
Pictured above is Wadia's new Series 9 Decoding Computer system. Now, here's the deal with Wadia: preamps are old school. Yeah, "Decoding Computers" are what the cool kids are using. The Series 9 Decoding Computer is a three box affair, rocking all kinds of digital voodoo. The way it works you plug your CD transport (a player sans DAC) into the Digital Computer and Wadia gets crazy with the bits. How crazy, you ask?
Three digital signal processors coupled with our most advanced up-sampling software (DigiMaster™ 1.4), churn out an astounding 2.8224 million samples per second at a theoretical 26 bits of resolution.
So crazy, it's well beyond my meager intelligence. In any case, 6Moons cops a review of Wadia's "entry level" system -- the 270SE and 27ix. This system functions like the Series 9 gear, but not as expensive (only a 20 grand drop in the bucket). 6Moons gives 'em some mad love so go read for more.
With all their advertising, one would think these guys should make a large splash with their new equipment. If I remember correctly, the Series 9 Decoding Computer runs $40k, but I could be wrong. CDs are great an all, but I want to hear what 40 grand can do to USB audio.
Update: The Series 9 Decoding Computer (no CD transport) is $27,850.
COMMENTS (6) | Permalink | Disc players $10k and up , Pre-Amps $20k and up | Posted by Josh Ray on Apr 18 '06
Vegas - Swedish Statement
Vegas was truly a show for extremes. We covered the $400-450k Swedish Statement before here and here, but it was fun to finally see this system in the flesh. Once again, the room was packed and listening was hard but the roar from CES halls was, "you've got to hear what the Swedes have been up to!" A lot of people came to the show saying, "Swedish Statement? Whateva" but left saying, "damn, I wish I bought Google stock."
The Swedish Statement's most prominent feature is, of course, the speakers. Marten's $250k Coltrane Supremes sport 1" diamond tweeters and 2" diamond midranges - the only one in the world - as well as a whole slew of ceramic drivers from the insane minds at Accuton. Cabinets are made out of carbon fiber and wood. The big towers are subwoofers with 9" drivers, 2000 watts of juice and active crossovers with digital room correction taking over below 100Hz for perfectly smooth bass. Total range is 15-100k Hz and 93dB into 4 ohms.
The rest of the system includes components by Bladelius, turntable by Nordic Concept, cables by Jorma Design, rack by Woo and power conditioning by Power Wing out of Arizona, the Sweden of the South West. I believe this was the most expensive room in Vegas but don't hold me on that.
Interestingly, every company chose to set up their rooms differently. The Signals Super-Fi room was identical to the Swedish Statement room but they placed their systems on different walls. Don't know why but, really, they both needed rooms four times the size to rip properly. THE Show at St. Tropez caused all kinds of fun with hot tubs in the bedrooms. One room - can't remember which - had the entire tub filled with exotic micro-brews on ice. Combine that with about half of the other rooms handing out drinks, it was a miracle someone didn't puke on some ridiculously expensive piece of equipment...that I know of.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Posted to Amplifiers $20k and up | Pre-Amps $20k and up | Shows and Expos | Speakers $20k and up | Turntables
Krell Evolution Series
We'll finish up the week with a review from this side of insanity - the Krell Evolution series. The review is from the Robb Report and, unfortunately, is a terrible review as reviews go, but it's worth noting that these polished diamonds from Krell smash their past reputation for hard, in-your-face sound (though, their lesser products retain that reputation):
"I would not dream of bogging down this review with such technobabble, but I will sum up by declaring that the Evolutions’ miraculous amalgam of science and art can resuscitate the soul of recorded music and make it live again."
Okay...yeah, well, other reviewers have said the Evolution One preamplifier and Evolution Two power amps combined with Krell's LAT1000 speakers provide some of the best sound ever heard. Yeah, $50k for the preamp and $40k for the power amps should sound pretty great. The power amp is a monoblock design (shown) with outboard power supply cranking out 450 watts. The preamp, interestingly, is a monoblock design with outboard power as well. I imagine one remote controls both units, though using both left and right hands to turn both knobs at the same time could be worlds of fun.
Krell Evolution Series Review [Robb Report]
Krell Home
Permalink | | Posted to Amplifiers $20k and up | Pre-Amps $20k and up
Review: WAVAC PR-T1
Following up our post on the crazy expensive Goldmund Telos 600, the Japanese WAVAC PR-T1 pre-amplifier is $30k and, ahem, doesn't come with a remote control. That's all you need to know. Oh, it's one of the best pre-amplifiers in the world, so says Wayne Donnelly of Enjoy the Music's Superior Audio side project. One of the best, that is, without a remote-frickin'-control.
Deal-breaker for us, but this tubed triller just may be your ticket. WAVAC separates its components into three boxes - power supply, power supply control and the shiny volume knob. Now, some believe remotes degrade the sound. Hey, if you can drop 30 grand on a pre-amp then you've probably got the dedicated listening room to go with it and a remote control really doesn't matter, now does it?
WAVAC [WAVAC Home]
WAVAC PR-T1 Review [Superior Audio]
Permalink | | Posted to Pre-Amps $20k and up | Tube Pre-Amps
