James Tanner's Speakers
Long-time audiophile and Bryston's VP of Sales, James Tanner, has turned his hand to speaker design, and the result, now in advanced prototype form, was introduced at SSI 2012. Dubbed the Model T (the initial of his last name, and because it will come in any color as long as it's black), this is a tall floorstander, with custom drivers made by Canadian speaker manufacturer, Axiom, and features Bryston's BDX-1 digital crossover. The DSP controls of the BDX-1 allow correction of both phase and frequency response; the latter is said to be 17Hz25kHz, ±¼dB. Tanner told me that he's not entirely happy with the performance of one of the drivers, which is being revised to have a "quicker" response. The Model T is a sealed-box system, with a sensitivity of 93dB. The projected price, including the BDX-1 digital crossover, is $10k/pair.
Jeff Rowland Design Group
As you can see in the picture, Angie loves Jeff Rowland Design Group products, such as the Aeris DAC/preamp ($12,000), which made its debut at SSI 2012. The Aeris features a substantial external power supply, and has the usual array of inputs, including the now-mandatory USB.
Joseph Audio
Retailer Coup de Foudre and Canadian distributor Tri-Cell built one of their exhibits around a pair of Joseph Audio Pulsar loudspeakers ($7000/pair, to be reviewed in the June Stereophile by Mikey Fremer), driven by the 70Wpc Brinkmann Audio Vollverstarker integrated amplifier (also $7000), with a MacBook Pro and a Wavelength Audio Brick D/A converter ($2200) as the digital source. As always, Jeff Joseph's room setup was difficult to fault, and the system was smooth, colorful, and dynamic: Listening to the Gypsy swing music of the Howard Fishman quartet, I was happier than I'd been all day.
Kronos from Sonor-Filtronique
Sonor-Filtronique is a Montreal dealer whose product lines are some of the most prestigious available, including Audio Research, Ayre, Boulder, Sonus Faber, and VPI. They had samples from all these at SSI 2012, but the once that caught my eye was a turntable: the Kronos, a $30,000 high-tech wonder, designed in Quebec by Louis Desjardin, in collaboration with Fidelio Audio. Its major design claim to fame is the secondary platter (below the one that the record is placed on), which rotates in the opposite direction, an approach that is said to cancel unwanted vibrations. The unit on demo had an SME tonearm mounted.
Lifetime Achievement Award: Marc Denis
As B&W's Doug Henderson pointed out in his presentation speech, being a manufacturer's rep in audio is often a thankless job. If sales are slow, the rep gets blamed, but it they're going well, that's just taken for granted. But not this time: the Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Marc Denis (pictured), rep for B&W, Rotel, and Classé.
Lifetime Achievement Award: Richard Petit
One of the two Lifetime Achievement Awards was given to Richard Petit, President of KeébecSon. The presentation was made by Richard's daughter, Marie-Eve, and was the most touching event at the party.
Line Magnetic Amplifiers
The curiously named Line Magnetic company of China has begun making a series of relatively affordable tube electronics, all hand-wired, and all with styling details that recall classic products from the first half of the 20th Century. LM's model 211IA integrated amplifier ($1650) was used to drive the new Gibbon 88s from DeVore Fidelity. Each channel of the amp produces 32Wpc from a pair of EL34s running in Ultralinear modethe 211IA can also be switched to triode operationwith all-tube preamp and driver stages and a silicon-rectified power supply.
Michael Lavorgna Explains PC Audio
AudioStream.com's Michael Lavorgna explains all the intricacies of computer audio.
Michael Tang Audio
The ever-enthusiastic Mike Tang, of Mike Tang Audio, had a system to warm the hearts of anachrophiles: Thorens TD124 with custom tonearm to match the Decca cartridge, Meridian MCD CD player (no modifications), Marantz 7C tube preamp, with the new parts of the system consisting of a Feastrex CV4055 power amp (8W, $5500), and Feastrex NF5 driver ($4500/pair, $7000 installed in a custom cabinet.
Michel Plante
Michel Plante, President of SSI, can usually been seen rushing around, dealing with one crisis or another. He somehow injured himself the day before the show's opening (he doesn't know how) to the point that he was on crutches, but this hardly seems to have slowed him down. He took in stridewell, so to speakjibes about "break a leg" not meant to be taken literally.