Got a chance to hang out in the Fast Audio room with the very colorful and personable Thomas Fast, Milan Karan, chief designer of Karan Acoustics and Acoustic Resonator man himself Franck Tchang (photos below). Those huge amps are the latest from the mind of Franck Tchang and Milan Karan called Acoustic Systems International 650 power amp (price to be announced).

When it comes to decorating a rooms each year at this event, I doubt I've seen anyone with the tastes of Thomas Fast.

Karan and Tchang having a good time...

Listening and sharing thoughts with Milan Karan of Karan Acoustics. The loudspeakers, called the db9, were also from Franck Tchang and were making their first appearance. Unfortunately, they were too raw when they arrived and that impacted negatively on the sound giving the system a uptight feeling on the first day. Things got better almost with each passing hour giving potential insights to what could be...

Yes, it was really nice to see and hear the Vivid loudspeakers, VTL electronics and even the Acoustic Signature 'table in this colorful rig, but the thing that got Key and I most intrigued was the new Swiss company CH Precision. Word has it that these are the same digital brains that were formally behind Orpheus Labs. Their new D1 SACD transport ($31k) and modular designed C1 DAC ($26k), which sports a magnetic chassis, looked as serious as what you'd come to expect from a Swiss-made product.

This from their website..."Built around the Esoteric VMK-5 VRDS CD/SACD pick-up mechanism, the D1 offers a fully modular and evolutive architecture based on optional slot-in boards for its audio outputs. Each audio output board supports two channels of audio output, either digital (DIGITAL_OUT board) or analog (ANALOG_OUT board), allowing almost any configuration ranging from a simple stereo analog only player to a multi-channel purely digital drive."