[Neli is still torturing me. But eventually she will relent From the snippets I have heard - Kharma now has 2 speakers above the old (~$260K) Grande Exquisites and one immediately below.

Kharma has indeed added some new loudspeakers to the Grand Exquisite line. Above the Grand Exquisite are the Grand Exquisite Extreme ($390K), and the Grand Exquisite Extreme, Limited Edition 25 ($520K), the ultimate realization of the Grand Exquisite.

Kharma has also introduced the Midi Grand Exquisite ($145K), smaller cabinet suitable for a (somewhat) smaller room. These were the ones shown in Munich.

Kharma now makes their own ceramic drivers, the Black Label series (and so no longer use the old Accuton/ Thiele & Partner ceramic drivers - which have been exceedingly hard to come by lately). These new drivers have membranes that are black in color.

This fall, Kharma will introduce the new Elegance line. One of the smaller Elegance loudspeakers, configuration similar to the 3.2.2 CRM, is shown below. These use a new Kharma-designed and developed carbon fiber driver and a new (also Kharma-designed and developed) beryllium tweeter. Pricing for the new Elegance speakers is still being set.

Corrections to this summary, and pricing, and labeling of the photos will be forthcoming… right Neli? ]
A quick note on pricing. Kharma’s pricing in Euro has remained remarkably stable over the last years. Prices here are based on a conversion rate of 1.30 USD / 1 Euro, which is either … an insane opportunity, or the new normal.

Looking into the Munich show room from the outside …

wish we were able to attend, we are so happy to have these pictures sent to us from Kharma …

First glimpse inside.

These are the Midi Grand Exquisites, with the Exquisite Sub (active, 18″ long throw driver) and the new Exquisite MP-1000 mono power amplifiers.

Side view of the room, RixRax Grand Hoodoo and a pair of Exquisite Mini with the new black label drivers (more below).

Kharma owner and chief designer, Charles van Oosterum, with the new Elegance 3.2.2, with the grille on. Grilles are now mounted magnetically.

Rear of the Elegance 3.2.2, in Aubergine. The port is reminiscent of the Exquisite Mini. Note the removable back panel.
These loudspeakers can be made active by changing the binding posts to signal cable connectors (XLR/RCA) and mounting one of the little Matrix amplifiers inside.

New Kharma beryllium tweeter and carbon fiber mid/bass driver.

‘Elegance’ series badge on the side. Cabinets and cabinet finish look quite similar to the CRM 3.2/3.2.2.

Streamlined Elegance series stand with floor protectors.

This is a nice reminder that we should always level our loudspeakers …

Another nice view of the big Munich system with the Midi Grand Exquisites, the new MP-1000 mono amps ($52000), and the Exquisite sub ($32,500).

Closeup of one Midi Grand Exquisite. Makassar veneer with piano black finish. Nice view of the dual diamond tweeters, and of the new black-label ceramic midrange drivers.

Even nicer view of the Makassar …

Beautiful view of the Exquisite Mini (what a lovely, lovely loudspeaker, sonically even more than visually), with standard Walnut trim and the new black label drivers. Since the speakers are not playing, the diamond tweeters have got their little magnetic protective grilles on.

The MP-1000 with carbon front panel.

Best view of the front end. Top shelf, Metronome CD transport. Second shelf, prototype/beta version of the new Kharma PA-1000 preamplifier (expected $39000), third shelf is a DAC from Audio Note Japan (thanks Metralla) KSL-DAC. And, on the bottom shelf, what I think is the power supply for the Metronome.

Happy listeners ….

The new 9.6″ tonearm bears a close resemblance to the 10.5 tonearm. Various component parts that have performed perfectly in our previous tonearms like the arm tube with the special hard ceramic surface, the headshell, the tonearm lift and also the mounting socket are also used in the 9.6 tonearm. Therefore the 9.6 can be mounted in the same tonearm bases pre-drilled for the 10.5 or 12.1. Will ship in August, retail $3,990

The new Pi MC cartridge seen here mounted in the new 9.6 tonearm on a gorgeous Oasis with a makssar (ebony) plinth.

On the Pi Helmut Brinkmann chose a microridge stylus, which has the best resolution in fine recorded detail, while offering proven reliability. The stylus is mounted on a boron cantilever which in turn drives a copper voice coil. The utmost attention was given to the rigidity of the magnetic circuit to prevent eddy currents which would corrupt the low level output signal.

After eight years in development, the Edison phono stage will ship next month, it has three inputs, each of which’s loading & gain can be adjusted by the remote control. The settings can be stored in memory. It uses vacuum tubes both for the first gain stage as well as for the balanced implementation. Retail $12,990

Finally, Brinkmann have finished their cartridge & tonearm alignment Protractor. This is a precision piece of engineering and while not cheap, should prove very useful. I have seen Helmut use this to set up tonearms and its a doddle. Retail $600

[’a doddle’ must be ‘Brit’ nomenclature for ‘awesome’ ]

… no matter what Neli might say,…

Look, I see it like this.

At one time you HAD to have a home stereo if you wanted to hear music at home.

Then there was the transistor radio, boom boxes, home theater, digital homes, and now ipods.

Lots of competition.

Unless we become ‘popular’ again - like the World Wrestling Federation, choppers, lime green indoor painting, etc. - it will be only the audiophiles and music lovers with lots of money who have home stereos.

Oh, wait, we are there now.

In fact, this is one of the reasons we got into audio on the business side - everybody in this hobby [for the most part] really loves it. They are not just ‘getting some music for the home’ they are pursuing their love of music, of technology, of their inner selves… whatever.

The software industry used to be like this, and then it grew and now there are all sorts of people who do not really care for it but who of course have to pontificate about it to everyone they meet [yep, still some people like this in audio too, huh?].

With the high-end audio consumer becoming fewer but more passionate and demanding, and the general public going elsewhere, audio manufacturers are able to make higher quality products. To a fewer number of people overall, yes, but I think it is the Polk and Monitor mid and low-fi home audio folks who have to worry - not the high-end.

But of course, this high-quality, and complete lack of economy of scale, drives the prices higher…

As a related note, I think the desktop computer’s days are numbered in a similar manner. The general public will have no need for them in 5 to 10 years - having moved to tablets. So… what does that mean for computer audiophiles? It means that expandable computer boxes, which will still exist [for gamers, CAD workers, programmers, etc], will be much more expensive - given as how the economy of scale which makes them cheap now will no longer exist.

So all these changes are just what is - not gloom, not doom - and they are no where near as bad as getting old and going bald and gray.

:-)

Some of the most fun I have had on Mattters is learning more about what is out there in the Opera Music and Classical Music genres.

These channels are actually quite popular, especially considering their lack of overwhelming popularity in our youth-centered culture. Especially considering that in my learned opinion it takes a relatively high fidelity system to make opera, and especially classical, sound decent [today’s word must be ‘especially’].

By sound decent I mean that it, well, when it does not sound decent, classical music, and uh, esp. opera sounds irritating to me. Without resolution, uh, esp., Classical becomes a mish-mash and when there isn’t a easily identifiable melody, like say Beethoven’s 5th, is becomes boring.

Resolution also helps Opera not become some women screeching at ya. Harmonic structure, and whatever else that goes into hearing the emotion is the singer’s voice is what makes opera ‘come alive’ for me. Opera, uh, in particular, has been heard so many times on inferior equipment that I, personally, have a hard time unlearning that opera is, well, horrible. Each time we sit down and listen to opera here - I say to myself, look self, listen to the music and see if you like it - do not just automatically tune it out because you have hated it all these years.

To the rest of you, I might suggest you listen to some Heavy Metal and even hip hop, if not rap [which turns some people off because of its political overtones], and see if on your awesome setup it doesn’t have some redeeming musical value that you may have over-looked because most of the time you hear it, often in the back ground, on inferior equipment.

As you all know, Jazz and Pop sound good on about any system… or at least it is accessible and doesn’t completely offend even the sad-sack ears of the average listener [oh, there I go being a ’snobbish audiophile’ [sorry, I do not save links to all the people who describe audiophiles with this adjective]. Have to say it is hard not to be snobbish when the average person thinks so little of themselves that all they think about is LOW LOW PRICE when thinking about when making buying decisions of any kind (though the iPhone and iPad seem to do OK- but besides Bose, who does marketing like this to the general public in our industry? Hardly anybody].

[Putting in all these links to everywhere is so much fun. I would add one of those previewer widgets so you can see what the links point at, but I usually find the one most people use annoying. We’ll see…]

We still have plans for the Spintricity magazine… took some time off, and now we will need to port it to a faster server since the server no longer has the bandwidth capable to support it. This will take some time, so… stay tuned.

Meanwhile. we have a lot of Kharma photos and information from Munich, but now we need to put them somewhere else… perhaps this blog. Stay tuned for this to… [well, it is not like we have to tune in a browser… stay URL’d maybe. No. Stay clicked].

New York Times

“From 2000 to 2009, Americans reduced their overall spending on home stereo components by more than a third, …”

Stupid Americans.

Neli and I talked it over a little, and after thinking more about it later, I think that this is not true for say:

Europe: Growth with Eastern Europe coming on the scene with their need for hi-fi bliss counter-balanced by a likely decline in the U.K. [it is my opinion that the world imitates the U.S., including and maybe especially our bad habits - like not worshiping high-fidelity - and especially countries most like us].

Japan? I would suspect treading water as their economy stagnates.

China: Incredible growth. Hong Kong: a decline from the great heights that once were.

Russia. Steady growth as capitalistic populism gains ground.

This is just speculation. Comments? Many Europeans, for example think that the U.S. is just one big pot of gold. It is, but only if you are selling somethin’ that fits on a shelf in Wallmart

Each forum is different - but rarely are they about the pursuit of the associated topic and always they are about the socializing.

Some examples.

Some months ago I was trying to find some more blogs about Audi for the Audi news channel. Neli and I have owned a lot of Audis, and this seemed like it would be fun. So I posted as much on one of the Audi forums.

First, one of the moderators deleted the link in my signature that I had added a year ago, to the Cool Car Photo Magazine. When I brought up how the Car magazine was just photos of the Denver Auto Show a different moderator said it must have been because we had adds in that magazine [we didn’t], and, then asked ‘What is a Blog?’.

Feeling he wasn’t being existential, I proceeded to check out my previous post about the bumpers on the Audi S8 always getting into trouble. And similarly there an very angry forum member insisted I get rid of my [no deleted] link to the commercial-less magazine 450 photos of the auto show - which happened to focus quite a bit on the Audi TT and R8.

*** Forum Pattern #1: The moderators are assholes and the members are likewise. The topic of the forum is only a lure to get innocent people to venture inside where they can practice their skills at being jerks.

Familiar? You can see a lightweight version of this at Audio Asylum. After about 2003 or 2004, every show report I posted about over there, with great personal trepidation and often to the tune of nasty comments and innuendo, got less than 20 visits from Audio Asylum. Given that the show reports get a lot of traffic, this just reinforced the fact that the Asylum was not about high end audio but about people using audio as an excuse to chat amongst themselves.

Audio Circle is quite a bit different. There I have found the moderators to be quite nice - but the members to be less so. A few examples.

I posed news of the high end audio and audio pages at Mattters late last December:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=75761.msg712686#msg712686

The only response was Jeff at Tone Magazine saying we were a clone of the Daily Audiophile. So instead of welcoming a new magazine to the small, friendly hobby we all love, it is instead attacked [and Spintriicty was even worse].

In reality, the Daily Audiophile:
http://www.dailyaudiophile.com/

is a clone of alltop:
http://audio.alltop.com/
which itself is a clone of original signal:
http://gadgets.originalsignal.com/
and who knows about the Daily Reviewer:
http://thedailyreviewer.com/top/audio

Given that the high end audio news on Mattters is WAY different than these, obviously, ‘clonage’ is not what the criticism was about. He did write later in a more agreeable tone but still the public position is still so very indicative of the MO, the standard approach, to new publications and dealers etc. in our hobby.

And another example of just how the people at Audio Circle, even with nice moderators, treat people trying to grow and understand the industry, in this case we can cringe at how people treat the very nice Rachel from Grant Fidelity:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=79139.0

*** Forum Pattern #2: Nice moderators, hostile forum members not so interested in the industry the forum is purported to be about.

Recently I posted a question over at AVS Forum look for more blogs for a Home Theater channel. So far so good, the moderators are invisible and people actually try to come up with some blogs.

*** Forum Pattern #3: A real forum with helpful people [at least most of the time ].

Here is a thought experiment [we can’t do the experiment in reality because we are in the industry and getting banned from a forum or two would be a real pain].

What if I posted the same question I posted on AVS Forum on all the other forums and compared the responses….

Audiogon?
Asylum? [Deleted for sure]
Audio Circle?
etc.

Anyway, think about it. And as the Audi example showed, perhaps it is not that audiophiles are in general more likely to be assholes, but that certain types of people congregate in various forums who may or may not be civilized. Forums, which are kind of the gateway for both people new to the hobby and people who are trying to get a helpful message out to a wider audience.

Now you wonder why the hobby is not growing?

AXPONA, In Association With Stereophile, Announce
Atlanta For 2011 Audio Expo

AXPONA Announces Event For 2011

Atlanta, Georgia - April 14th-17th, 2011

Audio Expo Of North America, AXPONA, in association with Stereophile, are proud to present The High End Audio Show of the Future in Atlanta for 2011. The newly redone downtown Sheraton will host the event. No expense was spared in renewing the hotel, including a $1,000,000.00 art collection. Most of last years exhibitors have already lined up for the annual event. First time exhibitors are very positive due to the tremendous success of the Jacksonville Event this past March. A larger show for exhibitors, with more attendance, is expected.

Reservations Begin The Week Of May 11th

Exhibit space reservations will be offered on a priority basis. Jacksonville exhibitors will enjoy room assignments beginning next week. Reservations will not require a deposit until June 15th. This will enable us to have advance mapping for first year exhibitors prepared by that time. We will also be offering a new payment plan with extended terms. All rooms are vastly superior to last year in appearance and size. Our smallest rooms this year are 365 square feet compared to 234 last year. Rooms are all new with outstanding acoustics and appointments. Access to the space is greatly improved with occupancy beginning on Wednesday at 6:00 PM, for all exhibit space, and vacating by 2:00 PM on Monday. Find more by visiting www.axpona.com