Lyric Hi Fi, VIP Listening Session

Scott M. Rifkin reporting from New York

..... This is some week for high end audio in New York City with The Show at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel and a two day VIP Show at Lyric Hifi.

I was lucky enough to be invited to the private VIP party/listening session at the Lyric Hifi Store on Thursday and Friday April 12th & 13th.

Lyric is the oldest and most famous high end audio store in USA if not the world and I am lucky enough to live about five city blocks away from it.

Representatives from the major high end manufactures were present including Charlie Randall the president/CEO of McIntosh- Carl Marischino the owner of Nola, JT Hurry the representative Audio Plus Services/Focal and Roger Fortier of Adam Audio.

There was plenty of wine, scotch, beer, cookies and cakes on hand as I went into the hidden room way in the back of the Lyric facility.

In the room were Nola's new $197,000.00USD Grand Concert Speakers which were making their debut at Lyric on those two nights. The Nola's were being powered and operated by an all Audio Research rack of equipment.

On the other side of the room were the Focal Utopia LS weighing in at $190,000.00USD.

The Focal's were being powered and operated by a mostly McIntosh set up. I guess the only speaker missing was the MBL Extremes and The Sonus Faber or Aida's.

After listening for hours to both the Nola's and Focal's I rushed back to my apartment to play my Cerwin Vegas on my mostly McIntosh system.

I was releaved to find that my Cerwin's still pleased me.

Anyway, here are some photos of THE SHOW AT LYRIC HIFI in NYC.

I will report on THE NEW YORK AUDIO/VIDEO SHOW AT THE WALDORF ASTORIA when I return from my trip to China.
I am leaving on April 24th and I am very excited.

By Scott M. Rifkin