Premiere Design

Few speakers are more highly regarded than the venerable WATT/Puppy from Wilson Audio. After eight model revisions, Wilson decided to implement some upgrades that warranted a new name—and the Sasha W/P was born.

I first heard about British high-end manufacturer dCS many years ago when I read a white paper from the company extolling the audible virtue of PCM digital audio recorded and played back at 192kHz with 24-bit resolution. Since then, it seems that dCS has embraced DSD—the digital-audio format used by SACD—in its CD/SACD playback systems, including the all-in-one Puccini.

When I profiled the incredible Transmission Audio Ultimate speaker system last year, I mentioned that the $2,000,000 package includes power amps and a preamp from Bridge Audio Laboratory, otherwise known by the odd contraction BAlabo. Here, I concentrate on these two beauties by themselves, along with BAlabo's new 2-channel DAC.

Over a year ago, I profiled the amazing 101 X-treme speaker system from MBL. If you don't have a quarter-million dollars or a floor capable of supporting its 3600-pound bulk, consider the newly refined 101E Mk II.

With his magical hammer Mjöllnir, the Norse god Thor is said to have produced thunder. So there is no more appropriate name than Thor's Hammer for the ultimate subwoofer from Wilson Audio. In fact, this monster might have put Thor himself to shame, since it can reproduce frequencies even lower than natural thunder.

As I was looking for products to profile in this blog, I came across something astonishing - a tube-based monoblock power amp that costs $350,000/pair! Hand-built by Japanese boutique maker Wavac Audio Lab, the SH-833 isn't new - it was reviewed in Stereophile in 2004 - but when I saw that price tag, I knew I had to include it here.

Most consumers would probably apply the word "stereo" exclusively to 2-channel audio systems. So you might be surprised to learn that "stereo" has nothing to do with the number 2 per se—it derives from the Greek word for "solid." The word was applied to 2-channel sound systems when they first became available because those systems rendered a much more "solid" sonic image with more specific placement of individual elements (instruments, voices, etc.) than the monaural systems that had preceded them. Similarly, 5.1 surround systems are far more "stereo" than 2-channel systems.