6moons.com: Industry Features

	For previous articles in this series of industry features, please refer to the archives.

	Coming in February 2010: La Grande Castine. "My name is Jean-Michel Maumont, financial partner of Marc Henry and Hugues Borsarello in Audiosophie sarl. Marc and Hugues are the creators of the fully horn-loaded 3-way Grande Castine speakers you announced in the news section of 6moons last Friday on the recommendation of our friend Franck Tchang. We fully agree with Franck that France will be a small market for this kind of speaker and that we must rely basically on export and get the word out to an international audience. We would like to invite you to visit us in Paris and hear our speaker."...
	February 2010 - What's up, doc? I recently had a Kiwi visitor with a buncha cables in his backpack. He is an audio importer/distributor from New Zealand who amongst many other products handles the Acoustic System Int. LiveLine cables. He duly stripped them off their Teflon dielectric to pronounce them mo betta, then set out to design his own 'inspired by' variants. Because he's a regular reader who has converted many of our reviews into lines he carries; and because he had business in Vienna; he asked whether he could hear his new cables in my setup. I agreed...
	January 2010 - *ADN* - While in the pages of the hifi press the 'Battle of the Aluminators' wages fiercely between Magico and YG Acoustics, a new player from Barcelona hasn't gotten the attention they deserve in this war on vibration. Enter ADN and their break-up matrix of integral scattering surfaces inside their enclosures. Unlike Eventus from Italy who accomplishes something very similar in MDF, ADN has gone solid aluminum...
	January 2010 - *Silverstone* - It's no secret that I admire the work of Alvin Lloyd at Grand Prix Audio. I owned two of his Monaco Modular stands and only passed them on when my new room in Switzerland enforced a layout that would not accommodate the considerable depth of the Monacos on the sidewall where the hifi equipment had to go. Perusing various CES 2010 show reports, I came across an on-line video on the Wilson Audio site which showed what clearly was a new GPA stand. Named after the famous English race track which hosts the British Grand Prix, it showed a quite different and far more versatile stand system than the one I was familiar with....
	December 2009 - *Different* - In this hobby's consumer rather than DIY division, most put all their eggs in one basket. In each component category, they buy the very best they can; often in stages due to the required investments. Their not unreasonable hope behind it all is that just as with any other appliances, they'll be properly set. Until things begin to break down that is and require more repairs than they're worth. But unlike with cars, refrigerators and washing machines (CD players and cartridges certainly excepted), hifi machines generally don't break for many a decade. When they do eventually, it usually happens a lot later than most original owners hold on to their gear. That should be excellent news. Why then can't we leave good enough alone?
	December 2009 - *RoadTour Brascchaat* - During the MEOW 2 opening of the cat sleeves exhibition in Belgium’s Antwerp, we ran into several interesting people. Besides music lovers, musicians and artists, we also met Koen Vaessen. Many interested in audio might recognize the name Vaessen Audiodesign as a loudspeaker brand. Next to smaller box-shaped models, Koen also produces this unique large egg-shaped 3-way system. Not knowing better, we figured Koen made a full or at least part-time living from producing loudspeakers but...
	December 2009: Saadhana 2 - "On the loudspeaker front I believe you already have heard that we've made some big changes thanks in large measure to you. After your last review of the Saadhana came out, I had to put on my thinking cap again and went to work on the Saadhana's bass module. 6 prototypes and 3 months later, I succeeded when I finally went to a unique 3-driver isobaric system. We then worked on the Maarga's bass module as well, which now has a 2-driver isobaric system that does a lot better than the older single-driver quasi transmission line design. We also upgraded both the amplifiers to deliver a lot more power as well. Bass performance is substantially different as a result...
	December 2009: *Commission amps. The story continues with circuit changes and first images of the prototype. Click here** for page 3 if you've already read the first two.*
	December 2009: RoadTour Antwerp 2009 - Throughout history, Antwerp has been a fascinating city. From its earliest 250 AD description by the Romans to today, the city on the banks of the Scheldt river has always been in the news because something special occurred there. And we’re not talking politics. Belgian politics are so complicated and fragile that it's is hard to fathom there are any. Need an example? How about a country of 10.5 million who talk in three official languages and are governed by six governments consisting of 49 ministers and 10 secretaries to keep things running. No, the really interesting things happen on a different platform altogether - that of the cultural arts...
	December 2009: Guangzhou AV Fair - "It was the first time we attended and it was certainly a positive surprise for me and a bit of an eye opener. The most noticeable things were the number of rooms that made a presentation and the sheer volume of attendees." Those had been my exact sentiments a year ago. Because few Westerners have the opportunity to see for themselves, I decided to...
	December 2009: RoadTour Soulution. A visit with Cyrill Hammer of Spemot AG who produces the Soulution Audio brand shed interesting light on this company.
	December 2009: Algahorn. The emailer was Victor from Aural Design, a Singapore importer/retailer with whom I occasionally share notes."After two years of R&D and numerous prototype cabinets, my customer and friend has 'perfected' a back-loaded horn for what is known as the most exotic single driver manufacturer known today, Feastrex from Japan. The horn enclosure is handcrafted from a mixture of HDF and Ply and optimized for Feastrex's 5-inch driver range which includes the NF5 Naturflux, the NF5 Monster Alnico and the field coil versions...
	November 2009: RoadTour Nagra. A visit with Matthieu Latour and the Nagra Audio facilities seven short kilometers north of Lausanne on Lake Geneve was long overdue seeing our Editor's residence in Chardonne is just a few exits east on the motorway. Just as many people recognize the name 'Rolex' without necessarily knowing much about the company, so Nagra is a mythical name associated with highly regarded products. But how many have seen what goes into their products? Over 10 pages and well more than 100 photos, find out about the forthcoming new Nagra 300B integrated amplifier, the just-completed MSA Mosfet Stereo Amp now shipping, scale of operations, engineering resources and much more...
	November 2009: *A visit to Renaissance Audio*. Based on an invitation by Roald Mikkelsen of Renaissance Audio AS and Mutjaba Hussain, the Norwegian Trafomatic Audio importer, we traveled to Bergen on the West coast of Norway to report on the official unveiling of the relaunched Trafomatic range and a surprise product announcement in another category...
	November 2009: Ballerina Sweetspot. The world's first purpose-designed listening chair? From Sweden of course...
	November 2009: ISSA 2009. Terence Wong covered the event on site in Singapore.
	November 2009: Athens Hifi Show. Running from October 30 - November 1, we have nine pages of impressions of this event.
	November 2009: RoadTour ModWright. A combination of professional photography by Marco Prozzo with commentary by Dan Wright about his new facility and showroom.
	October 2009: HighEnd Swiss. Held from October 24 - 26 in the Mövenpick Hotel Zürich-Regensdorf, here's our 6-page report.
	October 2009: The perfect digital source? If someone well heeled were to ask you for the 'perfect digital source' component, what would you recommend? I haven't heard Ayon Audio's latest CD-5 yet but the specs look intriguing. First off, it's a one-box player. Separating the power supply into a second box often nets dividends and Ayon did just that with their former CD-3 range topper. But...
	October 2009: 32Ohm Audio. *Street jive:* To foreigners, American slang is most peculiar and slippery to fathom. Hot shit. Cool as shit. Which is it? Things used to be all manner of things. Hip. Far out. Radical or rad for short. Awesome. Righteous. Foxy. Bitching. Bodacious. Bad. Bonza. Boss. Cah (cool as hell). Tight. Sick. Slick. So active. Amped. Banging. In-between the same things rocked, later they went phat. But unless you or your kids partake in current street culture, who the heck knows what they're now? Whatever. I haven't, in a long long time, come across anything as grooviliciously kewl a hifi concept and much-needed life jacket as Ken Ball's brand-new...
	October 2009: Viet Nam 2009. Tiet Tuan Luong reports from the Viet Nam 2009 HighEnd Show.
	October 2009: RoadTour Octave. This big-city ignoramus had no idea about an airport close to Baden-Baden. And why would he? Too young to retire, with the first €1,000,000 in the bank still far off, he has a casino just a few bus stops away from his Berlin residence on the Potsdamer Platz. But the destination of this trip wouldn’t be the famous spa resort. It would be Karlsbad, home to Octave Audio whose boss Andreas Hoffmann had invited us a while back – since last year in fact when he’d visited us to assure himself perhaps that his V80 valve integrated was properly served by our fairaudio audition room...
	October 2009: Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. Steve Marsh picks out his most interesting discoveries.
	October 2009: Helsinki HighEnd Show. Kari Nevalainen shares his highlights of the event for the third year in a row...
	October 2009: Hi-Files Show Serbia. The Hi-Files Show in Belgrade, Serbia took place for the third time over two weekends, September 26/27 and October 3/4 in the conference rooms of the Holiday Inn hotel. Hi-Files editor in chief Ljubiša Miodragović approached us with a request for syndicating his own show report to help popularize this event beyond the borders of his country. As he writes, "... the first weekend featured high-end systems of Dynaudio Sapphire with VTL amplification but also Opera Tebaldi with Unison Research Pre+DM amplification and CDE as source. The third system had the Monitor Audio Platinum PL300 speakers with NAD Masters series electronics but we also have to mention the very attractive performance of Shanling and Usher...
	October 2009: New manufacturer Eon Art. Joël Chevassus travels to Avignon to report on a novel marriage between class D and tubes and a fetching motto of an ancient code of arms...
	September 2009: Top Audio Show Milan 2009 A-Z. I wasn't planning to attend. A rare chance to see friends in Milan at the same time spontaneously changed that. For one brief 'hifi business' day, I found myself roaming the hallways of the Quark Hotel. Quite unlike last year's report which, as my first of this event, was deliberately comprehensive, this one isn't. Rather, it strategically overlooks most rooms I covered last year to primarily focus on new companies. Well, at least new to me. I also spotted certain new products by familiar companies I found promising. Those are included too...
	September 2009: Advertorial. Synchronicity works at all times. No sooner had my Living Voice Vox Olympian industry feature published than a reader advised me about a poster on the UK Hifi Wigwam forum. Murray Johnson had authoritatively identified the piece as an advertorial paid for by Lynn & Kevin Scott. Since he clearly knew something about this I did not, I inquired as to what amount had been paid and what account it had been wired into. I had some bills to pay. That's when he apologized...
	September 2009: Living Voice Vox Olympian/Elysian: I recently had opportunity to chat with the affable Kevin and Lynn Scott of Living Voice and Definitive Audio UK. They were in Switzerland on business and graciously took time out for an informal meet on Lac Leman. On my upfront agenda was learning more about their ambitious new Vox Olympian flagship speaker. As it turns out, the Olympians' appearance in the fall of 2009 was preceded by endless prototypes over 6 years—20 prototypes alone for the trumpet—two former commercial hornspeaker models called Air Partner and Air Scout and a very hi-tech component rack named G8...
	August 2009: Metaphorically speaking... - When audiophiles describe sonic differences between different CD players, amplifiers, speakers or sonic properties of a single machine, they make extensive use of metaphors such as "bright", "warm", "deep", "airy" and "soft". They have good reason to do so. Apart from certain onomatopoetic terms, ordinary languages such as English, Finnish or Swedish contain very few literal expressions that would be suitable for describing sounds. However, a skeptic can seriously doubt whether the chosen metaphoric expressions are informative at all. After all, a sound cannot have a property of being literally warm or soft. A sauna can be warm, a pillow can be soft.
	August 2009: Hong Hong Audio Visual Show 2009 - It was Christine Han of April Music. She apologized for being late getting back. I'd had some tech questions for engineering about an upcoming review of their new 500 Series CD player and integrated. Had 6moons covered the just concluded hifi show in Hong Kong? We had not. In fact, our man Linnman stationed there had to resign. A new baby boy keeps him too busy to spend time writing about hifi. Christine however had just returned from the show. For entertainment, she e-mailed me a few of her photos. They were taken on the quick. Her job as marketing manager of April Music had her very busy in their exhibit...
	July 2009: Reverse RoadTour - Jean Hiraga in Chardonne. A legendary audio reviewer brought his Altec 604-based loudspeaker to Chardonne for an informal 5-hour getting-to-know-them session.
	July 2009: RoadTour Quest for Sound. About a half hour north of Philadelphia airport, one man never rests. Steve Monte of NAT distribution and QFS should not be a new name for most our readers as in the past he's brought to the US brands like Consonance/Opera and more recently Raysonic, JAS and Mark & Daniel, all recognized broadly for performance and value alike. Quest for Sound in Bensalem, Pennsylvania is about an hour's and a half drive from where I live but I like to take the trip once or twice a year just to get a chance of chatting with Steve. I rarely come back empty handed when it comes to news or review ideas. What I like about Quest for Sound even beyond the gear is that each time I go, I step back in time by 20 years and rejuvenate. ...
	July 2009: Roadtour Geithain. Geithain. You don't know this tiny town of about 6,000 souls south-east of Leipzig? Their webpage calls its 800-year existence a "secret tip for culture/history buffs". Though not likely in the context of swank city walks, certain hifi fans will have heard of Geithain when discussing pro-audio speakers. In broadcast plants and recording studios, Musikelectronic Geithain GmBH or ME Geithain for short is a domestically quite dominant A-list player. Geithain chief Joachim Kiesler punned that the ARD is by now 80% fitted with his speakers. Perhaps we should pay a visit and start counting?...
	July 2009: Roadtour Marten Design. Mike Valentino travels to Sweden for a look-see at this speaker design house...
	July 2009: Swansong for an ugly duckling. The e-mail was from papa. Well, not really. But that's how his many DIY fans refer to Nelson Pass on the DIYAudio forum. The thread on how to build a FirstWatt F5 from scratch has developed into 174 colossal pages by now. Which segues smoothly into today's note. In his typically terse e-mail, the man had indicated that the last of the F5s were trundling out of his kitchen workshop and that a new product was nearing completion...
	July 2009: Seven Years and still Here. The verflixte 7th year. The human body is said to renew its cells in 7-year intervals. The esoteric traditions talk of seven chakras or energy vortexes which connect the human body to different vibratory dimensions. In relationships, the number seven is believed to signify the arising of unresolved issues while astrology looks at one's 49th year (7x7) as a time of enforced emotional and issue-based house cleaning when stuff one hasn't handled or procrastinated on catches up to present itself unavoidably. 6moons launched in June 2002 out of a very small...
	June 2009: Snarky. I have an admirer in Rome. But this time, Michele Surdi's e-mail began ominously enough. Was I in need of a major Zappa-esque attitude adjustment for the busy executive? "I see you're getting a bit snarky and censorious in your latest reviews..." I knew what censorious meant. I had in fact been so accused recently by Simon Yorke, for not attending the offboarders' event that ran parallel to the Munich 2009 HighEnd show in the out-of-the-way Fleming hotel. I'd had a perfectly rational explanation for my choice of focusing on the main event. I thus questioned Yorke's attitude. Did his censorship accusation include those magazines which hadn't sent even a single reporter to Munich, period? Snarky however wasn't...
	June 2009: My dream component. The phone rang. It was an audio manufacturer checking in. After two hours of shooting the breeze -- about the usual, the need for high-end audio to become relevant to a larger audience -- I had proposed a dream component that could accomplish just that. Before I tell you what it is, two disclaimers. One, having an idea is like sex. It's easy, quick and takes no commitment. Turning any idea into reality is more like pregnancy and giving birth. It involves time, effort, risks, complications, pain and definitely commitment. Two, having a component that's relevant to the masses doesn't mean you're positioned to reach and sell them. Talk is cheap...
	June 2009: Audio Art Café. It's been a while since I last made contact but we are now happily installed in our Audio Art Café and enjoying the fruits of all the hard work that went into creating such a new concept. We have been open for about 10 weeks or so now, we had our official opening a few weeks ago with over 200 attending, it was a great night. The response to the concept has been wonderful and its certainly nice to see women enjoying the place including the Hi-Fi side too, for the audio industry to survive we need them to feel comfortable and included in the process....
	June 2009: How easy it is to be a reviewer. Money. Fame. Perks. Vacations. The secret costs of "doing it"...
	May 2009: HighEnd 2009 Show Coverage Page 2. The "European CES" is the biggest and most important audio event in the Old World and Dutchies Marja & Henk were there again as last year to report on what captured their cameras and fancies. Part 2 with 5 pages.
	May 2009: HighEnd 2009 Show Coverage Part 1. The "European CES" is the biggest and most important audio event in the Old World and our editor was there again as last year to report on what captured his camera and fancy. Part 1 with 25 pages.
	May 2009: Emillé Labs product announcements.
	April 2009: Custom amp from Serbia - "Business is terrible. The phones stopped ringing..." but not in Serbia it seems where Trafomatic Audio responds to custom commissions to make happy clients which competitors would never hear from. Going the extra mile works as well in today's climate as it ever has to get and stay ahead. Even if 'ahead' just means to pay the bills and continue doing what you love doing...
	April 2009: A Visit To Audio Consulting - It's been going on ever since men first began sponsoring the oldest profession in the world. And even spiritual seekers partake. "My master is so patient, he corals a wild yak, feeds it just one grain of sugar, then combs its tail until it gets sweet and completely tame." "That's nothing, man. My master is so strong, he takes your hairy wild beast and blows into its nostrils until the horns uncurl and go straight as arrows."...
	April 2009: Now that our local second hand vinyl shop in Rotterdam has closed its doors, we had to start shopping elsewhere for pristine and affordable vinyl. But where? We discovered a shop a good hour's drive away in Antwerp of Belgium. For us Antwerp is not just another city, it's really abroad. Although Dutch, the Flemish dialect there adds something very attractive and musical to our ears. Our Dutch Dutch is harsher. It is laden with guttural G-sounds whereas the Flemish variant is softer, with a much more pleasing G coming from the mouth rather than throat. Grrr. Anyway...
	April 2009: After a 4-year lapse, the Doelen Spring Hifi Show in Rotterdam has been restored to it unique former glory. Previous incarnations ran parallel to a music student contest between various conservatoriums of our country. Winners of these competitions often grew to become established artists who were and are regularly seen and heard in Dutch and foreign venues. Besides these competitive performances, our spring show always also issued a special event CD whose program the recording artists then perform live. This made for great live/canned comparisons for those so inclined...
	April 2009: Held in the lake side castle of Greifensee just outside Zürich, April 4 and 5 2009 saw the fourth installment of the Klangschloss event which translates simply as Castle of Sound. Organized by Markus Thomann, the proprietor of Swiss loudspeaker house Klangwerk of Biel, it's an opportunity for Swiss audio makers and importers to show off their wares in a public forum that's not a store front or the very expensive HighEnd Munich show. With per-day room fees from CHF 140 to 650 -- as a Stiftung or foundation, the castle routinely rents its rooms for public functions -- participation is cost-effective and the location by the lake a valid ruse to attract couples in search of some weekend fun, not just hard-boiled audiophiles...
	March 2009: Stockholm Hifi Show 2009: 14-15 February, Sheraton Hotel - It may not be the most significant international hifi show there is but, it is a pleasurably compact event with loads of positive vibes. Whether those good vibes are due to some objective show ingredient or the simple fact that the show is on Swedish soil I don't know. And I don't care as long as an outsider like me senses a promising and curious attitude among the audience. Which is less obvious at our Helsinki show in Finland for example. Visitors, approximately 2000 over two days, seemed knowledgeable and civilized, critical but not cynical. I like that...
	March 2009: WLM Acoustics Ascendent: February 29, Hannes Frick of WLM announced himself for a half-day social call to pick up his La Scala and Sonata review loaners and get Sasa and Misha of Trafomatic Audio a well-deserved break from a 3-day intensive in Sülz/Austria where their team had cracked the whip on new models for HighEnd 2009 in Munich...
	March 2009: New Music Review pages: The king is dead. The king is dead. Long live the new king. Nothing this drastic has occurred here on the moons, not to worry. But one moon has vanished and a new one risen in its stead. World Music became Music Reviews and the relaunched page is now shepherded by the trusted team of David Kan, Frederic Beudot, Ken Micallef and Paul Candy, with yours truly playing only a minor supporting role...
	February 2009: Cancellation! Shit happens. Mentioning it can mean wallowing, dishing or complaining. In this case, it's meant to avoid reruns. What happened is that...