Best Digital Sound at Show - Jonathan Valin, The Absolute Sound
Best Small Room Sound - Steven Stone, The Absolute Sound
Stereophile’s John Atkinson “Despite the absence of any conventional room treatment (we were using our Acoustic ART System) the sound of Bela Fleck’s “Flight of the Cosmic Hippo,” with Victor Wooten’s deep bass grumblings, was articulate and clean-sounding.”
Audiostream.com’s Michael Lavorgna “My listening notes read, “No room, no walls” … we listened to Bach’s Suite for Solo Cello and I’ll let you decide where you want to lay the blame for this neat sonic trick—making the room disappear.”
The Synergistic Research 2011 RMAF Show System
We had another GREAT show at this year’s Rocky Mountain Audio Fest and want to thank our partners Mach 2 for their excellent music server, YG Acoustics for their exceptionally transparent and powerful Kipod II Signature speakers and Esoteric Audio for their always refined and holographic Class A amplifier and pre amplifier.
Set up started on Thursday October 13th at the Marriott Tech Center Hotel, Denver CO where we were eager to get our show system playing to best introduce our 10 brand new products. One of these products is a new product category called “The Music Cable” Designed from ground up with a single goal in mind: To make Red Book files (standard CD’s) and Pandora internet radio sound like your best CD’s when played through state-of-the-art multi-box digital separates. In addition we were launching our 20th anniversary and highest resolution to price performance cables in our Company’s history, the Element Series with direct trickle down technology form our cost no object Galileo System research program. Also on hand was an advanced prototype of our Enigma Mk II valve power supply for Synergistic Research Active Shielding. (Available January 2012 in limited quantity)
The Music Cable- All in one plug and play hi rez Computer Audio Solution
10 New Products Launched:
- The Music Cable
- Element Copper Interconnects
- Element Tungsten Interconnects
- Element Copper/Tungsten/Silver Interconnects
- Element Copper Speaker Cables
- Element Tungsten Speaker Cables
- Element Copper/Tungsten/Silver Speaker Cables
- Active Firewire 800
- Active Tricon USB
- Enigma MKII Valve Power Supply for Active Shielding
As with all shows our lead Designer Ted Denney and team started set up early (6 am) to give the components, speakers and cables as much time as possible to warm up and settle in before finalizing speaker placement and tuning room acoustics with the Acoustic ART system. As any experienced audiophiles knows, a cold system’s sound shifts as it warms up so it’s vital to allow as much time as possible playing music through the system before beginning critical system tuning and speaker placement for best sound. With 17 hrs of continues non stop music playing through the system final tuning began at 8 AM and continued all the way to the start of the show at 12 noon when our system’s sound was nothing short of amazing!
Acoustic ART Bass Station for Tuning Low Frequency Acoustics
RMAF 2011 System Components:
- Synergistic Research NEW Active FireWire 800 with Gray Enigma Bullets MSRP $ 850.00
- Western Digital 2 TB Hard Drive MSRP $250
- MACH 2 Music Server, with Battery Power Supply MSRP $1,700.00
- Synergistic Research NEW “The Music Cable” All in one, plug and play Computer Audio Solution with built in Active USB Cable, 24 Bit DAC, Element Tungsten Active Interconnects, PowerCell line conditioner and Galileo Universal Interconnect Cells. Final voicing was with two Silver Enigma bullets – MSRP $3,599.00
- Esoteric Audio C-03 Preamp MSRP $ 13,000.00
- Synergistic Research NEW Element Copper/Tungsten/Silver interconnects with Gray Enigma bullets between preamp and Power amp MSRP $ 3,600.00 per pair
- Esoteric Audio A-03 Stereo Amp MSRP $ 14,000.00
- Synergistic Research NEW Element Copper/Tungsten/Silver Speaker cables tuned with gray Enigma bullets MSRP $ 7,500.00 8 ft pair and Synergistic Research Universal Speaker Cell MSRP $2,500.00 per pair.
- Synergistic Research NEW Element Tungsten Interconnects tuned with silver Enigma bullets between Pre amp and sub woofers MSRP $ 2,600.00 per pair and Galileo Universal IC Cell MSRP $1500
- Synergistic Research PowerCell 10 SE MKII MSRP $ 5,000.00
- Grand Prix Monaco Rack $ 6,500.00
- Grand Prix Monaco Amp Stand $ 1,995.00
- YG Acoustics Kipod II Signature MSRP $ 49,000.00
- Synergistic Research NEW ENIGMA MKII Valve Power Supply for Active Shielding MSRP $ 8,500.00 (available Jan 2012)
- Synergistic Research ART Acoustic Room Treatment with 9 Satellites, 2 Bass Stations and one Vibratron MSRP $ 5,700.00
- Synergistic Research standard MiG’s MSRP $150 per set of 3 under all components including the Western Digital Hard Drive and Mach 2 music server with BIG MiG’s under the Esoteric Audio A-03 and Enigma MKII – MSRP $ 200.00 per set of 3
- Synergistic Research TESLA SE Active Power Cords- Hologram A MSRP $2,600.00, Hologram D MSRP $ 2,800.00, Precision AC MSRP $ 1,800.00 all voiced with Gray Enigma bullets
Mach2 Music Server atop a set of Synergistic Research MiG’s
Notable coverage for Synergistic Research at RMAF 2011:
Audiostream.com
http://www.audiostream.com/content/synergistic-research
By Michael Lavorgna • Posted: Oct 19, 2011
“The Music Cable isn’t a cable it’s a 24 bit DAC with captive cables coming out of both ends—the Active Tricon USB cable and the Element Tungsten Active interconnects “hand soldered direct to the custom 24 bit DAC board”. The interesting part of The Music Cable’s design lies in the use of “Enigma Tuning bullets” which the company describes as “Active Shielding circuits”. They come in colors which, according to Synergistic Research, correspond to sonic flavors: Silver Module = Open and airy, Black Module = Warm and rich, Grey Module = A hybrid of both the Black and Silver.”
“My listening notes read, “No room, no walls” and that we listened to Bach’s Suite for Solo Cello and I’ll let you decide where you want to lay the blame for this neat sonic trick—making the room disappear. This was certainly not the case across the board as some exhibitors sounded as if they’d rather wrestle with room acoustics…”
Stereophile
http://www.stereophile.com/content/music-cable-synergistic-research
By John Atkinson • Posted: Oct 20, 2011
“Synergistic Research room was a Mach 2 music server feeding USB data to Synergistic’s The Music Cable D/A converter ($3599). This has a flying USB input cable on one end and two flying, single-ended analog output cables on the other, and it gets power not from the USB bus but from two mono supplies. The system was wired with Synergistic’s new Element cables, which use tungsten conductors, a material chosen, I was told, using blind listening tests.”
“Despite the absence of any conventional room treatment—instead, the room was littered with Synergistic’s little ART “magic bowls”—the sound of Bela Fleck’s “Flight of the Cosmic Hippo,” with Victor Wooten’s deep bass grumblings, was articulate and clean-sounding. Perhaps Synergistic’s Ted Denney is just a master at setting up speakers to work with the room acoustics rather than despite them.”
The Absolute Sound
http://www.avguide.com/blog/rmaf-2011-report-loudspeakers-priced-20000-and?page=6
By Jonathan Valin at 2:02 pm, October 19th, 2011
“The real story here might have been what Denny calls The Music Cable, which is a plug-and-play solution for high-res computer audio: A 24-bit DAC that comes prewired with Synergistic’s Active Tricon USB cable (to hook to your Mac Mini) and actively-shielded tungsten interconnects hardwired to the DAC board (to go to your preamp). The Music Cable also comes with a built-in power conditioner and two power supplies.”
“All I can say about this combo is that it delivered a good deal of the same sound that I get in my own room with full-bore Galileo interconnects and speaker cables and a Berkeley Audio Alpha DAC/Mac Mini for about one-fifth the price. Equally interesting was Denney’s new 30V DC power supply for biasing cables and interconnects, the Enigma Mk II (launching at CES 2012), which allows you to switch between solid-state and Mercury-vapor-tube power. This is one you’d have to hear to believe, but with the Mercury-vapor tubes doing the active biasing, I thought the Kipods sounded better than anything else at the show with digital sources. The sound was, well, so analog-like.”
JV’s Most Significant Product Introduction at RMAF 2011: The Music Cable and Enigma Mk II Valve power supply for Synergistic Research Active Shielding
The Absolute Sound
http://www.avguide.com/blog/rmaf-2011-report-digital?page=2
By Steven Stone posted at 11:11 am, October 19th, 2011
Best Small Room Sound:
“… Synergistic Research’s room 8030 with the YG Kipod II Signature speakers and Empirical Audio’s Iris room with the YG Kipod II Signature speakers.”
“Synergistic’s room included its new active FireWire 800 cable, “The Music Cable” DAC/cable all-in-one solution, SR’s Element Copper/Tungsten interconnect cable, Element copper/tungsten/silver speaker cables, PowerCell 10 SE Mk II AC device, and Enigma Mk II valve PowerCell AC device, Mach2 Music server, Esoteric C-03 Preamp, and full SR ART room treatment system.”