What makes the month of November this year much-awaited by audiophiles, aside from the winter monsoon bringing in cooler air that signals the arrival of the Advent season? The 11th November HiFi Show, of course!
For the third straight year, JV Audio Concept, AudioFile and The STAR with the able assistance of overall coordinator Buboy Sarte again showcased locally assembled audio gadgets that could easily equal if not surpass those pricey imported audio brands in terms of faithfully reproducing recorded music. The show, held at the Dusit Thani Hotel on Nov. 8 and 9, exceeded all our expectations.
This corner wishes to thank all loyal readers of PhilStar/AudioFile since day one who came in droves to Room 560 of the Dusit Thani Hotel to marvel at our creations. Special thanks to those who came all the way from Negros province just to be with us on this ultimate audiophile gathering. New and old friends as well show goers filled our room to capacity at any given hour.
Our excitement kicked in overdrive when our music room was upgraded to a 35-square-meter suite. This afforded our creations to have ample breathing space to beautifully enunciate each note and lyric, and deliver the slam and attack of a full-range horn system in dynamic musical passages. Those who visited our exhibit room left smiling and extremely satisfied with the soothing yet dynamic music they were able to listen to.
The system, conceptualized by JV Audio (myself with sound engineer John Alegre), is an all-JBL set-up with enclosures elegantly sculptured by Tony Rodriguez from the best local hardwood. The woofers alone, in their eight-foot enclosure, triumphantly sang in true showroom form, while our acoustic panels also designed by Tony, kept in check any and all unwanted frequencies.
Erik Flores designed all the electronics (preamplifier, amplifiers and the phono stage). The preamp boasted of a handsome chassis with full-feature Bendix 6900 vacuum tubes with Western Electric 396A in the line stage and Siemens EC810 in the phono stage. The 300B monoblock amps powered the low frequencies (15-inch woofers, JBL D130), while a 300B stereo amp powered the JBL 2345 horns and JBL 2405 tweeters.
This year, our concept still revolved around the multi-amp system. Unlike last year’s tri-amp, however, we used a bi-amp configuration this time. The low, mid and high frequencies were powered by two separate amplifiers. Hi-end cables and interconnects which underwent rigid tests for compliance to make sure that all signals travelled fast with sterling efficiency. Cable guy Cal Cano was again on top of our cable designs.
Wonderful music came from both analog and digital sources. Linear tracker Opus3 turntable, brought into the Philippine market by Bistro Ravioli’s Chuck Pilarta (see my last column), bannered our analog front end, fitted with Transfiguration Phoenix cartridge (courtesy of Robert Tan).
Extremely lows were provided by two Rythmik Audio subs graciously lent to us by Dr. Tristan Catindig. Those who frown on using subs to complement our two-channel audio system instantly became believers. The subs make everything whole — a true full-range audio system which can output extremely lows down to 14 Hertz while our horn mid and tweeter drivers take care of extension of up to 50 KHz.
The Cocktail X30 (many thanks to Noel Deslate and Tyrone Co of Audioamplified) played continuous high resolution digital music during the exhibit. The X30 is a revolutionary high- resolution HiFi component with native 24 bit/192Khz digital outputs (Toslink, Coaxial and AES/EBU XLR). This simply means that the X30 can be used as an audio server and source device for those who wish to use an existing external amplifier and a digital-to-analog converter.
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For comments or questions, please email me at audioglow@yahoo.com. You can also visit www.wiredstate.com for quick answers to your audio concerns.