Tube Technology was yet another brand new to us. A pair of stunningly crafted TT Genetix monoblocks connected to JMlab Alto Utopias. Source was a TX400 upsampling CD player and a Fulcrum DAC64. Not only was the design of the TT equipment spotless, the music produced by the whole was, too. And maybe this cleanliness is what made the whole a bit lifeless for our tastes.


The small-is-beautiful designs of 47Labs always play music. Here the room was packed with Power Humpties to supply all the various 47Labs equipment on display with the necessary juice. The combined power lines to the cheater'd wall plug made for a nice picture [lower left]. Lou Reed, Janis Joplin and others from that era came alive, be it on CD or vinyl. The PiTracer CD transport is a piece of art and always moves like a dancer not merely by its look but also its mechanics. The amount of measurement and correction performed to follow the wobbly track on a less-than-super-quality CD is enormous and so clearly visible.

Music full of life was also to be found in the British importer's relatively small Nagra room. The system was built around the new Nagra Pyramid Monoblock Amplifier, the PMA. With 200 watts per monoblock and equipped with a special power supply, the Pyramids made a great impression when playing at normal sound levels. Clean and lively describes the sound best. At least with these designs, Nagra proves that MOSFET amplifiers can be very musical indeed..
Britain's Wilson importer Absolute Sounds invited Peter McGrath of Wilson from the US to do some demonstration with the Maxx. And once again the question arose, "Why Must It Be So Loud"? The Wilsons have the capacity to blow everyone out of the room with their handling of bass and dynamics but that has nothing to do with realistic loudness. This matter will always remain a point of contention but to us, the Wilsons deserve better.


The last remarkable room we visited became OverKill Audio's. And we were lucky to have stumbled upon the best for last. Derek Wilson and his lovely wife Petra occupied a fairly large space and put together a musical feast that still is with us. They began with an Overkill Oasis multi-format player with a tubed output stage. From there the signal went through a DEQX active crossover slash room correction system slash D/A converter slash preamp. Amplification was provided by two 30-watt Tube Distinctions Soul monoblocks for the 200Hz-and-down range. Another Tube Distinctions Soul amplifier, now a 15-watt stereo version, powered the Mangers. All cables were by Crystal Cable and the piece-de-resistance was OverKill Encore loudspeakers [6moons will review Overkill's entire Encore-centered CES system for their debut in the US press - Ed].

What made this room so special? First off, it was the music played, not the standard female vocals! Next, it was the loudness, presented as a very decent though room-filling volume. Last but not least, of course, the loudspeakers, rather unique in their design. Derek learned a lot from his previous Ovation model in which he matched up a Talon Firebird bass system with the wonderful Manger driver. The world debut of the Encore then went one step further. The 96dB sensitive bass driver got its own cabinet built from multiple laminated layers for the utmost in chassis inertia. On top of the bass cabinet, the Manger unit finds its place in a very craftily done egg-shaped casting.
The Manger driver is named after its German inventor, Herr Manger, and based on a full-range bending-wave model. Contrary to a conventional speaker membrane, a Manger membrane does not move entirely when producing a sound - only a portion of the membrane is vibrating. The best analogy? Throw a stone in a pond and watch only the outer ripples move. A great advantage of the Manger design is its almost full-range
operation, hence the single 200Hz crossover frequency of the two-way Encore. And then there was just music for more than an hour after which only a good glass of champagne (or better yet, a glass of good champagne?) could top off this visit.


Veldhoven is located near Philips' hometown of Eindhoven. This location makes it easily accessible for Dutch, Belgian and German audio liefhebbers and Liebhaber (lovers that is). Since the German Hi-End show this year had moved to Southern Germany's Bavaria, the Dutch Veldhoven show is a good alternative for those living in the northwestern part of Germany.


The United Audio Dealers association organizes the VAD show. This you might compare to the CEA in the US. Contrary to magazines organizing shows -- and always denying any tie-ins -- there are no connections between this show and any advertisements. Members of the association simply pay a yearly fee to VAD for their services.


The location here is not a hotel but a conference center. What makes the Koningshof so special is its former status as a monastery. The cells the monks used to live in have been remodeled into fair-sized rooms all arranged around three garden courtyards. First-time visitors always get predictably lost which can be hilarious to watch.


The first room that stuck out was equipped with the Italian-made Ars Aures loudspeakers that had flown in all the way from Sicily with Carlo Buscemi and his team who had finally found a Dutch distributor. This lucky man now had the enviable task of demonstrating the beautifully crafted and sounding Sensorial loudspeakers. Next to the alien-shaped stand-mounted Mini model, Ars Aures introduced the Midi. This is a floorstanding ported design with extra bass extension and the same impeccable wood and lacquer works. Analog source was a Dutch Pluto turntable and this turned out to be the only room where vinyl was the de facto playback standard. The distributor also handles Stealth cables so we arranged for a pair of the famous Indras for a comparative review.


Just across the hall was Eurogram who brought Von Schweikert's VR4Jr and VR7 to life with "our" well-known KR VA340 integrated amplifier and mighty Kronzillas [lower left] The Eurogram Company practices a standard regime of closed-door demonstrations at all shows. This enables them to give some sort of lecture, not only on the equipment but also the music played. This time there was stunning news in the form of the new Harmonic Technology Cyber Wave interconnects. These are analog interconnects whose RCA plugs are equipped with tiny electronic circuits that transform the incoming (analog) electrical signal into light that is then transmitted through a length of glass fiber. At the other end, the process is reversed and the electrical signal continues on its usual way to the amplifier. All this is accomplished without any A/D or D/A conversion. The audible results were nothing but stunning [review forthcoming]. In this setup, vinyl again was handled by Pluto.

The exhibit of Austrian Wiener Lautsprecher Manufaktur [upper right] played more music as music should be played. The large room contained an old but trusty Thorens record player set up with excellence. WLM claimed the result here were due to their new high-efficiency tweeter. If this quality can be reproduced in a normal-sized living room, they have an interesting loudspeaker on their hands.
In one of the hallways in this maze-like building, we went eye-to-eye with an original B&W Nautilus, the beautiful four-way molded into the organic Nautilus shell here as a mockup only. But when we visited the Japanese Kinokuniya bookstore near Rockefeller Plaza in New York a few weeks later, we picked up an issue of Stereo Sound only to find a formal review of the Nautilus! This 60 kg piece of art is on sale for a mere 5.000.000 yen. The test was a bit hard to decipher but we now simply have to hear this speaker one fine day.


A VAD-first was the Chinese Classic Model 16, a very nicely built 40/20wpc pentode/triode integrated with EL34s unfortunately on silent display only. A nice detail was an LCD clock showing how long the tubes have been running and when it's time to replace 'em. Remember, it's not WE 300Bs we're talking about here.

Another teaser was ClearAudio's new LP 2000 turntable. The wish of many has been heard and ClearAudio now has a turntable with a sandwiched wooden and metallic base instead of acrylic. In this model, the famous Syncro is lifted to a higher level by putting it inside the turntable's motor. How they achieved that is not yet clear as we were not allowed to open the deck.

Then we walked past the Marantz room to get invited to a closed-door presentation by Ken Ishiwata. Are we following him around or is he following us? Ken's presentation elucidated the ongoing role his employer has played over the years in the audio world. He illustrated the various steps with appropriate music. Mono LP and stereo LP were demonstrated with the new Marantz TT15, an adaptation of a ClearAudio. CD and SACD as subsequent developments in the audio history were brought to life with a SA-11S1 player; amplification by means of a PM-11S1 while Ken introduced the new Mordaunt Short Performa loudspeakers. The whole setup was very affordable and did just what it should do - play music. Ken's choices varied from classic to jazz, rap and flamenco. We were thunderstruck by two of his selections. One was a female A Capella version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody with rap accents. Tears welled up in our eyes and all the little hairs on our arms stood straight up. The second track celebrated a flamenco guitar with fretless base and percussion. Same physical responses - and that with equipment that belongs to the normal garden variety to remain accessible for most people. After the presentation, we attacked Ken about what he played. The Bohemian Rhapsody was from a private recording of Ken's and thus, no copies for us. Alas, the second track was by Dutch guitarist Alain Labrie whom we contacted as soon as we were home. The resultant review of his record can be found here.
After this experience, no other music could possible compare and we decided to call it a show, go home and prepare for the Home Entertainment Show in San Francisco. It turned Friday morning and in the evening, we would be headed to Amsterdam's Schiphol airport. Before a long flight, we always try to stay at the airport the previous night. This makes travel as easy as possible. No hurries, no nerve-wrecking traffic jams on the way to the airport, no long walks from remote parking lots to the check-in counters or any other annoyances. Just go to the airport at a suitable time, have a nice little dinner, a good night's sleep, breakfast and walk indoor all the way to the check-in. Easy does it. But not this morning. First thing we always do every morning is check our mail. Here we find one from Lucette Nicoll announcing the HE Show has been cancelled due to a labor dispute.

It appears that hotel personnel of 14 major hotels in San Francisco -- including the show's St. Francis hotel -- are locked out and are now picketing in front of the entrances. This situation is not only sad for the hotel workers, it's also not workable for a show. Setup will be hard if not impossible. Attendees would have to be escorted through the picket lines. Because the lockout by now has been ongoing for 4 weeks, the tension is understandably high so it's a wise decision to cancel the show. Hence no impressions from the show that did not show.