As you found out in posts 1 & 2, the first two winners for 2010 were ... drum roll ... the Tannoy Westminster Royal Special Edition loudspeakers ($35,000 USD) and the Leben RS-30EQ Phono Preamplifier ($2495 USD). While the Westminster Special Edition is expensive enough to make your teeth hurt, they really are worth every penny. The vacuum tube Leben RS-30EQ phono preamplifier is truly a world class product that is made all the better by falling into everyman’s land price-wise, at $2495 USD nearly all of us can enjoy its musical charms if we want to.

Now for my third Writers' Choice Award: The Acoustic Revive RST-38 & TB-38 Quartz Under-Boards and the Single Core RCA Interconnects & Speaker Cables.

The Acoustic Revive Chronicles series of articles I wrote for 6Moons and Positive Feedback Online were a lot of fun for me to write, perhaps the most fun of all my articles. I always got excited when I’d hear that there were Acoustic Revive products coming my way for review, because Mr. Ken Ishiguro's innovative applications of physics, materials science, and audio engineering principles to his product line of high-performance audio products never failed to amaze me in their effectiveness in enhancing the performance of my audio system. The hard part for writing this third award for Acoustic Revive was figuring out how to narrow it down to just one item, and I didn’t succeed. Instead I narrowed it down to a subset of all the Acoustic Revive products I reviewed for 2010, and which continue to blow my mind with their performance enhancing attributes.

The Acoustic Revive RST-38 and TB-38 Quartz Under-Boards really impressed me and see daily service in my primary system. The Quartz Under-Boards are stands, or more correctly, vibrational energy dissipation platforms, to place your audio equipment upon. The RST-38 and TB-38 Quartz Under-Boards are designed to quickly route vibrational energy away from audio components and dissipate it, eliminating its deleterious effects on music reproduction. The Quartz Under-Boards feature a composite wood chassis that is filled with quartz granules, upon which a birch plywood top plate is placed to sit components upon.

The Acoustic Revive Quartz Under-Boards had the following effect on the overall sound of my Hi-Fi rig: transparency increased with the music becoming more natural and less electronic sounding at the same time. Well, what can I say? Everything gets better; you get better sonic performance and better musical performance at the same time - they're a no-downside addition to any Hi-Fi rig for sure. One thing that I do like in particular about the RST-38 and TB-38 Under-Boards is that you don't have to pump them up like you do pneumatic isolation devices. Once you set them up and place your components on them you can forget about them, which is a nice touch.

The Acoustic Revive RST-38 Quartz Under-Board Isolation Platform is $1100 USD, and the Acoustic Revive TB-38 Quartz Under-Board Isolation Platform is $725 USD.

Get the full story on the Acoustic Revive Quartz Under-Boards in the Positive Feedback Online review: http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue47/acoustic_revive.htm

I started out the PFO review of the Acoustic Revive Single Core cables with a quote from Confucius (551 – 479 BCE) that reminded me of their sonic virtues: "Much can be realized with music if one begins playing in unison, and then goes on to improvise with purity of tone and distinctness and flow, thereby bringing all to completion."

The overall effect of the Single Core cable set has been to make music through my Hi-Fi rig more dramatic, bigger, more exciting, and more entertaining—more like you experience in life—more naturally life-like. The Single Cores are very good at portraying the sonics captured during the recording process, but more importantly they are simply outstanding at portraying the musical content of a recording and turning it into an astonishingly pleasing musical experience—for that bit of magic they receive my highest recommendation.

The improvement in the musical and sonic prowess of my system was not subtle with the Single Core cable set installed, it was transformative—it was HUGE. The Acoustic Revive Single Core are the finest set of cables I've ever had the pleasure of listening to in my system, and you should interpret the review as a rave about the virtues of the Single Core cables.

The Acoustic Revive Single Core RCA speaker cables are $1800 USD for a terminated 2-meter pair, the Single Core RCA interconnects are $1275 USD for a 1-meter pair.

Get the full story on the Acoustic Revive Single Core cables in the Positive Feedback Online review: http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue49/acoustic_revive.htm

For more information about arranging for an audition or purchasing the Acoustic Revive products in North America contact Joe Cohen, Lotus Group USA, at [email protected].

For specific information about Acoustic Revive products in other world markets contact Mr. Yoshi Hontani, the Acoustic Revive exporter, at [email protected].

Acoustic Revive: http://www.acoustic-revive.com

US Importer - The Lotus Group: http://www.lotusgroupusa.com