BDI ELEMENTS CONSOLE

component racks of the day. And this I know with great certainty.

In the end, I have an aesthetically beautiful audio/media console in the BDI ELEMENTS WHEAT Console that comports itself beautifully in a MCM interior design motif. It houses my reference gear with exquisite care, provides sufficient room for it to breathe, isolates the gear via rigid construction, and it moves(!) to facilitate easy switching-out of gear. The BDI ELEMENTS WHEAT Console also hides my system away, making it invisible yet always easily accessible. Suffice it to say that designers love this BDI Console.

In the end, I could not be more pleased with the BDI ELEMENTS WHEAT Console (ELEMENTS 8779 CO) and as a reviewer, that’s saying a great deal. The BDI ELEMENTS WHEAT Console in walnut is a clear choice for our GOLD KEYNOTE

By K.E. Heartsong

Shakti

Electromagnetic Stabilizers

Well, what do you do when your system is at reference level— exceptionally transparent and resolving, detailed, and eminently musical? Perhaps you push the boundaries to see if there is yet more. Though not in the sense of spending goo-goobs more money to take it further, as that would no doubt change the actual system itself, and from a reviewer’s perspective that would be less efficient. No, the materials—particular kinds of wood or carbon fibre or stones or a composite material. Tweaks can also be devices purposed with diminishing Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) or Radio Frequency Interference (RFI), etc. Or perhaps tweaks can be the combination of an inert, composite material embedded with, say, electronic innards—internal trap circuits—that defeat EMI and/or RFI.

This last tweak combination—an inert, art here, while stabilizing the continuity of your system, is to push it ever closer to “high fidelity” nirvana, but for a fraction of what your reference system cost via, well, tweaks.

What are tweaks? First, tweaks are things that can ostensibly improve the fidelity—the overall sound—of your audio system for relatively little money. Tweaks can be wires or cables or risers that keep cables above the floor. Tweaks can be isolation platforms or stands or isolation feet or pucks or cones. Tweaks can also be spiked feet (surfacemounted or screwed-in) or certain inert composite material embedded with electronic circuits for battling EMI and RFI—brings us to the subjects of this review, the Shakti Stone Air ($199) and the Shakti On-Line Air ($99) Electromagnetic Stabilizers. These two patented inventions were born from the research and development of Ben Piazza, the founder and owner of Shakti Innovations.

I must say that I have been aware for a very long time of Ben’s Shakti Hallograph Soundfield Optimizers (review coming), which in truth brought jaw-dropping results when heard at shows or at friends’ homes. But as the