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The Cutting Edge with the N o. 326S and N o. 432—of the system conveying the musical values on the recording. Bass extension, definition, and dynamics were another of the N o. 326S’s great strengths. Whether it was an orchestra’s double-bass section or an electric bass and kick drum working together, the bottom end had a solidity and power that anchored the music. The N o. 326S had a very clean, precise sound, presenting the music against an utterly silent and velvet-black backdrop. Musical dynamics seemed to emerge suddenly from this inky blackness, with deep silences between notes. There was a distinctive lack of haze, both in the background and overlaying musical textures. This quality, combined with the dimensionality described earlier, fostered a deep feeling of engagement and involvement with the music. CONCLUSION The Mark Levinson N o. 432 power amplifier is a worthy successor to the company’s previous efforts in power-amplifier design. It combines brute-force output power with remarkable delicacy and resolution, and embodies the company’s aesthetic of subtlety in presentation. If you know and like the classic Mark Levinson sound, the N o. 432 won’t disappoint. The N o. 326S preamp is a huge step forward for Mark Levinson preamplifiers in resolution, transparency, and dimensionality. With less of an identifiable sonic signature, the N o. 326S is truer to the source, musically and sonically, than any previous ML preamp. There’s much to like about the N o. 326S, including its jet-black background, unconstricted dynamic expression, bottom-end punch and extension, and clean, grain-free rendering of timbres. It’s also beautifully built and a joy to use. But what really makes the N o. 326S special is its remarkable dimensionality. This preamp goes beyond conventional soundstaging to throw a convincing illusion of threedimensional instruments in a three-dimensional space. Based on my experience with the N o. 326S and N o. 432, the Mark Levinson brand under Harman International not only upholds the sterling tradition it spent 35 years developing, it has, in my view, actually expanded the reputation of one of the great marques of high-end audio. & MANUFACTURER INFORMATION MARK LEVINSON 3 Oak Park Drive Bedford, Massachusetts 01730 (781) 280-0300 marklevinson.com Prices: $10,000 (No.326S), $8000 (No.432) WWW.THEABSOLUTESOUND.COM 129
HP’S WORKSHOP Memoirs of CES: What Happened in Las Vegas Doesn’t Stay in Las Vegas—This Time Around Harry Pearson There are so many things about the Consumer Electronics Show and Las Vegas that they don’t tell you in the usual show report, which this one isn’t going to be. They don’t tell you about the dry heat, and how it dehydrates you—to the point you’ll get new meaning out of the phrase brick, uh, outhouse. So you’ll see most everyone lugging bottled water around, and tubes of what we now call lip “balm.” Oddly enough, with all the swimming pools and incessant waterings of the endless golf courses here in the desert, the air manages to be both dry and sweat-sticky at the same time. They probably don’t have to tell you that the area itself is the fastest growing in the United States. And that this has brought with it, mushroom-like fields of box housing and thickening traffic where lickety-split is the driving speed at any hour. Its hooker population now exceeds the taxi fleets in number—and there even appeared to be members of its “sisterhood” hired to entice the innocent into sparsely attended exhibits at the Alexis Park, the main high-end audio venue. They probably don’t tell you that taxis are at premium during “rush” hours (the hookers, of course, at any time) and that you may have to wait in line a half-hour to go where you could walk in the same or less time. Or that, if you want to see more than just the esoterica of audio—say the more grandiloquent audio manufacturers and the big-time video guys—you’d have to tote yourself all over town; that’s how spread out the show is, how, really, impossible it is to get more than a taster’s sampling. It isn’t even possible in the four full days of demos to see/hear all that the high-end establishment has to show (off), for even the most indefatigable. The Alexis Park is packed with exhibitors and next door, in a rat’s maze known as the St. (Saint? Really?) Tropez, there is something called T.H.E. show, the T.H.E. standing for, not “the high end,” but rather “the home entertainment” experience, where the even more esoteric tended to congregate. In all, between the two hotels, there were in excess of 450 high-end audio companies exhibiting. As for me, I hadn’t darkened the show’s doors in seven years and so, like Maine taffy (as opposed to Coons) I got yanked in all kinds of directions by all sorts of people and wound up feeling as if I had hardly skimmed the surface. But, what I did get was, I think, choice. Another thing you probably could surmise, but that almost no one writes about, is the social aspect of the show, at least in high-end-audio terms. This is a small industry, albeit with an increasingly international flavoring, in which almost everybody either knows or is acquainted with everybody else, and this works in sometimes unexpected ways. And, oh, what a talkathon it can be, with more than a bit of nasty backbiting, especially when “sacred cows” are the topic. They talk over breakfast convocations, where the search is always on for the best (preferably, and often in this town, free) buffet. (The one at Steve Wynn’s new pleasure dome got the highest ratings.) Keep in mind that audiophiles tend to the sensory pleasures, so the serious fooding, partying, and drinking is done evenings, especially now that most of America’s most famous chefs have set up shop in Lost Wages. Now let it be said that these self-same stars are virtually never personally in attendance, so there is a pig-in-the-poke kind of gamble involved in striving for a reservation in a “name” place. In certain circles, there’s a hot competition to see who can go to and rave, bitch, or moan about these starless (nighttime) establishments. And it would be for naught if there weren’t a largerthan-life aspect to all this, so typical of Vegasanary inflations. For example, Picasso, in the Bellagio, has nothing but original Pablo Picassos lining its walls, making for what just maybe the world’s most expensive wallpaper. And in some places, the old LV hustle yet abounds. At a “deluxe” sushi joint, Shibuya in the MGM Grand, where my birthday was celebrated, the quality of the fish, which started out a breathtaking level (along to be sure with the prices), descended as our consumption of sake ascended until the last course one my pussies would have given an “F” rating—a true demonstration of the PPDD, the Pearson Principle of Descending Discrimination, in this case the theory here was that one’s discrimination descended as one’s sake intake ascended, an inverse proportion rule that definitely does not apply to this writer. One can only wonder at what this fiesta of sound must cost the small companies who have to pay for it all—the hotel rooms (never acoustically heavenly), the cost of shipping the gear back and forth to Nevada, and the man-hours spent in the process, not to mention the not-inconsiderable “extras,” like food, transportation—well, you get the picture. And we haven’t even begun to wonder at the totals the foreign manufacturers must run up. And I have no way to estimating what might be lost at the gaming tables, which are ubiquitous, but, perhaps happily, not at the two high-end show sites. 130 THE ABSOLUTE SOUND ■ APRIL/MAY 2006
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IN THIS ISSUE ISSUE 161 ■ APRIL/M
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L E T T E R S Best Article Ever As
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L E T T E R S mend enough the posit
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L E T T E R S the initial imprint o
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a b s o l u t e a n a l o g Lamm In
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ut the resolution, tone color, tran
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a bit, but it doesn’t. Indeed, yo
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A HIGHER HIGH END 2006 CONSUMER ELE
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CES2006 REPORT LOUDSPEAKERS $4000-$
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CES2006 REPORT the current 988 and
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CES2006 REPORT Final Sound’s Virt
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CES2006 REPORT dimensionality, grea
Page 26 and 27: CES2006 REPORT expensive SG2 (about
Page 28 and 29: CES2006 REPORT Bardone’s Music Se
Page 30 and 31: CES2006 REPORT Still, a novice visi
Page 32 and 33: CES2006 REPORT user not only to do
Page 34 and 35: CES2006 REPORT phono preamp ($7300)
Page 36 and 37: CES2006 REPORT Time to get off the
Page 38 and 39: CES2006 REPORT trol, and coherence
Page 40 and 41: CES2006 REPORT E.A.R. Martin Miles
Page 42 and 43: CES2006 REPORT Sound Lab Sound Lab
Page 44 and 45: CES2006 REPORT Avantgarde Acoustic
Page 46 and 47: CES2006 REPORT MBL’s 116 Elegance
Page 48 and 49: T A S J O U R N A L Basic Repertoir
Page 50 and 51: Marks Mankwane and rock-solid bassi
Page 52 and 53: their inspiration in the pop music
Page 54 and 55: the centuries, and the griot (or je
Page 56 and 57: arrivals on the global scene—incl
Page 58 and 59: equipment report Like its forbears,
Page 60 and 61: equipment report Thule Audio Spirit
Page 62 and 63: equipment report An old-time engine
Page 64 and 65: equipment report any nasty vibratio
Page 66 and 67: equipment report and single-ended o
Page 68 and 69: equipment report Respighi’s Pina
Page 70 and 71: equipment report Thomas’ series o
Page 72 and 73: The Cutting Edge Unlike those two o
Page 74 and 75: The Cutting Edge familiar Mark Levi
Page 78 and 79: HP’S WORKSHOP And there are disas
Page 80 and 81: m u s i c POPULAR Rock, Etc. RECORD
Page 82 and 83: m u s i c popular Loose Fur (even i
Page 84 and 85: m u s i c popular agenda heavy, hot
Page 86 and 87: m u s i c popular Marty Stuart and
Page 88 and 89: m u s i c popular cally thinking ab
Page 90 and 91: m u s i c classical Handel: Delirio
Page 92 and 93: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 250 th
Page 94 and 95: m u s i c JAZZ Jazz Caps Manu Katch
Page 96 and 97: m u s i c jazz album ranges from th
Page 98: TAS Retrospective Harman Kardon Cit
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