Crave

McIntosh Labs president Charlie Randall and some of his favorite things.

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

Totem Acoustic's Vince Bruzzese with one of his latest creations.

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

Recession? What recession? New York City's venerable fixture of high-end audio and video, Stereo Exchange, celebrates its 25th anniversary this weekend. It's running a sale through Sunday, November 8 with substantial discounts on select products from several manufacturers. The opening night party on Thursday was jam-packed and there were no shortage of customers!

For the opening night party, many of the participating companies were demonstrating their wares. Featured products on display include: Panasonic's new 85-inch plasma HDTV; NAD's new M2 Direct Digital Amplifier; McIntosh Labs' MEN220 Room Correction System; and Grado's PS 1000 headphones, which I just reviewed for CNET.

Stereo Exchange also sells Anthony Gallo Acoustics, Arcam, Audio Research, Ayre, B&W, Crestron, Furman, Integra, JA Michel, Kaleidescape, Marantz, Meridian, Peachtree Audio, REL, Rotel, Sonus Faber, Totem Acoustic, Transparent Cable, and Wadia. Stereo systems at Stereo Exchange start about $1,000.

For more information on Stereo Exchange, visit its Web site.

The best sounding room at Stereo Exchange featured Vienna Acoustics speakers and Ayre electronics.

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

The Audiophiliac with a high-end Klipsch speaker.

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

I know what's wrong with high-end audio: it's a secret.

Unlike high-end cars, watches, clothing, etc., 99 percent of potential high-end audio buyers are completely unaware of its existence. It's interesting, car magazines regularly plaster shots of cars that only a miniscule number of readers could ever buy, apparently because guys who drive Dodge Caravans love to read about Ferraris. Even the New York Times runs fawning features about the glories of exotic cars and not a peep about high-end audio.

High-end audio magazines and Web sites are only read by folks already in the game; the Audiophiliac's primary mission is bringing awareness of the better stuff to the wider world.

Sure, a lot of high-end audio is silly expensive, but there's a lot of good stuff that's fairly affordable. And the price of entry plummets when you buy used gear on eBay or Audiogon. Chances are your five year old Sony receiver is nearly worthless, so it may actually cost more to own than a high-end amplifier that you can use for decades.

When you factor in just how long a great set of speakers or electronics can last, it's easier to swallow the investment. A good friend is still using a Linn LP-12 turntable he bought more than 30 years ago. If you really love music, don't you want to hear it sound as good as it can?

Let us know by voting.

For long-term satisfaction, speakers trump video every time.

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

A good friend of mine is still fuming over picking HD-DVD over Blu-ray. He's held the grudge so long he just recently dumped the player and even some of the discs and bought a Blu-ray player.

I know another guy who's steamed that his $2,000 6-year-old receiver doesn't have HDMI switching, so to get Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio he plays his Blu-ray over the receiver's 5.1 channel analog inputs. Fine, but the receiver doesn't do any sort of bass management over its analog inputs. The sound isn't so hot.

Do you know anybody who bought a plasma TV in 1999 for around $10,000 who still uses it as their primary display? I don't, but I'd bet most of those buyers are on their second or third display by now.

The 1C, not just another box speaker.

(Credit: Vandersteen)

Last year's HDTVs are yesterday's news, but great audio designs, like Vandersteen's Model 1C floor-standing speaker ($995/pair) stick around for decades.

Richard Vandersteen designs speakers for buyers who care more about sound than fashion. His stuck-in-the-1980s styling isn't a calculated stab at retro. The handsome 1C tower speaker was originally introduced in 1981 as the Model 1, and the "C" iteration debuted in 1996. No matter, it still sounds better than any speaker I've heard near the 1C's price. It's as good as it gets for under a grand.

Change for the sake of change isn't an option at Vandersteen, and that extends to bucking the industry stampede to move production offshore. Vandersteen still builds all of his speakers in Hanford, California, and every speaker is tested and measured in the factory's anechoic chamber. That's commitment.

It's a two-way design featuring a 1-inch alloy dome tweeter mounted just above an 8-inch woofer. The speaker is 36 inches high and weighs 44 pounds. Build quality is absolutely superb.

As you can see from the picture, the 1C isn't a conventional "box" speaker; the baffles supporting the drivers were designed to be as small as possible to reduce the reflections that are (unfortunately) part of the sound of conventional speakers.

The audible differences between box speakers and the 1C aren't subtle, so the very first thing you'll notice about the Vandersteen sound is that it's remarkably "open" and dare I say it, it approaches the purity of some high-end panel speakers. It's simply more natural sounding than any box speaker near the 1C's price.

The Vandersteens' soundstage depth is positively addicting; the spacious image isn't just wide and deep, it's also taller than average, which adds to the believability of the sound.

The Panamera

(Credit: Porsche)

The Panamera is a different kind of Porsche.

It's a four-door sedan, a really fast sedan. The Panamera S at $89,800 comes with a 400hp 4.8-liter V8, capable of punching out 0-to-60 mph in 5.2 seconds and a top speed of 175 mph. Not quick enough for you? Move up to the Panamera Turbo, with a twin-turbo 4.8-liter V8, 0-to-60 mph in 4 seconds, and a top speed of 188. That bad boy will retail for $132,600.

So why is the Audiophiliac filling space with upcoming German super sedans? 'Cause they're going to have totally awesome ultra-high-end audio systems from Berlin manufacturer Burmester Audiosysteme. I love of the idea of matching super-performance luxury cars with bona-fide high-end audio systems. Hey, if Porsche buyers happily pay an extra $42,000 (!) to go a little faster, why not also spring for a sweet sound system?

For Panamera, Burmester crafted a 16 channel amplifier system that drives, you guessed it, 16 loudspeakers. The speaker system was designed specifically for the Panamera. In keeping with the Panamera's spirit as a true sports car, the sound system's weight was a key concern.

Specially developed software-supported menu functions allow for precise sound contouring for each individual seating position. They can also compensate for cabin and engine noise, and use proprietary sound algorithms developed exclusively for Porsche. Funny, the press release didn't mention an iPod dock, but I'm sure it's in there.

The Panamera is set to go on sale in the U.S. on October 17.

Adam Wexler, who was always into hi-fi equipment, started hanging around high-end audio shops when he was just a kid. By the time he was in college, he was selling a local shop's traded-in components and speakers.

He wasn't just into it for the money; he wound up with a really cool hi-fi on the cheap.

Adam Wexler with some recent buys, but what about that trippy green tube amp?

(Credit: Stereo Buyers)

After college, he worked for a couple of stores before landing a sales-and-design position gig with one of New York's top high-end dealers. Now with Stereo Buyers Wexler is ready to take it to the next level. He buys high-quality audio for cash in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, though he will occasionally accept equipment shipped to him.

Please understand: Wexler isn't interested in your Sony receiver, Marantz CD changer, or the Pioneer cassette deck you bought at a yard sale for 10 bucks 20 years ago. No, he's looking good stuff, high-end audio of any vintage, in good working condition. Tube gear, sure, and high-end solid-state amplifiers, turntables, tuners, speakers, etc. E-mail him a list of your gear, and he'll get back to you.

To hear digital audio it has to be converted to analog. The chip that does that is called a digital-to-analog converter, and there's one in your iPod, computer, and CD, DVD, and Blu-ray players.

Thing is, the quality of the conversion has everything to do with the sound quality you hear. That's why audiophiles pay big bucks for the best ones, and Chord Electronics, a British high-end stalwart has just released the QBD76, which contains a real contender for world's best digital-to-analog converter (DAC) chip.

Chord Electronics are used in top studios, including Skywalker Sound, Abbey Road, Sony, Quad, Dolby Labs, Decca Records, EMI Japan, Ray Charles Productions, and many others.

QBD76

(Credit: Chord Electronics)

Instead of simply using an off-the-shelf DAC chip in the QBD76, Chord designed its own using Xilinx field programmable gate arrays. That gambit affords Chord engineers a staggering 1,250,000 logic gates in its DAC, compared with 30,000 logic gates found in mass-market and even some high-end DACs. As a result, Chord claims the QBD76 is capable of resolving 40 decibels more data than competitors using the best standard chips.

That means you should hear a lot more detail and sonic information with the QBD76 in your system--think of it as high-resolution for your ears. The QBD76 has two coax, two AES, and two optical digital inputs, plus one USB, and one Bluetooth A2DP input.

U.S. retail is $6,495 with an introductory special price of $5,995 until November 30. The QBD76's U.S. importer is Bluebird Music.

(Credit: Woo Audio)

Would you buy a Ferrari for $1,050? OK, how about a $1,050 headphone amplifier?

The Woo Audio WA6 Special Edition headphone amp is built to Ferrari levels of quality and performance. Even before I listened to it, I knew it was going to be amazing.

It's a two-piece design. One chassis contains the power supply, the other is the amplifier proper. The pewter color, die-cast chassis parts are finished to a high standard, fully equal to $10,000 stereo amplifiers I've reviewed, but the WA6-SE is a good deal smaller than your average high-end amplifier. The two chassis together fill just 11.25 inches by 10.25 inches of shelf space.

The WA6-SE is a pure tube design, without a single semiconductor or integrated circuit in the entire amp. It's hand-crafted in New York's Queens borough, and there are no printed circuit boards; all wiring is point-to-point hand-soldered. Woo Audio builds each amp to order, so it can incorporate custom options and offer a wide range of upgraded parts. Current build time is about three to four weeks.

Woo Audio offers an extensive range of headphone amplifiers. Prices start at $470 for the Woo Audio 3; the top-of-the-line WA5 LE runs $2,400. When I heard the $585 WA6 amp a few months ago, I was knocked out by its sound.

The JC 2 stereo preamplifier.

(Credit: Parasound)

If you're not in the "club," high-end audio might look like a bastion of elitist snobs and the idle rich, so it may come as a shock to note that some of high-end audio's greatest engineers started out in rock and roll. Take John Curl, in the early 1970s he worked his magic on the Grateful Dead's concert and recording sound systems and later kept the Jefferson Airplane aloft. That was just before he tackled film sound in Hollywood. All of that led to collaborations with high-end pioneer Mark Levinson; together they raised the stakes, considerably, with the JC 2 stereo preamplifier in 1974.

It didn't matter that the JC 2 was two or three times more expensive than any other component in the nascent high-end market; a lot of folks lucky enough to hear it and afford it bought it. The JC 2 had that effect on people. Curl and Levinson soon parted ways and over the next few years Curl designed a long run of cutting edge electronics for other companies. Levinson eventually departed the company that bears his name, and his old company now designs car audio systems for Lexus. High-end is in the big time now.

When I heard that Curl had finished work on an all-new Halo Series JC 2 stereo preamplifier for Parasound I had to check it out (it's like hearing that Carroll Shelby just built a new AC Cobra). Better yet, for this review Parasound sent along a pair of the matching Halo Series JC 1, 400 watt mono power amplifiers. I reviewed the all-new JC 1 & JC 2 combination for Home Entertainment magazine, you can read the review here.

The JC 1 is a seriously powerful amplifier, its output stage employs nine pairs of high-current bipolar transistors with massive heat sinks to insure long-term reliability. Each amplifier can deliver 400 watts to 8 ohm rated speakers, and 800 watts to 4 ohm models, and if your speakers ever dip as low as 2 ohms, the JC 1 will happily serve 1,200 watts! The JC 1 sounds potent, even when listened to at merely moderately loud levels, and maintains its composure at lease breaking, call-the-cops volume.