July 13, 2009
Staff writer Todd Sageser took a trip to Indianapolis in early June to visit Indy Audio Labs for a few days.
Indy Principal Rick Santiago introduced Todd to his partner Ted Moore and the guys spent a good deal of time listening to many of the classic Aragon and Acurus products, including a 2 channel system with the Aragon 28K pre-amp driving 8008ST and 3002 amps. Source material included a variety of CDs and downloads from HDtracks, streamed through a Roku M1000 Soundbridge. Todd was impressed with the openness and sheer dynamic capability of the Aragon product with a variety of speakers.
In a 2.1 studio control room system, the Aragon SoundStage Pre-Amp/Processpr drove a 8008×5 amp for the studio monitors and an Aragon Palladium monoblock easily handled a pair of Shure subwoofers.
Finally, in a home theater system, the new Aragon Stage One Pre/Amp processor fed an Acurus 125×5 5-channel Home Theater Amp. Even with some modest Klipsch speakers, the image and sound quality blew away anything from the home theater receivers that were sitting on the shelf for comparison.
Ted and Rick in the control room with new Aragon processor.
What’s up next? Expect to see Aragon and Acurus return to separate branding. Also, there are some great new remote-control capabilities in development, where Rick and Ted will be getting to use their specialized engineering skills.
Todd plans to make regular visits to hear what develops and Indy Audio Labs will be sending Todd some beta product to listen to. The guys have promised that Tone will be the first to get their new products for review!
July 12, 2009
Tomorrow morning and it’s on the road again, or rather in the air again!
Headed over to Switzerland to tour the Nagra factory and take in a few evenings of music at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Stay tuned for daily updates, this should be a very interesting trip.
June 26, 2009
If you’d like a bit more interactive experience with us and our readers, join us on Facebook chat. Rather than subject you to the trolling of a forum, we’ve decided to set this up in more of a “salon-like” environment. We’ll be discussing new gear, upcoming reviews, new music and whatever else is on your mind.
You can join at:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=102224501230&ref=mf
Stop by and say hello when you have time, we look forward to hearing from you.
June 14, 2009
After a very nice visit with the folks from Quadraspire racks http://www.quadraspire.co.uk/ we were off to see Sir Elton John. Full report in the next issue of TONEAudio,due out on the 26th of the month. Now, it’s off to the REGA factory and owner, Roy Gandy’s home to get a sneak peek at the latest gear they are soon to release.
Major announcement on Tuesday so stay tuned!
June 12, 2009
Had a great visit at the Chord Company, makers of excellent British cables. These guys take their manufacturing quite seriously and build everything in house, no offshore manufacturing here!
The plant is spiffy and ther work is great. You can’t find a bigger group of music lovers than the Chord folks and the proof is in the final result. Watch for a review soon..
www.chord.co.uk
June 11, 2009
After a great morning at the Chord Company, we were takento visit stonehenge… The most amazing thing is that it’s just off the freeway! Either way the view is breathtaking and the folks at Chord are wonderful.
Watch for a full factory visit story soon!
June 9, 2009
The rumors are confirmed. On September 6th at 8pm, at the Akron Civic Theater in Akron, Ohio, TR will perform this album in it’s entirety. This is a first, as TR has never performed this record in its entirety live, so some of the tracks have been concert staples for years. In addition to current bandmates Kasim Sulton, Jesse Gress and Prarie Prince, he will be joined by Greg Hawkes (The New Cars) and former Utopia bandmate Roger Powell.
Rundgren’s wife Michele told us that “The fans were just crazy for this show to happen; it’s all their doing.”
Count on major coverage in the October issue of TONE, we’ll be there before, during and after the show!
You can get more information or purchase tickets at:
http://www.awatslive.com/
May 26, 2009
We are all excited that Neil Young chose to run Bob Gendron’s article about his new box set in the news section of his website. You can check it out here:
http://www.neilyoung.com/news/index.html
Feast your eyes on this baby!
We just got Dartzeel’s latest integrated amplifier in for review and it is truly a thing of beauty. 230 watts per channel and inputs for just about everything. It even comes with a super cool USB key to activate it.
Watch for a review soon. This is a truly amazing amplifer. Also available in black for those of you that aren’t crazy about gold.
www.dartzeel.com
May 24, 2009
If you are a big Bob Dylan fan and would like a great news feed, check out www.expectingrain.com
This shoud keep you busy for a little while!
