Larry Greenhill

"We wanted to do something special to celebrate our 30th anniversary in business," said Dynaudio's Michael Manousselis, "so we created the limited edition—only 1000 will be made—$16,500/pair, three-way, four-driver, floorstanding Sapphire loudspeaker. The Sapphire uses our finest technology in drivers, including the soft-dome Esotar2 tweeter and two 8” Evidence-grade woofers with magnesium-silicate diaphragms. The cabinet is designed to have no parallel surface, with the two-toned cabinet featuring 12 distinct surface planes and twenty-four adjoining lines"

"The best loudspeaker on earth!" proclaimed the sign for the YG Acoustics Limited Exhibit. The company's founder, designer, and CEO, the ever-upbeat Yoav Geva, was just as proud as the papa of his new $33,000/pair "Kipod" floorstanding speaker. And proud he should be. "Kipod means hedgehog," he told me, "which is my daughter's nickname because of her hairstyle."

"Wow, that's great," I said, looking down at B&W's new $599 Zeppelin iPod player, the football-shaped Zeppelin, as it played a track from Tal Wilkenfeld's new Transformation album off of my Apple iPhone. Tal Wilkenfeld, a 21 year-old, very pretty, Australian girl, was all the buzz after she played bass with Jeff Beck at Eric Clapton's Crossroads Festival Concert in Chicago last summer.

I had been sent a sample of the Woodside SC26 tube preamplifier during my June 1994 review of Woodside's <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/tubepoweramps/694wood">MA50 monoblock amplifier</A> (Vol.17 No.6). Although I used a number of preamplifiers during that review, I was most impressed with the MA50s' spacious, three-dimensional soundstage when driven by the SC26. At the time, I had an impression that the SC26's sonics combined a midrange richness with a good dynamic range. Although I had to return the Woodside MA50s to the importer after I reviewed them, I continued listening to the SC26.

Brian Tucker, the US Quad importer, introduced me to the Woodside MA50 tube amplifiers and their manufacturer, John Widgery, during the 1992 Summer CES. Tucker's combination of Woodside MA50 tube amplifiers and <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/416">Quad ESL-63 USA Monitor</A>s sounded unusually neutral, dynamic, and detailed. This was good news; back in 1987, Dick Olsher (Vol.10 No.6, pp.104&ndash;5) was unable to recommend an earlier Woodside-manufactured amplifier, the Radford STA 25 Renaissance. Brian mentioned that the MA50's design is a much-improved version of that earlier Radford model. Time for another review.

...and 3.6kW into 2 ohms! All in a day's work for Krell's $40,000/pair, Krell Evolution 900 monoblock amplifier. On passive display with its top off, you can see that the amplifier has three output modules, each containing a pair of driver stages, 28 bipolar output devices, and a massive heatsink that vents heat in chimney fashion through vents in the top and bottom of the chassis. The power supply features two 3kVA toroidal transformers, 52 electrolytic capacitors, each rated at 1800&#181;F, 900watt, and 105&#176;F. Weight? Again I didn't want to know, but was told it was a mere 175 lbs!

Patrick Chu, creator and designer of the $80,000/pair, two-way, Mandarin Supreme loudspeaker, explained that the products’ name is a synthesis of two words: Loimin means "delightful understanding" and Chay means "ateliar or studio." The frequencies from 750Hz upwards are handled by a 1" tweeter loaded with a 19" horn comprised of alternating layers of cherry and oak wood. The bass, which is rated down to 22Hz, is handled by 10" and 12" woofers. This composite was by far the least active speaker material I've come across. Rapping it with my knuckles was like tapping on granite. The woofer enclosure was made of concrete with a cloth covering. I didn't ask about the loudspeaker's weight because I <I>didn't</I> want to know. The nominal impedance is 8 ohms, and the voltage sensitive a very high 92dB. Although I didn't audition any familiar reference recordings, the speaker had a dynamic sonic texture with a midrange emphasis.