November 21st 2003, - audiblearts wins

recognition from Chip Stern of 6moons.com for

Best Sounding Listening Room

2003 Home Entertainment Show in San Francisco

Here is a glimpse of the review. Click here for the full article.
For better or for worse, these big extended listening parties present a somewhat misleading image of what the High-End audio industry has to offer. Mind you, I'm not complaining. As a devout gear head, I'm not all that different from your average cold-nose-to-the-bakery-window consumer eager to enjoy some larger than life audio systems. No doubt about it - taking any of these high performance systems for a spin around the track can be a profoundly moving experience. On the opening day of the Stereophile Home Entertainment 2003 Show in San Francisco, I took full advantage of my Press status to enjoy an authentic pedal-to-the-metal experience with some of the most jaw-dropping systems.
 
For another compelling illustration of how less is often more, we turn to one of my favorite rooms where San José/CA dealer Jeff Wells of Audible Arts had assembled a superb reference system built around muscular amplification from Rogue Audio, loudspeakers from Meadowlark Audio, room treatments by Echo Busters, and a superb selection of cabling from JPS Labs. The latter including their tightly focused, smoothly extended Superconductor 2 speaker cables and interconnects, and their dynamically potent, high resolution AC cords (including the modestly priced Digital AC and their top-of-the-line Kaptovator and Aluminata). The Rogue Magnum 99 Pre-Amp ($2395), in tandem with the prodigiously empowered Rogue Zeus Amplifier ($5995), represents the best the American high-end audio industry has to offer by way of engineering, build quality and off-the-wall value (especially when compared with gimmicky point-to-point wired 60 watt push-pull designs selling for well in excess of $10,000). Weighing in at a daunting 200 lbs, and conservatively rated at 225/150w in ultralinear/triode, the Zeus' transient speed, dynamic headroom and depth of field were a wonder to behold, offering the browned-in-butter midrange refinement of tubes and the kind of bass control and focus heretofore associated exclusively with solid-state muscle amps.
 
The superb woodworking of the Meadowlark Blue Heron II loudspeakers ($12,000/pr) also evinced an impeccable level of American craftsmanship, what with their sculpted cabinet contours and detailing, elegant real wood veneers and solid hardwood baffles. Because these first-order, time-coherent transmission-line Meadowlarks employ top-of-the-line ScanSpeak drivers, they traditionally benefit from some fairly extended burn-in.
             
       
Thus day by day, you could hear these freshly minted beauties stretching out and settling in. By Saturday afternoon, they began to display the kind of visceral, full-bodied dynamic impact, robust bass extension, richly layered midrange detail and warmly engaging presentation they're capable of, all that particularly satisfying in conveying the immense cinematic gestures of Jimi Hendrix's "Drifting" while sorting out and delineating the complex swelter of images and shining an amber spotlight on his yearning vocals. Nevertheless, by Sunday, in search of optimum room coupling, a more modest pair of loudspeakers supplanted the Blue Herons. The Meadowlark Kestrel 2 ($1995/pr) is the newest iteration of the popular two-way floor-standing design that put Meadowlark on the map. In many ways, their performance suggested a more polished, expressive version of the upscale Shearwater Hot Rods I reviewed some time back for Stereophile. As it so happens, in the days leading up to the Home Entertainment Show, I'd heard how warmly involving, easy to set-up, smoothly extended and musically forgiving the original Meadowlark Kestrels were in my daughter's cramped little San Diego apartment; and in Mesa Boogie honcho Randall Smith's hillside home office in Petaluma (where they were strategically aligned behind a couch).
   
There was something very inviting and down-to-earth about these new Kestrel 2s, with their warm, non-fatiguing presentation, taut, focused bass and laid-back, capacious soundstaging. I was impressed anew by the honest musicality and real-world value of Pat McGinty's straightforward design, and their smooth, natural, unforced portrayal of Renee Fleming's vocals on "Ave Maria" - an instant classic.