New York 2014: Woo Audio creates audio oasis, hints at portable

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Legacy_at_NY_Audio_Show_2014My buddy Michael Liang of Woo Audio ushered me right over to the lucite case. “See?” he said. “We’re going portable.”

In the case was a blank, a white plastic mock-up of what might someday be called the WA8. The prototype is, interestingly enough, fully functional and yes, there are three mini Russian tubes jammed in there. There’s also a DAC section, pulled directly from the WA7 Fireflies, and of course, there’s a battery for taking the whole thing on the road.

Michael wired me up with a pair of LCD-3 from Audeze and I’ll offer that the sound was pretty damn good. Prototype, eh? Hmm.

According to Jack Wu, the new portable is still 6-9 months out, but when it’s finally ready for release, it’ll be wrapped up in some sweet Woo Audio metal. As of now, the unit is single-ended only and will feature an analog volume pot. More as time progresses.

In other news, this was one jammed room. All of the individual listening stations were manned, some with a line. To be fair, the whole show felt a bit highly-trafficked, so this wasn’t unexpected, but it was concentrated. And there was quite a lot to sort through. ADL, driven by the WA7. Sennheiser driven by the WA6. Beyerdynamic driven by the WA5. And even the monstrous Abyss driven by the equally impressive WA-234 mono blocks. Talk about your personal audio Summit-Fi! Makes my palms sweaty just to look at it.

If you’re looking for great sound at any audio show, this room would be the one to seek out.

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About Scot Hull 1063 Articles
Scot started all this back in 2009. He is currently the Publisher here at PTA, the Publisher at The Occasional Magazine, and the Executive Producer at The Occasional Podcast. There are way too many words about him over on the Contributors page.