Audio Federation - Dealership, HiFiING Magazine and the Audiophiles Guide to the Galaxy

SIDE 3
Home Entertainment Show
New York Hilton
May 1st, 2005

Track 1 Linar

Track 2 Merlin / Joule Electra / *Audio Aero

Track 3 Horning / Sound Applications

Track 4 Joseph / Halcro / *EMMlabs / *Nordost

Track 5 Vandersteen / Pathos / Aesthetix / Clearaudio, *Harmonic Resolution Systems (HRS)

Track 6 Continuum Room
Peak Consult / *Lamm / Continuum

Track 7 JMLabs / Pathos / *Harmonic Resolution Systems (HRS)

Track 8 Bosendorfer Room
Bosendorfer, Adagio, Ensemble

Track 9 Kimber Room
TAD, Pass Labs, *EMMlabs, IsoMike

Track 10 Ars Aures, Adagio

* Carried by Audio Federation

Rooms You Might Want to Hear

Our favorite rooms at the end of day 2 seem to have a lot to do with speaker size being appropriate for the room size - small speakers in the very small rooms on floors 9 and 10 seem to work best at this point.

From most reasonably priced to more expensive, here are the rooms we like today
(but by tomorrow we may change our minds!)

We did, Almarro moved their system and must have did something to it to take it out of the running.
We also added Continuum as another system that was sounding good
Another system you might wan t see is the Von Schweikert VR9SE room, certainly the most ambitious shoehorning of a large speaker in a very small room - and the configurability of he speaker allows it to sound pretty good in there, too.
The Von Schweikert VR4Jr. system next door with the DK Design electronics is certainly more appropriately sized to the room - and if they could just lay some music on us instead of playing percussion all day long - something way, way too many rooms do (because percussion is so easy to reproduce), then we might actually get to hear what the system sounds like!
Nothing new to add to yesterday's "systems you may not want to hear list".

The room with Epos speakers driven by a Music Hall turntable. Here we have a system that costs around $3K - $4K that is listenable and enjoyable and musical... and they had the window open, so us show goers got some welcome fresh air.

The Hyperion Room - Interesting and complex music still sounds... interesting and complex on this system with modestly priced $4500.00 speakers.

The Acapella Fidelio 2 room - The small $6800.00 (with stand) speakers fill the room without over-filling, and have a wonderful engrossing sweet spot if you can get that center chair! Disclaimer: Audio Federation sells Acapella speakers

The MBL room playing too loud and too much music with a bass beat as usual. Yes, the MBLs have bass, can we move on? But these $15K 111E speakers with the (pair of) $13K amps actually sound pretty darn good... and check out that humongously awesome preamp!

The Marten Design / Brinkmann room - Nice speakers (around $15K, arnd $18K in this piano black finish), nice sound, nice front end... any questions? Disclaimer: Audio Federation sells Marten Design speakers

The Kharma 3.2 room - We think we've heard the $21K 3.2E speakers sound better (i.e. with the Lamm ML2 amps) but the little Kharma $3K range amps do an admirable job and the system does not overwhelm the room like so many of its brethren.

The Continuum room - Small system with a $50K turntable putting out some good tunes...Neil Young, Ricky Lee Jones, ... stuff we play at home.

The big Lamm / Damoka room with the big Vitavox horns. No, it doesn't do everything right - but big room, big realistic sound. Play one of your favorite pieces of music to hear how it sounded like when it was recorded.. And check out that turntable the Damoka folks brought with them - It has to be the most wonderfully retro-looking table at the show. Disclaimer: Audio Federation sells Lamm amplifiers.