The SoundStage! Network’s multi-author blog about hi-fi, home theater, and more.
When we finished the recent redesign of SoundStage! Global, we realized something important: we had created not only a better site for our show reports and factory tours but also an ideal place for blogging about audio. This would allow us to provide additional content that we knew our readers would enjoy, and that wouldn't fit well anywhere else. As a result, a few of us are now blogging. I'm obviously one of them, and Jeff Fritz and Garrett Hongo are the other two. In time there will probably be more.
Back at AXPONA the next day, one of the two rooms dealer George Vatchnadze of Kyomi Audio had was the knockout absolute best in show (not surprising from a concert pianist who teaches performance at DePaul University). Besides La bohème and the VSA Universe, another reason I came was to hear the Convergent Audio Technology JL5 -- a new triode stereo amplifier ($10,000 to $12,000) that was supposed to rival, if not equal, the performance of the grand, all-class-A JL2 Signature Mk 3. I wasn't disappointed.
On the spur, less than two weeks before its start, I decided to fly out to AXPONA '13 (March 8-10), the first major audio show in Chicago since Stereophile was there in 1999. I wanted to get out of Oregon for a while, hear the new Von Schweikert Audio VR-100XS Universe speaker that was to make its debut there, and take in Anna Netrebko and Joseph Calleja singing the iconic roles Mimì and Rodolfo in La bohème at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. I'd never heard either of them sing live -- the gorgeous Russian soprano nor the burly, "Caruso-like" Maltese tenor, and both had been among my favorite recording artists for years. When I went to the opera's website, there were only three single tickets left. I nabbed what I thought would be the best seat -- one in the first balcony -- and then booked a plane to O'Hare.
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