It is in L.A. this year.

We will attend. We will listen. We will photograph. We will report.

The HE 2006 show report home page is already setup.

We will, as always, try to post a bunch of pictures and commentary daily during the show.

After the show it will take a few days, but we will try, as always, to continue to make the Audio Federation show reports bigger, better and more honest than any other show report on or off the net:

* The largest number of photos, in 3 different resolutions (500 x 500, 1000 x 800 and 1500 x 1000), each with an animated and/or manual slideshow option… and more.

* Like both room-by-room photo montages as well as long, floor-by-floor marathons.

* Like more commentary on what things actually sounded like - not through rose-colored ear muffs, but what the roomsreally sounded like.

* Like more about what it felt like to be at the show - the emotion, the smells (not usually so good), the crowds….

We want the show report to be the next best thing to being there yourself!

It wil be two weeks this coming Monday since we started breaking in the Meitner pair - about 300 hours.

We figure about one month, or 600 hours, is about the minimum breakin period for these puppies.

After the first week, with all of the improvements over the previous, non-signature editions, the sound was still somewhat lean.

Now, at about two weeks, the sound is already at, oh, at about 90-95% of the full weight of our previous pair. One can still tell they are not completely broken in during really quick percussion transients in the upper midrange which still sound a little brittle.

Our impresions of the overall improvements of the CDSD Signature and DCC2 Signature editions are the same as that after the first few days:

An evolutionary improvement on just about all fronts with no negative side-effects (thank goodness, as sometimes ‘improvements’ are often a very mixed blesing - think ‘Adobe Photoshop’ - but not in this case) with primarily a darker background feeding more detail, especially in the bass, better midi- and micro-dymamics, and in general more clarity feeding the awesome ’signature’ transparency which is the real revolutionary impact of Meitner ’s consumer-targetted digital equipment, from our point of view.

We are playing CDs on the Emm Labs pair 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

At night, and when we have guests auditioning other equipment, we ‘play waves’:

This CD is mostly ‘white noise’, with some amount of bass when the waves crash on the beach and some diminutive bird calls in the background. Very easy on the ears and one can listen to it as background ‘music’ over and over and over and….

… without going… batty.

Unfortunately, our 3-week update on the breaking-in process will be a little late… because we plan on attending the Stereophile HE 2006 show!

The System: Marten Coltrane speakers, Lamm ML2.1 amplifiers, Jorma Prime speaker cable, HRS MXR equipment rack. Also Lamm L2 preamplifier, Audio Note CDT-Two and DAC 4.1x Balanced. Nordost and Shunyata cabling.

We mentioned how amazing this was sounding in our review of the Jorma ‘Prime’ interconnects.

What does does amazing mean?

Here is what amazing means:

The Coltrane speakers are so freakin revealing… The Jorma Prime cables are slightly more forward than their No. 1 and even the Valhalla, and this new effect was already taking hold. Now, with HRS’s MXR rack [we set it up yesterday, much more on this later ] in place of the Acoustic Dreams, the system sound is even more ‘present’.

We kind of take it for a given that the Coltrane speakers are a little laid back - given the highest quality, completely neutral components up front. But maybe not…

Witb these two new, admittedly over the top, additions to the system… the sound is much more of a engulfing, in the room type of experience.

Our good Canadian friend, Dave H., [you there Dave? Missed you in Monteal] used to talk about how he wanted the sound to come to him, to not have to focus on listening to what was being played, to have the sound ‘take control’ [my words] as it were.

The system was already subtley sinister in the way it would sneak up on a person and make one stop mid sentence, whether one wanted to or not, as the music Took Control.

But now, …

It is hard to move, much more hard to get up.

It is like ‘if I miss this next note, my life will have been worthless and empty’… ‘I must hear this next note!’

I think this house is going to be much more quiet now… because if we start playing any music, we aren’t going to get ANYTHING done.

[Though I am much more disclipined than Neli, and this system is on the same floor as her office. She, she is doomed. So if you can’t get her on the tele as easily as you could before today, you’ll know exactly why!]

And the new Audio Note CDT-Three transport just arrived. We are doomed!

The shootout:

In one corner, weighing in at a slim $4K: the Nordost Valhalla interconnect

In another: the Stealth INDRA interconnect, at a nice $5700.

And the challenger: the Jorma Design Prime interconnect at a healthy $7K

First, the Valhalla.

The Valhalla is an amazingly competent interconnect. The sound is presented in a straight-forward, honest manner. Nothing artifical, no additives, musical without being overbearing.

Then, the Stealth INDRA.

The purity. The transparency. It was like this interconnect was made for the Emm Labs digital front end. Better separation, better soundstage depth, more harmonic color, more life than the Valhalla. Yummy.

Finally, the contender, the Jorma Prime.

Oh.

“Not bad. I think I actually like the Jorma better on this track than the INDRA!”

Track after track. It was the same observations over and over.

And when we switched back to the INDRA for a bit, it became very easy to understand much of the quality of the differences:

As the INDRA is to the Valhalla, so the Prime is to the INDRA.

More harmonic color. Not just that but more shades of harmonic color. Much more resolution, more bass, better separation, deeper soundstage. And some things I noticed right away, before the cables were even broken in: better integration of the music presentation into a single whole and just amazingly wonderful articulation of voices.

The human voice is so rich and full of subtle meanings - a richnes which requires the system to reproduce the most minute variations in harmonics, inter-vowel and consonant emphasis, and precise breath variations - all necessary to form and communicate the exact emotion of the singer.

It all becomes so… much… more… intimate. Like the singer is sharing something so very, very personal - do they really want us to know this about them? We have never even met!

To somewhat exaggerate:

If the Valhalla is a Black & White movie, and the INDRA is a color movie, on standard TVs, then the Prime is a technicolor HD movie on a giant HD TV.

We are really picky around here: many very expensive amplifiers, CD players, speakers… and cables, are nice in some way but have deleterious side-effects that detract from overall listening experience. Here, we strive to make every piece carry its own weight - to be as clean and perfect and wonderful as is technologically possible today.

The cables we like best are those without bloat, without artificial flavors, without preferences for this frequency (typically the bass) or that (typically the midrange), very capable of carrying the signal in its entirety from the sources to the speakers preserving those subtle, but so very critical Fundumental Music Elements like micro-dynamics, inner detail, presense, true-warmth - able to communicate the VAST amounts of information of a complex musical passage, crunched down into a split-second, without becoming sonic mud.

Well, now you have a better idea of what we mean when we say we like these Jorma Prime cables - both the speaker and the interconnect.

Personally, I am somewhat shocked. Really didn’t really epxect to like them so much, to be able to find some fault….

At the price, only incrementally more than some of the excellent competition, the interconnects ARE a real bargain.

The speaker cables are also really, really wonderful. The Coltane / Lamm ML2.1 system is just a-m-a-z-i-n-g right now. But even us here at Audio Federation experience price shock every so often. To deal with this personal, psychological block, I have convinced myself that the interconnects, at one third the cost, give the system some of the same wonderfull improvements as the speaker cables. And they do.

But I’d hate to hear what both of these cables in the same system would sound like.

No, really.

Wait. Not hate. Make that fear.

I keep telling Neli not to try it.

And if she tries it, I do not want to hear it. Or about it.

Why?

Count it up: we have 4(!) systems here.

Fair warning. Once you hear these, you will be spending lots and lots of time figuring out how to get them, and keep them, in your system. I know we are, ….dammit.

Finally performed the definitive shootout between the interconnects last night:

Nordost Valhalla vrs. Stealth INDRA vrs. Jorma Prime.

When we first got the Prime they were not broken in - a somewhat foward and compressed midrange, and in general the sound came through with a weird, non-flat frequency response. After waiting 3 or 4 days for them to relax, and only hearing minor improvements (exactly as if they were still breaking in), they got put on the Nordost Vidar cable burner for a week or so.

Then we had a marital dispute about the direction the cables were supposed to be used in: should the Bybee purifier go towards the receiving end or the source end? Mike, the Magnificent, (me! insert chest thumping here) thought that they should go towards the receiving end because that is how the Bybees in the speaker cables are oriented. Neli, the wife of Mike the magnificent, remembered Jorma telling her that they went the other way - and somehow during the tests of directionality somebody (not Mike the Magnificent) confused what was towards the receivnig end and what was away from it … well, let’s just say that this week it isn’t I who is the butt of all the jokes around here…

‘Course, this post won’t earn me any points….

Well, it is only fair. last week it was me providing the humor… but I insist it could happen to anybody. You be the judge. The marriage you save could be mine….

In the Audio Aero Capitole player, I looked inside, saw there wasn’t a CD, and put on Ashkenazy’s Rachmanonov.

I pressed play, but different music started playing. Really different.

What did I do to fix this?

I looked inside and saw, yes, the Rachmananov CD was plainly visible. Check.

Then, well…

I pressed STOP, then pressed PLAY again, of course.

This should fix it right?

I mean, when your CD player starts playing something entirely different from what you put in it, this works for you, right?

OK, this was happening during an audition for a nice couple from Rhode Island. So there was an attentive audience for this show I was putting on…

Finally, the Neli of the house came over and took off the Rachmananov CD ….

… and then took off the completely black (exactly the same black as the inside of the top loading Capitole drawer by the way) De Mat that was…. on top of the CD that was underneath the Rachmanonov CD…!

Ha, ha. Very funny.

No I wasn’t trying to play two CDs at once. Yes, I do look inside the player before I just stick a CD in it. No, I wasn’t trying to invent another tweek by stacking CDs in order to improve the sound. No, it wasn’t even a demonstration to show that the player would still play with two CDs and a DE Mat inside of it.

*sigh*

[The De MAT is a black rubbery thing that covers the top of a CD in top loaders to improve the performance of the laser - and thereby the sound - and it works]

Oh, anyway, now everybody has forgotten all about my little ‘incident’ - well, they had until they read this post, anyway.

**************

Back to the Jorma Design Prime interconnect.

It turns out that Mike and Jorma were right and Neli was wrong.

Hee hee hee ))))))

Next - what we heard at the shootout.

As a teaser, let’s just say that $7K for a one meter interconnect is looking like a helluva bargain.

I kid you not. The incremental cost for these cables above the other two brings a tremendous improvement in the listening experience.

Next - the details.

In order to better serve audiophiles who are interested in HRS products and who may not have a local dealer, Audio Federation, in partnership with and under the aegis of HRS, now offers a 20 day trial period for Harmonic Resolution Systems products.

Under this factory-authorized performance guarantee program, HRS products can be purchased from Audio Federation and auditioned in your system for 20 days. This allows you to experience the significant improvements these products will make in your system and provides you with a money back performance guarantee.

HRS is the only vibration control product that we have tried that not only consistantly improves the quality of the system it is in by a signifiacant amount, but also does not have the unpleasant side effects that, to our ears, the other vibration control products seem to have.

The offer is only available in the U.S. at this time.

If interested, here are the details about the joint Audio Federation - HRS Performance Guarantee Program.

We still have our demo Triolon speakers for sale. We will post about them one final time here in order to give our readers the opportunity to get these awesome speakers before they go up on Audiogon.

We have talked about these speakers for years. They are still great, even though we have, kicking and screaming, moved on and are no longer Acapella dealers.

Some lucky person is going to get to keep these in their home and immediately have one of the best systems in the U.S. Will it be you?

List price: $145K. Sale price: $90K or best offer.

Want more details? We have tons of information on Acapella Audio Arts loudspeakers.

Also…

We have a pair of used Acapella Fidelio II monitor loudspeakers.

Wonderful little speakers, with stands, that we have also raved about since they came available about a year ago. They still sound great and at a great price:

List $6800. Used: $4400 or best offer

OK, back to our regularly scheduled programming….

I thought a site like this would be fun, and have owned the ratemyhifi.com domain name for awhile now.

And, well, finally got around to setting it up.

You can get to it from our home page at Audio Federation or by going to ratemyhifi.com.

This will both be a place to collect our best-of-the-best photos from shows and those taken of components from our own showrooms floors…

… and PRIMARILY a place for folks to post their photos.

Not just of their systems, but their amps, LP collections, listening chairs… all sorts of stuff. [Hey, I am always looking for great listening chairs… a VERY important part of the listening experience if you ask me ]

We see people post so many photos on the net that come and go. Great photos. Photos that make one really appreciate that ALL components, no matter the price, can look awfully delicious to the hungry audiophile…

It doesn’t necessarily have to be components that you own now, or that you ever owned yourself, or, who knows, maybe nobody ever owned one!

We just want photos: cool, strange, fascinating, kooky, awesome, sleek, kludgey, new, old, beatup, or spiffy photos.

[We’ve put a few pics up, and will put up losts more over time, especially in the Show and Conferences Photos category - but right now we have our photo processing engines resting a little in preperation for the upcoming giant photo storm…. aka HE 2006.]

Because of the current SPAM storms, and also so the software knows whose name to put under the photos, people need to register before they upload or comment on pictures.

If this becomes too much of a pain for people we can modify the software to be even smarter… But the software will never be smarter than its programmers - and so please don’t expect too much

Anyway, hope y’all like!
Mike.

… a few months ago.

I am not, we are not, good enough yoyo’ers to do much with these guys. The body is too lightweight and the string is too wide and has too much friction.

But, duh, that was before we figured out they were not supposed to be palyed with but were serious tweaks!

Our first clue was discovered after closely examining the other sides of the yoyos:

Rod, the Audio Asylum bored member who signs these yoyos, writes:

“Thanks! Rod”. Yes, really. That’s what they say.

Now, those of you who are of the more intelligent variety of audiophile will have no doubt already noticed that there is an obvious message here about how these yoyos are supposed to be used.

Here, we will examine this closer for those who are a little slower among us:

Now do you see?

No???????!!

OK, then. *sigh* Look at the ‘o’ in Rod. Do you see how one is filled in and the other left open?

Ah, now I see the light bulbs going off!

Exactly!

The round, unfilled donut-like ‘o’ is obviously supposed to be put on top of a transport (just like we all know from way back in the 80s that CDs are really flat yoyos, pressed into service as digital media because so many of them were made and few people could even walk-the-dog with them. Geez, schools really sucked back then, huh?). The yoyo with the filled ‘o’ is obviously the complement of the other yoyo and will go on top of the DAC.

So here are pictures of the tweaks in action.

First, on the Emm Labs CDSD Signature transport:

OK, here is a closer view, I want to point out a few things that only became obvious after 100,000s of hours of testing:

See how the yoyo is PRECISELY positioned such that the text faces EXACTLY toward the front of the transport? This is very important. Otherwise, harsh, ugly, distorted pig ‘oinks’ and grunts appear at random in all discs we played except Pink Floyd’s Animals CD (just like the Teac players do without the yoyo … just kidddddding ).

No, for those of you who do not get it yet, the string has no impact at all. Why should it. It is just a string.

When positioned like this, the flatness of the yoyo mimics the flatness of the spinning CD and helps it spin a lot easier, exactly as if the CD was massless.

Now, for a look at the Emm Labs DCC2 Signature DAC:

You will of course notice how the yoyo is positioned in the classical, ‘Upright DAC YoYo Position’ which has the yoyo face due Magnetic North.

Looking at the setup more from the front, you can see that the angle of the yoyo is slightly tilted:

We have found that it is very important for the angle of the top of the text to track the sun as it coasts over head during the day. This may be obviosu to many of you experts, but it took us months to figure this out.

And at night? Yes, it sounds soooo much better when the yoyo continues to track the sun as it winds its way upriver on the other side of the planet.

Luckily, I can just assign the yoyo adjustjing duties to Neli - cause heck if I know where the sun is exaclty in the middle of the night - and luckily our significant others will do anything if you just explain how important it is.

Anyway, sorry if I was a little bit rough on you noobies, but hopefully this will help you utilize the most important tweak since Edison invented electricity.

We spent so much time on this, and no one told us anything about how we were supposed to use these things. It was like a big secret or something. Geez. How are we supposed to get new blood into this hobby if everyone keeps the YoYo tweaks classified?

Now, we can all hope that the Asylum sends out green yoyos, which we hear mate very well with red, next so that we can start stacking them in totem poll like fashion.

!yojnE

;-))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))?

We moved the new Emm Labs transport and DAC upstairs where the old pair sat for just about a year and a half. [They had just spent its first week on the system with the Kharma Mini Exquisite speakers - which are nearly, but not quite, broken in].

I let it settle in some and then played some test CDs.

Swtiching back and forth between the multichannel and 2-channel version of Dark Side of the Moon, it was so obvious that the 2-channel version sounded quite a bit less strident in the midrange, more relaxed, uncompressed, unconfused during complex passages… i.e. it is starting to break in!

In comparison so our previous Emm Labs pair, this pair already had more resolution and a lower noise floor. The combination of these two is serving to increase the transparency even beyond the state-of-the-art industry-leading transparency we had experienced with the older version.

It has been a week since we have been playing it - but it is just starting to relax, which was another major, for me, feature of the Meitner pair: Startling transparency in this casual not-even-trying manner (which derives from, I think, the resolution, especially in the midrange, coming fron naturally formed details, as opposed to the popular lotsa details where notes rise and fall faster than is real).

The trademark purity of tone was immediately apparent from the get-go, after 10 seconds of playing time.

This transparency and purity… it is something no other digital we have heard is able to challenge. Yes, the others may have more detail, or slam, or a rounder sound more able to mate with unforgivning electronics located somewhere else in the system. But if you want a ’straight wire with gain’ kind of sound… this is it.

But… you… have… to… let… it… break… in.

24 x 7 by, say, 6 weeks or more…

OK?

And break in each path through the player that you are going to use: redbook, SACD, preamp analog output, and analog input if necessary… I am not sure the unit gain output needs breaking in too if you are going to use that. But it can’t hurt…

OK.