YG Acoustics Cairn Speakers, $8500 Per Pair
(14.6h, 7.6w. 10.3d, 28 lbs, 8 ohms, 86dB)
Stands $1500 Per Pair (23.5 h)
YG Acoustics of Colorado is known for its price no object speakers. They’re great, but not attainable for most of us. When YG announced in 2020 that it would be bringing out its Peaks Series for less than half the price, I signed on enthusiastically.
Cairn is the first model in the house. It isn’t built like a normal speaker. It isn’t an MDF cabinet with drivers sourced from a vendor. Cairn uses YG’s 6” BilletCore bass/mid driver and a 1” soft dome tweeter, with YG designed frame mechanism.
YG is using much of the technology of its price no object speakers. It is saving money primarily in its cabinets, where new technology saves a boatload, but compromises precious little in sound quality.
YG does this NOW because time marches on! As a wise designer once told me, “I reserve the right to get smarter.”
YG’s higher models, like Carmel, Vantage, Hailey and Sonya have cabinets made of aircraft grade aluminum. You need a couple of Green Bay Packers to move them. The Peaks Series will have a different composition. The bottom, side and back walls will be made of 1” thick, dense epoxy resin. These cabinets are shaped and internally reinforced to eliminate extraneous resonances. They’re sealed, of course.
The front baffle will be made of 1.5” thick aluminum. In virtually every other way, Peaks models will be equal to the higher YG aluminum line.
Woofer and mid drivers feature their BilletCore design. BilletCore maximizes stiffness to weight ratio. The driver starts life as a 16 pound, 2.5” slab of aluminum and is machined down to a featherweight, ONCE OUNCE, incredibly rigid cone. This is NOT a sandwich of materials where interfaces can bend, crack or warble. This is not a formed, bent or molded cone. It is a contiguous aluminum cone of unparalleled consistency and rigidity. CAD construction assures extremely light, yet tremendously rigid construction.
Competitors use materials that they bend, shape and glue with other materials. YG says this compromises cone integrity (& musical detail) for performance today, AND for the life of the driver as traditional other methods of construction break down over time.
YG’s tweeter driver in the Peaks Series employ the company’s ForgeCore design. A tweeter’s magnet system is a critical part of its design. 3D CNC machining optimizes the tweeter magnet system so motor and enclosure construction will dramatically reduce distortion compared to a traditional tweeter design. Competitors use stamps or laser cut motors which are limited to 2D features and cannot regulate performance as precisely as ForgeCore. YG tweets are known for crystalline detail without having bright, stringent artifacts.
Cairn is the first model to ship in the new line. It will utilize all the technology of its soon to come bigger brothers. It just isn’t as BIG and powerful. If you want state of the art definition but don’t need high octane power in your life, Cairn is exquisite!
Kimber Tonic Interconnect Cables
.5m $96, 1m $108, 2m $132
Kimber’s Tonik interconnect is a step up from the big box cables at not a lot more money. It presents a more open and detailed sound than inexpensive shielded cables.
Tonik’s composition is high purity copper of Variable Strand design in a 3-wire weave, shielded by polyethylene. We stock it with Ultratike RCA heads. It is available with XLRs but if you’re going there, let me talk you up a notch.
Kimber Hero Interconnect Cables
.5m $231, 1m $296, 2m $426
Kimber’s Hero interconnect is a magnificent choice for the die hard audiophile. It has a warmer sound and more extended bass response than what you’ll find for any money less. Pricing is for RCA or XLR, your choice!
Hero uses high purity copper of Variable Strand (VS) design in a 4-wire weave, shielded by Teflon. Kimber feels strongly that VS contributes to a more detailed sound than using strands of all the same thickness, where each diameter tends to have its own sonic signature.
RIP Ramsey Lewis (1935-2022)
Jazz piano great Ramsey Lewis just passed. Most of us know his 1965 hit tune “The In Crowd.” Ramsey recorded over 80 albums and was extremely involved in music education in Chicago. He was known to be an extremely generous supporter and mentor to fellow musicians.
