Newsletter of the Chicago Audio
Society
July 1999
Meeting Notice
Sunday, July 18th - 2:00pm
Keith Herron - Herron Audio
Herron Audio is a name not widely known until recently, when Keith
Herron, who had been building equipment for people in his hometown of St. Louis
for several years, decided to make his gear available on a larger scale. The
results speak for themselves. Receiving a high recommendation in a review by
The Absolute Sound, the sonic results achieved with his tube line stage
and phono stage preamps are not overpriced yet deliver exceedingly musical
results, as you may have noticed at his room at the Hi-Fi '99 show. Now Keith
has shown his new monoblock amplifiers, first shown at WCES '99, and recently at
Hi-Fi '99, and they must be heard. When he's not busy designing and building
audio electronics, Keith has a consulting engineering practice which enabled him
to continue to pursue his audio hobby in the first place.
Keith is into good music and recordings, so we encourage you to bring some fine records and CDs to play. You won't be disappointed!
In his fourth presentation to our group (the first two were when he was president of SOTA), Jack described many of the features of the Paradigm speaker line, including the fact that Paradigm makes virtually everything in them except the screws, suggesting that cost efficiency and consistency of manufacture and quality control are very high, giving the consumer excellent value. He also mentioned Paradigm's acoustic testing chamber for speakers which is very large compared to others. Jack also discussed the Sonic Frontiers electronics some, describing some of the features and tubes used in the components under demonstration, all which used tubes. The AMP 2 amplifier was a very recent addition to the Anthem line, with (solid state) output transistors.
The sound was good and musical by any standards, excellent when considering cost. The speakers produced relatively deep, well controlled bass, with a wide listening window and good time response. Several members remarked later that they found the sound to be superior to what they heard at Hi-Fi '99. In any event, these folks make nice sounding gear which apparently work well together and offer very good value.
Some of the music people played at the meeting included the following:
(CD) Ray Montford, Shed Your Skin, Orange Cap Music 9801 CD. www.surpher.com
(CD) Ralph Vaughan Williams, A Pastoral Symphony (Symphonies No. 3 and 4) , Bernard Haitink, London Symphony Orchestra, EMI Classics 7243 5 56564 2 1
(CD) Contemporary Concert Band Music, Danish Concert Band, Rondo Grammophon RCD 8340
(LP) Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture (finale), Telarc.
(LP) The Boston Pops Plays Best-Loved Songs of 25 Years, March Theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark, Readers' Digest RDA-068/D.
(LP) The Moscow Sessions: The Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, Glinka: Russlan and Ludmilla overture, Sheffield Lab TLP-25.
(CD) Mary Black, No Frontiers, Gifthorse D2-77308.
(LP) Patricia Barber, Cafe Blue, Premonition.
September 19th - Jud Barber of Joule Electra and Bobby Palkovic of Merlin Music Systems.
October 17th - Tact Audio.
Recording companies are coming later, including Chicago's own Cedille Records.
Due to other commitments, Terri Novak is no longer able to continue to fulfill the duties as Secretary. Meanwhile, Bill Sweet is helping with the distribution of the newsletters, a contribution all can appreciate.
As a service, members may advertise their own personal items here at no charge.
By popular request, we will also have an area on our web site for this
purpose. Check it in a week or two for further news.
| President | Vice President | Treasurer |
| Brian Walsh | Rich Sacks | Dennis Anderson |
| (847) 382-8433 | (847) 843-2554 | (630) 830-9142 |
| bpwalsh@xnet.com | rich2@mediaone.net |