CAF 2013: Stereodesk presents Emia, Siggwan, Kaplan Cable (updated!)

July 30, 2013 Editorial Staff CAF 2013 4


Stereodesk had several rooms/displays at Capital Audiofest this year. In this one, I found a new-to-me Siggwan 12 tonearm (a true floating unipivot) on a vintage Garrard 301 refurb, married to a Dave Slagle-designed front end. This front end included a silver Slagle step up transformer, an Emia phono ($4500) which fed into a silver Emia remote autoformer VC (based on Chapman designs), here finished with a pair of Emia 3.5 wpc Type 50 mono bloc amps, sporting some permalloy output trannies. Kaplan Cables were used throughout. Oh, the speakers? Teresonic Magus DX-65 stand mounts.

I got to hear a tremendous, if terribly recorded, cut of my favorite Nina Simone tune, “Sinnerman”. Ladysmith Black Mazambo Shaka Zulu followed. Ye gods.

I love the dragged-through-the-Hudson look of some of Dave’s designs, but that’s not even the half of it. This is some eerily transparent gear — if you’re into music, it’s really hard to get closer. Shockingly good.






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4 Comments

  1. Thanks for the kind words and for stopping in,

    That last day Dave put in what may be my favorite cart. A strain gauge with Dave’s own power supply and preamp…it’s truly soulful and can go direct to amps. It’s on our site at StereoDesk.com

    The Teresonic Magus was using DX-65s with a silver voice coil. That tonearm is a real sweet deal and we hope to carry it. Ijaz Kahn was fantastic to lend us his Garrard and that arm.

    It’s great to be around so these guys what they can do for a song.

    All the best,

    Fred C.
    Stereodesk.com

  2. Thanks for the kind words and for stopping in,

    That last day Dave put in what may be my favorite cart. A strain gauge with Dave’s own power supply and preamp…it’s truly soulful. It’s on our site at StereoDesk.com
    The Teresonic Magus was using DX-65s with a silver voice coil. That tonearm is a real sweet deal and we hope to carry it. Ijaz Kahn was fantastic to lend us his Garrard and that arm. Thanks so much for stopping in…

    Fred C.

    p.s. your pics are excellent.

  3. It’s useful to get a 2nd listen. Heard them again on Sunday and they sounded much better. Apparently they changed the phono cartridge,which helped a lot. More bass this time, although not a heavy puncher by any means. Would make a great condo speaker, plus oodles of style.

  4. Loved that old Garrard TT! The speakers looked sharp but I’ll need to hear them again; they did not impress on Friday.

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