• Lyra Cartridge correction from the November Newsletter
• CAF Show Report: The Low Down on the Low Floors
• Happy New Year
• List your used Merrill Audio equipment for sale here

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Lyra Cartridge
​
Correction from the​
​
​November Newsletter

I need to clarify what I wrote in the article "The Paul Sawtelle Big Band - Live at Pacific Audio Fest Volume Two LP First Listen"
​"according to J.R. most Lyra cartridges are off"

I did not mean to imply that Lyras are worse than any others. Please read excerpts from two email exchanges I had with J.R. below:
​“I have received your email blast earlier this week. Thank you for the mention.

Please understand that Lyra is no different than any other brand with respect to each unit being built to agree with the modulation targets aimed at by engineers whether they are using a Neumann, Ortofon, Westrex, etc. Almost all cartridge brands are at WAY too high VTA by design and are additionally hobbled by the loose tolerances from their vendors that are clearly audible. I don't want your audience to think Lyra is in anyway more flawed than their competitors. After all, they are my cartridge of choice!

Thank you for agreeing to clarify that matter. I don't want anyone to think Lyra should be singled out in this matter. Quite the contrary, they are one of the only manufacturers out there that I know of that are actively lobbying their vendors to tighten up tolerances based upon my research.”

I regret the error. My apologies to J.R. Bosclair of Wamm Engineering / Wally Tools and Lyra Analog. -Editor

I decided to push Mark Block's excellent and informative article ahead of my other articles which will appear next month.
-Editor

CAF Show Report:
​
The Lowdown on the
​
Low Floors

By Mark Block
​Why would Jersey boys make a five-hour drive to Rockville, MD and pay for an expensive hotel to attend an audio show? One reason is to recalibrate their ears with the sound of exceptional stereo playback. I usually come away with two seemingly incompatible conclusions: 1) My system sucks; 2) My system doesn’t suck as bad as I feared. Another reason: the opportunity to enjoy immaculately produced and beautifully reproduced recordings. (Sometimes the music is even good!) That’s why when the room’s host asks me what I want to hear, I say: “Anything you want to play.” It’s fun to be exposed to new things, surprising things, not the same ten evaluation tracks I play ad nauseam. Then there’s the socializing: making new friends, catching up with old ones, and apologizing profusely to a few for my bad behavior at the last CAF. It’s the audiophile equivalent of a high school reunion.

Because the show is too big for one person to write about (at least without being paid), Paul, Marvin, Alan and I divided the reports up by floor, with me taking the rooms on the lower two levels. That included many of the big guns with big rooms, so let’s start with the elephant-size room at this elephantine show: the VAC and Acora room in the Potomac conference space above the Atrium, which is listed as 43 feet by 47 feet, with 10-foot ceilings and imposing chandeliers.

More impressive than the room was the cost of the gear. The whole system, minus Cardas cables and stands, was over $900k — so close to a mil all in. Could the sound live up to that? I think so. The speakers were far from all walls, spread wide apart, with the listening seats relatively close, the front row perhaps closer than an equilateral triangle. (Not sure, but hey, I didn’t bring my laser measure. Next year, maybe.) In such a setup, first reflections were well delayed relative to the direct sound, allowing the brain to tune into a giant soundstage. Augmenting the effect was a gorgeous backdrop of an almost infinitely receding library. The human brain is an excellent “wet computer,” but it’s far from perfect. A strength and a weakness is that it takes sensory data and filters it into a predictive version of reality before passing it into consciousness. When our eyes see ample space behind the speakers, we hear depth if the stereo recording contains depth cues and the playback system reproduces them faithfully. The backdrop was fake depth, but realistic enough to extend the brain’s predictive soundstage farther back than the actual wall. (In that regard, when I walk into a showroom and see the speakers within a couple of feet of the wall behind them, I know I won’t hear a soundstage as good as it could be. Compromises in smallish rooms are inevitable; allowances must be made.)

The backdrop behind the big Acora VRC speakers ($318k in the exotic finish shown) conjured up a Borges short story, “The Library of Babel.” That fictional library contained books with every permutation of letters and punctuation. Logically, therefore, it included all the information in the universe. (It’s a thought experiment. Stick with me here.) Just as logically, most of the books were random gibberish. That’s a useful metaphor for stereo systems. Some produce all the information needed for a fantastic simulation of reality, creating the illusion that instruments are right in front of us. The worst systems, however, produce enough confusing gibberish to destroy the simulation. Happily for CAF showgoers, most rooms did a great job of providing enough helpful sonic information to keep our brains hoodwinked and happy. The Acora/VAC room certainly did. It was the home of several after-hours listening sessions, including Saturday night with Michael Fremer, which alone was worth the price of admission. I assume Michael was happy with the SAT XD1 turntable ($238k), SAT CF1-09 arm ($71k), Lyra Atlas Lambda cartridge ($13k), and VAC Statement phono stage ($85k). Yeah, I could live with that.

Acora speakers made a positive impression in several rooms on the lower floors, including Ken Stevens’ CAT room, the Now Listen Here room, and one of the VPI rooms. The Acoras I heard varied from impressive to astounding. My favorite model, if only because it’s reasonably priced ($15k/pair in the standard finish), was the Acora MRC-3 used by our friends Aaron and Jessica Sherrick from Now Listen Here. Located in Harrisburg, PA, Now Listen Here is close enough that some NJ club members buy gear from them. It’s a great dealership. Feeding the Acoras: VAC electronics, a VPI Avenger Direct ($46k with tonearm) with a DS Audio cartridge ($5.5k). The digital source was an Innuos ZENith streamer and a Rockna Wavedream DAC ($21k and $27k, respectively). Those are definitely not on my budgetary bingo card, but the system was terrific. And I heard an unfamiliar track! I’ll try to sprinkle this review with a few music suggestions, in this case, “Feel (feat. Lianne La Havas)” by Jacob Collier. Cool, atmospheric R&B vocal with a low, low, low low-end.

The little Acora MRB-1s ($8k) in VPI’s Adams room easily filled the large room with beautiful sounds. VAC electronics once again fed the Acoras, and VPI’s Model One turntable (under $6k with arm) with a Goldy cartridge completed the package. Next door in the Jefferson room, Harry Weisfeld brought out his big dogs, the JBL Everest speakers, to wow listeners with concert-level SPLs and scary dynamics. If you’re interested in limitless dynamic range and no obvious horn colorations, understand that big sound does not come in small packages — these guys weigh 313 lbs. each. If the JBL Everest were a dog, it would be an Irish Wolfhound.

I don’t know how Harry moves them back and forth from New Jersey; he doesn’t look like he works out. I’d say he’s more of a drinker than a gym rat, but the exercise of moving the JBLs will keep anyone in top shape. Audio Research electronics let the JBLs shine, and a VPI Vanquish (Avenger Statement with separate PSU, $80k) completed the extraordinary package. Depending on when you popped by, cartridges might have been a VPI Shyla, a Grado Statement 3, an Audio-Technica ART-20, or an MC2022 (AT’s limited-production cartridge with a one-piece diamond cantilever and stylus). Harry demonstrated the VPI direct-drive motor by pressing his powerful fingers — the ones he exercises by holding a cocktail glass — against the turntable’s platter while playing a record to prove that it doesn’t slow down despite the friction. I tried it, and the direct-drive motor immediately vanquished me. But I’m a wimp.

Next to the VPI room, I met up with Eli and Ofra Gershman, who had an innovative new speaker called the Symphonia. Eli Gershman believes in time-aligning his drivers and isolating the midrange and tweeter enclosure from the bass section. As with the Black Swan speaker, a higher-end model with a $95k price tag, the Symphonia at $70k employs the Separate Sub Alignment System (SSAS) to combine separate structures into one speaker, damped by IsoAcoustics vibration isolators. The sound was quite lifelike, as Anne Bisson demonstrated by singing along live to one of her recordings.

Speaking of live, or almost live, Gary Koh was running his master tape of the Paul Sawtelle Big Band, Live at Pacific Audiofest. The recording was direct-to-tape on a Nagra IV-S with a pair of vintage Neumann TLM50 microphones onto SM900 tapestock at 15ips. Bernie Grundman mastered the 45 rpm commercial release on LP. Yours for $200 https://distinctivestereo.com/ . Gary’s speakers were G7 Sambas ($23k). The “distinctive” Mr. Larry Borden provided the complete system from his NJ dealership: Heed Helikon preamp with Helikon monoblocks ($29.5k), Revox B77 Mk.III tape deck ($19k), Wand Master turntable ($7.5k), Wand Dark-Light tonearm ($8.5k), and a Hypersonic X4 cartridge ($18k). Do I need to say it sounded great? OK, it did! And besides the Sawtell recording, they played Laufey. I luv Lay-vay. Are all Icelanders this cool?

Could be. Another creative Nordic personality, Audio Group Denmark founder Lars Kristensen, was in command of the large Eisenhower room, where he showcased his Børresen M2 speakers powered by Aavik electronics. Like Acora, Børresen speakers were in multiple rooms, and it was hard to pick a favorite. I really like the M series speakers; to my ears, they’re a clear step up from the lower-priced O and Z series. Sadly, the cheapest in the line is the standmount M1 for $105k. That’s a lot of herring. The M2s go for $200k; the M3s, which were in the Blink High End room, are just under $300k. I didn’t see the M6 at the show. Its price is … if you have to ask….

Erik Rasmussen and Michael Børresen collaborated on the design of the Aavik electronics. The system I heard included the Aavik SD-588 streamer/DAC ($30k) and the I-588 integrated amp ($30k). This Class-D amp delivers 2 x 300W into 8Ω, and features a fully adjustable analog crossover for feeding A3 bass modules. Judging by my photos of the system, I’m not sure whether both subs were on. In any case, the bass I heard was lower than whale poop on the ubiquitous “SUNSHiNE OF YOUR WUB” by YOOKiE. That track made a lot of systems sound good, but this was the best I heard. Soundstage? Huge. The spaciousness on “Brent’s Boogie” by Brent Lewis was among the best of the show. As with the Acora/VAC room, the speakers were miles away from all the walls, and a photo backdrop of a sunset over a river tried to trick our foolish brains into imagining depth. (The Acora backdrop was more effective.)

Staying with Børresen, the big M3s in the Blink High End room sounded equally good, maybe better. Aavik electronics were from the 880 series, with each component priced at $73.5k. It was great to hear some LPs on the impressive Thuono TH-400 turntable (about $60k). When I was in the room, the Thuono was fitted with a My Sonic Lab cartridge (the Eminent EX for $4.5k), although the Blink show notes listed an Ortofon Verismo (about $7k). The Thuono features a huge, oversized platter (almost 16 inches in diameter), marble plinth and motor housing, and a three-part magnetic suspension. That system provides solid support for the immense platter while dramatically reducing stress on the bearing. Blink High End also had a smaller room with Fink Team Borg E2 speakers (about $37k) and Linn electronics. That room sounded very impressive despite the confined space.

I mentioned a few Nordic characters earlier, and I’m not done with them. Ø Audio, a speaker company from Norway with an unpronounceable name, showed an icy-white horn-loaded speaker, the Icon 12 ($25k). Big soundstage, good dynamics. One of the good horns at the show. (More on that later.) Down in the Atrium, the company displayed a mysterious, giant tree stump. Showgoers were invited to drive nails into it. What did that have to do with audio? Dunno. Maybe to demonstrate the hardness of the wood used in its speaker cabinets? If that’s the case, it turned out to be a pretty good demo, judging by the dozens of bent nails that failed to penetrate the wood. Fun for onlookers; embarrassment for those who gave it a go — but not as embarrassing as my attempt to pronounce the company’s name.

Other highlights of the Atrium: Records! The prices at some vendors seemed better than in past years. And to help keep those records immaculate, the high priest of record cleaning, Charles Kirmuss, was in his usual booth, restoring our sinned-upon vinyl to baby-fresh purity. I have one, and it works wonders — much better than saying a Hail Mary while making the sign of the cross with a Zerostat.

And speaking of record rituals, let’s talk turntable setup. J.R. Boisclair of WallyTools and WAM Engineering was explaining how one’s faith in the perfection of cartridge manufacturing might be misplaced. But all is not lost! Wally gear and WAM services can help us get the most out of our LP and turntable investments. After the show, three people I know (one of whom is yours truly) sent their precious jewels (cartridges, that is) to J.R. for microscopic analysis. One of the cartridges had a defect in the stylus shape, which was revealed under J.R.’s high-power, multifocus microscope. The other two looked good but required WAM shims to correct for zenith, azimuth and SRA/VTA errors. The WAM analysis costs $495; corrective shims, if desired, are $275 plus shipping. Expensive? Not if you’ve invested thousands of dollars in a cartridge and aren’t getting the most out of it. J.R. and Mike Trei (Stereophile writer and turntable whisperer; one of the best setup guys in the U.S.) gave a seminar on turntable and cartridge optimization in the mezzanine above the Atrium. It was packed, demonstrating that high-end analog is alive and well. If you’re interested, I recorded their seminar. Link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHOdjPizBE0​

Controversially, the usual seminar space, the Washington Theater on the lobby level, was used by Maryland retailer The Listening Room, a family business for three generations. Current proprietor Michael Hoatson was showing the impressive Magnepan 30.7x, a tweaked-out, four-panel planar-magnetic speaker with true ribbon tweeters ($55k/pair). The Maggies were powered by Audia Flight Strumento no.8 mono amps ($40k each). As imposing as the Maggies looked, the Wilson Benesch GMT One turntable system might have been the wildest thing at the show. If a higher race of aliens were to design a turntable and tonearm, this would be it. Is it a turntable “to serve man,” or an induction cooktop to tenderize audiophiles? (Cue The Twilight Zone theme.) The cartridge was a Wilson Benesch Gold Tessellate Ti, which uses a “uni-directional carbon-fibre sleeve” on a hybrid cantilever. Crazy stuff. And the price? Call for a quote, but again, if you have to ask….

Why was the room controversial? Not because of the alien cooktop, but because it was a big, acoustically untreated lecture hall with a center aisle and stadium seating. Michael Hoatson knows how to set up a good listening room — he had four other outstanding rooms at the show — so my first reaction was: What is he smoking, putting his best system in this freaking auditorium? On Friday, I left after two minutes, shaking my head. But I take my show-report duties seriously, in spite of what you think, so I revisited on Sunday to get more pics and info. As I sat next to Michael and asked about the system, my ears started to adapt to the acoustics. As I said earlier, the brain is a strange thing, easily tricked. When Michael played the Keith Johnson recording of Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, it was easy to forget I was at an audio show. Instead, I imagined myself in a reverberant concert hall listening live to the Minnesota Orchestra. It was stunningly realistic. In a more appropriate room, I think it could have been the best hi-fi experience of my life.

By the way, Magnepan showed the 20.7x speaker in a room across the street at the Even Hotel. The 20.7x ($30k) is Magnepan’s top one-panel design, featuring a true ribbon tweeter and a push-pull magnet system for the planar diaphragm. The “X” series is a parts-and-wiring upgrade available for all the current Maggies. The standard 20.7 is $23k/pair, so the “X” adds about $7k in parts and TLC. What I heard was smooth, pleasant, and low-distortion, but there was a lot of talking going on in the room. I have no doubt the 20.7x speaker is terrific, but in the brief time I heard it, it wasn’t as jaw-dropping as the system in Washington Theater.

Speaking of theater, the Even also hosted a crazy home-theater system put together by DreamScapes AV and Keith Yates Design. The room treatment by Keith Yates was very effective, but as a film editor, I have to say that the movies themselves looked over-processed: hyped up color with artifacts and noise. The processing also changed the native aspect ratio, which is a big no-no for me. I’ve supervised hundreds of film and video color-correction sessions in professional post-production studios. The images I saw here were too artificial — not what the director and colorist intended — although many attendees were impressed.

Let’s move back over to the Hilton and another excellent retailer, Doug White’s The Voice That Is from the Philly area. His room is consistently among the top five at every CAF I’ve attended. Doug’s wife, Celeste, was running the room when I visited. When she played Allan Taylor’s “Beat Hotel,” I wrote in my notes, “Perfect.” Soundstage depth was perhaps the best at the show, or at least equal to the Acora room. The system was mainly from the German company Tidal (pronounced tee-dahl): Piano G3 speakers ($64k/pair), Contros Digital Controller ($60k), Ferios G2 amp ($61k), augmented by REL Carbon Special subs ($5k each).

Next door was another room that’s always in the mix for best sound at CAF, Bending Wave USA. One of the partners, Elliot Goldman, is probably familiar to many of us from his years at Lyric HiFi and Audio Den. When he played John Campbell’s “Down in the Hole, a track I’ve heard many times, I wrote, “Beautiful. Great power, great detail.” The system included Gobel Divin Noblesse speakers ($269k/pair), EMM Labs/Meitner electronics, including the big MTRX2 V2 mono amps ($115k/pair), Clearaudio Reference Jubilee turntable ($60k), and a DS Audio Grand Master Extreme cartridge ($25k).

Those who heard Paul Pomerantz’s Odyssey speakers at our summer meeting probably wanted to listen to them again at Klaus Bunge’s Odyssey room. But that’s not what Klaus brought to the party. Instead, he introduced a new speaker, the Meilenstein Temple Loudspeakers, which did indeed look like a temple or church. The styling was … debatable. In the show flyer, Klaus wrote that this system represents an “assault on the high-priced luxury market … 36 years in the making.” Given the prices in other rooms, the Odyssey system was a bargain: $8.5k for the speaker pair; $10k/pair for the Meilenstein mono amps; $8k for the Symphonic Line Erleuchtung preamp; and $4k for the Symphonic Line CD player. Klaus also spun records with a VPI Avenger Direct turntable, Graham tonearm and DS cartridge. The sound? Wonderful! Klaus is something of a shaman with his room setups, and this one sucked me into a pretty realistic illusion of live music. When he played “Le temps passé (Live à la Cigale, 1988)” by Michel Jonasz, I wrote, “Dynamic, detailed, awesome soundstage.” Although not the best in any one area, it definitely competed with the cost-no-object systems elsewhere, and for way less money.

Our friend Mike Kalellis was back with his stunning Arion Apollo 12 speakers ($60k/pair, which includes one woofer package; a stereo woofer package is $7.8k for the pair). The speakers feature a line array of AMT dipole drivers with DSP room correction. Because of the active crossover and DSP, the owner can adapt the sound to any room. Here at the show, it was beautifully transparent but a tad bass shy. That was on Friday morning; it may have been adjusted later.

Another friend and fellow club member, Anthony Chiarella, joined up with Jeff Fox of Command Performance AV, the big D.C.-area store. Hilariously, they went with a disco-themed room. The team wore outlandish costumes with goofy wigs, invoking Saturday Night Fever. “Watch the hair!” The music wasn’t always audiophile-grade, but it was stayin’ alive and lots of fun. Something to be said for that. The system included a J. Sikora KV Max tonearm ($17k) on a Sikora Max Supreme turntable ($40k), Aidas Violet Gold LE cartridge ($7k), Aurender N50 music server ($38k), Berkeley Alpha DAC Reference 3P ($34k), and the mighty Gryphon Antileon Revelation stereo amp ($50k).

Note to self: Jeff Joseph is a treasure. He makes great sound in every room at every show. This year, he brought his Pulsar2 Graphene speakers ($10k) in a striking white finish. Lovely! The Pulsars were paired with a J. Sikora Aspire turntable ($10k), Aidas Malachite Silver cartridge ($7k), Doshi electronics ($24k each for the phono and the line stage, and $26k for the amp), and Innuos Stream 3 with a Phoenix DAC ($12.6k). Under the speaker stands were AV RoomService EVP isolators from Norman Varney.

Angie Lisi of American Sound and Angie’s Audio Corner put together a great room with Avantgarde horn loudspeakers. In all honesty, I usually find horns a bit too colored for my taste. The dynamics can be impressive initially, but over time, horn colorations make every recording sound kind of samey — hiding the actual tonality. But these, along with the JBL Everests in the VPI room and a few others, were something special. MezzoG3 speakers were the newsmakers here ($108k/pair), with the active internal iTRON amp option ($29k/pair), and twin subwoofers ($70k/pair). The system sounded … I don’t know. The sound varied from recording to recording, which was unexpected and, as I just pointed out, usually a good thing because it means the system is neutral, revealing a recording’s real tonality — unless it’s due to colorations favoring some recordings to the detriment of others. Who knows? For now, I’m going with neutral and revealing. “White Winter Hymnal” and “O Holy Night” by Sonos were, according to my notes, “Wow!!!!!!” Make of that what you will.

Apologies to any good systems that I didn’t mention. I’ve already gone on too long, so I’ll just give a quick shoutout to one more. Mark Conti’s MC Audiotech TL-8 speakers ($15k) sounded very nice, but there was too much talking in the room and not enough volume to allow a good evaluation. However, I’ve heard them elsewhere, and I like them very much.

Most rooms on these lower floors sounded pretty great. There could be three reasons for that: 1) I’m losing my hearing; 2) high-end audio is getting better and better; 3) the mushroom microdosing is really improving my mood. As the song goes, “First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.” But I can still be grumpy. If I had to pick stinkers, I’d give the dishonor to Gestalt Audio’s two rooms. On Friday when I visited, one Gestalt room had an intrusive hum and a channel balance problem; the other had a worse hum. When I mentioned it, I got a shrug — not an invitation to come back later when it might be working better; just a shrug. Sometimes a system is less than the sum of its parts; an audible hum in an otherwise good system drags the whole thing down. Very un-Gestalty. A few reviewers and friends I respect really liked the Gestalt systems, so maybe the hum got fixed, but that’s not what I heard. (I’ll apologize profusely next year.)

Best of show? Not the floors I’m covering here. I’m a cheapskate, so I give it to Lucca Chesky and his LC2 Speakers ($2k/pair), driven by Schiit electronics (Wotan amp, $2k) and Kara F preamp, $800). Did the Tidal, Acora, and Borresen rooms sound a lot better? Well, yeah, no schiit Sherlock.

Lucca Chesky is trying to appeal to a younger or more normie, middle-class crowd. That’s to be applauded (although it’s not enough to make me drive to Rockville and spend three nights in a hotel). Chesky’s product is the opposite of Oligarch-Fi, a term coined by Steven Stone. Oligarch-Fi was well represented throughout the show. I call it “Bi-Fi,” which has nothing to do with sexual orientation. It’s short for “billionaire fidelity.” I have nothing against it. In fact, we all love to hear it. Billionaire Fidelity rules! It’s like going to an F1 racetrack and getting rides in Ferraris, McLarens, and Aston Martins with Max Verstappen. Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton behind the wheel. “Holy Schiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.” Supercars create a buzz (not a hum, though) that rubs off on more affordable performance cars, potentially filtering down and improving everyone’s driving experience. Same with these Bi-Fi systems.

But until I win the lottery, I’m floored that the Chesky and Schiit gear can sound so good.

CAF Pre-Show Photos

David Chesky - Lucca Chesky - Paul Pomerantz - Harry Weisfeld

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