After hearing Dave McNair rave about the Audiovector (website) loudspeakers (Dave’s review here), I knew a stop by their room was mandatory. Another dark room and a difficult photo-taking environment greeted me. A glorious sound also greeted me, and made my job taking long-exposure, shake-free photos seem like a piece of cake compared to describing the sound.
Words and Photos by Grover Neville
To put it simply there was nothing at all amiss. I couldn’t hear a single hair out of place, a shred of detail left unearthed, nor any greater sense of refinement—at least that I can imagine—missing. The system wasn’t sterile either, it was the wet-dream of every Zen monk, Stoic, and Thanatian philosopher—perfectly balanced. Music flowed forth with ease, and no single characteristic of the system stuck out other than perhaps the aforementioned sense of refinement.
If I had one complaint it’s perhaps that there was no real audible personality, and again not in the way that some speakers try to pass off high harmonics and too much damping as being ‘clean.’ This was terrifically musically engaging. I think I might just like a little more distortion and non-linearities in my audio. A heathen am I. From memory I can only recall the top end systems from Tidal being this startlingly transparent in show rooms.
In any case, this room was splendid, and the electronics were more than a match for the speakers. The Thrax (website) gear was gorgeous and effortlessly driving everything, and I think pulling off the ‘is it analog or digital’ trick better than any other room at the show. I could only tell when digital or vinyl was spinning if I opened my eyes and peeked at the Yatras turntable. A very fine setup all around, and I hope we can get our hands on some Thrax and Weiss (website) gear here at Part-Time Audiophile to review, because I suspect it’s quite something special.
Speakers
- Audiovector R8 Arrete – $69,995/pr USD
Electronics
- Thrax Libra 300 300B Tube Preamplifier – $57,500 USD
- Thrax Spartacus 300B Mono Power Amplifier – $80,000/pr USD
Analog
- Thrax Yatras Direct Drive Turntable – $13,500 USD
- Thrax CB Tonearm by Frank Schröder – $4,800 USD
- Tom Evans Audio Design Grover+SRX MKII Phono – $6,424.95 USD
Digital
- Antipodes K50 Music Server – $15,000 USD
- Weiss Engineering Medus DAC – $23,780 USD
Cables
- Hemingway Audio interconnects and power cords – (price not listed)
Photos continue below, and more T.H.E. SHOW 2021 coverage can be found HERE.
About The Author
Grover Neville, Contributor
Grover is a recent transplant to Los Angeles, CA, and a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory, where he studied music, creative writing, and how to wear skinny jeans. After graduating Grover pursued a freelance career in audio, doing professional research in the fields of Auditory Cognition, Psychoacoustics, and Experimental Hydrophone Design.
Before moving to Los Angeles, Grover worked and lived in Chicago, Illinois as a mixing and mastering engineer, working in genres such as Avant-garde Classical music and Jazz. As a recent transplant to L.A., Grover now works in the music, video game, and film industries.
He is also actively pursuing a career as an independent musician, composer, and producer. Grover wrote for Innerfidelity and Audiostream, before finding his forever-home at Part-Time Audiophile.
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