As I walked into the room, O’Hanlon explained that Raymond had been knocking everyone’s socks off with his vinyl selections.
“As much as I like the music I brought, I’m also kinda sick of it,” O’Hanlon chuckled. “What’s next, Raymond?”
Raymond dug through his bag of vinyl and handed O’Hanlon a record. The charming host took that record and placed it on Luxman’s PD-171 belt-drive turntable ($6200, including tonearm and dustcover), the first turntable to come from the Japanese company in 28 years.
MSB’s Vince Galbo explained that the company’s Data CD IV transport ($3995) was “intensely designed to read CDs like they’ve never been read before.”
I noted generous scale, midrange detail, full body, and an overall effortlessness to the presentation of this system: Wilson Sophia loudspeakers, Pass Labs amplification, and the new Light Harmonic Da Vinci 384K USB DAC ($15,000 [NOTE: The actual retail price ended up at $20k-ed.]).
Widea Lab is a young Korean company. The company says they’ve got some strong candidates for US distribution and will also be selling via Amazon. Their first product, the Aurender (short for Audio Renderer; $5700), is a digital music server utilizing a customized Linux OS, linear power supply, and storage for over 5000 lossless and uncompressed CDs.
