Music Night at Blackbird Audio Gallery with PureAudio and Light Harmonic

It's taken me a whole week to post photos of last weekend's Music Night Event at Blackbird Audio Gallery. First of all, I was exhausted by a series of connecting flights from Western Colorado to San Diego that included everything from massive turbulence over the Rockies to sitting on the tarmac for a couple of hours while the pilot and the tower argued about the best flight path. I love to fly, but this trip aged me. I needed a few days to decompress.

Add a busy work week, a laptop virus and snowy weather, and that's why it's taken me so long to post photos. The first photo above was taken a couple of days before the event, just after Dan Muzquiz of Blackbird Audio had everything set up and running. He decided to match the PureAudio Reference monoblock amplifiers (65-70wpc, pure Class A) with the Trenner & Friedl Pharaoh loudspeakers, with Cardas Audio Clear cabling all around. Dan has many excellent speakers in his showroom, but he felt the amazing Pharaohs were the best overall match. Once I arrived in San Diego, I totally agreed.

Here's a close-up of our beautiful PureAudio References. All of PureAudio's current line of amplifiers are pure Class A with true dual-mono construction, non-magnetic and non-resonant chasses as well as a fascinating mix of simple circuits and sophisticated features. For instance, you might think that a pair of 70wpc Class A monoblock amplifiers might run very hot, but two large and completely silent fans just beneath the faceplate keeps these amplifiers relatively cool, with only those slanted heat sinks in front getting warm.

Along with the amps and speakers, Dan chose a system that included a Bel Canto CD transport and DAC, a Basis Signature turntable with matching tonearm and the new flagship cartridge from Transfiguration, the Proteus. We used a Basis/Transfiguration Proteus combo at Rocky Mountain last month, so I'm very familiar with this analog rig's high level of performance. On the right you can see the PureAudio Control preamplifier and Vinyl preamplifer.

The Control and the Vinyl also feature that mix of simplicity and sophistication. You'll notice that the Control has only one knob on the front--for volume. The four line level inputs are selected automatically according to the presence of a signal. If you have two sources running simultaneously, the Control prioritizes them according to number (input 1, input 2, etc.). I've spoken about the Vinyl a number of times, but one feature I love is the gain setting, or lack thereof. The Vinyl offers 62 dB of gain with plenty of headroom, so the amount of gain seems perfect for almost every cartridge. In fact, I've switched between a high-output moving magnet with an output of 3.5mV to a low-output moving coil with an output of 0.4mV and didn't have to change any of the settings, even the loading (both cartridges, amazing enough, loved to be run wide open at 47K ohms). There are plenty of loading options on the Vinyl, however--47 ohms to 47K.

One more feature is the series of 12V triggers that can be used between the Control and the Reference monoblocks. This allows for home theater bypass as well as a synch-ing up the three amps so that you can power everything on with one power button.

Here's a close-up of the Basis and the Transfiguration. The Vinyl is absolutely one of my favorite phono preamps of all time--that's why we decided to carry the PureAudio line. (I know, I've said that before, but I really believe in this gear!) The Basis/Configuration/PureAudio combo is an exquisite match. as I discovered last year when I put a Transfiguration Phoenix on my Unison Research Giro turntable back home.

The event wasn't just about PureAudio and me. Gavin Fish and Steve Holt of Light Harmonic brought their little Geek to the event. The Geek is an interface between your headphones and your laptop (they're also ready to introduce a larger desktop version of the Geek)--it's basically an amp and a DAC in a very small package. Here's Gavin demonstrating the Geek for Dave Clark of Positive Feedback Online.

Here's a photo to give you an idea of how small the Geek is. Listening through a pair of the Cardas Audio EM5813 ear speakers, I found that the Geek provided a huge, powerful sound with plenty of bass and an amazing level of clarity. I also listen to a pair of Ultrasone headphones and found the combination comfortable, relaxing and incredibly open.

Here's host Dan Muzquiz cueing up the Basis. He was incredibly pleased that we had a full house for most of the evening, but there was still plenty of room to sit, relax and listen to this outstanding hi-fi system. The food, by the way, was excellent.

The PureAudio products, with their distinct styling, beg to be touched and fondled. Here's San Diego audiophile Erik Tracy getting a closer look at the Reference monoblocks. I invited members of the Steve Hoffman Forum to stop by, and Erik was the only one who came up and introduced himself. I was far too busy to really spend time with Erik, but he seemed to enjoy the food, the music and the gear.

Finally, I was amazed at how many of my good friends in the industry showed up and supported our event. That's me seated, probably smoking one of the three cigars I had that evening, surrounded by audio reviewer Andre Marc, Dave Clark, cigar buddy/audiophile David Aitken, Audio Strata's David Neilson and audio reviewer Steve Lefkowicz. I look forward to doing many more dealer events in the coming year--they're easily the best part of my job!

The 2013 AXPONA Show Report

The reviews are in, and AXPONA 2013 was a hit. For months everyone in the industry had been talking about AXPONA--mostly because it was the first high-end audio trade show in Chicago since 1999. Chicago used to host the Summer CES back in the 20th century (that sounds so weird, doesn't it?), and the Windy City has always been a strong market for audiophiles. It seems strange that Chicago has been neglected for so long, and all of the AXPONA exhibitors were anticipating a very strong turnout despite the fact that the show was being held in early March, when Mother Nature likes to play cruel tricks on the entire Great Lakes region. It did snow for a couple of days before the show, but for the most part the weather wasn't too severe for Colleen and me. We were reminded once or twice from the folks back home that Texas was in the 60s and 70s while we were gone, however.

For CCI, the AXPONA show was full of blood, sweat and tears. Blood: the day before we left, I burnt the hell out of my right index finger while making breakfast for Colleen (yes, it was bacon). A couple of days later at the show, I sliced open my left right index finger while opening a recalcitrant wooden crate carrying the MAD Duke Royal Limited speaker. I had to work the show with just eight fingers.



Sweat: Colleen and I had to supervise two rooms instead of one, and there was a lot of gear this time. We had plenty of room partners helping out from Tweak Studio (our Chicago dealer), SOTA turntables (who graciously manned our second room) and Steve Holt from MIT Cables. But a funny thing happened to Steve on the way to the show--first he lost his phone on set-up day, and then he didn't show up for the first day of the show at all. We were worried and couldn't get a hold of him. Then we found out--on Facebook, of all places--that Steve was quite busy having his appendix removed. (For all of those customers who came into our first room to talk about MIT cables, Colleen and I are sorry for not being more prepared. But shit happens, especially in the world of high-end audio.)



Tears: This is the good part, because we managed to get great results in both rooms. In room one (Unison Research, Opera, MIT) we had attendee after attendee come in and ask, "Are these the Opera speakers I've been hearing about?" We decided to show the Quintas ($5495/pair) since we hadn't had a pair in our possession since we debuted it at the 2012 CES, and we even had to drive down to Indiana the day before the show to pick them up from a reviewer. With the exception of the Quintas, we used pretty much the same system we used at CES in January: Unison Research Simply Italy, Unison Research Unico Upower booster amp, Unison Research Unico CDE...with the MIT cables being the main difference. But there was something about those Quintas. They made love to that room, and people noticed. Arnold Martinez, owner of the Tweak Studio, came in to listen and tears starting coming to his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I get emotional when I hear something this beautiful!" Two reviewers came in and said this system was one of the best in the show (and this included Constantine Soo of Dagogo, who took the above photograph.)



The second room was a bit more ambitious. We featured the My Audio Design Duke Royal Limited loudspeakers ($48,000/pair), the US debut of the PureAudio Reference monoblock power amps ($15,500/pair) and Control preamplifier ($9500), the PureAudio Vinyl phono preamplifier ($4500), the SOTA Millenia turntable ($9500) with SME iV.Vi tonearm ($4000) and Soundsmith Hyperion cartridge ($7500), all tied together with the wonderful cables and power conditioning from WyWires. Scot Hull, the Part-Time Audiophile, covered our room for The Absolute Sound (that's his photo above) and said the Duke was "putting out some of the most elegant sound on display at AXPONA." Colleen and I were a little nervous about the room for several reasons: the PureAudio amps were brand-new and I hadn't spent much time with them in advance, and the price of the Dukes might seem prohibitive to Chicago audiophiles who might not want to pay that kind of money for the stunning Union Jacks on the sides of the cabinets that take almost a month to create. (The Dukes sell very well in places like Hong Kong and the UK, where they are considered true works of art.) I'm very glad Scot "got" the system--I was certainly thrilled with the end result.



Aside from Steve Holt's mad dash to the hospital, as well as an unexpected fire alarm at the Doubletree on the second day of the show (see pic above), AXPONA far exceeded our expectations. The show was such a success that Steve Davis, who heads AXPONA North America, has already announced that the 2014 AXPONA will take place in Chicago as well. The Doubletree was a great venue--good sounding rooms, an attentive staff and the legendary Gibson's Steak House on the ground floor (where I had one of the best slabs o' meat in my life)--and Colleen and I definitely have plans to return.