Stop #3: Edo M. This gentleman and his family knew we were coming but didn't have the time to welcome us in person. They left a key for Jonathan Halpern who had set up their system and invited us to crash their pad and play with their audio toys in absentia. Talk about trust and a spirit of sharing! Gracias to the owners whom we didn't get to meet but whose many photos of Swami Muktananda and his lady successor created an instant vibe of kinship with Ivette and I.
This system faced a huge open space and included the only pair of Shindo Latour field-coil speakers on American soil. Above is Jonathan Halpern smiling contentedly like the Cheshire cat after having swallowed a couple of birds in one fell swoop. That's because all of us present fell in instant love with the sound which was uncannily live-like especially way off in the far-field by effortlessly communicating across thirty feet.
The Shindo-fied Garrard 301 with Ken-San's own arm and cartridge was out of commission because the new arrival in the owner's family had just a day prior taken to scaling the table to sit on the platter rotating in a free merry go-round. Jonathan was heart-broken to find that one channel hadn't survived the toddler's Carneval but he needn't have worried - the Arcam/Reimyo transport/DAC digital front-end was more than up to delivering the goods.
The room pix are included to convey a notion of the sheer size of this cavernous space which the 15" woofers and compression tweeters had no issue filling effortlessly. My favorite listening position was at the end of the table far behind the couch! At less than a quarter the retail of the previous system, this one boogied and had the kind of drive everyone present seemed to take an instant shine to.
Although we didn't have overly long to stay here, this was clearly one of my two favorite systems of this tour. What was equally as impressive? No voodoo, no unobtainium cables, with components on the floor and a 'low-brow' DVD player for a transport. This was real people's FamilyFi which kicked royal butt. We had to barricade and child-proof the whole rig the way we found it upon leaving, with a custom-made elongated wooden crate covering the Shindo monoblocks and preamp and a bevy of chairs surrounding it like buffalo protecting a heifer. I'd never heard a commercial field-coil speaker before though John Stronczer's horn-loaded Japanese 2-way exhibited very similar qualities when I visited him in Minneapolis during a previous CEDIA show. While you might think 'polite' and 'subdued' when reflecting on esoteric Nipponese audio, this Shindo rig was very modern in its mien and anything but demure or wall-flowery. It was articulate, transparent, dynamic and, most importantly, emotionally convincing.
		A review of Shindo's Latour loudspeakers is clearly overdue in the US press and some lucky duck will eventually go to town by introducing them to audiences at large. It won't be me since my long-wall setup won't give this speaker enough breathing room. It won't be anytime soon either regardless of who performs the honors since Jonathan reinvests every sales profit made to get more Shindo gear into the country. This currently means amplifiers and preamps. Incidentally, our own Jeff Day has recently secured two Garrard 301s on eBay and is preparing an everyman's DIY article on how to -- in stages -- rejuvenate an antique classic to perhaps bring it all the way to the kind of Shindo status we encountered on display chez Edo's. Readers interested in Shindo gear should contact Jonathan Halpern at In Living Stereo where he works and where we'll stop over next.