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were being driven by a VTL ST-
stereo amplifier. Preamplification
was also by VTL—the company’s 2.5i
preamplifier. The source was a YBA
Signature CD player. The placement
of these speakers mere inches from the
front wall caused no audible problems.- IsoAcoustics presented a remark-
able demo in Room F210 on the
top-level atrium of Hall 4: Two pairs
of Focal Scala Utopia Evo loudspeak-
ers ($39,995/pair) were connected to
the same (Naim) electronics via Naim
speaker cables and a custom-made,
audiophile-grade, remote-controllable
switch box. One pair of the speakers
was supported by the provided factory
spikes, the other by IsoAcoustics GAIA-
Titan Theis isolators. The loudspeak-
ers—white and green—were arranged
in alternate pairs, as in the photo.
The sound I heard, with an indif-
ferent pop recording, was fine—but
when the switch sent the sound from
the speakers on spikes to those on
the IsoAcoustics supports, the sound
changed utterly. It was now clear that
the soundstage had been a bit lumpy—
mostly independent of the speaker en-
closures but focused toward the center
of the soundstage—yet now it extended
straight out beyond the edges of the
speakers. The sonic canvas, previously
loose, stretched tight.
Timbres also changed—timbres of
instruments and voices—and for the
better. With the footers, voices stood
out more distinctly from everything
else that was going on sonically, es-
pecially in a pedestrian, busy Michael
Jackson recording. The only system
changes I’m aware of that make a
bigger difference than this are changes
of transducers: loudspeakers, phono
cartridges. I now have a set of theseas much. Some complain about
such prices, but “It is still cool and
spectacularly wild and a blast to listen
to, which anyone can do at an audio
show,” Herb Reichert observed.
- Totem was presenting the new
V2 version of the Element Metal
(€16,999/pair), which comes in basic
black and basic white. In the metal
V2, bass and midrange are provided
by two drivers running unrestricted:
no crossovers to impact the woofers’
efficiency or performance. The only
crossover in this speaker is the one that
rolls off the tweeter at the low end of
its range. Those bass/midrange drivers
appear modest in size, but, like an
iceberg, there’s a lot going on under
the surface: Behind the baffle, these
“Torrent” drivers are big, solid, and
heavy. The revision of this driver is at
the core of these speakers’ update. The
result, the company claims, is better
midrange control and bass extension.
The tweeter’s crossover was also re-
designed, as was the cabinet’s internal
bass tuning. I heard remarkable bass
extension from a modest-sized cabinet
along with excellent high frequencies
and a solid midrange. The Metal V2s
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