Fred Manteghian

It's not new, but it's still sexy. The two chassis Evolution One power amp can muster 1,800 watts of Class A power into 2 ohms. $50,000 / pair. To me, the retro look has me thinking of the dashboard of classic Fifties American car.

Powering the KEF Muon, electronics from Musical Fidelity. These, incidentally, are quite reasonably priced, especially compared to the KEF Muon.

Pioneer blew everyone away with their new 60" plasma prototypes. They claim better than 20,000:1 contrast. They say they can't measure it any higher given todays test equipment. I wonder what Toshiba is using to measure the 50,000:1 contrast they claim they've achieved with SED?

There were a lot of great sounding systems at the show, there always are, but some rooms just hit you right. For me, it was the Dynaudio / Simaudio room. In this small room, Simaudio Moon W7M monoblocks ($16,000/pr, 500 watt@8 ohm) drove the small Dynaudio Confidence C1 ($6,500/pr or $7,000/pr in black lacquer, stands were an extra $450/pair and bolted to the bottom of the C1). The system front end was from Sim Audio's Moon line as well, The Andromeda CD player ($12,000) and P-8 Controller and Preamp ($11,500) completed the front end. A seriously priced system, no doubt, but the sound was commensurate. From the overplayed "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole that greeted me when I entered, to Sarah McLachlan's "Eyes of an Angel," to a Bruce Coburn / Lucinda Williams piece (this guy is seriously nihilistic – nobody sell him a rocket launcher, please!), the system sounded relaxed and totally involving. It had an uncanny ability to paint unique perspectives for each recording. I could have stayed even longer, but the show was calling. With a new found respect for Sim Audio electronics and an even stronger desire to get a Dynaudio Confidence system in for review, I begrudgingly walked away.