New York Audio Show 2018 Pictures

[MylesBAstor]

Value Electronics

Golden Ear Triton Reference tower speakers
Peachtree Nova300 amplifiers
Marantz SA-10 Reference SACD player

[KLH007]

Those Golden Ear Refs usually disappear nicely even in small rooms if the bass is dialed back, how did this system sound Myles?

[MylesBAstor]

Technics SP10R direct drive turntable: $17K as shown.

[jonathanb]

Time for a shootout with the HW-40!

[MylesBAstor]

Orinda Acoustics horn speaker. Didn't get it last year and don't get it this year. What am I missing?

[MylesBAstor]

The speakers were literally in the middle of the room three feet apart. Expensive headphones was what they were.

[Musica]

The horn to cabinet contrast was supposed to blow your mind and distract you from the minimal distance between speakers. ;-)

[MylesBAstor]

They had bigger speakers last year in a smaller room and did the same thing.

[MylesBAstor]

Coming up.

[MylesBAstor]

The highlight of the show. Robin Wyatt of Robyatt Audio hosted two seminars on Saturday. The first session from 11-12 featured Chad Kassem of Acoustics Sounds and the second from 3-4 pm starred Tom Fine, son of the famed Mercury recording team of Robert Fine and Wilma Cozart.

First the system.

Butler Audio Monad amplifiers
Audible Illusions M3B preamplifier
Electrostatic Solutions fully restored Quad ESL 57s

Technics SP10R turntable/Schroeder CB magnetic tonearm/Miyajima Madake Destiny stereo cartridge/OMA Hypereutectic iron plinth
Technics SP10/PBN turntable plinth/Sorane ZA12 tonearm/Miyajima Labs Zero mono cartridge/Pneuance air feet
Finley power cords





Upcoming new phonostage from Audible Illusions. Designed by John Curl and essentially an updated Vendetta Research phonostage.

From 11 am to 12 pm Chad Kassem gave a great presentation covering details of what's involved in remastering classic LPs including Acoustic Sounds' reissues of Ellington's Masterpieces, Beach Boys' Surfer Girl, Dean Martin's Dream with Dean, the upcoming UHQR Hendrix's Bold as Lover (plans for two more Hendrix reissues are in the works), etc. In addition, Chad brought both the original releases and the Acoustic Sounds reissue of each for everyone to hear and compare. There wasn't one instance where the Acoustic Sound's reissue wasn't better on this system.

Last but not least was the talk I was looking forward to all week! Tom Fine spoke about the history of Mercury recordings, some little known facts about his Mom and Dad and Mercury Records and much, much more. But the main reason Tom was there was to talk about the new and exciting (maybe only for me) Mercury Living Presence reissue project he and Chad have undertaken. Chad was thanks to Tom's contacts, able to obtain the original Mercury 3-track work tapes. Only two LPs were ever cut from these masters: the original and now the Acoustic Sounds' reissues.

These tape were hand carried from Europe by Tom to Sterling Sound in Nashville (after Tom prepped the tapes by redoing all the splices; some tapes had up to 100 splices that had to be cleaned and if necessary redone). The tapes were then played back on Ryan Smith's custom 3-track Ampex ATR 102 machine that fed to a custom 3 to 2-track mixer which then fed the Neumann lathe. Groove pitch was as in the Mercury days adjusted by hand.

Apparently the biggest issue facing Tom, Ryan and Chad right now is the variable quality of today's lacquers (with only two companies left making lacquers!). Some lacquers are noisy, some aren't. But even testing doesn't help and as one lacquer might be quiet and the next one from the same box is noisy. (Oh yes, there's a no return policy so they are stuck with bum lacquers.) Lacquer noise is above all a real issue with classical because of the extremely quiet passages (not as much of an issue with rock). So lacquers often need to be recut several times; the issue with that is of course tape age and not wanting to run the tape any more than is necessary.

Chad and Tom brought test pressing of Mercury SR90300 (Bach Solo Cello Suite with Starker) and SR90303 (Dvorak's Fourth with Dorati/LSO and Starker. The sound of the test pressings were judging by the audience's enthusiasm a smashing success.

Anticipated release Summer 2019. (because no expense-mastering, album jackets, reproduction of original artwork, inclusion of new pictures from Tom is being spared.) One final note. Chad will reissue some of the Mercury recordings on 15-ips tape. I wonder what his parents would think of their recordings being on 15 ips tape?

Top picture: Chad Kassem (l) and Tom Fine (r)
Bottom picture: Tom Fine

[LCBIII]

Robin is a peach of a guy and an absolute gentleman. Knows his stuff too, a rarity too possess all three attributes...more so in audio.

[Madfloyd]

This is the post I was hoping to read. THANK YOU, MYLES! I love the MLP catalog and enjoy it often. I have a high degree of respect for Tom's parents and I've been dreaming of getting better versions of their work for some time - and of course tape would be amazing. I have a 7.5ips 2 track tape of one title and it sounds really good.

[marty]

The Audible Illusion development of a Curl phono stage is compelling news. The Audible Illusions pre-amp is one of the ultimate sleeper in hi-end audio. I first heard it 30 years ago and to this day remember the first thing I heard on it (Cantate Domino). I never forgot the superb, natural, choral sound. That it is still made today, does not cost a zillion bucks, and has surely benefited from continuous improvement is a great, great story. I'll bet it is competitive or even exceeds the performance of many other uber-priced preamps. The fact that Curl would get involved with a company like this is really interesting and I'm sure there's a story here we'd like to learn.

[MylesBAstor]

Coming soon. Final thoughts on the New York Audio Show.

[david k]

ESD Aoustic full, carbon fiber horn system. 110 db sensitivity.

Don't ask.

I have to, WTF was this?



david

[MylesBAstor]

I couldn't get past 20 ft wide/1 ft high mouths and the FR of a table radio. 😉Two tracks were all I could take.

[david k]

They look like they would sound exactly as you describe it!

david

[MylesBAstor]

They weren’t exactly “old” Quad 57s. 😉 Kent McCallum had gone through them with a fine toothed comb and worked his magic. Robin doesn’t have to worry about playing these 57s loud and arcing any more.

[mep]

What a show.

[Camissa]

Nice images! This must have been fun. Some of those loudspeakers definitely score low on the "wife-compatible" scale

[MylesBAstor]

Nice images! This must have been fun. Some of those loudspeakers definitely score low on the "wife-compatible" scale

In negative territory.

[Socrates]

Vinnie Rossi L2 Signature Monoblock amplifiers
Vinnie Rossi DHT L2 Signature preamplifier
Palmer turntable
Harbeth Monitor 40.2 speakers
Triode wires cabling

One of the better sounding rooms at the NY Audio show. Very easy on the ears, natural sounding coupled with a huge soundstage.

Interesting re the Palmer use--I thought the UK outfit were out of business?

Thanks again Myles for the top Pics and commentary--Kudos!

Soc

[MylesBAstor]

Appears you are right about Palmer.

[Rob]

The highlight of the show. Robin Wyatt of Robyatt Audio hosted two seminars on Saturday. The first session from 11-12 featured Chad Kassem of Acoustics Sounds and the second from 3-4 pm starred Tom Fine, son of the famed Mercury recording team of Robert Fine and Wilma Cozart.

First the system.

Butler Audio Monad amplifiers
Audible Illusions M3B preamplifier
Electrostatic Solutions fully restored Quad ESL 57s

Technics SP10R turntable/Schroeder CB magnetic tonearm/Miyajima Madake Destiny stereo cartridge/OMA Hypereutectic iron plinth
Technics SP10/PBN turntable plinth/Sorane ZA12 tonearm/Miyajima Labs Zero mono cartridge/Pneuance air feet
Finley power cords

So, did Robin's room do the MLP Starker test pressings justice? OTOH, Quad 57s do bowed cello like nobody's business but still...

[MylesBAstor]

I can’t say Rob. I has an awful seat in a small packed room. (Robyn’s room was always packed.) But I was more interested in what Tom had to say being a lifelong collector of the Mercury Living Presence LPs.

[Rob]

..

[MylesBAstor]

How the mighty have fallen. What was once the King of consumer high-end audio shows has fallen on hard times and is but a shell of itself. But those were different times too when there was only one Stereophile audio show a year in the US. It also seems to go against the grain that the American high-end audio market can't survive without a big NY Audio Show.

This year's NY Audio Show was only able to muster a grand total 23 rooms in addition to the Marketplace. Sadly, that's two less sound rooms than last year (one exhibitor-David Lewis Audio-didn't show in 2017). Sadly, I had the feeling some exhibitors put less than their best foot forward. For example, one of my audio colleagues from another magazine reported that only five rooms were open and ready for business for Friday's press hours. Walking into other rooms gave me the feeling that the exhibitors just plunked down some gear into the room without any regard to getting any semblance of good sound. Yet other gear looked barely one step above DIY replete with wires hanging out.

So what is going on here?

The cost of doing the NY Show. I don't buy that because again it's about return on their investment.

There's not enough traffic. Here it's not about traffic but the quality of the traffic.

The size of the rooms. Yes, the sonics of these rooms are really bad. At best (with the exception of the salon rooms) an exhibit room seats a dozen or so people; the majority of the rooms, however, are tiny and seat at best six, maybe eight people at a time.

The time of the year. Everyone is exhausted from a whole year of doing shows. CAF is a week before NY. RMAF is just a month before the NY Show.

Is the NY Audio Show a casualty of too many audio shows? Possibly. Other audio shows like Axpona, CAF and RMAF have made big strides; the best NY show was four (?) years ago at the Marriot in Brooklyn. Since then the show has stagnated.

Will the NY Audio Show continue limping along for another year at the Park Lane Hotel? I certainly would like to see a return to the Golden days of NY Audio Shows. But I think the chances of that happening are about the same as my having a full head of hair again.

Time will tell but so far there's been no announcement of dates for the 2019 NY Audio Show.

[Rob]

NYers are a jaded bunch. The LA show this year didn't fare better (a flop by all accounts) maybe the future for consumer-type shows is the midwest (AXPONA)

[Alrainbow]

Dupuy Acoustique Phase Restoration Acoustical Panel (PRAP). Negative WAF?

Dupuy Acoustique Assotor speakers with dipole powered subwoofers
conrad-Johnson LP125sa
conrad-johnson ACT2 preamplifier
conrad-johnson TEA2 phonostage
VPI Classic turntable and EAT Jo-5 cartridge
Audio Sensibility cabling

That room was odd when I was there. It was not bad sounding in that freq top to bottom but was stressing to my brain to keep it coherent

[MylesBAstor]

Very odd sound. Everything between the speakers in the middle was pushed forward and images were 2D. Not a cj like sound either. No sense of space.

[MylesBAstor]

I think the word I was searching for was strangled.