A big sound. Confident. With better resolution and micro-dynamics than their 101E speakers, but still not a standard setter in this department.

From my notes:

"Huge room presence. Big sound. Lacking in micro-dynamics and resolution which is needed for my ears to connect to the emotion of the sound and to suspend disbelief that this is real. Still, those first few notes of a song are quite exciting and impressive. Off axis behavior is some of the best in the business."

I didn't do a full review of this room because I was afraid to stay here longer than I had to because they always like to play WAY TOO LOUD, and I have no desire to damage my ears. I like my ears. I still want to use them for a good many years. I do not want to have to say, in my older age, "Sorry, I can't tell the difference between Bose and Marten anymore, but at least I got to hear the MBL room for 5 minutes in 2007."

Actually, this year they were much better, at least while I was there. But, I admit it, I was chicken...

And as you can see, the listening couch is about 6 to 8 feet in front of the speakers.

Well, it looks like the Pioneer Mobile Division stuck in a few, non-mobile speakers, doesn't it?

Pretty darn bold and innovative designs here, but unfortunately, it sounded like, to me, that the upstream electronics were not up to the task. The sound seemed somewhat solid-statey, just like one would expect from solid-state amps a few generations ago.

Really, most company's solid-state amps for the home market have improved over the last decade or so - all except those that, uh, how shall I put this, ... except those that are targeting the Home Theater market. Which still really suck. And some of which people want to use for home audio.

They were switching the demo to this side as I got here, so I should have snapped a few more of the other side, of the amps on the other side.

But, and the Pioneer room was average in this, a lot of rooms do not have an inviting, 'come in, stay awhile' feel to them. Most of the exhibitors here had not heard of Audio Federation, or our report [guess they never Google to see what people are saying about their room], and so it is not that they are just wary of what we will say about them.

In fact, most of the exhibitors that recognized me, or my Audio Federation badge, asked me to be sure to take a photo of this and a photo of that - which I did! That is what I am there for and if they are especially proud of something, I want to make sure it gets into the report.

Anyway, there are some strange vibes in some of these rooms - and not all of them are airborne.

All together now, "Been there, done that".

Probably the most musical and enjoyable I've ever heard the big Dynaudio speakers sound. I thought they were missing some bass control and some resolution (duh) but I did not get a chance to listen much on axis. So all you Dynaudio owners out there - you should give tube amps a try if you get a chance.

Some rooms just seemed to give up in their fights with the Venetian and exhibited a static-display-with-sound.

I prefer these speakers with the DeHaviland amps, but that is just me.

After all these years I think I finally understand why we didn't just buy these speakers which we auditioned numerous times, and like a lot - at which point we never would have gone to our first CES to eventually become a dealer / magazine / importer / distributor / TBD. The Accuphase gear on these speakers is a little too laid back for our taste [and the Boulder amps are too weak in the microdynamics dept.], personally preferring the Hovland Radia, the Ayre, or even the Rowland amps, all of which we have also heard subsequently at shows and which are a little lighter on their feet ... with these speakers, that is.

The small system in the room.

I guess I could 'star' Air Tight but we really don't carry Air Tight even though we do ostensibly sell the Air Tight record Flatter flattener. Another local dealer sells the entire Air Tight line and they do a good job of it - so no need for us to muck up a good thing, right? So no '*'.

It sells for about $6500.00 and the fit-and-finish is quite nice. It is quiet, from what I could tell about as quiet as the new *LoriCraft $4000.00 PR6 - though I didn't get to hear them side-by-side. Let's just say that you don't really need it to be quieter than this, unless you are cleaning records in the baby's room while they are asleep. And even then, these are REALLY quiet.

For your extra $2500 you get the fit-and-finish you see here, push button operation, waste fluid bottle inside instead of outside, and automatic cleaning fluid dispenser by way of that brush you see there.

You also get easy access to the internals - which you need anyway to empty the waste fluid and add new cleaning fluid.

Neli mentioned that the automatic cleaning fluid applicator means that you can't do multiple passes with different cleaning fluids that some difficult records require - for example some cleaners just address fungus. And some attack particles. One often may want to apply both.

But, assuming that one can get hold of a brush, one can apply the extra fluids manually here just as well on the LoriCraft. [BTW, the automatic dispenser does reduce the splashing that can occur when overly enthusiastic wives clean records :-) ]

This particular cleaner takes about 2 minutes per side, which is, if I remember correctly, more than twice the LoriCraft. If you are the impatient type, this may not be so great.

So you get something for your extra $2500. Our problem is that we have just got people to accept paying almost $2K for a LoriCraft PR3, and $6.5K seems a little high for people with $5K turntables. But, the day will come, for all of us who have $20K+ turntables, and who buy a lot of $1 records :-), when spending this kind of money, on a repetitive task that one spends a lot of hours doing each week [if you have a wife like mine, you can only get away with 'it looks clean enough to me, just put it on' so many times], makes a heckuvalotof sense.

Western Electric now makes amplifiers, apparently, and they were in at least two rooms. More close-up photos below.

I listened but did not hear anything special. The sound was on the more neutral side, and with these speakers and what looks like CJ source equipment, that points to the amps being on the neutral side. Maybe they are 200 watts or something, which might be interesting competition to BAT and ARC and VTL.

OK, I give up.

According to Positive Feeback these are 300Bs and this amp costs $85,000. Well, I guess... nope, I'll be nice. That is a lot of 300B's for a single channel. They also say that there is a Western Electric CD player somewhere in the room driving this. Perhaps it is over on the floor?

Still don't know how much power this thing has.