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Stereotimes CES 2005 show coverage

"Now let's talk about the music rooms. Having been an avid reader of quite a few of the competing periodicals and web-zines I have a pretty good idea of what fellow reviewers like in terms of exhibitor rooms and it's typically the usual stuff, i.e. Jeff Rowland, Krell, Thiel, etc. What I shall do here is give you my picks for the "Most Outstanding Rooms at the Shows." These were the rooms of . . . . companies that I genuinely enjoyed being in and who I feel don't get the amount of recognition they deserve."

"I found myself having a good time listening to music in the Granite Audio room. Everything in their room, except for the wonderful sounding Von Schweikert Research VR4jr, was made by Granite. The VR4jrs were driven by the Granite 864SR KT-88 monobloc amps, Model 770 tube preamp and Model 657 tube CD player. All interconnects, speaker cables and noise suppression was by Granite as well. The sound here was lively and dynamic with a tonality that gave performers a "you are there" quality that was refreshing."
by Michael Wright

Albert VonSchweikert poses in front of his great sounding VR4jr speakers with Don Hoglund and again with Lisa and Katie.  Albert was very pleased with the way we made his speakers sound in our Granite Audio room.  He just kept raving about the lush smooth sound and the fantastic vocals.  Albert was very generous with his praise of our awesome sounding room and even more generous to loan us his popular VR4jr speakers. 

We debuted our newest Model #864SR tube power amps at CES 2005 and wanted to feature their great sound with great speakers other than our own Granite Audio speakers in one of our two listening rooms.  Since there were four other exhibitors also showing the VR4jr's with different electronics , our listeners could better evaluate the sonic performance of our all tube Granite Audio electronics.  The VR4jr's were an easy choice for us because of their quality construction, good sound, and great value of cost vs. performance.

Many CES 2005 visitors went to all five rooms with the VR4jr's and reported back that Granite Audio "has the sound".  Everyone we heard back from agreed that we made the VR4jr's sound the best.  Of course Albert was also quite pleased to hear this and made many trips to our exhibit to compare our performance with his quality made VR4jr's.  Yes, you can expect to see VonSchweikert speakers again in the 2006 Granite Audio exhibit.

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Sangye's nickname is Golden Ears and he gets the credit for our room setup again this year.  Sangye "Fred" has a keen ear for speaker placement and toe-in.  He set up our Reference Room at the show with our top line Model #280 loudspeakers.  He also set up the VR4jr's and tweaked the back control on them for the best sonic performance in our room with all tube Granite Audio electronics.  During the rest of the year Fred helps perform listening tests and was very helpful on the latest Model #864SR monoblock power amps.

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Lisa and Katie,  of Granite Audio's CES sales staff, pose in front of the Granite Audio rack that drove both listening rooms at the show.  The Model #770 preamp on the top shelf has dual isolated outputs so it can easily drive two systems at once without any interference between the systems.  This also means the music was the same and even synchronized in both rooms so listeners could easily go back and forth to hear the #864SR amps on two different speakers.

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Charles Kittleson of Vacuum Tube Valley magazine came by to see and hear our handcrafted tube gear, and pose for a photo too.  His company sells T-shirts that say, "Use a transistor and go to jail.  It's the law".   Ha, ha.  More great humor from a fellow tube lover.

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Sangye, Don, Katie, and Phuc pause for a candid photo during setup.  Phuc is one of the engineers from VonSchweikert speakers and helped us setup and take down the VR4jr's.  We really appreciated his help as the VR4jr's were delivered in impressive plywood crates and filled with lead shot.  Then when we found out Phuc shared our passion for Vietnamese food, we adopted him to join us at our favorite restaurant in Las Vegas.  That's what we do at CES, play with high-end audio gear by day and eat exotic food at night.

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