Best Room at THE Show 2018
Best Room Under $50K: PranaFidelity
PranaFidelity is a small company from Denver, CO that designs and manufactures loudspeakers, amplifiers, and pre-amplifiers. Steve Norber is the founder, and he is also their head designer. If you are not familiar with Steve, he was a founding partner of EDGE Electronics.
The room featured their Bhava speakers that sell for $4,950 without stands. The Bhava speakers were driven by their own puna/ma amps at $8,950 and their puna/ca preampwith phono for $9,950. The vinyl source was the new Merrill-Williams R.E.A.L 101.3 at $7,995 with a Helius Designs Omega tonearm for $3,695 and a Kiseki Purple Heart N.S. cartridge at $3,500. The digital source was an EAR Acute Classic CD Player (retail price: $6,095), provided by Dan Meinwald, the EAR USA distributor–who distributes, also, the Merrill-Williams turntable and Helius Designs tonearms.
The only thing in this room that I was really familiar with was the turntable setup. I have no idea why I’m not more familiar with the PranaFidelity gear because it was incredibly musical. The Bhava speakers are a two-way symmetrical array that uses two six-inch woofers and a single 1¼-inch tweeter. According to Steve, the Bhava has a largely flat 8-ohm impedance and 89.5dB sensitivity, so practically any amp around 20 watts or more can drive them easily. This is a monitor speaker that truly sounds like a floor-stander. The sound was refined and focused with great dynamics and micro-dynamics. I was also impressed with this turntable setup.