The One You’ve All Been Waiting For
MoFi Distribution brought the most serious system of Audio Advice LIVE 2022. The MoFi room was indeed the talk of the show.
Reporting by Eric Franklin Shook
Feature brands like Piega, HiFi Rose, Dr. Feickert Analog, EMT, and BAT were involved. With several of them having new products on display.
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The Piega Master Line Source MkII LTD
The Master Line Source ($350K USD) loudspeakers are the flagship offering from Piega, and now in their MkII iteration. Operating as a true line-source frequencies are radiated as coherent cylindrical sound waves.
Of the twenty-four ribbon tweeters used in the MLS high-freq. array, twelve of them radiate to the front and the other twelve located on the back of the array radiate to the rear. As to their phase relationship, that I’m not certain of. The nine midrange ribbons that radiate from the array load to both the front and rear, in true dipole fashion.
Each bass cabinet holds six 22cm (8.66-inch) woofers that together guarantee low frequency output down to 18 Hz. Both the line source array and bass cabinet are constructed of solid aluminum and finished with fine surface brushing and polishing.
Now, you would think it takes a small nation’s power grid to get these speakers going, but that’s not the case. With a rated sensitivity of 94 dB at 1w/1m, amplification options are left pretty wide open.
Dr. Feickert and Friends
Vinyl was handled by a Dr. Feickert Analog Blackbird Turntable ($7,495 USD) holding the new EMT 912-HI 12-inch tonearm (price, TBA), and mounted with the new EMT JSD Novel Gold phono cartridge ($7,995 USD).
All of that was fed into a Balanced Audio Technology VK-P90 phono stage ($12,995 USD), and BAT REX 3 preamplifier ($30,000 USD), finally reaching the new BAT REX 500 stereo amplifier ($22,500 USD).
HiFi Rose RS150B
Digital on the surface is more straightforward. You buy the right component and you install it into your system.
The HiFi Rose RS150B streamer ($4,995 USD) was handling all-digital duties with aplomb. Onboard the AK4499EQ, supporting PCM 32bit / 768KHz and Native DSD512 (22.5792Mhz). Energized from a custom linear power supply. Timed perfectly with Femto clocking, additional support for MQA and 4K video, along with a 14.9 inch touchscreen mounted to an all aluminum block chassis. It really is the bees knees.
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The Sound of Piega and BAT
Context is everything, and I’ve also heard everything. So, if I were being critical of the sound in this exhibit system put up against the amount of Crypto I’d have to sell to buy the damn thing, I’d say that the highest of highs were lacking a little in the presence and sparkle regions.
That said, everything else was as “real and spectacular” as Teri Hatcher’s three-dimensional guest appearance on an episode of Seinfeld back in the 1990s.
Of all the exhibitions at the show, this was the most high-end on display, not just in cash value, but in terms of sound. There’s levels and nuance to all of this kind of stuff. Spending almost a decade now traipsing the hallways of audio shows, I’ve come to appreciate a little of what everyone does at every level. What MoFi brought to Audio Advice LIVE 2022 was something special and one for the record books. History was made.
