Nola, Revolver, Usher, Kharma, Siltech

 

Speaking of way cool, my second huge surprise at CES (after the McIntosh room) was the Nola Baby Grand Reference ($55k), an open-baffle, floorstanding, three-way ribbon/cone hybrid driven by superb ARC electronics. In every way, this was the best Nola loudspeaker demo I’ve ever heard, and undoubtedly one of the very Best Sounds at CES. “Rainy Night in Georgia,â€? “Keys to the Highway,â€? the Mario Lanza aria, all sounded superbly lifelike. The Grand Reference was exceptional–open, airy, and realistic, with instrumental and vocal images simply bursting with bloom, energy, and color. Nola ought to show with ARC at every show from here on out–the combination was that winning.

The Revolver Cygnis ($14k) is a three-way floorstander with aluminum tweet, carbon-fiber mid, and paper woof in a ported enclosure. Very good on voices, like Joan Baez’s on “Banks of the Ohio,� with nice neutral mids, it was otherwise a bit bright in balance and, thanks to a poor room, relatively lacking in depth.

The Usher BE-10 ($15k), a handsome floorstanding three-way with beryllium tweet, beryllium mid, and Eton Kevlar woofer, was another semi-surprise. Driven by Oracle electronics, it sounded terrific on “Ghost Train� and other acoustic cuts, with very good breadth and depth of stage, nice detail, and excellent transients. The bass might have been a little plummy in this room, but otherwise the speaker was an ear-opener from a company that I haven’t previously paid serious attention to.

 

Driven by Tenor electronics, the 2.5-way Kharma 3.2.2 ($33.5k), essentially a CRM3.2 with an additional ceramic mid/bass driver, was being shown with an open-reel tape machine that gave it a, uh, slight leg up on source material. It sounded fantastic with the tapes–sweet, rich, and full-bodied. But I was actually even more impressed with the way it showed on select cuts of vinyl, like Baez’s “Banks of the Ohio.â€? It’s funny to hear tapes and LPs side by side. LPs don’t sound as detailed, transparent, or continuous as tapes, but they’re somehow more solidly there and if not more realistic, more beautiful. At least, they were in this Kharma room.

The Siltech Pantheon 25 ($13k) was three-way, four-driver loudspeaker, with two 16-inch woofers (isobaric loading), a patented 6-inch midrange driver, and a Cadence electrostatic tweeter from India that is energized by internal lithium batteries! The Pantheon was very controlled–too controlled, I thought. Maybe the speaker or electronics needed more break-in, but the sound was a disappointment. Bass was too tight and not as extended as you would expect from such large drivers; as a result, the overall presentation tended toward the dry and analytical.

Next: Gersham, Von Schweikert, Manger, Cessaro, Venture

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