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Steve, Ron & Julian at What's Best Forum would like to wish all our members and sponsors a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Looking back at the start of 2020, few could have predicted the events that have affected the lives of almost everyone on the planet.

Due to these events, we have seen the status and importance of internet communications moving to centre stage, and WBF has motored on more or less unaffected.

The way be buy new products, and the way we talk to users and gain insight on product performance, it has seen a shift in our view. Of course, we miss the big audio shows, and hope they will return in 2021, and life will start to return to normal.

With respect to our services to our sponsors, we have actually had more sign up in 2020, which we are very pleased about. It is our mission to go the extra mile for our audio manufacturers, some of which are small, but high-end producers. These innovative audio companies contribute hugely to the high-end audio sector, and we want to help them as much as we can during this period.

Ron Resnick: Video Interviews
Ron is in Holland as we speak shooting videos, and we hope to kick start our member systems video portal in January. More on this development shortly.

 
     
Feature special for December: Tingsha Audio
     
 

We are pleased to announce a new sponsor to the forum:

From Jean-Paul Elinck at Tingsha Audio
:
"Your search for a speaker that gives emotion, engagement and inexplicable attraction to a live experience is over."

“As a designer, and a life long audiophile, I am focused on making my dream a reality: to experience music in a home system that mirrors how the composer and performer intended it to sound. With our speakers, we promise you a dynamic, emotionally involving live experience, one that avoids the dissatisfaction many have found with other speaker designs.” “Dare you accept the challenge? Being emotional, it’s a natural occurrence listening to your favorite music on the Conquistar. It will bring you back to the source: your true love for the music!”

"Enter the world of live sound reproduction with the modular Conquistar Hybrid speaker system. Tingsha Audio was born out of a passion for audio reproduction, and to create a range of speakers that rewrites what is possible while still retaining real world prices. After much research and thousands of hours in the lab we found the ultimate combination, a RAAL ribbon tweeter, known for it’s accuracy and speed, and a fast bass reflex system."

"By housing the tweeter outside of the cabinet we avoid unwanted interaction between the lower frequencies. We called this speaker the Conquistar."

 
Feature special for December: Taiko Audio
     
 


From Emile Bok at Taiko Audio:

"We are happy to be able to report on some exciting new developments at Taiko Audio.

  • First of all we have moved from our old 300m2 workshop in Hengelo to our new 1700m2 workshop in Oldenzaal, The Netherlands. This was a much needed expansion as we were running into serious space limitations in Hengelo. The construction of the first batch of Extreme music servers “made in Oldenzaal” has started.
    .
  • 6 months ago Wilson D’Cruz in Toronto joined our team and has been coding away relentlessly on our own music playback software suite. This software suite contains some innovative features which, amongst others, reduces or removes differences in perceived sound quality between online streaming services like Qobuz, playback from NAS and locally stored music files. This software suite also includes our own Taiko Audio branded USB driver which can be customized to uniquely support multiple DACs and replace vendor supplied USB drivers. Alpha testing has meanwhile commenced and we are soon entering the Beta testing phase. This software suite will be made available to all current and future Extreme owners at no upcharge.
    .
  • On the hardware front we have a new USB interface card under development, the design has been finalized and the last revision circuit boards are now on order. This is a plug in card which can be added to any Extreme on site and provides a very nice uptick in performance. We are also expecting the first version of our own developed network switch to arrive inside of the next 3 weeks. Initially both of these will only be available to Extreme owners.” 
 
     
A selection of threads on What's Best Forum:
What's Spinning Tonight? (a huge thread revisited)
 
A Saturday afternoon in an audiophile heaven in Hong Kong
 
My end-game speakers (search)
 
"Aggressive". Fair Criticism of Some Horn Speakers and Designs?
If So, What Causes it?
 
Cybershaft new top model 10M clocks : UPOCXO-OP20A/OP21A
 
Trans Fi Salvation rim drive tt and Terminator air-bearing linear tracking arm
 
Cable Burn-in Devices - Looking for Recommendations
 
Avantgarde Horn Speakers (long thread)
 
upgrading speakers in very large room
 
Top Vintage system
 

SELECTED CLASSIFIEDS ON WBF

 
 
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