From personal purchases to wonderful customer interactions, it's been a great year.
The problem with a year-end poll is that everyone is so busy they don't have time to slow down and look back. Eventually, we were able to pin down a few of our staff and cajole, goad, and threaten them into revealing their favorite products of the year. (It's easy to threaten staff at hi-fi stores; just say you'll play the go-to test tracks on repeat.)
Read all the way down for our Heartwarming High-End Year-End story!
Go to the Point Source
You know those reviews that end with the reviewer saying they bought the product? We have a similar closer when one of us buys an Upscale Audio product for our home systems. Chris Landfield, sales team lead, bought the Fyne Audio F704 almost as soon as he heard them. "They were the perfect balance of both dynamic life and midrange coherency," he said, adding that they presented a far more cohesive top-to-bottom response than his previous speakers.
The F704 is a lot bigger and more imposing than the product photos suggest. Those are two 12" drivers on the front, the top being Fyne's renowned IsoFlare point-source driver with a 75 mm titanium dome compression tweeter at the center of the multi-fiber mid/bass cone. Being a 2.5 way, the mid/bass is shared with the second multi-fiber driver and the amazingly low crossover frequencies of 200 Hz and 900 Hz tell you why this Fyne's midrange performance so bewitched Chris.
Across the country, our remote salesperson Sean "Smo" Smollon, also picked a Fyne, the magnificent F1-8S. It wasn't just about the speaker though, but the journey it took him on. "This speaker appeals to me not only because the brand is special, but a very special client of mine owns them and he let me take that journey with him, with those being the final piece of the puzzle."
Smo was touched that the client gave him the famous Herman Hesse novel Siddhartha as a thank-you for his attention and expertise. "It helped me find peace," says Smo, "while I helped him self-actualize through music."
The F1-8S is the entry-level floorstander of Fyne's top-flight F1 series using the very best of the brand's material, cryo, and electronics technology. This series highlights two of Fyne's biggest strengths: A deep yet fluid bass thanks to BassTrax technology, and an ability to vanish in the room thanks to true point-source design.
You Have the Grimm!
Unlike Prof. Trelawney's tea-leaf reading in Harry Potter, here the Grimm is a sign, not of death, but of great taste in digital sources. The Grimm MU2 first possessed our salesperson Bill Rudolph who replaced $50,000 worth of gear and still experienced a huge upgrade. "So transparent and musical, just blown away by how far digital has blossomed and now conveys emotion that I always found lacking in digital files," says Bill.
The next person to "have the Grimm" was our product manager, Ashraf Nashed, who replaced an over-$20,000 stack with the MU2, also citing a big upgrade and the joy of having just one box doing all that good work.
The newest person to see Netherlands-made cutting-edge digital shapes in their tea leaves is Ken Davis, our sales manager, who is currently hogging our demo unit and loving what this discrete, from-scratch FPGA DAC, Roon Core, and analog preamp is bringing to his system. Powered by an extremely high-end switching supply, the the MU2 enjoys the speed needed for creating digital square waves and the dynamic punches of the analog sine waves, while also using technology to vastly reduce the effects of high-frequency switching noise.
Set up a demo to force Ken to bring back the Grimm MU2 and see if it'll switch you over too.
Bathing in Triple Synergy
The best thing about a hi-fi dealership filled with people who—forgive the cliche—get high on their own supply, is that a customer is sure to find someone whose sonic tastes match their own. Salesperson Joel Bennett is a huge fan of Lumin digital sources, loving the lithe airiness they bring to the music. He currently has the Lumin U2 streamer on loan from the store, a product that balances beautifully, he says, with the warmer, textured PrimaLuna EVO 100 Tube DAC. Combine that with high-resolution streaming from Tidal or Qobuz, and you have what Joel calls "triple synergy".
The Old College Try
Steve Nakashima, sales and support, also mentions a streamer, and without actually using the word, also acknowledges 'synergy'. He owns the Cambridge Audio Azur 851N streamer going into an Aesthetix Romulus DAC, and loves the Cambridge experience so much, he ordered the EXN100 streaming DAC on faith.
It did not disappoint. "Great looking display, great fit and finish, solid bass, 3D imaging, warm yet detailed sound. The Cambridge sound works well for my system," says Steve.
A Heartwarming High-End Year-End Story
When we asked salesperson Richard O'Neill about a favorite product, he came back with something even better. A story. We'll let Rich tell it.
"I had a client who had a shared love of music with another person she corresponded with on the web. When this friend passed away he put into his will that my client get funded for a stereo of her dreams. Right now I'm getting her a Santos Rosewood Pure Fidelity Harmony turntable personally signed with a message from the builder of the table, John Stratton."
Pure Fidelity turntables are handcrafted by John in Vancouver, Canada, and use what he calls a "hybrid" design, which combines the benefits of both low- and high-mass designs, by using an intermediate-mass platter on a plinth made from a special double-refined MDF that has a more consistent particle cut, allowing it to be beautifully machined. The result is a completely neutral sound. Bass is strong without being sleepy, while the highs are detailed without being bright. Certainly a turntable worthy of being part of a bequeathal.