Newsletter Archive

NYC audio show 2013, new product for 2012, and more!

Hi, everyone,

We have four things to announce today.

(1) Our participation in New York Audio Show 2013
(2) A new product (variation) for 2012
(3) A pending Blackbody press review in Tone Audio Magazine and other review news
(4) Laminar Streamer information update

Audio Show in New York City

After a great experience at New York City's high end audio show in 2012, we have finalized arrangements to be there again in 2013. This time, the venue is moving to a 5-star luxury hotel across the street from last year's Waldorf Astoria venue. We will be in a large conference room called The Henry suite.

Date: April 12-14, 2013
Location: New York Palace Hotel, New York City

455 Madison Ave
New York
NY 10022
United States

Room: The Henry
Website: http://www.chestergroup.org

See you there!

New Product 2012 - Anchorwave interconect in phono level version

We have added an option to the Anchorwave microvibration control interconnects for specialized application with very low level cartridge signals which are especially susceptible to low-frequency hums and buzzes. This option includes a very tight, separate copper floating shield over the entire Anchorwave cable assembly, and includes provision for separately grounding this floating shield onto the phono preamp's chassis. With this feature, even the most sensitive of phono level cartridge signals can be safely brought to your phono preamp without the hum and buzz problems which plague many sensitive turntable systems. The price for this special version is nominally larger than the standard Anchorwave interconnect version, which remains available at the same price as before.

Blackbody pending review, nearly 200 published reviews; shootout with our high performance digital cable

The Blackbody will be featured in a pending Tone Audio Magazine review. Can't wait! The author will be home theater and audio guru Jeremy Kipnis, who has experience designing and assembling some of the most prestigious and extravagant home theater solutions in the world. (You may have seen some of his work on countless blogs and forums. Just Google the famous "six million dollar home theater" and you can't miss him!

Also, we're very happy to have noticed that we're actually nearing our 200th published review. So, after some four years online, that makes about 25 reviews a year! Our latest at the time of this writing is of our Digital Cable, in a shootout of 7 contenders on a $350k exotic system from Switzerland!

Laminar Streamer Update!

Just in case you might not have seen it all, here is all the information made public so far about our Laminar Streamer project.

Later we added this Question and Answer section.

We have been working on this project for a long time, and as we are a small company, there are many outsourced parts and procedures which we can't simply "throw money at" and speed them up. We must always wait our turn when the machinery alone which will make the device exceeds 2 Million Euros and we are often in line to use the stuff. So some of that time is spent "in line, waiting", and then there are the details of now modifying all the inner paths and millimeters for use with the "nuts & bolts" of the final casing. But we are making good progress and are getting there. We had to revisit many aspects of our prototype design to get there. This is still in progress.

At this point, let me share with you the general appearance and description of the unit. Some aspects of design are still changing, so it won't reveal much just yet.

Some aspects of design are still changing, so please bear with us.

What it will definitely not be is one of those rack-mounted pieces of machinery you would find in a data center, but will look more like one of those "trophy-like", top shelf pieces of equipment much in the tradition of these well-known CD spinning behemoths:

C.E.C. TL-0X,
C.E.C. TL-0X

the mbl 1621A,
the mbl 1621A

or the Metronome Technologie Calypso.
Metronome Technologie Calypso

Now, I can't yet give you the exact dimensions, because the Laminar Streamer's outer dimensions will still change due to critical internal spacing issues we're currently addressing, but the main idea can be seen in an absolutely flowing form of Panzerholz and finely sculpted steel, with a width at the furthest reaches of the sides at about 38 cm:

Laminar Streamer

As you can imagine, it will be quite a substantial crowning piece of gear, made primarily of microvibration absorbing Panzerholz (more dense than water) and with integrated touches of specially prepared steel. The SD card will be inserted into the very top of the unit. In the front, somewhat recessed and on their own small platform, will be the control buttons. Not flimsy ones, but solid. In fact, everything about the Laminar Streamer will go against all of the tendencies of today's mass-production into ever cheaper and cheaper plastic moulding forms. We are making this in the spirit and in the design family of our Firewall power conditioning unit. More details available here.

One can expect the price to be somewhere in that ballpark. We do not like to see exorbitant pricing but we are well aware of these one-off precision milled, textured, hand-lacquered production costs, not to mention the laborious and painstaking integration of our special Direct Drive operating system. All this is no simple affair, and the specialized unit will result in no "$299 iDevice," either. We will include remote control and a text display, but it goes without saying that we shall also offer functionality for disabling either one or both of these functions for accessing Pure Laminar Mode, which will enable the very top performance.

I have been living with a prototype for almost a half year now, and can say that there really is something special about the moments when in the evening the work is done, I physically turn off the house Wi-Fi, power down all the phones, the computers, and the iDevices, dim the lights, and enter Pure Laminar Mode. It is the absolute closest thing to the original recordings without at all any reminiscence of digital foreign artifacts. So really it is like the best tape decks in terms of speed and accuracy. Well, better than that, as some digitally recorded source material made directly at 96 or 192 / 24 bits is very authentically reproduced indeed.

True, mere authenticity is not everything in the recorded arts, but whatever the producer, musicians and engineers had in mind is more than clearly appreciable, and that results in a very genuine and joyful experience. It's definitely a deeply enriching one as well.

The "inconvenience" of having no album cover display, no iDevice for quickly looking up artists on the internet through Wi-Fi and their automatic album track list recognition, etc., is in this case a misnomer. We are off the grid with this device. That's the whole point! We want to leave our computerized affairs separate from our audio affairs. The physical placing of the SD card into the device is the ultimate separation. One will quickly realize how invasive high frequency radiation is today, and how, rather like a virus, Jitter creeps into even the most tweaked up but non-purpose-built audio server system. I remember the first time I heard the obnoxious "bonk" sound from the MAC operating system through a friend's mega-$$ system's speakers. Somehow at that very moment I already perceived the Laminar Streamer coming into existence. After he had to call his tech on the phone at 11:30 pm to find out some latency setting since the system was putting out popping noises, I could then easily see how a simpler, purpose built system would be welcome.

But never would I have imagined to what degree this type of ultimate simplicity and high speed synchronous timing perfection would bring us closer to the music's message. Regardless of what modern particle physics says, it's an analogue world in our perception of it, want it or not. You know, it's only the beginner musician who needs notes on the page. Those little dots to give him or her orientation. But the advanced musician always winds up veering away from that mere pixelated instruction sheet and delves into a world of expressive feeling which only an analog, human existence can possibly convey.

Sincerely,

Louis Motek  |  LessLoss.com


DFPC     Power Cables

Firewall     Power Conditioner

Blackbody     Ambient Field Conditioner

Anchorwave     Interconnect and Speaker Cable

Tunnelbridge       Distortionless Interconnect System

DAC 2004 MkII        Hybrid Power Supply D/A Converter

Laminar Streamer      Beta SD Player (Coming soon!)