Wadia at Music Lovers Audio
Music Lovers Audio of Berkeley and San Francisco had the big and small of the Wadia line on display. When I entered the room, the Wadia 571 CD/digital preamp/DAC ($13,950) was on standby, and Wadia's diminutive 170 Transport iPod dock ($379) and 151 PowerDACMini ($1195) were doing the iPhone.
What a Show!
Constantine and Ann Soo deserve a huge thank you from the audiophile community. Responding to pleas from insistent dealers and distributors, who lamented the absence of an audiophile show from the San Francisco Bay Area, Constantine and dagogo.com took a huge risk.
Wireworld: To Be or Not To Be...
Given how good Wireworld's Platinum Eclipse cabling sounded with deHavilland and Glow electronics, I was delighted to encounter Wireworld's David Salz demming another Glow/Sonist system in the adjoining room. I'm sure Wireworld's Equinox 6 interconnects ($200/pair), Equinox 6 bi-wire speaker cables ($750/pair), Stratus power cords ($100/2m), and Matrix power strip ($120) were doing just fine. So, I expect, was the source, a Cambridge 550C CD player ($595). But the Glow 832 SET 7wpc stereo amplifier ($795) was challenged driving the 93dB-sensitive Sonist Recital 3 floorstanding loudspeakers. Things sounded okay with the volume turned down low, but when you invited singers to come out from behind the closet door and stand in front of you, the sound began to distort and fall apart. It takes an extremely efficient loudspeaker to enable those amplifiers to truly glow. To its everlasting credit, Wireworld's cabling did not mask the problems associated with the mismatch.
YG Acoustics' Family Values
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.
You Win Some, You...
Given how enthused my fellow Stereophile editors were over the sound of the Legacy Audio speakers at this year's Axpona">http://blog.stereophile.com/axpona2010/best_sound_at_axpona/">Axpona Show, I was really looking forward to hearing them. I was also looking forward to hearing the pricey, eye-catching Win Analog SET electronics, which had not fared well at a recent demo for the Bay Area Audiophile Society (BAAS).