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.

Magnepan MG 3.7i Back On Dem! $8K Per Pair

Magnepan was hit as hard as any of our vendors by Covid 19. Starting in early 2020, any order placed for pans would run six months or more. Six months was just a starting point.

Magnepan couldn’t predict accurately for us, so we couldn’t predict accurately for you. Availability was so limited on some models, like 3.7i in particular, that any we could get were sold before they arrived. We literally couldn’t put them on display. All that came in were committed. MG .7 was out of production for over a year!

At long last…Magnepan is catching up. When we order now, Magnepan has an acceptable delivery window of 4-8 weeks, with six being a quite realistic expectation.

They are able to manufacture in enough quantities that we HAVE just nailed down a pair of MG 3.7i’s so you can audition them. It’s great to be back to normal on doing biz with Magnepan!

McIntosh In Stock!

Just in are a pair of MA5300 integrated amps. We also have an MA8950. If you order one from most anyone else you’ll wait 6 months plus. Why not get one now?

Isotek Aquarius V5 $3000

(4 3/8h, 17 3/4w, 13 3/4d, 21 lbs)

The best value in a mains conditioner just got better. For many years Isotek has sold its Aquarius. It was terrific and we were proud to sell it.

Aquarius V5 has been introduced and it’s a nice upgrade. Going forward I’ll refer to Aquarius V5 (version 5) as Aquarius. Enough with the suffix already.

Aquarius comes with an Isotek Premier power cable, 58.5 inches long. Many competitors do NOT include a fine power cable with their conditioners. This cable sells a la carte for $250, so it’s a real value to be included with the Aquarius. The Premier has gold plated pins and uses a Teflon dielectric. There are more expensive cables. Any better? That you can actually hear? I think not.

You want Aquarius for two reasons. First of all, it does protect you from power surges more successfully than lesser products or your Home Depot bar.

But the main reason you want an Aquarius is that it will CLEAN UP your sound and even video if you opt to connect your cable box and TV. Aquarius squelches AC line noise and RF noise within your home.

For many years every vendor and his brother knocked on our door to pitch their conditioners. We auditioned almost everything you’ve ever heard of, and never HEARD a sonic improvement. That all changed in 2014 with Isotek, an English company who makes its gear it Slovenia, as opposed to China.

The sonic improvement with Aquarius is striking! It’s quite significant and you can’t miss it. Imagine you’re looking at a photo of a tree. You see the tree with its leaves and branches. Then you see a higher res photo of the same tree. You can see detail and nuance of the branches and leaves that you couldn’t perceive in the lesser quality photo. THIS… kind of detail is what Aquarius will do for your music system.

You can have a system worth $100k or more plugged into a Furman or Monster strip. This system will not sound as clear and intimate as a $10k system plugged into an Aquarius.

Let’s make another video comparison. If you’re old enough to remember analog TV with snow in the picture- that’s what we are trying to listen through in our audio systems. Aquarius will strip the snow to invisible- to allow musical information to be heard.

You’ll notice it most specifically in plucked guitar strings or hammers attacking piano wires. You’ll not just hear the stand up bass being played, but you can’t miss the impact of a player’s fingers against the strings.

As a bad piano player who is just trying to hit the right keys, I appreciate a pro who can bring out the melody of the top finger on the right hand to bring more verve to the action. Aquarius will also allow you to hear voices cut through the speakers’ grill cloths. All things related to resolution will be improved with Aquarius.

It is indeed my point that if you don’t have a great mains conditioner in your system, information is being masked- that you cannot regain later in the system. The $100k system above can play loud and proud. But if you hear the $10k system with Aquarius, it’ll take less than a minute with vocal and guitar to hear that the big system masks information and is less intimate.

Aquarius has six outlets. Each of these six outlets has its own filter, hence there is no contamination or backwash among the components plugged into Aquarius.

Two of these outlets are full 16amp for power amps or subs. The other four are for non high current components like preamps, streamers, tables, CD players etc.

There are numerous lines of conditioners out there today. Most are good. We are staying with Isotek with owner Keith Martin who absolutely had the jump on everyone else in the industry- and continues to push the envelope of technology.

Premier Power Cable $250

Since you’re smart enough to buy an Aquarius, you need to update those crappy black power cords that came with your gear. Even high end brands like Mac & Bryston don’t put high end cables in the box. Why? Nobody wants to be at a price disadvantage in the market place.

It’s too dangerous to sales to run a few hundred more than the other guys while having to explain that part of the value is the power cable- that didn’t come with the competitor.

Premier cables are made of high quality copper, Teflon dielectric and gold pins. Premiers will prevent RFI from entering your system through the dang cable itself- which will occurs with your standard black power cables.

Now, I won’t tell you that Premier cables will improve your sound substantially UNLESS you use Aquarius. There is so much noise and debris coming out of your wall outlet, that unless you quash it- the noise will mask so much information, that you won’t benefit from fine power cables.

But assuming you do buy Aquarius, it IS well worth upgrading your main components to Premier cables vs the cheap black cables that came with the gear. With Aquarius your noise floor is dead black instead of snowy. It allows you to hear every last drop of improvement.

Ruth Slenczynska, Born 1925

Internationally acclaimed pianist, Ruth, was born in Sacramento in 1925. She’s 97 and STILL PERFORMING!

Ruth’s father was a tyrant and whipped her when she didn’t play perfectly. She made her recital debut at age 4. She wowed Berlin at 6. She made more money than FDR in 1935. She was routinely acknowledged to be the second greatest child piano prodigy. A guy named Wolfy was clearly #1. A fellow named Felix is in the conversation too.

She had lessons with Rachmaninov, Cortot and Schnabel. She remembers them to this day. She says Horowitz and Hoffman were the greatest pianists she ever heard.

You can buy her 10 CD box on DG for $50.

Or… you can buy her new (yes, recorded 2021, released 2022) recording for Decca called “My Life In Music” featuring works by Rach, Chopin, Bach, Barber & Debussy.

What will you be doing when you’re 97? Signing a new recording contract with Decca as Ruth did???