Welcome to Volume 1 -
2007
VTV Online Journal of Tube Audio
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over the world that will be covering shows, writing reviews of equipment and writing
technical and historical articles for this FREE online journal. Advertising is welcome and
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Our first story is the full-report of the
2007 Consumer Electronics Show and THE Show in Las Vegas, January 2007 written by: Garrett
Hongo, Eugene, OR. (Garrett teaches at the University of Oregon, Eugene)
CES/The Show
2007
I went to the CES/The Show in Las Vegas this past week--my first one. The venues were
the Venetian Hotel and Casino, a walled-city unto itself on the Strip, and the St. Tropez
Hotel, a collection-in-the-round of small, two-story apartments just off it a few blocks
down. It was a dizzying experience, not only for the swank settings for displaying hi-fi
gear, but for the huge expanse of the Venetian Hotel with its great casino floor of
boiling
lights rivered with streams of badged conventioneers and strolling naiads handing out
printed invitations to clubs and shows on the Strip. The Show at the St. Tropez, by
contrast, was a literally a breath of fresh air, as you walked breezeways while making a
circuit, casita-to-casita.
Before CES, I'd made a list of my "must hears" and mapped a basic route through
the
castle-keep of the Venetian's upper floors. My first stop was the Registration booth,
where I was badged and designated an "Industry Affiliate" for Absolutetubes, my
sponsor, a supplier New Old Stock and new production vacuum tubes. Jim Sautter, its
owner, couldn't go this year, and I was tapped to take his place by a group of his
friends.
"Without Jim, we need someone to pick on," they said, "So, you're
drafted."
Garrett Hongo, VTV Associate Editor and Reviewer
(Author
Photo by Kerry Legeard)
Most of the rooms I'd targeted were in the Venetian Towers. So, I jammed myself into
the elevators and narrow corridors and worked a zig-zag, hoppity course rather than
going room-to-room. The halls could either take on the cast of the living, singing
lightrings in Dante's poetic Heaven or morph into weeping walls to the caverns of his
epic Hell. All this depended on the acoustic quality of the music riding on currents of
air,
both harsh and soft, drifting from the inner sancta of each suite. At various doorways, I
heard classic rock, pounding trance-disco, Emo, girl-with-guitar, smooth and fusion jazz.
Once I heard the strains of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony--or thought I did. "Ahh,
friends, not these harsh tones," it seemed to whisper. "All amps are
brothers!"
I came with a group of four guys from Absolutetubes, but it was hard to stay together.
Especially since my music--exclusively classical and choral--made it sound as though a
thousand mosquito-sized chain saws were hacking away inside the speakers of nearly
every system I tried to demo. A system that was liquid in rock 'n' roll trebles and
sonorous in the sweet horns of jazz midranges sounded as though a weather front of
screaming Celtic Sidhe had crept inside it whenever I played my CDs. The crew from
Absolute ditched me fast and I was left to bob along solo like a corked bottle in the
hallway seas of CES. My secret, audio-orphan message was, "Are you my stereo?"
Through the morning and midday, I had tried Opera (it did not sing), Dali (it did not
paint), Avant Garde (it did not swing), and Lamm (it did not give wool). I heard terms by
turn clinical and sexy, but all unfamiliar to me like zero hysteresis, trim-pot, idling
dissipation, and double-module dipole dipsy. Or something like that. Still I had not
found my stereo.
Eventually, I settled on a few good rooms....
Nola Loudspeakers, Carl Marchisotto
After several failed tries with different systems, I settled on my main demo track as the
"Kyrie" of Mozart's "Mass in C Minor" (Virgin) performed by Le Concert
d' Astrée,
Louis Langrée conducting, with Natalie Dessay the soprano soloist. This is a period
instrument performance with a large choir and soprano soloists, giving me the entirety of
my favorite music types--a dynamic yet precise orchestra, a choir that sings in complex
chromaticisms, and (as with opera) a virtuosic soloist. With this established, the Nola
room was the first "good sound" I encountered and one of my top three in the
show. It
was also definitely the friendliest by far. Carl Marchisotto was there with his wife and
two daughters. Spirited, welcoming, and expansive could describe either the family or
the system. The speakers were his Viper Reference in gorgeous piano rosewood ($12,000/pr)
driven
by the new Western Electric 972-A monoblock amps - $85,000/pr (eight 300b valves per). The
pre
was the Conrad Johnson Art II.
Nola Viper Reference speakers with WE 972-A monoblocks and Nordost Valhalla
speaker wires
Sideview of WE 872-B Monoblocks with Eight WE 300b and Four 6SN7 tubes
Lector Digidrive T.L. (on desk) and
Digicode 2.20 DAC (on floor)
Conrad Johnson Art II
Source was the 4-box Lector Digidrive T.L. transport and Digocode 2.20 DAC (each with
its own external power supply--thus, the four boxes). The speaker and interconnect
cables were Nordost Valhalla, even to the flying leads from the outboard crossovers to
the speaker boxes. "We're the only ones licensed to do this," Carl told me,
pointing to the
leads as I poked around the outboard crossovers. "It's all Nordost Valhalla hookup
wire.
Even inside the speakers."
AXISS/Air Tight, Atasushi Miura and Arturo Manzano
The Air Tight room had a pair of ATM-211 (22W) monoblocks driving Tannoy
Kensington speakers with Mewon Supertweeters, sourced with an Accuphase DP-57 ($4,900).
Analog was a Transrotor Fat Bob Reference, SME 312 12" arm, and Air Tight PCI
cartridge ($5,500). The preamp was actually a phono stage--the ATE-2 ($9,000)--drafted
into service when
there was a shipping mishap. Air Tight's industrial design seems to me on the retro side
of functional modernism. It's clean, use-oriented, and yet classy in its silver-grey,
green
sheen painted and gold badged faceplates. Its tubes are allowed to cast a romantic light
over the upper tray of its chassis, and accomplishes a mixture of the straight-ahead and
the elegant in its look. The ATM-211 monos are good examples of this blend. And the
sound was similar--clean, clear, extended in the trebles, with a slight warmth, and enough
liquidity in the midrange that made its sound seem just a touch over the centerline of
neutral--a feint towards the lush.
Transrotor Fat Bob Reference TT, Air Tight ATE-2 phono stage, power supplies,
and
Accuphase DP-57 CDP.
(Photo by Jaime Monroy)
Air Tight ATM-211 Monoblocks
Air Tight ATM-211 ($13,000/pr)
While in the room, I noticed a distinguished elderly man, short in stature, face framed
with a wispy but neatly trimmed whitening beard. This was Atasushi Miura, chief
designer and originator of Air Tight. I introduced myself and thanked him for his
engineering, as I have an Air Tight ATM-2 KT88 amp that I like very much. I spoke in
English, so the bowing was kept to a minimum, but I had to resist the urge to defer to his
genius and age, even though, as an American Japanese four generations from Japan, i
possibly wasn't required to anyway. As I thought this, a nattily dressed man said
my name. This was Arturo Manzano, the exec at AXISS. We got into a brief
conversation about Gardena, where I grew up and where Axiss is located, about sushi
bars and the long-awaited Genalex KT88 tube re-issue. There were dummy boxes of the
famed Genalex neatly stacked into a pyramid beside an ATM-2 on static display. Arturo
said the tube was promised for March. "So I figure May," he said. "I'd love
to hear what
they'd do for my ATM-2," I chimed. "Oh, we'll take care of you," Arturo
answered.
Click here
for Page 2 of CES/The Show 2007 Report
