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| May 11 - 13, 2007 Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York, NY |
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| Show Report, Part I of II DAGOGO.com by Jack Roberts |
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| http://www.dagogo.com/Events/HE2007-NYC-I.html
Stereophile Show The FLK Marketing & Distribution room was composed of an unusual amalgamation of brands that fit together very well, both visually and acoustically. The silver Redpoint turntable with Tri-Planar tonearm blended very well with the mat silver finish on the new ModWright 36.5 preamp and separate phono stage I saw earlier in Montreal. Even the brushed aluminum and wood stand provided a visual link to the Rethm Saadhana silver and wood loudspeaker. The Rethm goes for $8K and with 98dB/W/m efficiency it is easily driven by low-powered tube amplifiers. Only the Art Audio PX-25 power amplifier with its polished stainless steel chassis deviated from the matte silver look, but it certainly played with the light of the tubes very nicely. The Rethm, being a two-way horn loaded configuration with the back half of the loudspeaker containing a solid state powered woofer, sounded quite good, but I was told it worked even better with another unnamed amplifier that better matched the impedance of the internal amplifier for the woofer. The center section of the top tube lifts off to reveal controls for dialing in the sound. The front part of the loudspeaker and the rear do not actually touch each other, though it certainly looks to be of a whole. I had an interesting chat with Peter Clark and as much as he raved about the beauty of his silver Redpoint turntable, I had to confess that it was kind of like a silver Ferrari, and I really preferred it in red, as it had been shown in previous years. Other finishes are available to suit your own taste, as well as different levels of performance with commensurate pricing. They put on some Reggae vinyl at my request and the system really rocked, getting down to the 32Hz limit of the loudspeaker. |
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| http://www.enjoythemusic.com/stereophile_show_2007/becker/page2.htm |
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| 6Moons.com HE 2007 with Michael Lavorgna Are
my methods unsound? |
SonicFlare at the Home Entertainment Show 2007 by Sandy Greene
Having read a lot of show reports featuring and lauding the Rethm speakers, I sat down to listen with high expectations and I wasn’t
disappointed. First of all, I think their product design is tops in the speaker class. These speakers are beautiful objects. Sharing a room with ModWright and Art Audio, the sound was very full and musical… one of the better sounding rooms of the show.
HOME ENTERTAINMENT 2007 by James Darby
From FLK Marketing: Rethm, Modwright, Art Audio & Redpoint
Andrew: 3rd Rethm ($7.5k) speakers featuring Lowther drivers with wooden phase plugs. I had kind of liked these in past shows, but couldn’t stand them here. Even partnered with my favorite turntable (Redpoint/Triplanar) and ultracool electronics from Modwright and Art Audio, the shouty midrange peak on CD just drove me crazy. There was a piercing quality on female vocals. Bass foundation was missing. Dead Can Dance on vinyl – terrific record, bass a little better, but the Lowther’s peakiness still bothered me. Would like to hear these electronics with Klipschorns. The ultrabright speaker wires are a happy digital photographic artifact.
Linda: This is easily the prettiest room and system. Very contemporary but not over the edge.Speaekrs completely disappear with a very expansive soundstage. Great tube sound, too - not to colored. Best bass I've heard in a horn speaker that looks as good as it sounds. That Redpoint turntable looks as good as it sounds, too. I could see that in our house. Some of the best sound I've heard in New York and the prices are not at all outrageous.
James: This was the most visually striking room at the show. As I entered and saw all the gleaming, matching brushed silver metal on the speakers, the amps, the stunning turtable and even the equoipment rack, my eyes just lit up. Add Joe Fratus’ esoteric Art Audio tube amp and the whole thing just looked so complete and satisfying. The picture is very inadequate.
I see Andrew didn’t like the sound here. I know why. While I was there (after Andrew had to go home), Joe came in and switched tubes on his amp – right in front of a room full of people. “Wait until you hear the difference these make”, he told the room in his Tony Soprano voice. Five minutes later, without the new tubes even warming up enough, the sound was transformed. Completely and totally transformed. People even gasped. You can see the “old” tubes on the floor in the pic. The new bottles were made for him by KR of Kronzilla fame.
I was shocked. I’ve never heard one pair of tubes make THAT much difference. Even before the change, what I saw (and I do mean “saw”) was a complete, colossal, holographic, 3-D layered soundstage spread out in the room like a movie at an IMAX theater. From my reference CD, Linda Ronstadt was standing out in front (forward for me, peaky for Andrew?) of the orchestra and the speakers with the backup singers way in back – the way it sounds at home. The stage reached the ceiling and seemed limitless in depth with even the distant sounds detailed and hovering in clouds of clean, quite space. When this happens, I admit my eyes take over and I am less concerned with frequency blips. The new tubes simply put more soul and realism in the spaces and Linda was even more holographic.
The orchestral cut from Reference Recording’s “Tutti” CD was staggering in it’s vividness and extreme dynamics. Timpani and big bass drum hits made you feel them in your chest. Nothing compares to horns in the arena of dynamics – micro or macro. I have the Cain & Cain Single Horn Bens in my large room under review as I write this. There are always trade-offs with horns or any other type of transducer.
What you have with these Rethm
Saadhanas is TWO separate cabinets – one sealed isobaric system
in horn-loaded cabinet containing the Lowther and another completely isolated
cabinet containing dual custom made Peerless bass drivers with 6 inch
paper cones and cloth surrounds. Internal wiring with single conductor
flat copper cryogenically treated in loose nylon sleeves producing a response
of 32Hz to 20khz. Efficiency is 97 db/w/m.
Don’t see two separate cabinets in the pic? Look closely. The cabinets and not top and bottom, but front and back. See the vertical separation? Heady stuff.
A top/middle compartment opens up to reveal a crossover adjuster and a level control to further tailor the sound to a room. There is even a thoughtful ground lift for those crusty older tube amps that pick everything up.
I practically begged for a review pair and Frank Kraus of FLK Marketing and Distribution acquiesced. The first available pair to reach shore will be headed our way. Frank asked me to remind everyone that he performed NO sound tricks in the room. “I didn’t even take down the pictures with all that reflective glass on them”. The room was about as raw as it gets. Duly noted.
Alright! Redpoint tables.
Model D here, I think, though I’ve never seen it in this brushed silver
form. Yes, we asked for one of these, too, but so far no luck. Custom
made table by small companies are very hard to acquire – sometimes you
have to wait months to even buy one. If you are a small manufacturer,
which would rather do if you are already backordered? Send one to a review
or a customer? We understand that. Customers come first.
How did it sound? Marvelous. It would only sound better at MY place!
Let’s not forget Dan Wright and his Modwright gear. His stuff is always consistently outstanding.
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| http://www.stereomojo.com/HOMEENTERTAINMENTSHOW2007PART2.htm
What is a "Best Hi End Value" system? Something like this that gets you very close to the "dollars be damned" systems while still at less-than-Mercedes prices. The whole system costs less than some individual amplifiers, speakers, turntables, CD players or even cables. The anchors here are the Rethm Saadhanas at a remarkable $7,500 per pair. They give you the lightning speed and vast dynmics of horns (because they are), the bass of anregular cone speaker in a seperate enclosure (because there is one) and the incredibly pure, detailed and collossal soundstage of a single point driver - because they are. They are very efficient, too, so you don't need megawatts to drive them. But you do need quality amplification, and it doesn't get much better than Joe Fratus' Art Audio tube amps.
Here we have the PX25 which is very much a work of art that sells for as little as $6,000 in a black and gold finish. You can upgrade to polished stainless steel with gold accents and other tubes if you wish. Everyone agrees that Dan Wright's Modwright components are consistently excellent at very reasonable prices.HE 2007 had, as expected, some very expensive equipment being demonstrated, but there were also some modest-priced and still very–good-sounding systems. Dan's preamp is the LS 36.5 balanced tube line stage that goes for $4995. He also showed the new SWP 9.0 SE phono stage He also was showing his SWP 9.0 SE phono stage which uses (2)6C45's, (2)6N1P's, (2)5687 tubes. Dip switches lets you use MM or MC carts. Top quality parts are used throughout, including Schottky diodes, metal film Vishay resistors, ceramic tube sockets and proprietary MWI custom Teflon film and foil and oil-impregnated polypropylene caps. Dan told us he thinks the 9.0 SE at $3k establishes a new benchmark for tube phono pres in terms of value/performance ratio.
At a weight of 150 pounds, the Redpoint Model D is no lightweight in sound or mass. I wish you could see how this table looks in the brushed stainless steel - it is simply stunning.And this one is the only one ever made. Even at its $20,00, it pulls it weight like Mack truck. Stick on a little Triplaner arm at 4 grand and a cartridge (not 100% sure of this one and don't want to speculate) and you have about as good as it gets and it gets about 90% of the most expensive out there. True, in this system it is probably price heavy, but it did help to show off of what the rest of the sytem was capable. This is Redpoint's masterpiece so they have less costly models. |
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http://www.stereomojo.com/BESTOFHOMEENTERTAINMENT2007.htm
StereoTimes.com
New York Home Entertainment Show 2007
By Laurence Borden
This year’s Stereophile-sponsored Home Entertainment
Show was similar in many ways - - both good and bad - - to previous year’s
shows. The rooms in the Grand Hyatt had the same type of acoustic problems
as those in Hilton, and the elevators were still a challenge. On the plus
side, the show was well attended, had a number of very enjoyable systems,.
and the best part of all is seeing many old friends. There were far too
many system for me to describe so I will focus on the few that most tickled
my fancy.
A speaker I have been curious to hear since I first read about it was
the newly-designed Rethm Saadhana. As with previous Rethm speakers, the
Saadhana uses a single broadband driver (specifically, a Lowther DX 55)
in a rear-loaded horn configuration, the new innovation being the addition
of horn-loaded woofers for the lower 2 octaves. The accompanying electronics
were Art Audio PX25 SET amplifier, ModWright LS36.54 line stage, a ModWright
phonestage, and a ModWright-modified Sony CD player, and a Redpoint turntable
with Triplanar arm. My first visit to the room on Friday was a bit of
a disappointment; the sound was harsh and brittle. When I returned on
Sunday things were sounding far better; when I questioned Rethm designer
Jacob George, he explained that they had changed some interconnects and
tubes. The sound was now pretty much everything I had hoped it would be;
immediate, coherent, with tuneful bass which went far lower than did the
older generation non-bass horn equipped Rethms. I enjoyed the sound a
great deal, and hope that Jacob will provide me with a pair of Saadhana’s
for review.
