The Icon comes in four colors.
(Credit: NuForce)I heard the NuForce Icon (briefly) at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest last year, and the little bugger was astounding. The anodized aluminum chassis is available in four snazzy colors. It feels well made.
Stereophile's Wes Phillips reviewed it for real. He even had the nerve to hook up the teeny NuForce Icon to a pair of Definitive Technology Mythos STS SuperTower speakers, and Phillips was bowled over by the sound! The sheer incongruity of the match-up was disarming, but in the end Phillips heard the limitations of the NuForce Icon. Used as intended driving small speakers, it's tough to beat for its size and price.
It has USB, 3.5mm, and stereo RCA inputs; and headphone and speaker-level outputs. It's a 12-watt-per-channel desktop amp, so NuForce isn't touting the Icon as a giant killer, just that it'll sound sweet used in the context of a desktop audio system. Did I mention it's little, just 1 by 4.5 by 6 inches, and weighs one pound?
The S-1 speaker.
(Credit: NuForce)NuForce also offers a matching speaker, the S-1, for $249 a pair. There's also a subwoofer, the W-1, that goes for, you guessed it, $249.
The W-1 subwoofer
(Credit: NuForce)
You get two of these for your $107,000.
(Credit: YG Acoustics)You'll get no argument from me that $107,000 seems like a lot of money for a pair of speakers.
But the YG Acoustics Anat Reference II Professional is a lot of speaker. Stereophile magazine's Wes Phillips delved deep into the flagship speaker's build and sound quality in his review. It was a tough assignment, but somebody had to do it.
While $107,000 is definitely out of my price range, that doesn't mean there's not a market, albeit a very small market, for products that advance the state of the art. Great, but who buys these things?
Answer: rich people. You probably know some of their names. Rock icon Bruce Springsteen just signed a new $110,000,000 contract. The Boss could and should buy these things (maybe he'd make better-sounding records). And the last time I checked, Tom Cruise is still getting upward of $20 million to appear in a movie. A pair of YG Acoustics Anat Reference II Professionals would be a nice start for his home theater.
In addition, sports superstars are still signing megamillion contracts, and big-business CEOs are still eating at fancy restaurants. Even now, the rich aren't hurting; luxury markets are holding steady.
The Anat Reference II Professional is a three-piece modular loudspeaker. It is, shall we say, on the statuesque side of large; the Reference Main Module sits atop the Studio passive subwoofer, which, in turn, rests upon the Professional powered subwoofer. Each three-module array weighs 440 pounds.
Most of each module is made of aircraft-grade aluminum; the front baffles are a machined "ballistic grade" alloy of aluminum and titanium. The speakers are shipped in six custom aluminum flight cases.
... Read the full post at CNET's CES 2010 blog
Stereophile magazine writer Wes Phillips is a friend of mine and we occasionally trade mix CDs. A few months ago, we were sitting around listening to our mixes over Wes Bender's tweaked out hi-fi--and this shot perfectly captured the vibe. I Photoshopped this image, shot by Bender.
(Credit:
Wes Bender/Steve Guttenberg)
(Credit:
Alberto Frias)
Got a chuckle out of Wes Phillips Stereophile blog yesterday. His take on Alberto Frias' $16,000 Transport perceptual pod bed caught my eye. The Transport comes equipped with a set of Anthony Gallo Acoustics' Nucleus Micro speakers and subwoofer, so it probably sounds pretty decent. The pod also offers a sensual environment with a temperature-controlled waterbed and LED light show. The hand-made Transport Pod Bed is available in two sizes -- six and eight feet in diameter. Standard exterior colors are white or black high gloss gel coat finishes. The Transport can be experienced and ordered at Twentieth, a modern furnishings and design store in Beverly Hills.
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