Von Schweikert Audio ESE Loudspeakers Review

My review of the Von Schweikert Audio ESE loudspeakers is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. You can read it here.

Random and Belated Musings from the 2015 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, Part 1

If you look back on my blog over the last few years, you'll see that this is the time of year, around the holidays, when I start apologizing for not keeping up. To put it succinctly, I'm pretty busy this time of year. Mostly it's because we've just finished the busy season and now we have to prepare for CES. I'm not talking about the holidays per se, because after eighteen years in retail management I learned that life is so much better when you simply ignore those pesky dates. It's quite edifying when some poor retail clerk asks you if you're "ready for the holidays," and the look that you give them clearly communicates that of course you're ready for the holidays, that it's easy to be prepared when absolutely nothing special is planned.

Bah-humbug.

But I really need to apologize to a few people because it's been more than two months since the last RMAF and I haven't talked about anything yet. I was all set to do so--this was the first RMAF in five years where Colleen Cardas Imports wasn't an exhibitor. Since Colleen and I had spent most of the summer traveling all over the country, and I took that big trip to Australia through September. I think there was a point where, about halfway through the summer, we said to ourselves that RMAF just wasn't going to happen. But since it's only a semi-treacherous five-hour drive across the Rocky Mountains to get to Denver in October, we just decided to show up as attendees and visit as many of our industry friends as possible. And I thought hey, I could cover a show just like I used to, back in the B.C.! (Before Colleen.)

The closest thing we had to a home base was the room that featured ModWright amps, Endeavor Audio Engineering speakers, Triangle ART analog and Skogrand Cables. We were eager to meet with Leif Swanson of Endeavor--we shared a room with him back at the Newport Show where our PureAudio amplifiers were paired with his huge E-5 towers. Everyone involved loved that combo, and we talked about doing future shows together. Leif was running several rooms, however, and we never seemed to be in the same one at the same time. Perhaps it was because he saw us first? Hah!

Fortunately, Leif connected with Dan Wright of ModWright Instruments for amplification for this show. I've known Dan since my TONEAudio days when I gave extremely favorable reviews to one of his preamps, and I used one of his phono amps to review some cartridges. In the last few years since I've seen Dan, ModWright has become a major player in the US amplifier market, and the two systems where Dan's amps were used were among the top three or four best-sounding systems at the show. (In another room, Dan's new 845 monoblocks were VERY impressive--you can read about them here.)

One thing that Dan hasn't changed over the years--that lovely blue LED glow that emanates from the top plates of his amps. I always felt that those lights were so soothing to look at while you were...listening...to...zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Analog was supplied by Triangle ART. I have sort of a connection with Tom Vu and his company as well--Triangle Arts is based in Anaheim, my hometown. It seems that at CES, where we help man the Unison Research and Opera room every year, we're always across the hallway from Tom's room. His turntables are beautiful gleaming metallic sculptures, gigantic and solid in an ultra-industrial sort of way, but more affordable than you'd think. I'm especially interested in his new line of cartridges, which are creating a lot of buzz in the industry right now.

Now it's time to talk about a new favorite person of mine in the industry, Knut Skogrand of Skogrand Cables. Knut is from Norway, and he makes gorgeous-looking cables with some of the most ornate jacket designs I've seen. I don't mean crazy, futuristic looking cables that glow chartreuse, but opulent and silky jackets that are designed to reflect the classic art and architecture in his home country. Knut's cables also sound as good as they look, which is pretty friggin' good.

I've listened carefully to his system at both the Newport Show earlier this year and this RMAF system and I can genuine say that it's easy to relax and not even worry about visiting other rooms at the show, because this will be enough. Sure, Knut shared some wonderful Scotch with me during my visit to his room, but that didn't influence my decision about the sound quality one danged bit. How dare you.

Speaking of Newport back in late May, that's where I first met Knut in person. We'd been Facebook friends for a while, and he and Colleen have been playing Words with Friends on their phones for the last year or more. Knut's one of the few people who can beat her consistently at it, too--except I think Roy Hall might be a badass player as well. (Look at me, droppin' names.) Anyways, we were in a big group of people, and for some rare reason or another I became either assertive, demonstrative or animated making one of my points. Knut leaned into toward me--and probably down as well, since he's one of those really tall guys in high-end audio--and he said, "I thought you were an introvert." I had to laugh, because I can get uncharacteristically nutty talking about audio, and that's when I first suspected he was a very cool dude.

He confirmed that at RMAF. First, I brought up an amazingly obvious question about 2L Recordings, you know, like "Hey Knut, you're from Norway and 2L Recordings are from Norway and have you heard about them?" And that's right when I noticed a sign right next to Knut's arm, on the folding table he was leaning against, that said "2L" right on it in big letters. So yeah, Marc, I've heard of them. So there's THAT.

But here's the coolest part of the story, for me at least. While Knut and Colleen were talking, I turned my attention back to the system and I started paying attention to the weird, funky music Knut was playing. It was instrumental prog rock, more '80s than '90s, but it was so dynamic and wildly imaginative that I just started laughing. I turned to Knut and said, somewhat drunky-drunkily, "What are we listening to?"

"Mike Oldfield," he replied. He stood up and handed me the LP cover. I have a couple of Mike Oldfield LPs, just Tubular Bells and its sequel, but I'd never heard of this one, Amarok, a 1990 release that Oldfield intended as an hour-long instrumental protest song (split up into two thirty minute sides, obviously). I fell in love with this album for a lot of reasons--I love how it's one long song that's constantly evolving, and Oldfield is able to introduce humor and whimsy into this prog rock theme without conjuring up images of elves skipping through the forest. Some of the typically bright and edgy synthesizer sounds of the '80s are present, but in the more frantic and intelligent context it's merely part of the complex texture of this music. And did I say dynamic? This recording will have you constantly fiddling with your volume control because the quiet parts are really quiet, and the loud parts are really loud.

So when I told Knut how much I loved this album, he pulled the LP off of the 'table, put it in its jacket and handed it to me. At first, and i know this sounds terrible, but I thought Norway might be one of those cultures where if you compliment someone on one of their possessions, they have to give it to you. I joked about that with Knut, and he laughed and said, "No, no, no...it just makes me happy to give it to you!" And that's why Knut Skogrand is a cool dude.

Finally, this is a speaker by a guy named Jeff Joseph. I think the name of his company is Joseph Audio, or something like that. Every time I visit his room at a high-end audio show, it sounds really, really good. Everyone who goes into his room comes out of his room and says, that was one of the best rooms we've been in. So I don't think I'm going to tell you anything new about Joseph Audio, other than the fact that this speaker, the Perspective, is probably the Jeff Joseph speaker I'd want to buy for myself. I love its compact dimensions, despite the fact that it's a monster when it comes to soundstage depth and low frequency performance. I'm a big fan of the Perspective's little brother, the two-way Pulsar, and I think it has the most impressive and natural bass of any speaker its size. I also think his flagship, the Pearl3, is one of the world's great loudspeakers, but I don't have the space or the moolah. But the Perspective is just right, in so many ways.

When I started this blog entry, I thought I could get it all in one shot. But I'm getting exhausted and I think I'm dividing into two parts. The second part will mention two new turntables that I heard that might be new contenders for the best analog rigs I've heard!

Dean Martin's Dream with Dean on Analogue Productions 45rpm LP

All my endless blathering about my Australian trip has obscured the fact that I went to the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest last month, and I did intend to write several blog entries about what I saw at the show. This was the first high-end audio show in years where I went as a show attendee instead of an exhibitor, and it was truly enjoyable and informative to check out many new products that I've only heard about to this point. While I felt that this year's RMAF was relatively quiet in comparison to previous years--a minority sentiment, by the way--I did see plenty of great things.

Despite my intrepid attitude about seeing absolutely everything, my best memory from this year's show took place in somewhat familiar surroundings--the exhibit room that featured Endeavor Audio E-5 loudspeakers, a Triangle Arts turntable and much more, all wired with Skogrand cable. We shared a room with Leif Swanson's wonderful, dynamic E-5 loudspeakers at the Newport show earlier this year--they were a perfect match with the PureAudio amplification. So I feel I know those speakers pretty well. In addition, Colleen and I have known Knut Skogrand for some time now, and I have to say that every room I've experienced that features his premium cables has wonderful, wonderful sound.

Colleen and I spent many hours in Knut and Leif's room, drinking Knut's whiskey and listening to lots of vinyl. A show attendee wandered in, and within a few minutes he asked Knut to play an LP that he brought to the show. It turned out to be the new 45rpm Analogue productions reissue of Dean Martin's Dream with Dean--the Intimate Dean Martin. Knut looked unsure of the album when the gentleman handed him the cover--the gentleman, in return, said "Don't worry, you'll be glad you played it!"

I really didn't know that particular Dean Martin album. I could only think of how I was ultimately disappointed with the MFSL CD reissue of Dean's This Time I'm Swinging, which I purchased in January at CES. I was hoping for a reference recording that I could play at the show, but instead I got one of those MFSL reissues that merely make an awful recording sound acceptable. I really wanted a recording that could resurrect Dean and place him in the room right between the speakers. As it turns out, Dream with Dean is that album.

The Endeavor/Skogrand room certainly played a part, but for my money this is the most thrilling rendering of Dean's voice I've ever heard. Remember how everyone was raving about the MFSL reissue of Frank Sinatra's Nice N' Easy a few years ago, and how it was the finest-sounding Sinatra LP ever? Well, Dream with Dean is better in my opinion. After a few seconds of the first song we heard, "If You Were the Only Girl," I swore I could tell what brand of cigarettes Dean was smoking in the studio. I heard a real, live human voice singing in that familiar tone, seemingly free of studio artifacts used to polish things up a bit. It's Dean as if he was hanging out at your house one night, and someone kept asking him to sing something for the hell of it and he finally acquiesced. I could hear the tenderness in his voice, the slight breaking around the edges of that mellow tone, an extraordinarily talented voice captured in a casual, relaxed setting.

Of course I left the room and immediately went downstairs to the ballroom to see if this LP was available at the Acoustic Sounds booth. I found it in the bins within seconds. Once we returned home, I played Dream with Dean over and over on my system, and I heard the same magic. My only initial criticism of the sound quality was that while Dean's voice sounded amazingly real and present, the band was rather low in the mix. Dean's voice was front and center, way out in front, and the small and intimate band (guitarist Barney Kessel, pianist Ken Lane, bassist Red Mitchell and drummer Irv Cottler) were relegated almost out of the room, way past the rear wall. I also noticed a serious center-fill issue among the musicians, especially when Dean's vocal tracks were taken out of the mix. It wasn't a big deal--that channel separation was fairly typical in 1964, when this recording was made.

Then an amazing thing happened. As I mentioned in my last blog, I received those CLD sheets from Les Davis and placed them under all my components. I even placed an additional footer underneath the motor of my Unison Research Giro turntable. That created a more coherent overall sound, with Dean integrated more into his backing band than ever before. That means a fairly resolving system is somewhat necessary to truly appreciate what Analogue Productions has accomplished with this LP.

I think about all the other Analogue Productions 45rpm 2-LP sets I own and how they are all absolute reference recordings, the kind I like to play at shows and wow the crowds. I'm talking about Belafonte Live at the Carnegie Hall, Sam Cooke's Night Beat, Billie Holiday's Songs for Distingue Lovers and more. Dream with Dean might be the best one yet. I just finished my year-end column for my Vinyl Anachronist column for Perfect Sound Forever and I chose this recording as the Best Reissue in the Analog Format.

It won by a mile. Highly recommended.

CCI at the Upcoming 2015 T.H.E. Show

I've been training myself not to say "the Newport Show" anymore. It's the Irvine Show, because it's being held at the Irvine Hotel in Irvine, California from May 29-31. Even when it was called the Newport Show, it wasn't really in Newport Beach--it was located in that weird part of Orange County by the John Wayne Airport where Irvine, Santa Ana and Costa Mesa come together. As someone who grew up in Orange County, I know where Newport Beach is, and where it isn't.

That said, Colleen and I will be at The Home Entertainment Show (T.H.E) next week. We'll be found in room 1015, supporting Sweet Spot High-End Audio, our Unison Research, Opera and Axis dealer in Phoenix. We'll be debuting the brand new PureAudio Duo stereo power amplifier, a brand new amplifier from Gary Morrison and Ross Stevens. This amp isn't quite a svelte as the PureAudio Reference monoblocks--it's sort of those two monoblocks in one much larger chassis. It also offers 100wpc pure Class A power, more than the 65wpc of the Reference. I haven't even listened to it yet--it was sent directly to Leif Swanson of Endeavor Audio Engineering so he could start breaking it in with his amazing new flagship, the E-5. That's the basic set-up in the photo above.

Even with a $600 CD player used as a temporary source, Leif told me that he could easily demo this system at the show. Fortunately, we're getting top-of-the-line digital playback from Berkeley Audio. I'm also bringing the PureAudio Control preamplifier and the Vinyl phono preamplifier to the show. Our analog source will be an Oracle Delphi Mk. VI turntable with Oracle arm and cartridge. I'm bringing some vinyl as well, so I'll be playing DJ when the Berkeley gear isn't playing.

Please feel free to stop by and say hello during the show. Even though our room, at this point, is still an unknown variable, I feel confident that this will be the finest system we've ever shown in the four-year history of Colleen Cardas Imports.