Capital AudioFest 2023

Nexxus Audio Technologies

Ken Micallef | Nov 17, 2023

Nexus Audio Technologies' Walter Schofield presented a rig consisting of the VPI Avenger Direct turntable with Fatboy tonearm ($36,000), VPI Shyla cartridge ($2500), and Primare R35 MM/MC phono preamp ($2000); the 432 EVO Master Music Server with Roon core endpoint ($18,000); the Primare PRE35 Prisma DM36 streaming preamplifier featuring the new DM36 advanced DAC module with MQA processing ($5250); and two Primare A35.2 stereo amplifiers ($3900 each) bridged to mono. Walter also presented the Stenheim Alumine Two.five Loudspeakers ($23,500/pair) in their North American debut, a full loom of interconnects, power cables, and speaker wire by Anticables, and a Pangea Audio Vulcan Five Shelf audio rack ($250).

Once I settled into my listening seat, there was no denying the low noise floor, musical purity, and engrossing soundstage of this mighty rig. Yuko Mabuchi’s piano trio album streamed through the room, sounding super spatial, effortless, dynamic, and natural. The speakers disappeared. Piano had weight and tone, and I could practically see the drummer’s hands as he stroked the drumheads, evincing an entirely different sound from sticks on heads. Revelatory!

COMMENTS

I could practically see the drummer’s hands

Submitted by mememe on November 17, 2023 - 12:29pm

Reading this purple prose, I could practically smell the local farm fields after the spring fertilization.

A visual like that is a reference to...

Submitted by rschryer on November 17, 2023 - 4:43pm

...the soundstage. Soundstages are real in good audio.

Soundstages are real in good audio

Submitted by mememe on November 18, 2023 - 4:41am

A soundstage is an aural experience, not a visual one. Using your logic, I can claim to see the details of the flames of a rocket launching that I can only hear clearly (and loudly ) in the distance. Soundstage is real but this lame support of the purple prose only intensifies the smell of the fertilized fields.

Correct.

Submitted by Archimago on November 18, 2023 - 7:05pm

These kinds of descriptions make no sense.

The writer I suppose could have just said he could "imagine" the drummer sitting there and hitting the drums in his mind's eye. But to "practically see the drummer's hands..." do this or that is at least overly dramatic.

Robert, I apologize on behalf of these typing monkeys.

Submitted by Anton on November 21, 2023 - 2:10pm

I can practically see their spittle covered keyboards as they bang away in outrage over your evocative description.

Audiophilia is proof that you don’t necessarily have to have a life to be an audiophile.

Your Title...

Submitted by rschryer on November 21, 2023 - 5:49pm

...was evocative, Anton. Thanks, brother.

Of course a soundstage is an aural experience

Submitted by rschryer on November 19, 2023 - 4:24pm

As per the originator of the audiophile hobby, J Gordon Holt, a soundstage is, "The accuracy with which a reproducing system conveys audible information about the size, shape, and acoustical characteristics of the original recording space and the placement of the performers within it."

This was said way before audio had the resolution it now has. I think Holt would freak out if he heard what we have now. I don't think it's going too far, or overly dramatic, to say that audio now is so transparent it allows us to "see" what those musicians were doing.

That has always been the whole point of our hobby — to recreate the sense that we're witnessing — hearing, seeing, feeling — the whole picture.

Holt as originator?

Submitted by teched58 on November 20, 2023 - 11:18am

Your statement that Gordon Holt, as important a figure as he was, was the originator of the audiophile hobby is ahistorical.

Who then?

Submitted by rschryer on November 20, 2023 - 3:22pm

Who then?

audiophilia

Submitted by David Harper on November 18, 2023 - 8:14am

Lets all get this straight once and for all;
The more it costs the better it must sound. Especially if it's turntables and vacuum tube amplifiers. It's an alternate reality once you understand it. I have an OPPO bluray player,a $700 Schiit Vidar amp and $700 magnepan LRS speakers and I, to, can "see the drummers hands"when listening. Wait.....HOW CAN THIS BE??????