I first auditioned an open-baffle Granada speaker at the 2011 Show, which used a single Feastrex driver to cover the range above 200Hz and was being driven by a solid-state Musical Fidelity amplifier. For 2012, the Lotus Group was showing the less expensive G2 ($75,000/pair), which uses a more conventional midrange unit and tweeter, but still on an open baffle, still with a digital-domain crossover and room calibration realized in DSP. Amplification this year was provided by the humongous Audio Power Labs 833T amplifier that had impressed Larry Greenhill elsewhere at the Show.
With the source an EAR CD player and the preamp the SMc Audio VRE-1C solid-state preamplifier ()$16,950, hooked up with PranaWire cables, my recording of the Jerome Harris Quintet playing "The Mooche" was reproduced with excellent dynamics but a little too sweet-toned a balance that made Marty Erlich's alto saxophone sound more like a tenor.
Steve McCormack introduced his new Iterocitor One unbalanced–balanced two-channel transformer ($1895) at T.H.E. Show, a very useful and versatile device to facilitate using unbalanced sources with components having balanced inputs only.
