Monitor Audio's Sheldon Ginn is very excited about the company's new PL200 loudspeaker ($8000/pair). This attractive floorstander fills the gap between Monitor's PL100 bookshelf and the much bulkier PL300 floorstander, and uses a three-driver configuration with a ribbon tweeter. It's available in ebony, rosewood, and piano black finishes, and boasts a real leather front baffle.
Totem's Vince Bruzzese was happy to tell me about the Wind Design, an enhanced version of the company's flagship floorstander. It uses a "skid plate" decoupling system with a front "claw" which is user-adjustable to complement the phase interactions between the speaker and various associated electronics. Totem strives to create loudspeakers that will mate happily with all sorts of associated equipment, and today they were making music with an Arcam FMJ disc player and Bryston amplification.
It is just about as beautiful a day as you can imagine. You can see both the sun and the moon in this clear, blue sky. It is the kind of day that you hope for throughout the cold, winter months.
Okay, so I'm outside the hotel, attempting to take a photograph of the show banner, but it's far too dark to capture adequately. After a few failed attempts, I give up, and decide to go for a quick walk. It's not too cold and I'm not too tired, and I may not have another chance at this.
Back in the winter of 1999, just a few months before I started working for <i>Stereophile</i>, I took a month-long train trip. One of my first stops was in Montreal. I could not have spent more than three or four days there, but they were a very fulfilling and memorable three or four days.
Last Friday was an interesting day in the office. No one was here, but Ariel. Robert Baird was whooping it up at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, and John Atkinson and I would soon be on the road. It was the first day of spring, and snow was falling like mad.
Mikey fremers with some connections while the imposing Wilson MAXX 3 loudspeaker looks on, darth-vaderishly. Better not screw up, Mikey.
The Musical Fidelity Titan power amplifier: 1000W into 8 ohms and heavy as hell.
The <a href="http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=53228&an=0…; Furutech deMag provided an obvious and immediate improvement to a new vinyl LP.
The April 2009 issue of <i>Stereophile</i> is now on newsstands. The April issue is always a bear, but this one was a hungry, 15 foot tall, 2 ton Kodiak. It's kind of a miracle that it even exists.