California Audio Show

Welcome to California Audio Show - Aug 9th - 11th, 2013

Sponsored by The Absolute Sound and Stereophile

The very first, inaugural show was held in July, 2010 and it is created for the public.

The purpose of this show is two-folded: to address the passions of the enormous group of music lovers, and hobbyists who we call audiophiles, and to introduce the hobby to a new generation of audience. 

High-end audio is a

Loudspeaker

LANSCHE AUDIO NO.7 LOUDSPEAKER

Smitten!

Loudspeaker designers constantly strive for lower and lower moving mass in their cones and panels, but what would a driver sound like if it had no moving mass—or no moving parts at all?

The massless driver is the holy grail of loudspeaker design. It’s the moving mass of speaker cones, domes, and panels that introduces a whole host of distortions—distortions that designers devote an inordinate amount of time, money, and effort combating. A diaphragm, no matter how light, has inertia that, when it is at rest, makes it want to stay at rest. It’s not just the diaphragm that moves in dynamic loudspeakers, but also the voice-coil former, voice coil, and suspension. And when all those parts are moving, they tend to keep moving after the drive signal has stopped. It’s not hard to imagine how inertia plays havoc with a loudspeaker’s ability to faithfully reproduce music’s dynamic structure: Transient leading edges are not as steep as they are in life, and notes don’t end as quickly and cleanly as those produced by live instruments. Moreover, loudspeaker drivers misbehave in a whole host of other ways—breakup modes, temperature-dependent dynamic compression, non-pistonic motion, non-linearity at high excursions, and magnetic eddy currents, to name just a few. To be sure, great advances have been made in these areas during the past twenty years, particularly as a result of exotic-materials technology. But at the end of the day, we’re still listening to cones, domes, electrostatic panels, or ribbons moving back and forth.

Enter the corona-plasma tweeter, a device that produces sound with no moving parts. As explained in more detail in the sidebar, an electric arc stretching between two electrodes causes the air around the arc to become ionized. By modulating the arc with an audio signal, the ionized plasma around the arc is made to expand and contract, creating sound—no diaphragm, and no diaphragm- induced distortions.

Plasma transducers have a long history dating back to 1900(!) but have never gained much traction in audio (see the sidebar). One company committed to the technology is the German firm Lansche Audio. The speaker company bought the rights to a corona-plasma tweeter in 1999 and has since offered many loudspeaker models built around this exotic driver. Lansche redesigned the corona-plasma tweeter in 2006, and currently every product in its lineup is based on this unique driver.

After hearing something quite special from the second-to-top- model Lansche No.7 loudspeaker at the 2012 CES, I asked for a review pair. The No.7 is a three-way, seven-driver system employing four 8.7" woofers, two 4" midranges, and the horn-loaded corona- plasma tweeter in the baffle’s center. The $108,000 No.7 is a

SPEAKERS - Standmount & Floorstanders

For many years in the uk the two-way 'standmount' loudspeaker has been the nation’s sweetheart. It’s still a popular choice but nowadays its dominance is coming under threat from relatively inexpensive floorstanding designs.

The key to understanding speakers and how they can be tuned for best performance relies on accepting one obvious fact. Speakers do not operate in isolation: they interact with the rest of the system and they interact with the room in which they’re used. Speakers can only do what the 

AMPLIFIERS

Amplifiers, usually known as just ‘amps’ are at the very heart of a stereo system. For this reason it’s essential to make the right choice.

THE INS & OUTS
The first consideration when choosing your amp is the connectivity or inputs and outputs you require. Most inputs you’ll find on an amplifier are at what is called, ‘line level’. Line level is a techie term referring to the voltage outputs of CD players, tuners, games consoles and pretty much any source except one important exception - turntables. If you're a vinyl fan you need to be careful to choose an amplifier equipped with a dedicated phono input. As the output from a turntable is around ten times weaker than other source inputs, it needs additional amplification from a phono stage (also called a phono pre-amp).
So, if you don’t have a turntable in your system then a line level amp will work just fine.
If you do have a turntable, make sure your amp has a phono stage fitted.

DON'T FORGET YOUR PORTABLE 
With MP3 portables, iPods and iPhones so prominent these days, it’s hard to find an amplifier that hasn’t made at least some concession to them. At one end of the scale, an amp could have a simple

Multi-Room System

Multi-room systems let you listen to music and, in some cases, watch video in any number of your home’s rooms. Basic systems consist of another set of speakers in a second room with individual control. The most complex systems let you listen and watch any source in any room of the house - even shower proof TVs are available! Full-blown multi-room systems let you use different sources in different rooms - watch TV in one room while listening to music in another.

Types of multi-room

There are two types of multi-room system, wired and wireless. WIRED MULTI-ROOM Systems such as the Cambridge Audio Incognito use a fully wired network. Components are linked by CAT5 or CAT6 cable and coaxial cable. The CAT5/6 cable is a multi-function, low resistance network cable that carries sound and power. Video is carried by standard co-axial cable. Speakers are wired up with standard speaker cable. Due to the potential complexity of wired multi-room systems we recommend that they are professionally installed. Pros * Constant wired connection for no dropouts and consistent performance * Guaranteed interference free - will not affect other wireless devices such as garage doors, remote controlled toys, home hubs etc. * Allows good quality video to be routed throughout the home * Capable of immensely complicated system networks including full home automation Cons * Requires professional set-up in most cases * Restricted remote access - must be in sight of a sensor * Internet radio/music access and music streaming have to be separately incorporated * Permanent installation - it’s much harder to take it with you when you move home! Use a wired network for a high quality home installation when both sound and video are required. Ideal for complex systems with home automation such as curtain closing. WIRELESS MULTI-ROOM Systems such as the

HI-FI TIPS

1. Wire you still using those?
One of the best ways to improve your sound is to ditch those nasty cables supplied in the box and replace them with higher quality wires from a specialist manufacturer. You needn't spend a fortune to achieve some startling results. The same applies to loudspeaker cables. Using lengths of old doorbell wire will strangle your sound no matter how good your kit may be. Remember a system is only as good as its weakest link. Also, to avoid nasty hums and buzzes, keep interconnect cables well away from mains cables and don't tidy your excess speaker cable into neat coils. Finally, keep cable runs as short as possible and always use the same length of cable for each speaker. Signals take time to travel down a cable and even a delay of a fraction of a second can make an audible difference.

2. Two are better than one
If your speakers are designed to be bi-wired, go for it! It's how the engineers who built the product envisaged it being used, so you're more likely to get the sound they were aiming for. Bi-wirable speakers have a split crossover that keeps high and low frequencies apart. The idea is that rather than squeezing the whole frequency range down one wire, two separate signal paths exist all the way back to the amplifier for high and low frequencies. In theory this should give a purer signal as there is less potential for frequencies extremes to imprint modulation distortion on the rest of the frequency range.

3. Try different positions
Considering the remarkable difference in sound quality that can be achieved purely by positioning your

Top 10 Hi-Fi

High fidelity—or hi-fi or hifi —reproduction is a term used by home stereo listeners and home audio enthusiasts (audiophiles) to refer to high-quality reproduction of sound to distinguish it from the poorer quality sound produced by inexpensive audio equipment, or the inferior quality of sound reproduction characteristic of recordings made until the late 1940s. Ideally, high-fidelity equipment has minimal amounts of noise and distortion and an accurate frequency response.

One effort to standardize the term was the 1966 German Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) standard DIN 45500. DIN 45500 approval was intended to provide audio equipment buyers with reassurance that their equipment was capable of good quality reproduction. In theory, only stereo equipment that met the standard could bear the words 'Hi-Fi'. This standard was well intentioned but only mildly successful; in practice, the term was widely misapplied to audio products that did not remotely approach the DIN basis specifications.

Below are top 10 Hi-Fi images.

Home Audio Amplifiers

Some information about the home audio amplifiers and some tips as well about the way in which you improve their quality. By following these tips you will be able to make your home music system sound so great that you would thing that the performers are playing inside your house. You should know that the sound quality will depend greatly on which type of audio amplifiers you choose, which means that if you bought ones which are very weak then you won't be able to do too much when it comes to the sound quality.  This article is about the amplifiers which are able to provide superior quality but which are used incorrectly and because of that they do not reach their full potential.

The audio amplifiers are the most important items of a home audio system and you should make only the finest purchase in this domain. There are various