Dussun
Dussun was showing a line of power conditioners (500W, 800W, and 1200W) that offered waveform shaping, regulation, isolation, and DC suppression. Oh yeah, and they offer 85% efficiency. The X-1200 retails for $2500.
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W'inner
Zhou Yi of W'inner is kind of a crazy guy—audiophile crazy. His stuff is all big, and so are his aspirations. He really likes class-A, too.
NuForce S-9
NuForce's S-9 was pretty interesting, too. The cabinet is constructed of birch plywood laminations, which creates both the inner and outer profiles. The tweeter is mounted into a fairly deep horn and flanked by the twin midrange/woofers. There's a built-in switchable Zobel filter and an external crossover, which can be purchased as active or passive. Speaker wire is included in the S-9's $5500/pair (USD) price.
Elite Speakers
After my first few days wandering through the show, I began to wonder where all the Chinese speakers were—the relatively normal ones, I mean.
The Same Language
I'm currently attending GuangZhou Hi-Fi 2006 in GuangZhou, China (you can read my <A HREF="http://blog.stereophile.com/china2006//index.html">China Hi-Fi Tour 2006 blog</A>). The show is a fantastic audio event and everywhere I look, I see products I want—some very similar to mainstream US brands and some exceedingly strange and different. But the <I>audiophiles</I> are familiar: Show me a guy who lights up in the glow of a 300B and I'll show you one of <I>my</I> chosen people.
Do you think the major labels will survive the transition from discs to downloads?
There's been a lot of speculation that the music business as we know it cannot survive the download era, now that artists can sell their music direct to fans. Do you think the major labels will survive the transition from discs to downloads?
Grado Laboratories SR 125 headphones
For many years I have used three sets of headphones, all from Grado Laboratories: the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/headphones/796grado">Reference RS-1</A> ($695), the SR-125 ($125), and the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/headphones/532">SR-60</A> ($60). I've always favored Grado headphones because the minimal-resonance design philosophy that I feel is responsible for the uncolored midrange of their moving-iron cartridges extends throughout their headphone range as well. Recently, however, I've achieved a new perspective regarding the SR-125 'phones that I felt would be of interest to <I>Stereophile</I> readers.
Melos SHA-Gold headphone amplifier
It's hard to know what to call the SHA-Gold. It <I>is</I> a superb headphone amplifier—maybe even the target all future headphone amps need to shoot at—but it's also a full-function preamplifier. At two grand, it's not exactly a unit you'd add to your current system just to get a headphone connection...<I>Wait a minute!</I> What am I saying? I'm sure that there are folks out there who would add this to their existing reference systems as casually as I'd buy the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/headphones/796alchemy">Audio Alchemy headphone amplifier</A>—but they'd be missing out on a great line stage.
Audio Alchemy HPA v1.0 headphone amplifier
For headphone listeners, this is truly a golden age—we have multiple choices at many different price levels. During the course of this review, I had as many as five headphone amplifiers (and, in several cases, multiple power supplies) set up for comparison. Yet many people don't understand why we might want a headphone amp in the first place.
McCormack Micro Integrated Drive headphone amplifier
<I>What,</I> I hear you asking, <I>is an integrated drive?</I> The MID is part of McCormack's much lauded "Micro" series (see my review of their Micro Line Drive in Vol.18 No.6), which are designed to offer the same dedication to quality as McCormack's full-size components, but at a lower price (and in a smaller package). The MID was initially the Micro Headphone Drive, sporting two ½" stereo phone-jacks on the front panel, a two-position input switch, and a volume control. The rear boasted two inputs and an output (controlled by the volume pot). It was designed to be a high-quality headphone amp and a minimalist preamp. In this configuration, I ran into it at the 1995 WCES where—almost as a gag—Steve McCormack had made up a few ½" stereo phone-plug to 5-way binding post connectors. He could, he explained, run small speakers from the headphone outputs. There was a serious purpose behind the joke, of course. Showing that the MHD could drive speakers spoke volumes for its ability to drive headphones.