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Jimmy Smith: DVL Album of the Month for April

by Rafe Arnott in Music

This is a monthly series of album reviews I will be doing for DVL Audio here in Canada. I’ll be heading out to a local record store in Vancouver, digging through the bins, and coming up with an intriguing LP to discuss here on Part-Time Audiophile. I’ll never go out with something in mind beforehand, and there is no criteria for whether it’s a new album, an old album, an out-of-print LP, electronic, classical, jazz, punk – whatever – it just has to sound good to me. I’ll come up [...]

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Canada

  • Vancouver Audio Festival 2018: Wrapping up with Igor Kivritsky

    May 7, 2018 // 0 Comments

    The 2018 Vancouver Audio Festival (VAF) had a charm about it that most shows lack, and that’s not because AXPONA, or RMAF don’t have style or class, or great people, vendors, and attendees… it’s strictly a size issue. A massive show is just that: Massive. There’s usually more than a hundred demo rooms, a large Expo show-floor area, and an included headphone-centric ballroom or atrium, so they tend to overwhelm many, and require focus, and concentration from show [...]

  • Vancouver Audio Festival 2018: Gryphon Audio turns up the heat with Diablo and Pantheon

    May 3, 2018 // 0 Comments

    For those attending Hi-Fi Centre‘s Audio Festival this year, there were some familiar brands to hear new gear from, new brands with new gear to hear from, and then there was Gryphon Audio who’ve never demoed here before. I’ve had the opportunity to hear their gear at RMAF, and in Munich, and always been impressed with the combination of frequency linearity, low-end grunt, and musicality that the company has wrested from a solid-state integrated amplifier like their Diablo 300 [...]

  • Jimmy Smith: DVL Album of the Month for April

    May 1, 2018 // 2 Comments

    This is a monthly series of album reviews I will be doing for DVL Audio here in Canada. I’ll be heading out to a local record store in Vancouver, digging through the bins, and coming up with an intriguing LP to discuss here on Part-Time Audiophile. I’ll never go out with something in mind beforehand, and there is no criteria for whether it’s a new album, an old album, an out-of-print LP, electronic, classical, jazz, punk – whatever – it just has to sound good to me. I’ll come up [...]

  • Vancouver Audio Festival 2018: Bryston meets with Sonus Faber

    May 1, 2018 // 1 Comment

    Sonus Faber is an Italian loudspeaker brand with a storied history, and designs which have been lauded as timeless classics. Bryston is an award-winning Canadian high-fidelity manufacturer with decades of experience in amps, pre-amps, speakers, and electronics. What do you get when you put them together? As I found at Hi-Fi Centre during the Vancouver Audio Festival, you get a musical pairing that seemed to balance each other out quite nicely. Like many Sonus Faber speakers I’ve heard [...]

  • Vancouver Audio Festival 2018: McIntosh Labs and YG Acoustics

    April 29, 2018 // 2 Comments

    Walking into this room at the Vancouver Audio Festival was a bit like turning the fairy tale Beauty & The Beast into a visual audiophile metaphor. Scoping out the massive McIntosh Labs MC 1.25KW mono blocks quietly hulking between a pair of sleek, black, polished YG Acoustics Sonja 2.2 loudspeakers one felt that here was a reserve of untapped sonic power. Being fed a mix of computer audio, and CDs via a McIntosh D1100 Digital Preamplifier, and MCD550 CD/SACD Transport, and sewn-up with [...]

  • Vancouver Audio Festival 2018: Devialet energizes with Bowers & Wilkins

    April 28, 2018 // 1 Comment

    Some think they’re beautiful, others feel they emulate what artificial intelligence will look like in the far future. I’m in the former camp, and have always admired what Bowers & Wilkins do design-wise because the are a form-follows-function company in my eyes. Every line of the 800 D3 loudspeaker on demo during HiFi-Centre’s Vancouver Audio Festival is there for a reason, this is not an abstraction or pursuit of superfluity, this is modern industrial design at its core: [...]

  • Vancouver Audio Festival 2018: Klipsch Heritage pairs with McIntosh for vintage vibe

    April 25, 2018 // 7 Comments

    I can remember seeing my first pair of Klipschorns many years ago, and being entranced by their majesty, their size, their build quality, and most importantly their sound. A sound which seemed to be calling across oceans of time from an era when immediacy, speed, and tone were heralded as the gods of high fidelity, and seven watts of 300B amplification would get you wherever you wanted to go. Fast forward to this past weekend at the Vancouver Audio Festival here in Vancouver which was hosted by [...]

  • Vancouver Audio Festival 2018: Saturday sunshine crowds ’em in

    April 22, 2018 // 0 Comments

    What a difference a day makes. In the weather at least, because despite going from a torrential downpour to blazing sunshine, and blue skies, there was no difference in the turnout at the Vancouver Audio Festival. Saturday’s dawn broke with yellow rays of warmth slanting through my bedroom blinds, and a smile that spread slowly across my face as I became secure in the knowledge that the onslaught of greyness that has plagued the Wet Coast this spring seemed to finally be at an end. [...]

  • Vancouver Audio Festival 2018: Shelter from the storm on Opening Night

    April 21, 2018 // 1 Comment

    First the rain came straight down. Then the rain came sideways. Then it seemed to be coming up at me from the ground as I ran from a coffee shop to make my way to Hi-Fi Centre for the opening of the Vancouver Audio Festival late Friday afternoon. I was reminded of a scene in Forrest Gump where he describes similar rain experiences in Vietnam during his time in the war, and I was silently thankful to be taking shelter from the storm in warm, and cozy environs with like-minded audiophiles. If [...]

  • Vancouver Audio Festival 2018 kicks off this Friday

    April 19, 2018 // 0 Comments

    Time is rapidly approaching for Vancouver-area audiophiles to get their sonic freak on with Hi-fi Centre  once again hosting the Vancouver Audio Festival which runs from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday evening, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday afternoon. This year, Hi-Fi Centre owner Igor Kivritsky has helped to curate 10 demonstration areas featuring bleeding-edge high-fidelity equipment legends like Devialet, Focal, Naim, Bowers & Wilkins, Sonus Faber, McIntosh Labs, Clearaudio, and YG Acoustics [...]

  • Vancouver Audio Festival returns April 20-21st at Hifi Centre

    April 15, 2018 // 0 Comments

    Hi-fi Centre is playing host once again to the Vancouver Audio Festival from April 20th, to 21st. This is the second time the downtown dealer has stepped into the void left by the cancellation of the Vancouver Audio Show by Chester Group. Owner Igor Kivritsky said it was a “no-brainer” after a successful trial run in 2017. “We were extremely pleased with the attendance and reactions we received last year and have decided to make this an annual event.  There are two main [...]

  • Review: Whisky and Listening – Vertere SG-1 turntable, SME-V tonearm, and Koetsu Onyx Platinum

    March 18, 2018 // 2 Comments

    Welcome to what I like to think of as a pinnacle of editorial writing in my small world, as it combines two of my favourite things to do: Have a glass of whisky, and kick back to listen to a couple of albums. A pastime I’m sure some of you out there can identify with. How on Earth did I stumble into such remarkable luck to turn this into a monthly article moving ahead? It’s possible because of the forward-thinking mind of Edward Ku at Element Acoustics. Ku understands that there is a [...]

  • Magnepan 30.7 Demo Event at Hifi Centre

    March 17, 2018 // 0 Comments

    Somnambulists. A lot of them. Walking in circles, and randomly bumping into each other. That’s what the Magnepan 30.7 demo event at Hifi Centre in Vancouver would have looked like if you peeked through the round window in the door to the room, and didn’t know what was going on. It was where Magnepan marketing manager Wendell Diller was hosting the demo event, and it was packed. Luckily, I had been in the room when Diller gave his introduction to the company’s new flagship [...]

  • The List: Five of the Best Power Amps in The World

    March 11, 2018 // 13 Comments

    Welcome to something new we’re going to try here on PTA thanks to our friend Wynn Wong of Wynn Audio in Richmond Hill, Ontario. I’m going to be curating a new list every month featuring different categories of gear that I think you – our readers – have to hear under any circumstances you can arrange: beg, borrow, steal, drive for hours, hop a train, take a plane… you get what I’m saying. Price will not be a factor, with individual pieces on each list reflecting a spectrum of what [...]

  • Vivid Audio Giya G1 Series 2 listening session at Element Acoustics

    March 10, 2018 // 1 Comment

    Smiling faces. A small sea of them, all looking happy, swaying to the music that was filling the room. I had never in my life seen a dozen audiophiles smiling, and enjoying the same thing. Never. For an instant I was paralyzed with fear because I thought I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone, and Rod Serling’s voice would suddenly start narrating over the current scene… then I remembered where I was, and relaxed. A bit. But that was the reality of what happened last weekend at [...]

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TAVES 2016

  • TAVES 2016: Closing thoughts

    December 26, 2016 // 0 Comments

    By Richard H. Mak At 5 pm on Sunday, I stayed behind to help DVL Audio as well as Audio by Mark Jones with packing up their equipment, and it was at that moment I realized [...]

  • TAVES 2016: Mundorf and the ANKITS

    December 23, 2016 // 1 Comment

    By Richard H. Mak Born out of Audio Note UK as the Audio Note Kit company, ANKIT is a separate entity operating out of Canada by company director Brian Smith.    The [...]

  • TAVES 2016: Tri-cell Enterprises demonstrates Acapella, Accustic Arts, Aesthetix, Thoress

    December 22, 2016 // 1 Comment

    By Richard H. Mak Just like every other year, Tri-cell Enterprises always have the most number of room.  This year, I counted 4 but I was told there was 5.  The room that [...]

  • TAVES 2016: Truely Nola

    December 22, 2016 // 1 Comment

    By Richard H. Mak I wasn’t sure whether the sign posted on the door of Foldback Sound is meant to be humorous or sarcastic, let’s just say his creativity (or lack [...]

  • TAVES 2016: Monitor Audio climbs the high end ladder

    December 16, 2016 // 0 Comments

    By Richard H. Mak For a second, I thought Monitor Audio had brought in a pair of Dynaudio Temptations into its demo room. They look remarkably similar. The Platinum Series [...]

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