Triode and Acoustic Zen
Even if I couldn't get far enough back to either take a decent photo or appreciate the sonics at their best, I could admire the warm, eminently pleasing sound of Acoustic Zen's Crescendo Mk.II loudspeakers ($18,000/pair) mated with Triode Corporation's TRX-M845 monoblocks ($22,500/pair), new TRX-2 tube preamplifier with MC/MM ($5000), TRX-DAC 1.0 Tube ($2500), and TRV-CD5SE ($3200).
Vapor Audio, Purity, Lampizator
With a name like Lampizator, as in Lukasz Fikus' "Audio from Poland with Love," who wouldn't be intrigued? The good news is, even paired with Vapor Audio's day-old Derecho loudspeakers ($7600/pair), which Ryan Scott builds behind his house in Hot Springs, MO, Lampizator's Level 7 DAC ($9650) and SQBX Based transport ($2650), Purity Audio's Silver Statement preamp ($35,000) with ultra power supply, and PSE300B 18W monoblocks ($26,000/pair with Sophia Electric 300B tubes), and Verastar cabling won me over with their beautiful sound.
Venture Audio’s Vici 2.1
Venture's Vici 2.1 speaker system ($36,000 total), which mates the AW500 subwoofer with the slim Vici towers, may have looked rather slight for the huge space it occupied, but it managed to fill it with surprisingly big sound.
Vienna Acoustics and Primare
I enjoyed my short time with the Vienna Acoustics Imperial Series Liszt loudspeaker system ($15,000/pair). The Liszt incorporates Vienna Acoustics' flat-spider 6" coincident midrange driver and 1.2" vented silk-dome/neo-coated motor, as well as three 7" woofers that cover the 26200Hz range of a speaker that extends up to 25kHz. Mated with a Primare I32 integrated amplifier ($4750), whose pre-installed full media board option allowed a wired LAN connection to a NAS drive, and AudioQuest cabling, the system depicted a file of a recording of Mahler's Symphony 3 with superior midrange, fine bass, and appropriate top-end bite. Percussive slam was tight, if a bit shallow, but that may have been due to the recording itself.
Welcome, Midwest Audio
Let's hear it for a relatively new dealer and father, Jason Walker of Midwest Audio in South Bend, Indiana. You know someone is an industry virgin when he confesses that he first heard of Rebecca Pidgeon, whose 20-year old "Spanish Harlem" was once a multi-room favorite at audio shows, a whole two months ago.
Wharfedale's Little Over-Achiever
Mated with the new Avid Ingenium turntable with Pro-ject tonearm ($1999), Marantz PM14S integrated amplifier, and Audioquest cabling, a not fully broken-in set of Wharfedale Jade 1 loudspeakers ($1199/pair) sounded very impressive for the price. On the Cowboy Junkies Whites Off Earth Now LP, a take-no-prisoners depiction of electric guitar was balanced by a decent midrange, good bass, and a fine depiction of female voice. Abetting bass response was Wharfedale's Diamond 10.2 subwoofer ($799), which filled in between 35 and 65Hz.