Home Entertainment 2005 show report; part 4

[Geoffcin]

Analysis Audio was the next room I visited, and they were set up with the first pairs of "all ribbon" planar speakers I've seen in years.



These speakers looked remarkable like Apogees in both size, and style. I am not one to be shy so I asked if these were Apogee knockoffs, and the importer told me that these were an all new design that is built in Greece. I told him that I though that Apogee was a great speaker company, but it had lost a patent case with Magnepan, and had to fold because of this. This kind of set him back a bit, but since these are made in Greece, I don't think the same laws would apply. The sound from these planars was transparent, and pretty much seamless from top to bottom. The Analysis ribbon tweeter was a bit warmer than my Maggies ribbon, but I thought I had just a little less air on top. Still, they were killer planars, and it's always good to have some competition to move the state of the art further.

Music Hall was literally right down the hall. Walking in, Roy Hall the owner of Music Hall had the soundtrack from Kill Bill playing on the new Shanling CDT-300 CD player, and boy did it sound good.



This Chinese made, tube CD player has got to be one of the most attractive CD players I've ever seen, but at $6995, it's a lot of eggrolls! Music Hall was also showing off some very attractive and affordable turntables,



and they were playing music through the very affordable, and easy to like Epos speakers. The whole setup sounded really good.



I got to talk with Mr Hall for a little while about some of the great looking, and affordable equipment he's been importing. I may go back and do an interview with him as he's based not far from me in Great Neck, NY.

Totem was my next stop, and it was a room that I was NOT expecting much of. People who've read some of my posts to these forums know that I prefer big floorstanding speakers in my audio setup. I had already heard several standmounts in the show, and my mind was still unchanged on this. That all about evaporated about 3 seconds after entering the Totem room. They had the little, and I mean little!, Rainmakers cranking out at 90db+ when I walked in and I immediately knew I was in the right place.



As soon as the track was finished I asked Vince Bruzzese (not knowing who he was as of yet) If they were using some equalization on those speakers. He said absolutely not, it was all Rainmaker. I guess here hears more people commenting about PRAT or other such audiophile nonsense, but I immediately picked up that these speakers were specifically NOT designed to have a ruler flat response. I told him that to my ear they definitely had a mildly boosted response at both ends, with the midrange being very sweet, flat and stable. He said that his Rainmakers were designed to sound good first, and that it's frequency specs didn't bother him. After that I asked who he was, since it was obvious he was no sales rep. He said he was the company president, and I asked him about the rest of his speakers, and the Totem company. He talked for a bit about how Totem's ideals are what drive his speaker line. He played the Hawks for me after that,



and they also sounded quite good, although not with as much "WOW!" value as the Rainmakers. I then asked about the Mani-2 signature speakers



which I had not heard yet, and why he had not brought any of his floorstanders. He said, "why don't we just listen and you can decide for yourself." With that he played several tracks on the Mani-2s at realistic 85db+ levels, and that's where I really fell off the chair! I've owned many 2 way speakers in my time, but I've never heard a standmount that could do what this one did. I heard ruler flat responce across the midrange, excellent dynamics, and amazing bass into the mid 20hz's in room!

Back down I went to level 4 again (I really like elevators) as I had about 30 minutes before my meeting with Aperion, so I decided to NOT go into any room where it might lead me to forget about that. Sennheiser had a headphone display going in one of the rooms and I got to check out the HD600, and HD650, along with their wireless headphone. The wireless ones worked very well, and being a closed backed design, are a great way to shut out the world, or even listen to TV if your up late and don't want to disturb anyone. The HD600 & HD650 were both driven by headphone amps, but something wasn't working correctly and there just wasn't enough gain to make them play at any serious level. I did get to check them out side by side, but without being able to get any volume it's a toss up whether the HD650 is better than the HD600 to these ears.