• October 2007 - Meet The Designer Analogue Event
Schröder Tonearm - Frank Schröder is a true creative genius. He has invented an extremely unique tonearm, unlike any other tonearm in the audio industry and is considered by many experts world-wide to build the finest tonearm available today.
Frank personally handcrafts each of his precision engineered tonearms and is able to build less than 50 tonearms annually. Because the world demand exceeds the production capability, the wait for a Schroder arm is long, but well worth it. For the music lover, this is the last reference tonearm one will ever need to own!
On Saturday October 20, 2007 we were privileged to host the West Coast debut of the exquisite Schröder Tonearm mounted on a TW-Acustic Raven AC Turntable with Frank Schröder himself here from Berlin to share great music and discussion with our analog customers! A great time was had by all!
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Cindy, Gary and Frank Schröder with the Schröder tonearm and the Raven AC Turntable |
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Frank Schröder describes and shows the finer virtues of his beautiful tonearm |
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• October 2007 - Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (RMAF)
Denver, Colorado
October 12-14, 2007 - The finest new product we experienced at the RMAF was the TW-Acustic Raven AC turntable. German Designer Thomas Woschnick has taken his “fascination for analogue perfection” and embodied it in his Raven AC turntable. Thomas has designed an insanely accurate power supply with superb precision which he also manufactures “in-house” with his turntables. The fit and finish of the Raven AC turntable is second to none. What’s impressive is that Thomas took over 12 years of R&D before bringing this product to market! Because of such an ultra high quality of build there is limited product availability for the entire world market. We are beyond honored to be one of two dealers in North America! (Jeffrey Catalano of High Water Sound in New York City has the distinction of being both the North American Importer and Dealer!)
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Designer Thomas Woschnick, the Raven AC turntable and Cindy Kerr at RMAF ‘07 |
• Summer 2007 - Quadraspire
A Visit from Quadraspire - Eddie Spruit, owner and designer of Quadraspire products in Bath, England visited The Audio Gallery with US Importer T.J. Jankowski in June 2007. Once again our secret wish list for a beautiful, anti-resonant, reasonably priced high end audio stand in real cherry was manifested and unveiled by Eddie!
Eddie has been working long hours designing new products for Quadraspire and the new Sunoko stand is not only gorgeous, but offers flexibility in build options, beautiful sculpted down columns (optimized for the Sunoko from the Q4 Reference Stand) and a very creative yet functional vented design which allows electronics to fully breathe as well as diffuse energy. Quadraspire’s success with resonant control has yielded very functional and extremely “quiet” audio stands worthy to house your fine electronics!
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Eddie Spruit of Quadraspire and Cindy with the new Sunoko Cherry stand |
• Spring 2007 - Shunyata
Introducing… SHUNYATA RESEARCH Products. Made in the USA and specifically, in the Pacific Northwest! Within the audio-video industry, there is no engineer with a more complete understanding of the scientific tenets critical to signal isolation and current delivery than Lead Designer and CEO Caelin Gabriel – a former NSA engineer/scientist. We took the opportunity this Spring to visit the Shunyata Factory in Poulsbo, Washington located on the Olympic Peninsula side of Puget Sound. The Shunyata factory and staff are incredibly organized, gentle spirited yet intense, and highly efficient. Each of the Shunyata Helix series cables is hand braided to exacting standards by a highly skilled technician. We left our factory tour with a deeper awareness that “As the Designer, so the Design…”
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The Road to Shunyata - Traversing Puget Sound via Ferry |
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Caelin is an extremely passionate, deep thinking music lover who has taken the time and invested the funds to create a very well done dedicated listening room insolated from the fabrication portion of the Shunyata factory for the purpose of being able to quietly evaluate design changes in his products (and to enjoy music!) |
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• January 2007 - CES Las Vegas
Held in the beautiful Venetian Hotel, the High End Audio Exhibitors definitely moved up a notch in product presentations from the previous venues!
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The Venetian
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Quad ESL - The 2905s can certainly fill a large room with extreme transparency and bass quality with magnificent extension. Such a coherent speaker that has highly evolved over the past 50 years!
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Quad’s USA Importer Larry Shaffer and Gary & Cindy with the Quad 2905 ESLs |
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Wavestream - Scott Franklin, American mastermind and designer of the Wavestream Kinetics electronics, shows off his new Line Level Preamp and transformerless, high gain Phono Preamp. The new phono preamp is capable of inputting up to 3 phono inputs with independent loading for each as well as the ability to handle very low output MC cartridges with a dead quiet background. Wavestream products are pure tube designs with point to point internal wiring.
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Scott Franklin and Gary go over the details of the new line and phono preamps from Wavestream |
PrimaLuna - You’d be starstruck too if you just heard what the ProLogue 8 CD player sounded like with the new Dialogue Series Integrated amplifier on a pair of Sonus Faber Amati Anniversarios! We made a secret wish list awhile ago for a CD player that would rekindle our interest in digital playback. Well… PrimaLuna managed to do it! All the requirements below were met AND at a $2500 price point! VERY EXCITING! Some of the requirements were:
- Tube CD player with articulation and a pure tube rectified power supply
- Point to point wiring in the analogue section
- Reliable CD only transport
- Cool Aesthetics
- Affordably priced
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Oh-h-h-h-h-h-h-h! Gary is oohing over the new PrimaLuna Prologue 8
CD player |
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AirTight - Arturo Manzano of Axiss Distribution hosted a lovely evening with his Dealers and Manufacturers.
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The highlight of the AirTight party was live jazz, performed by Paul Salvo (trumpet) and his band from L.A |
• October 2006
Gary and Cindy traveled to Osaka, Japan and celebrated the 20th Anniversary of AirTight. We toured their new facility and saw the sights around Osaka and Kyoto with Mr. Miura, AirTight’s Designer and Owner, as our gracious host!
The new AirTight facility is larger and allows for greater ease in planned expansion for future products. The first of these new products will be the ATM-1S. Our store demo is on order and we’re really looking forward to the arrival of this amplifier!
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Mr. Miura at work |
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Gary and Miura-san outside
the new AirTight Factory |
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Tea Time in Uji at the 800 year old Tsuen Tea House |
• April 2005
We had the honor of being visited and inserviced on AirTight products by the master himself – Miura-san! Art Manzano of Axiss Distribution and Miura-san flew into Portland from Japan to spend the day with us and share wonderful Japanese Green Tea and crackers as well as impart some helpful information!
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Miura-san with the amazing AirTight 211 monos" |
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Gary, Arturo and Miura-san
- Refreshments and Reflections on Design |
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Gary, Miura-san and Cindy in the Large Reference Room |
PRESS & PUBLICATIONS
We have been mentioned in various magazines and newspapers. Some of these articles are included below:
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