Wes Phillips

I dropped by Thiel's room to tease them about the fact that I had heard that <I>Rolling Stone</I> had a pair of CS3.7 loudspeakers, while a certain audiophile magazine did not.

The slot-loaded two-way <A HREF="http://www.jm-reynaud.com/jmr_us/jm-reynaud_fr.html">JM Reynaud Duet</A> loudspeaker ($1525/pair) sounded quite special, driven by the Blue Circle FtTH. "That was surprising," the Reynaud rep explained. "We had Gilbert's top-of-the-line preamplifier and a pair of Blue Moon monoblocks, which we had intended to use. While we were setting up, we connected the FtTH and the synergy between that amp and these speakers was just magical&mdash;so we knew what to do."

Yeung was demonstrating a few new <A HREF="http://www.bluecircle.com/">Blue Circle</A> products, an inexpensive USB DAc and the $4895 95Wpc FtTH integrated amplifier. Yeung calls the FtTH his "statement" preamp, saying that it employs Blue Circle's True Balanced Audio technology, which, he says, "drives both the positive and the negative output terminals for better control of the loudspeakers."

Mutine's Pascal Ravach was demonstrating the small, but striking, Duevel Planets omnidirectional speakers (CDN$1495/pair), The Planets consist of a floorstanding vented cabinet with an upward-firing 5" woofer and 1" horn-loaded tweeter. The drivers fire against reflective spheres, which disperse the sound.

A close up of the business end of a Duevel Planet loudspeaker.

A closer look at Vienna Acoustics' coaxial tweeter-midrange unit. The central dome is supported by the magnet pole-piece of the flat midrange driver&mdash;and the strengthening ribs are said to dissipate standing waves on the surface of the driver.

Kevin Wolff, Vienna Acoustics' new international sales manager, poses next to the new $25,000/pair The Music loudspeakers.That rotating section of the cabinet contains Vienna Acoustics' revolutionary (<I>hah!</I>) new, flat, concentric 7" tweeter-midrange unit, which handles frequencies from 200Hz to 20kHz. A separate super-tweeter takes over above the audioband.