Dan Meinwald of E.A.R. USA was demoing some outrageously fine gear from a variety of the brands he imports.
Front and center were the majestic Coltrane Tenor from Marten, retailing at $85k/pair. I still can’t get over the innie/outie driver thing on this speaker — the bass drivers are convex. That’s weird! Sitting anywhere near the sweet spot, however, and it’s not so weird. In fact, it’s downright magical.
The rack was full of E.A.R. gear, including the new-ish DACute 4 DAC ($13k) and the Acute 4 CD/SACD player ($13k). Two 509 monos ($15,700/pair) drove the speakers and a big 912 pre ($13k) sat up top. When the silver discs weren’t spinning, the vinyl ones were coming from an E.A.R. Discmaster ($28k). There were two Helius Omega Silver Ruby 10″ tonearms sitting on that table ($5225 each), one for the Dynavector XV-1s stereo cartridge ($5,450) and one for the Dynavector XV-1s mono ($5,950).
Jorma Prime interconnects (starting at $9,900/pair) and Origo speaker cables (starting at $7,000) were paired with Waveform Fidelity (Kaplan Cable) GS Mk2 power cords ($1,495 each). A Power Wing from World Power ($2,850) was used for distribution. The stands came from Marten.
All I can say is that if I had gear like this at my house, I’d never leave. The sound was percussive, detailed, airy, [insert audiophile desired trait here]. Playing EDM on this system was probably not in scope, but Dan totally went with it and the Audio360 group settled in for a long listen.
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If you want to do one USA audio show with ultra high cost gear, this is the show, and this is one room you must visit. The performance was wonderful and enchanting.
Unfortunately I only had time to hear one tune, of the HR digital variety. I concluded that I would prefer to employ only HR program at our next show, or vinyl of course. IOW, if possible, no lowly Red Book. The only exception being if/when a show attendee desired to play their own program.
Crazy…