There is just something about NYC in the spring. I love it there. I have family still living in Armonk and West Greenwich, and I visit as often as time and funds permit. Yet this visit was something special, as my arrival coincided with the removal of the last load of debris from ground zero. The last time I had visited the city had been just the week before the September 11^th tragedy. It was good to have something else to try to focus on like HE2002. I was rather excited as, after the cancellation of the 2000 event, I had chosen not attended the 2001 show, and I would get to spend some time with the Stereo Times gang. NYC in May, my family, my friends and audio gizmos! What wasn't to like?

I thought that I would do something a little different for this show report. Rather than go through all the systems and equipment presented at this years event, most of which have been seen, heard and written about before, all with varying levels of performance I might add, I've decided to only showcase the truly outstanding performances at this event; the things that gave me goose bumps or in some way really captured my interest. That should both shorten the report and make it more of a useful read, no?

It should be remembered that this was a show. What that means exactly is that, though each manufacturer does everything in his or her power to extract the highest possible level of performance from the gear and wares they are show-casing, sometimes it comes off adequately and other times - well, let's just say that most often the systems fall considerably short of what they are truly capable of offering.

Why? Well, most of the time, the rooms are nowhere NEAR ideal in shape or size, and they most often have little to no room treatment. Factor in that most exhibitors only get a day or two to set up in that room. If you are anything like me, you KNOW it can take weeks to dial in speaker placement and treat the room. Every once in a while, you get magic right out of the gate, but that is rare - even with the most accomplished set-up guys. Since I have long espoused that the room is the final, most overlooked and often, the most critical, component in any system, it can easily be argued that a good sounding room at a show is essentially a crapshoot.

Combine that critical factor with Murphy's Law. In general, Murphy's Law provides that anything that can go wrong will. There is a subset to that law that modifies it by compounding the rule by saying that it will do so at the most inopportune time - like when thousands of folks are coming to hear your new Super-Duper Wiz-Bang amp or CD player. Equipment is jostled in shipping, connections break and boxes of critical cables and connectors get lost in shipping forcing the exhibitor to scramble to find an adequate substitute, use a make-shift connection or borrow and use an unseasoned cable or component. When you really think about it, it is all quite remarkable when a room sounds good enough to capture your attention. With those thoughts in mind, let the games begin.

Music Hall

One room that always sounds good and is a treat to stop by is the Music Hall room. Exhibiting only real world priced products, this room never fails to please show goers and reviewers alike. With his staple United Kingdom brands of Creek electronics and Epos loudspeakers, and now their own line of MMF turntables, Roy and Leland manage to put together more than respectable sound for a budget that is less than what many of us pay for one component.

This show, they were displaying a new, tubed CD Player from China, the Shanling CD-T100, which Music Hall will distribute for $1999. The CD-T100 features a custom-made top loading drive mechanism employing a Philips 1201 laser head. It utilizes the Crystal CS8420 sample rate converter for 24bit/96kHz upsampling and a second generation Pacific Microsonics PMD-200 decoder chip with 24bit/192kHz capacity. High-performance Burr-Brown OPA2604 Op Amps and four Burr-Brown PCM1704 D/A converters are employed while four 6N3 tubes handle the analog output. Feature wise, it offers a 100-step digital volume control, tube headphone amplifier and jack and a metal face remote control. It looked sexy as hell and sounded smooth and warm. Our own Paul Szabady will be reviewing it for us in the near future.

Kora/Gershman Acoustics

If you remember what I had to say about the Kora/Gershman room at last Januarys CES, you will recall that I felt there was much more possible from that combination than was evident in that room at the Alexis. Well, it would seem I was more correct than I had thought. This room was magical.

Kora's designer, Francois Philibert, had put together a much more effective sounding room here in NYC. They system consisted of the Kora Hermes DAC ($2,600), the Kora Eclipse preamp ($3,750) and the visually stunning Cosmos Reference Monoblocks ($7,850). The Reference is a 100 Wpc triode monoblock, built around the 6AS7G tube. This chain of electronics drove the very attractive Gershman Opera Sauvage loudspeakers ($16,000) and was all connected with Virtual Dynamic cables.

In Las Vegas, this system had sounded a bit two-dimensional and had exhibited thick, slow bass and midbass. Not here! This system was alive. The stage was remarkably well defined, images were locked and spacious and bass had lost all vestiges of the overhang and lumpiness it had shown in Sin City. This was a much more balanced and vivid presentation. What can I say, the equipment and people involved at both exhibits were essentially the same but the room here was the deciding factor.

Thor/Amphion

Then there was the truly superb performance from the Thor/Amphion room. Thor was using a now long-out-of-production, but incredible looking and performing C.E.C. TL 0 transport ($18,500) to provide ones and zeros to their DC 1000 24/96 SACD compatible DAC ($8,490). The unorthodox looking round TA 2000 line stage ($7,990) fed their equally unorthodox looking round TPA-60 monobock amplifiers ($15,990), based on Svetlana EL34's. With all this high priced electronics, I was shocked to discover that they were using the seemingly mismatched, at least in terms of price, Amphion Xenon Loudspeakers ($3,600). The Amphion Xenon is a 3 way, hypercardioid, vented design, using a 1" tweeter, 6.5" midrange and 8" woofer, all fabricated of aluminum, standing some 42" tall and weighing a mere 70 odd pounds.

But what a combination! Large, well-focused images, spacious and realistically sized soundstage, remarkable trimbral balance, airy and detailed treble and rock-solid, gut wrenching bass. I would never have expected such outstanding performance from such an affordably priced speaker. Well done, and very seductive. I went back several times and enjoyed the fare there each time.

TacT Audio

The TacT Audio room, with new speaker products and their signature room correction, was a tremendous treat. Peter Lyngdorf was showing two systems. The large and impressive LS-1 Loudspeakers ($39,980 pr.) and a pair of W410 Subwoofers ($3690 each) put up quite an impressive show. But, at a fourth of the LS-1's price, the MH-1 speakers ($9,180 pr.), paired with two of the W210 subs ($1,990 each), gave them a pretty good run for their money.

The stunning part of any TacT demo is the room correction circuitry. When demonstrating either speaker/subwoofer array with the 2.2 X Room Correction Pre-amplifier ($5010) and their S2150 amps ($2,990 each), the added focus, clarity and purity of timbre was undisputable. This is one demo you should all seek out if you have not yet heard what digitally minimizing the room can do for your system.

Miscellaneous

There were many other rooms that were wonderful, but have been covered by our other staff. The most memorable were Mario Campa's Toys From The Attic exhibit, the MBL room (always a rush) and the outstanding PipeDreams/Tenor/HRS room.

It seemed as if Mario Campa, owner of White Plains retail store "Toys From The Attic," was trying to make a statement, which he did very effectively. Harry Weisfeld of VPI was showing his brand new TNT HR-X turntable with the JMW - 12.5 arm ($10,000). With Convergent Audio Technology tube amps feeding all five channels of Eggleston Works speakers via Harmonic Technology Magic cables for the theater demo, I have to admit to being seduced. It was just rich, full, detailed home theater like I've only heard once or twice before. With a system price tag coming in somewhere just under $200,000, this was no system to sneeze at, campers. Pure seduction.

There was the MBL room, always one of my favorites, with what have to be the most unique looking speakers under the sun, the Radialstrahler 101 D. Such unfettered sound. This is a total treat, for the eyes, ears and soul.

This show was one of the first times I think I really got a good chance to hear the NearField Acoustics PipeDeams magic. The room was large enough and all the attendant equipment, including Jeff Smith's new Silversmith cables, was up to their ability. See Clement's report for more on this room.

The Cream of the Crop

Lastly, by far the most impressive demonstration of HE2002 was the Von Schweikert/Spectron room. Though I have heard MANY 5.1 audio only presentations over the last decade or so, this was the first one that gave me any hint at the promise that the multi-channel audio-only format may hold.

Mike Pappas', of American Digital Recordings, had a bit of a special front-end and some really unique source material for this breathtaking demo. The source was Mike's own recording of the Count Basie Big Band made at the University of Michigan's Power Center for the Performing Arts. He had used Direct Stream Digital converters which employed EMM Labs 3 order noise shaping designed by Ed Meitner and recoded in DSD directly to a magneto optical hard drive from Genex ($26,000).

A bank of John Ulrick's remarkable Spectron Musician II amplifiers provided the power. The Musician II, which I am currently in the process of reviewing, is a 500 Wpc amplifier of the Class D variety. The speakers were a battery of five of Albert Von Schweikert's VSA VR-5 Hovland Special Editions ($6,000 each) and a pair of his VR S/3 subwoofers ($2,695 each). Interconnects came from Robert Lee's Acoustic Zen line and loudspeaker cables were of a new design by Albert that he hopes to have out by this fall. I have been promised a set for review as soon as that is feasible.

Now, remember all my talking about rooms earlier on? Well, I was amazed, as this room must have been all of 12' × 20'. With all the gear in the room, there was only room for nine people at a time, with seating arranged in a thee by three array. I got the center seat in the rear row. After a brief description of what we were going to hear, and that it was going to be VERY dynamic, VSA's Keith killed the lights and punched play.

WOW! Brass and woodwind instruments so large and real you could feel the wind from their throats. Bass drum impact that nearly caved in your chest and took your breath away. Images so large and real you could literally "see" each individual instrument. In all my years in and around this sport we call high-end, I have never heard the dynamics of a live performance recreated with anything other than a limited approximation of that event. The dynamic recreation of this demonstration was as close to live as I've EVER heard. And the space! The venue was so real and so large. I actually heard the audience members throughout the room, not locked to a speaker off to the rear in the corner, but actually occupying the space to my right and left, forward and back.

Now after the demo, I heard one of the attendees in the room say that he thought the volume was a bit too high for any long term listening. While I might agree on that particular point, I found the similarity to what I hear in a club with a live band, standing or sitting near the stage, to be nothing short of extraordinary.

Over the years, and especially while living in State College, PA, I have had the pleasure of knowing many musicians. Are you reading this, Mugs? One in particular, Steve, played trumpet in a Salsa band for over 20 years and was fond of taking his horn wherever he went. Plus, having had the pleasure of seeing Miles Davis and Maynard Ferguson live several times, I know what a real trumpet, blown just 10 or 15 feet away, sounds like. I have never heard a system that has been able recreate that extremely dynamic presentation while maintaining the timbre and size of the instrument. Some horn loudspeakers get it close, but at the expense of timbre and lifelike size and location. Just ask Jim Saxon about this. He wrote an incredible piece about this phenomenon some time ago in his "the Audio Dealer In Paradise" column called Mariachi.

The VSA/Spectron/DAR room has shattered all my beliefs about both the merit of multi-channel audio-only recording and the dynamic capabilities of contemporary audio reproduction systems. For me, this was the high point of HE2002, and of any show in recent memory. This utterly remarkable, near true-to-life presentation blew me away with both its ability to recreate the venue, and all the individual characters within it, and its remarkable capability to present the dynamics of a live performance. My hat is off the Albert, John and Mike. Bravo gentlemen! Please keep astounding me.