Just as I entered Emeryville's Hilton Garden Inn on the final day of the show, YG Acoustics' Yoav Geva (fourth from left) and his extended family were making their first visit to the Hilton. Filling most of an elevator, our little passel of smiling faces made its way to the YG Acoustics room.
There I was delighted to discover the Carmel loudspeaker ($18,000/pair), named after Yoav's two-year old son, Carmel. I doubt Carmel's voice is equally flat from 35Hzצ40kHz, or can yet bring out the deep bass voices on John Atkinson's demonstration-quality
While You Are Alive recording of male vocal ensemble Cantus with the authority of his solid namesake, but he was as adorable as the Carmel was tonally secure.
Also along for the ride from Colorado was four-year old Hailey. She, too, has left her mark in the loudspeaker department. Her nickname, Kipod (the Hebrew word for hedgehog), has been inherited by the next higher model in YG Acoustics' line. Not yet memorialized in aluminum are girlfriend Sonja Knight, nanny Cecilia Acosta, YG Acoustics' Director of Sales and Marketing Dick Diamond (second from right), and Dick's smiling son Alex.
The rest of the company was none too shabby. How about three of the four-stack dCS Scarlatti system (costing around $75,000), the Krell Evo 202 preamp ($16,500) and 402E 400Wpc amp ($16,500), and the same Kimber Select wiring used as interconnects and speaker cable as employed internally in the YG line?
As superb as it was in conveying bass, the Carmel also did a marvelous job of handling the highs of Elly Ameling's voice. It was equally in control of the huge percussion and trumpet climaxes at the opening of Mahler's Symphony No.2, which is pretty remarkable for a small speaker.
Yoav couldn't let me go without hearing Petra Magoni's bizarre Musica Nuda rendition of the Beatles' "Come Together, Right Now (Over Me)." I don't know what the girl was smoking or snorting, but the YGs were fully up capturing the prodigious bass that surrounded her soap-opera excess. Equally impressive was the Carmel's ability to convey height and depth.
Having enjoyed YG Acoustics speakers on numerous occasions, I expect that in a different room, with different electronics, the highs would have been more radiant. Regardless, the speaker's ability to control the entire audible range without a trace of grain and distortion was first-class.
Thanks for the joy, Yoav.
