Or new products of note according to my interests.
We’re looking at the new Chesky Audio LC2 Reference Monitor, a passive speaker small in stature but big and impressive in sound and scale that easily filled this small (purple-hued) room with big badass music powered by a stack of Schiit (Audio). Price as you can see in the above image is $1995/pair which in today’s audiophile market makes the LC2 a screaming bargain tipping the price/performance scale nearly off the charts. Bravo to Lucca Chesky, CEO & Founder, a young man on a mission.
From Chesky Audio on the LC2:
Specifications for the Modern Audiophile
- Solid 5/8” thick – aircraft grade aluminum baffles
- Totally inert monocoque double-walled composite-filled cabinet construction
- State-of-the-art technology and components
- Dual-chamber aperiodic low distortion tweeters
- High-definition cast-basket bass/midrange drivers
- Precision-engineered crossover
- High-end internal wiring
- Dual inertially-balanced passive sub-bass radiators
- Sensitivity – 86db at 2.83V/1m
- Frequency Range 40hz-20khz
- Nominal impedance: 4 ohms – Min Impedance 3.1 ohms @ 412hz
- Balls-to-the-wall bass
- Weight: 30 lbs
- Measurements: 13″ x 8.5″ width x 12.5″ height (inches)
- Built by hand in the USA to exacting standards
- Warranty: 1-year coverage on all parts
Harrisburg, PA dealer Now Listen Here was showing the Imersiv D-1 DAC ($12,000), the first consumer product over 10 years in the making from this previously Pro only company. I’ll let them explain what’s so new about the D-1 DAC:
Multi-path HDR-A (High Dynamic Range) offers two major advantages over traditional single-path methods. First, it significantly reduces noise and distortion (THD+N). The imersiv D-1 achieves a remarkable 40 nanovolts of broadband noise, which is around 40 dB lower — 100 times quieter — than today’s best DAC designs. In fact, the D-1’s self-noise is 25dB below the measurement capability of today’s leading test equipment, such as the APx555B (see FAQ).
The second advantage is untethered headroom. HDR-A technology allows us to boost high-path headroom to any level without affecting our quiescent self-noise. The D-1 provides +22dBu (10 volts) of ISO-free* headroom while maintaining its profoundly low 40nV self-noise floor. This results in a true broadband, unweighted linearity and dynamic range of 28 bits or 168dB. (*inter-sample overs or inter-sample peak.
The Imersiv D-1 sat in a lovely sounding system that played, at my request, S.G. Goodman and Bonnie “Prince” Billy singing apart and together on “Nature’s Child”, a beauty of a song if ever there was one. I’ll also note that I owned, and loved, the Ayre AX-5 Twenty integrated amp back in my AudioStream days where it was selected as one my Products of the Year for 2015.
The system:
Vandersteen Quatro CT Evo speakers: $23,900
Ayre Acoustics AX-5 Twenty integrated amp: $18,000
Pure Fidelity Harmony turntable: $9,395 (as shown with upgraded tonearm & finish $12,045)
Ayre Acoustics PX-8 MM/MC phono preamp: $6,500 (with DS Audio optical input $9,000)
DS Audio 003 cartridge: $2,750
Innuos STREAM3: $8,000
AudioQuest Niagara 5000: $6,900
AudioQuest cables
Brave Heart speaker cables (8’): $4,990
Pegasus XLR (1m): $2,295
Diamond USB (0.75m): $899
Diamond Ethernet (0.75m): $1,895
Tornado Constant Current power (1m): $1,245
Tornado High Current power (1m): $1,595
We just zoomed way in on the upcoming Audio Note DAC5 IZVOR Special resistor ladder DAC. One tricky bit about building a true resistor ladder DAC is getting all those resistors to perform to the same specs. Seeing as Audio Note grows their own resistors in house, they can ensure super tight tolerance.
An LP was spinning when I first arrived after which Audio Note’s Adrian Ford-Crush switched over to digital and not only was there zero let down that can happen when swiching from analog to 1s and 0s, all I heard was more of the same sweet fluid sound sounding analogous to real life. Nice.
The System
TT Three Reference turntable: $63,000
AN-1S Sogon tonearm: $16,730
IO I moving coil cartridge: $5586
AN-S8 step-up transformer: $18,130
CDT Four CD transport: $23,100
Audio Note DAC5 IZVOR Special resistor ladder DAC: ($TBD)
Meishu Phono 300B Konzertmeister Integrated Amplifier ($65,100 see my review)
AN-E / Sogon Ltd Signature Field Coil Loudspeakers (I’m double checking the price)
Audio Note speaker cables & interconnects
The original Border Patrol DAC SE caused quite the stir with its ability to avoid digital nasties, a presentation which some people felt needed to sound more digital. I reviewed the DAC SE way back in 2020 for AudioStream and enjoyed it’s oh-so-smooth riches.
We’re looking at the brand new Border Patrol ZOLA DAC that follows a similar non-oversampling, chip-based R-2R topology. While the DAC SE relied on a Phillips TDA1543 chip, the ZOLA uses the Analog Devices AD1865 R-2R along with a host of upgrades and improvements (and tubes!).
From Border Patrol:
The Zola DAC features the Analog Devices AD1865 R-2R chip (often called the analogue chip) in non-oversampling, no digital filtering (NOS) mode.
The DAC features a tube output stage that uses a 5687 double triode. Tube types E182CC/7044/7119 can also be used, as can a 12BH7 with an adapter.
The DAC has fully independent power supplies to the digital and analogue sections. Both supplies feature tube rectification. The high voltage tube supply uses choke input filtering.
The casework, other than the aluminum faceplate, is made from copper.
It has inputs for USB, COAX S/PDIF and TOSLINK. A BNC S/PDIF input is also provided.
The DAC will replay files up to 32/384kHz via USB, 24/192kHz via COAX SPDIF/BNC and 24/96 via TOSLINK
Look familiar? I reviewed the Living Voice R80 OB-X speakers last October as well as the BorderPatrol S20EXD Amplifier in September of 2024 so I’m familiar with this system’s sound in Barn, albeit minus the very intriguing ZOLA DAC. I plan to remedy that soon as this system was long on smooth and easy with no shortage of refined resolution.
The system:
Living Voice R80 OB-X L0udspeakers: $65,000/pair w/outboard crossovers
BorderPatrol S20EXD Parallel Single-Ended Amplifier: starts at $22,500
Border Patrol ZOLA DAC: starts at $3950
Innuos PhoenixUSB Reclocker: $4800
Innuos ZENith Mk3 Music Server (discontinued)
Cables from Triode Wire Labs
The Thales Elegance turntable and tonearm were on display in a large room from dealer Alma Music & Audio. I first ran into one of Micha Huber’s Thales tangential pivoted tonearms at CES in 2008 (!) so I was more than thrilled to get a glimpse of and some listening time with his latest minimal (looking) beauty. Thales is based in Switzerland and the line is imported into the US by MoFi Distribution so the ever generous and knowledgeable Lenny Mayuex from MoFi gave me a run through of the Elegance which I’ll sum up by saying this is one very seriously engineered turntable, built to exacting standards in true watch-maker style. The fact that it looks like they’re important parts missing is, to my way of seeing, kinda lovely.
Here’s a bit on the Elegance from Thales:
While playing a record on a turntable, the platter and drive are affected by dynamic impact of the tracking process. The Thales Elegant is equipped with two unique solutions to minimise such negative influence. First, an eddy current brake applies a relatively high, speed-dependent braking torque directly to the platter. This enables precise control of the drive motor by means of a simple current limiter and a minimum of corrective actions. Second, the axis of the electric motor is arranged horizontally so that vibrations occurring in the direction of rotation around the platter axis have no negative influence on the drive unit.
The Thales strutted its perfectly stable and smooth-sounding refined stuff in a system anchored by the equally lovely Brama electronics from Vinnie Rossi.
The system:
Von Schweikert VR.thirty Spakers: $59,900/pair
Vinnie Rossi Brama Gen 2 Monoblock Amplifiers: $59,950/pair
Vinnie Rossi Brama Gen 2 Preamplifier: $38,995
MSB Cascade DAC: $95,000
XACT Audio S1 EVO Music Server: $18,600
Thales Elegance Turntable & Tonearm: $28,800
FM Acoustics 123 Phono Stage: not available
Box Furniture Co. Rack and Amp Stands
Cables from Kubala-Sosna
NEMESIS Acoustic Panels: $799/each 2×4′ panel
Gigawatt PC-4 EVO+ Power Conditioner: $14,500
Linear Tube Audio had their new Century Monoblock Power Amplifiers on display in two rooms paired with speakers from Sound Lab but this one, presented by Blue Ridge Mountain-based dealer Afton Mountain Audio, had a very nice intimate feel in part thanks to these kinda mini-for-a-Soundlab G5-4C electrostats.
You can read more about the Century Monoblocks in the press release but they “rely on David Berning’s ZOTL (Zero-Hysteresis Output Transformerless) architecture and a screen-driven output stage within the ZOTL topology. EL84 pentodes steer the screen grids of NOS 6JN6 beam power tubes, enabling efficient pentode operation while maintaining the linearity and fluidity associated with triodes. The LTA Century Monoblocks deliver 110W into 8 Ω / 144W into 4 Ω (stable below 2 Ω) of output power.”
I’d like to give a shout out to my phono preamp (second row left), the overachieving Aurorasound VIDA MK.II which was in play during my stay as well as this lovely turntable from Pure Fidelity.
The sound of this system was big, rich, and delicate with almost no sense of the source of all that musical goodness.
The system:
Sound Lab G5-4C Electrostatic Speakers: $29,500/pair
LTA MicroZOTL Preamplifier: from $5950
LTA Century Monoblock Amplifiers: $28,000/pair
LTA Aero DAC: from $3950
Innuos Stream1 Music Streamer and Server: starts at $3100
Pure Fidelity Harmony MK2 Turntable: from $8995
Audio Origami PU-8 Tonearm: $6675
EBI Audio Khumar MC Cartridge: $2599
Aurorasound VIDA MK.II Phono Preamp: $5290
Audience aR6-T4 Power Conditioner: $6900
WyWires Platinum Series cables
Fern & Roby Equipment Rack