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Axpona Jacksonville Part Two

Axpona Jacksonville Part Two

Please check out Part 1, Part 3, and Part 4.

I observed a different side of the YG Anat 3 Signature ($119k) at Axpona. In rotation with the YG entry level Carmel, the Anat was making-do in one of the smaller and more oddly-shaped rooms at the Omni (it ain’t called Omni for nothing) but managed to promote its quieter attributes with stunning low-level resolving power and articulation. With its back to the longest wall in the room it fired into a portion of the room which angled severely to an outside wall.  During Shelby Lynne’s “Just A Little Lovin’ ” I was reminded once again that premium large loudspeakers operate at a variety of levels, primary among them being resolving power from the softest pianissimos to the most raucous mezzo-fortes.  The micro-dynamics the system extracted from this Phil Ramone-produced recording was entrancing And it certainly wasn’t hurt by the elegant front-end chain, the superb dCS Scarlatti stack,  Veloce’s latest line stage, battery-driven preamp ($18k) and the oomph of the Krell Evo 402E with linkage courtesy of Kubala Sosna Elation mondo-cabling. It was proof that YG’s boots on the ground guy, Dick Diamond and his assiduous room setup can overcome all sorts of hurdles, even weird, small rooms.

I just couldn’t get enough of Joseph Audio’s Pulsar, the svelte two-way compact ($7.5k). I started feeling like a stalker, since I must’ve returned to the room three or more times. The actual space was similar in configuration to the aforementioned YG room but in this instance Jeff Joseph reversed the speaker placement from the massive YG, placing the angled portion of the room behind the Pulsar–a configuration the YG avoided because of the Anat size factor. With Joseph’s Mac running Channel D software into a Lynx ADC/DAC, and Hegel amplification,  the Cleveland Symphony recording of Gershwin’s  Porgy and Bess that J.J. had ripped from his original LP pressing was superb–a paradigm of gorgeous, lucid, full bodied sound with extreme soundstaging dimensional properties. 

Tags: AXPONA

By Neil Gader

My love of music largely predates my enthusiasm for audio. I grew up Los Angeles in a house where music was constantly playing on the stereo (Altecs, if you’re interested). It ranged from my mom listening to hit Broadway musicals to my sister’s early Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Beatles, and Stones LPs, and dad’s constant companions, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. With the British Invasion, I immediately picked up a guitar and took piano lessons and have been playing ever since. Following graduation from UCLA I became a writing member of the Lehman Engel’s BMI Musical Theater Workshops in New York–working in advertising to pay the bills. I’ve co-written bunches of songs, some published, some recorded. In 1995 I co-produced an award-winning short fiction movie that did well on the international film-festival circuit. I was introduced to Harry Pearson in the early 70s by a mutual friend. At that time Harry was still working full-time for Long Island’s Newsday even as he was writing Issue 1 of TAS during his off hours. We struck up a decades-long friendship that ultimately turned into a writing gig that has proved both stimulating and rewarding. In terms of music reproduction, I find myself listening more than ever for the “little” things. Low-level resolving power, dynamic gradients, shadings, timbral color and contrasts. Listening to a lot of vocals and solo piano has always helped me recalibrate and nail down what I’m hearing. Tonal neutrality and presence are important to me but small deviations are not disqualifying. But I am quite sensitive to treble over-reach, and find dry, hyper-detailed systems intriguing but inauthentic compared with the concert-going experience. For me, true musicality conveys the cozy warmth of a room with a fireplace not the icy cold of an igloo. Currently I split my time between Santa Fe, New Mexico and Studio City, California with my wife Judi Dickerson, an acting, voice, and dialect coach, along with border collies Ivy and Alfie.

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