Most improved sound at RMAF 2009

There have been a few rooms that I have heard in the past that… were in previous years far from the mainstream preferences in terms of their sound… but this year sounded quite musical.

These were the Rethm, the Daedalus and the Affirm Audio (previously Maxxhorn) rooms.

For me, the sharp rolloff and lack of harmonics typical of the Rethm speakers were just not going to be enjoyable by most people after lengthy listening. But this year, and perhaps it was because of the use of the AMR digital being a very laid back type of digital playback component, it had enough harmonics and roundedness to the notes that, in addition to the Rethm’s natural midi-dynamics strengths, made it quite a nice sounding system.

In past years, I would go into the Daedalus room and the system would be blasting and the room would be empty and the eXemplar CD player would be playing and it would sound bright and uneven and disconnected…

This year, not sure what they did, but the sound was much more melodic and mainstream. Still big sounding, still capable of rocking out, but there was flow and top-to-bottom coherency and even-handedness. This was a system where, if someone told me they fell in love with it, I could with a clear conscious tell them to go buy it, knowing that they were not going to be doing their spouses and housemates in, ear first.

Last year, I thought one of the Feastrex driver speakers sounded quite good, and the other 2 did not. That these other two had the same problems that the Rethm speaker typically has, described above. One of these, the Affirm Audio (previously Maxxhorn) speakers, however this year sounded much more tuneful and melodic. Again, like the other 2 rooms above, I feel that if a system puts out a more mainstream sound, but keeps its inherent strengths [in this case, single driver coherency] then it is a win-win for everybody.

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Although there are those who will put up with the deficiencies of a non-mainstream sound, like sliced-off notes and harmonic deserts [:-)], in order to have access to the strengths they perceive of a sound [perhaps midi-dynamics and single-driver coherency, or perhaps a big big big sound], I think even they [these crazy people obsessed with a specific aspect of sound above all others :-)] would be happier if the system sounded more like real music [or, if ‘real’ is too strong a word, then ‘more enjoyable and accessible’].

And I can’t help but think that their friends and family would agree with me.